Panther: caps lock warning and automount

A couple of cute ones:

A caps lock symbol appears on the right of the password field when running Safari under Panthers.

Automount a network volume at startup (or login) by simply dragging the mounted volume to the list of your startup items. Check the "Add password to keychain" option and the volume will automatically mount at each login.
This one's for you Enrique ;)

Apple goes DOD

While searching for something else, I fell on an article that provides the manual for the Apple Federal Smart Card Package Installation and Setup Guide in PDF format. It's been mentionned elsewhere that Panther comes bundled with logos of various US government departments, so it may seem that the Department of Defence might be adopting the Mac OS.

Panther: a couple of discoveries

Network configuration: while checking the Network Preferences, I discovered under the Network Port Configuration the possibility to add IP over Firewire

Address Book: if you double-clic the image placeholder while editing a record, a window very similar to that of iChat opens instead of the Open dialog box. If you have a webcam attached (iSight) you can take a snapshot and resize it. The iChat status is displayed on the left of the image too.

G5 pix gets Michael fired

Watch what you blog. Michael Hanscom (eclecticism weblog) lost his job at Microsoft because of this post:

Even Microsoft wants G5s

That sucks. Good luck Michael.

Panther: up and running

I received my copy on Friday afternoon, and couldn't resist to have a go at installing it. If you've resisted the temptation, here are my few tips, and first impressions:

• Backup: and backup again. Take care to have extra copies of off your documents and setting - especially your Mail folder and other personal settings located in your ~/Library folder (but you do that anyway, don't you?).
• Check your login items: remove those which aren't compatible, or check for an update via VersionTracker. The ones I know of are DefaultFolder (1.9.1 is compatible), Transport Monitor (part of Palm Desktop 4.1 - crashes on load). There's an update available for USB Overdrive and Retrospect 5.1 Client.
• Desactivate your haxies : typically the Unsanity ones.
• Check your activated software: such as Macromedia Studio MX 2004 products, or MacAnalysis e.g. Uninstall Macromedia licenses prior to upgrading, and reinstall the license after. Mac Analysis required a new serial number - and crashes at load.

The installation as such is a breeze (well, it was for me). Just make sure not to forget the folowing points,

• Check your startup disk permissions: run the Disk Utility to repair the disk permissions before booting on the install CD
• Check your startup disk from the CD: run Disk Utility from the install CD before launching the install process, and select Repair from the First Aid tab.
• Install Panther: I used the Archive and Install option which worked like a charm and prevented me from reinstalling most of my applications - and preserved most of my settings. I reconnected to my Airport network without a glitch. The whole process took a little over 30 minutes on my G4/1000 MP and eMac, and around 50 minutes on my TiPB/800.
• Check your startup disk again: recheck your disk and permissions after (yes, I am a little paranoiac, but installers do screw things up).

This release rocks. The Finder feels more responsive and the sidebar is brilliant. The fonts seem slightly different. The Finder's second line (show item info) is smaller and can display more text. Expose rocks, especially if you can program a button of your mouse to activate it. I also like the new Connect to Server, or the Navigation dialog boxes. Software Update is accessible directly from the Apple Menu, and can be set to install automatically "important" updates (we'll have to think about that one..). Mail.app is faster eventhough it needs to reindex all your mailboxes (only when you open then). The new features (threading, etc.) are cool and work generally as advertised (still no smart views though).

These are just a few early considerations, but this release feels good. Really good. I'll post more info tomorrow after a real day's work. Oh, one more thing: beware if you're using an external Firewire/USB drive. There's quite a lot of reports about people who've lost all their data after upgrading. Apple Discussions have several threads on the matter. The current workaround is not to reboot with the drive mounted. Unmount the drive and disconnect it before restarting. I have not tested that one ...

Updates are in the extended body section

Update 031027 08:39: just a few words before I begin my day's work: I had a couple of surprises this morning when I booted my G4 in Panther, hooked on my LaCie DataBank which I use for file sync between my different computers, and launched a sync. There are a few new files related to the Address Book which might create you problems if you're not careful.

• I was careful to copy a fresh copy of my Mail folder [~/Library/Mail] to preserve the new indexing Panther introduced, so I renamed the existing one and created an empty folder before sync. As planned the entire folder was copied over. What I didn't notice was that two invisible files (namely lock files) were copied over into the Address Book folder [~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook]
• They are called .database.lockN and .skIndex.ABPerson.lockN. Eventhough I don't know exactly what they do, I can imagine their role. Nevertheless, they must be computer related because they prevented Mail from loading (crashed immediately), Address Book generated a strange error as well as iChat which tried without success to recreate its preferences and an iChat account.
• All these applications being linked to the Address Book, I immediately suspected omething of the kind, and discovered the two new files which I added to my sync exclusion list. Once removed, all went back to normal. I still had to manually copy the Mail preference file [~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist] which somehow got overwritten with the default one in the process.

Mail.app new spam filter seems to generate more false positives than previously. I fished out several yesterday and today by running a search through my Junk folder. This hadn't occurred for a long time, and I'd lost the habit of checking - guess I'll have to be more careful. A cool Mail feature is the addition of the "Load Images" button located over the message headers in the same location the the "Junk" button.

I don't load inline images when they are not attached to the actual message. More and more messages come formatted in HTML with complex layouts which loose their meaning if you don't load the images (sigh). The function enables you to load the images of valid e-mails on a case-per-case basis.

Reinstall Contextual Menu and Internet plugins: "Archive and Install" dowsn't preserve CMM. You either have to copy them over, or reinstall the application if you're not sure. Personnally, I reinstalled PGP 8.0.3, but simply copied over PDF Browser Plugin.plugin [/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins] and StuffItCM.plugin [/Library/Contextual\ Menu\ Items] from the archived copy. Logout and login again (or relaunch the Finder) and you've restored their functionnality.

MT-Blacklist is installed

I've just installed Jay's mt-blacklist module, and it works like a charm! Thanks a million Jay!

To you MT administrators out there: don't forget to donate something via PayPal - this by far the easiest and most useful plug-in I now of (link from MT-Blacklist home page).

BlogSPAMmed

Macinblog's comments have been heavily spammed these last 7 days. I've spent the last 2 hours cleaning up the unwanted comments and blocking their IPs out.

The comment's always come with a phony yahoo.com e-mail address, and an URL pointing to some porn site :( Most of the time, the comment simply reads "Interesting" or "Interesting, my previous post got lost" or something similar.

The URL always points to some pornographic site. I've run a lookup and alerted the ISPs I could trace of the nature of some of their "clients". Unfortunately, it won't do much good.

This raises a problem regarding the open comments of weblog posts. MovableType doesn't currently offer the possibility of turning on or off the URL field. If the user enters an e-mail and an URL then, MT builds a link with the URL. Which is what it is meant to do, and is beneficial to the user's site as it adds a link pointing towards it. Typically, Google takes into account that parameter in its search results.

But the side effect can be nasty. I guess there are robots filling up MT comment fields with useless comments and links back to somber sites as those I cleaned up tonight.

I might consider removing the URL field altogether from the comment form.

Remote Tunes - a followup

I posted an entry on Ovolab's RemoteTunes the other day. Since, I've purchased a license as it fullfills exactly my needs.

The only aspect I found annoying was the time it takes to update the playlist and track info at each connection. That's when I noticed there was another way of building RemoteTune's database file: "Asking for a RemoteTunes database file".

I didn't figure out what that meant immediately for two reasons: first, the RemoteTunes mislead me in thinking instinctively that it was a remote iTune library as that found in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes 4 Music Library. In fact it's what it name implies: a RemoteTunes (the application) database (aka file). I'd tried connecting to a remote iTune Library without success, and made a mental note to try it again later. It's only 5 minutes ago that I actually read the dialog box correctly, and checked to see if there was a "Save" item in the File menu. There is. Save the playlist and track info, and point your connection settings towards that file - not some other remote file that has nothing to do with it.

That leads me to the second reason: not managing to make the option work, I quite naturally turned to Ovolab's website which is well designed, but lacks documentation. A small Read Me First or something equivalent online would help getting you started.

Now, this wouldn't have happened if I would have read the box correctly, and took the time to figure it out the first time around. But someone else might give up, and rely solely on the first methos, which can take time depending on the size of the remote iTunes Library (mine exceeds 35Gb).

That excepted, it's a fabulous little application if you have the need of it.

Thought I'd let you know.

Roar on Oct 24

Here we are,

Place your order for Mac OS X version 10.3 “Panther” today and be among the first to receive your copy the evening of October 24, 2003. Building on the rock-solid foundation of Mac OS X, Panther delivers over 150 features and innovations. Exposé gives you instant direct access to any open window or file on your desktop. The brand-new Finder gets you to your favorite files and folders in one click. iChat AV puts built-in personal audio and video conferencing at your fingertips.* Enhanced Mail and Windows compatibility improve communication with the world. And the list goes on. It’s like having an all-new Mac.

A single copy of Panther costs only $129, and the five-license Family Pack costs only $199. Place your order today and leave the rest of the world even further behind.

orig News@InsideApple.apple.com

Access your bookmarks from any browser (.Mac)

A new version of iSync was released today, and with it the mention of bookmarks.mac.com which enables users to

view, edit and use them from any browser by visiting bookmarks.mac.com

An updated version of iCal is also available.

Search your (Safari) bookmarks

I found a link to a cool Safari hack on Kirk Samuelson's blog: HetimaSafariHackEX

It enables you to search your bookmarks and history in Apple searching manner: type a few letters and the list hrinks to those relevant. Basically, it was developed to enable japanese users to switching between the four common Japanese charsets: Shift JIS, euc-jp, iso-2022-jp, and utf-8. It adds a beginning of syntax coloring for those interested.

Proxy scripting

Paul Bissex (e-scribe.com) has developed a nifty bit a code that acts as a proxy script from any browser:lazysearch.php.

Use Safari for keyword searching or to view html manual pages. Search airport codes, or weather conditions all from the location box of your favourite browser (Lynx included).

You need to have your Apache server up and running, and fiddle a bit with its configuration file, as well as with NetInfo. But all that is taken care of in the installation instructions. If you know where to look, it'll take you 90 seconds to be up and running.

The commands look like http://s/foo search for "foo" (search default is Google) or http://s/X/foo search of type X for "foo".

Among the accessible databases, you'll find Amazon, eBay, IMDB, PHP, SourceForge, or VersionTracker. Other functions include calendar, locate, man, top, etc. A complete list is provided with http://s/help/ [screenshots].

You're going to love this one.

PS: Paul help develop the interesting weblog on "Migrating to Mac OS X": Forwarding Address: OS X.

YAiTR

Yet another iTunes Remote, but this one really rocks: Ovolab RemoteTunes.

A cocoa application that will let you play, pause, skip, create playlists, edit tags, as if you were in front of iTunes. What more, you can also activate iTunes visual effects, create or change playlists, change the equalisation settings or rate your songs!

Ovolab RemoteTunes can access the remote iTunes Library directly to speed up performances (via filesharing), or loads the playlists and tracks info during connect. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to make the former option work, and the latter can take a while depending on the size of your library (it took 3 minutes for RemoteTunes to import the info from my Cube/400 in the background - I have over 5'500 songs).

Whatever the downside, this application beats hollow the ones I tested until now (iHam on iRye, Earphoria e.g.)

The remote Mac needs to have Remote Apple Events turned on (Sharing System Preferences).