Mac Update 10.6.5: the Borked Mysteries

So the most recent update was released today and I waited a fair amount of time before taking the plunge -- approximately half a day. No, really, it just so happens I was poking around the news and found out about it. There was no official System Update notification at all. Strange? Nah, its Apple holding off for fixing feedback most probably.

Step #1. First things first was to run a Time Machine backup as instructed by the Knowledge Base (KB) article. That took about 30-minutes for me including connecting my external hard drive and backing up somewhere around 500-MB of data.

Step #2. Next was to say farewell to the world and update everyone about the attempt through the usual social media like Twitter and FaceBook -- this was of course easily done via a single post on Plurk. This is an optional step, but for those of you who only have one way to be online apart from your mobile device (ie. iPhone) it at least notifies everyone why you could be unreachable for a while. :-)

Step #3. Just to be sure in case the update would actually cause drivers to fail, I downloaded the standalone combo update package from Apple's Support Downloads site (approximately 977.21-MB).

Step #4. My wife was previously badgering me to try out FaceTime for Mac, so I did that too. Another optional step, but just in case the update includes an official release then why not?

Step #5. Finally, I clicked on Software Update ... This then asked for my Administrative password for system changes and proceeded to pre-update the initial components. It then logged-off the system and updated the core components (this flow prevents interruption by running applications). Once done, it did a system reboot.

I logged-in and everything seemed the same, except ....

Borked #1. GrowlMail bundle gets disabled. Those of you who use Growl for Mail.app simply have to download the unoffical update or follow the manual instructions from reaperhulk.

So far nothing else looks amiss, but these issues will slowly be teased out eventually and I will update this blog entry as I come across them. One of the most probable issues would be headers needed by MacPorts, but thats just in theory and for later.

Until then.

Apple iPhone: iOS 4 now available via iTunes!

Get it while its hot (or while the servers are still churning smoothly!).

The update on my iPhone 3G just finished right now several hours from when it started around 10:30am. Why?

It requires an iTunes update and for some several other security patches on their Apple Mac's.

Afterward, you'll have to deal with a full phone backup (still via iTunes, of course).

Eventually, you'll get to the firmware flashing part. You'll notice a progress bar on your iPhone itself and this is totally different from the progress bar displayed on iTunes.

Be patient!

Some field reports say the updates get stuck during the initial backup or just along the way. What to do?

I can only suggest what I did before hand last night which was to backup then reset the whole device. Afterward do back to the iOS 4 update steps again. Make sure you have enough hard drive space for the backups or you will run into other kinds of trouble.

As you can see, part of my reset and clean slate state was to forgo syncing all my personal media and stick to the iPhone apps. That will make the backup and restore processes less of a drag.

So, after a few minutes of the iPhone 3G with iOS 4, my comments?

Better icons in mail, an Internet Tethering under Networks that requires you to give AT&T a call for activation, signal indoors is no better but appears smarter to switch from 3G to Edge to allow for voice calls instead of default providing data quality above voice. Alas, its all makeup. To truly appreciate iOS 4 you need to match it with an iPhone 4G hardware.

By the way, today's iOS 4 update is only compatible for the iPhone 3G, 3Gs, and built-in to the 4G. Sorry iPhone 2G, you are now obsolete.

Ubuntu Tricks: Text File Manipulation

You've got a text file that is several million lines. Each line corresponds to a filename and each file needs to either be downloaded or uploaded somewhere.

Assuming you have a script that iterates and reads in serial from the input text file, what happens when the system kicks out an error? Start from the beginning? Thats what happened initially for me while I looked for solutions. Yeah, just letting it go this way exponentially meant waiting three(3) hours and more each time. Thats not very optimal.

Since at the point of error it was possible to see the lines of text corresponding to the filename already or currently being processed, these should be the resume point. Noted this down.

What do we need to do? Trim the file from the top using sed and pipe out to a secondary file.

How? 

sed knows about line numbers, I haven't dug enough to make it do a string search in parallel, yet. The best way so far that worked for me is to use grep. Such that: cat | grep -n

             Example: 

             $ cat files2009.txt | grep -n meatloaf.bin

                4236321:meatloaf.bin 

So, we need to cut until line 4,236,321 (or perhaps a few lines before that, your choice). In case you haven't been tracking your percentage done that also tells us that we've just got less than 800K files to go before we're done.

Time to use sed which understands regular expressions. For our puposes we'll be using: sed -e ',d'  

             Example: 

             $ sed -e '1,4236321d' files2009.txt > new2009.txt

The above means to start trimming at line "1" up to "4236321" from files2009.txt and pipe the rest of the original contents to new2009.txt

You can now imagine how to trim blocks of lines from the middle, just cat for the starting line of text and so on.

Easy enough, and there you have it.

Mobile Arena: the Race is "ON" for 4G

Recently Sprint announced its first 4G phone, the HTC Evo 4G, offering during CTIA in Vegas (probably in preparation for my birthday?). If you've been watching the telly recently you'll also probably have noticed the Overdrive, a 4G enabled mobile access point (announcement of which went out the day before CTIA). Kidding aside, this should be considered "first blood" given how the race is on for phone networks to provide the dreamed 4G network coverage as well compatible devices that would take advantage the upgrade provides.

Update: HTC Evo 4G phone pricing was just announced hours ago.

Lets get some basics right, what is 4G and how did we get here, and why? Well, 4G means its the fourth-generation of cellular wireless standards with the previous generations having to do with moving from analog (1G) to digital (2G). Next up and everything else so far is increasing speed and reach such as 200 kb/s (3G) and then we get 10 Mb/s speeds and an all-IP based network (4G).

What does it mean for businesses and consumers? In a very basic nutshell the results would be increased download (and upload) speeds that will rival that of dial-up POTS connections. Think of it, for those still tethered to wi-fi access points this would mean you could use your phone (or any compatible device) in a gigabit network. Think of all the surfing, ehem, work that could be done?!

Will I get better call coverage? I called up AT&T complaining about the network coverage my iPhone had inside the house versus outside in the open. The nice lady said a roll-out of more cell-towers in my area was eminent around the fourth quarter of this year with completion next year. The company should be 4G ready by 2012. I should turn-off 3G if I wanted to stop all the dropped-calls to my meetings. Its possible that the 3G connection (and apps that were apparently guzzling, not sipping) data were the culprit and interfering with the connection.

What voice call improvements does it provide? And so, the relevant part in the above story is that all these "G's" do nothing in terms of call coverage. Without a cell-tower nearby you're out of luck. Geeeeeez!

Are my current devices compatible? Road and wi-fi warriors like me are already using components or considered 4G. Users of the Verizon network see it in EV-DO (based on the CDMA2000 standard) devices they plug-in to laptops; routers and access points are using MIMO (based on the 802.1xx standard). You'll have to mishmash these all together to come up with LTE which is another competing standard. I tried to prolong telliling you the awful truth, which is "no". You will need to get new phones to make full native use of 4G. But, this is not going to happen overnight. It will be a gradual roll-out in parallel where networks will be upgraded yet keeping some of the old stuff alive to be backward compatible. Yes, your current phone is now a "legacy product". So if you're not at least using a smartphone by now, think of it as the silver lining to what savings holding back upgrading now has given you. Think of it, in two years you'll have finally "arrived" :-)

Does it have security implications? Hah! You betcha. But it doesn't necessarily have to be something new. In fact the best laid scams and cons are probably as old as Abraham. Think of mobile phones as mini-computers that fit in the palm of your hand. Miniaturization of existing technology is but a natural step in the gadget evolution. This is really mind blowing stuff if you consider that the first electronic computers were the size of baseball fields and filled with vacuum tubes. But, I digress slightly ... its safe to say that all the things you used to see on your desktop will now fit in your mobile device -- including all the existing threats and annoyances like social engineered spam, 419 scams, malware, phishing sites, the whole lot. And we're not even talking about threats that could be posed by the use of mobile phones (and other wireless gadgets) given the pervasive use of radio waves in the various spectrums. Do you remember back in the day when the advice was not to place phones near your headboard? Guess what, who doesn't feel lost in these social networking days without that last Facebook profile check or Twitter message -- all from the convenience of your mobile phone.

Looking forward what is, or could be, 5G? For you hold-outs, even for 4G, wondering how soon will this technology be replaced: I'd give it another decade at least from now if not more. Take note that the ultimate communications technology has already been envisioned in Star Trek, all we're doing now is just trying to make it reality.

PS3: Battlefield Bad Company 2

Done.

Temporary Post

YEGVCZTJ7TW5

Ubuntu Tricks: Use Static DNS with DHCP

This re-post from noob12 works perfect.

Edit /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf

Add or replace a line
prepend domain-name-servers your.name.server.ipaddr;

where your.name.server.ipaddr is replaced by your desired name server. You can list multiple servers in sequence by using a comma-separated list. Don't forget the semi-colon at the end of the line.

This tells dhclient to prepend these servers to whatever list it gets from the DHCP service when writing the /etc/resolv.conf. You'll see them (listed before the others) in the /etc/resolv.conf after DHCP completes. Normal resolution semantics then apply to this list, namely these servers will be used first; if they fail to respond, the client will proceed to following ones, but subsequent servers are not used if any returns an actual result, even if it is NXDOMAIN (i.e. not found).

You can entirely supersede the servers provided by the DHCP service using
supersede domain-name-servers your.name.server.ipaddr;

Ubuntu Tricks: Extract Attachments from Gmail

This is a repost from lovinglinux.

After a lot of research I finally figure out a simple way of doing this using IMAP and a shell script.

1. Install offlineimap and mpack
sudo apt-get install offlineimap mpack

2. Create a folder ~/mail for storing the Gmail messages

3. Create a text file and save it as ~/.offlineimaprc

This is the configuration file for offlineimap which will sync your Gmail with local maildir files, using IMAP. Add the following code to it:

[general]
accounts = GMail

ui = Noninteractive.Basic

[Account GMail]
localrepository = GMailLocalMaildirRepository
remoterepository = GMailServerRepository

[Repository GMailLocalMaildirRepository]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/mail/

[Repository GMailServerRepository]
type = IMAP
remotehost = imap.gmail.com
remoteuser = yourgmailaccount@gmail.com
remotepass = yourgmailpassword
ssl = yes

Then run the following command on a terminal:

offlineimap && munpack /home/yourusername/mail/LABEL/new/*

The offlineimap command will sync Gmail with local files and munpack will extract any new messages and attachments in the "LABEL" folder, where each folder (label) correspond to Gmail labels.

WHS: Network Disabled

Alright, its my fault. In the process of tweaking for Jumbo Frame support I mistakenly right-clicked and chose the first option "Disable" instead of the second option "Status" (which would have taken me to the network configuration page) on the Network Connection icon. Dang!

This is obviously a headless machine and I am currently lost. Thankfully its not the first time something like this ever happened and tips from HomeServerLand gave me a clue.

If you have a headless device like the HP MediaSmart Server you can:
1. Connect an USB keyboard and wait about 30 seconds.
2. Next press CTRL + ALT + DELETE and then enter your WHS Administrator password and hit the ENTER key.
3. Then enter "windows + R", (where windows is the windows key on your keyboard) this will open the run dialog and then enter "ncpa.cpl" (without the quotes) this opens up network connections dialog.
4. Press the DOWN ARROW key (only once) and [Jamz: press the RIGHT ARROW key once] then press ENTER enter which will enable the NIC card,
5. If you have multiple NIC adapters you can toggle using the right and left keys [Jamz: or up and down keys] and YES you have to do it blind so make sure every keystroke counts.

I'm doing my darnest to get this working right now with fingers crossed.

[Edit: 10:44am] It worked! Hooaah!

Archos 5 Internet Tablet : Google Marketplace

As previously mentioned [here], I returned the IPEVO S0-20 to Fry's yesterday after a brief test. Yes, it works as a nice Skype wi-fi phone but has some signal degradation issues due to being just 802.11 b/g. Thats what started my look for a device that is 802.11 N.

Enter the Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android.

I got this from RadioShack as they were the lowest and quickest available selling at $249. I was supposed to stress test this first thing during my Thursday meeting only to realize that I'd missed the meeting start (time zone differences), gadget had very minimal charge, Archos needed a firmware update, gadget did not have Google Android Marketplace nor was there a Skype client available yet.

What ......?!!!

So first thing to do is enable Google Marketplace. Thankfully Archos allows such discussions to live and there's a big enough community at ArchosFans you don't want to piss-off. Here's the latest guide that works on FW 1.7.777 (which is what my gadget updated to as soon as I put it on the home network).

Thanks to m4rk3t. Reposting the instructions below.

All you need to do is to:

-download the file: http://rapidshare.com/files/338777897/Market4Archos.apk
- put Market4Archos.apk file on your archos disk
- install it by selecting this file using the device file browser
- run the installed package and follow the installation steps

Having done all that you'll find Market added to your apps with several other Google items installed.

I'm still searching for that Skype client as I refuse (until the next 29 days) to give up hope and return. It just might get replaced with something like an Ooma Telo. :-)

WHS: Reference Account Locked Out?

Once in a while when I mistakenly log-on to the server shares I get the error message:

"The referenced account is currently locked and may not be logged on to."

Thats not too bad and easy enough to fix unless you have not clue how to RDP into your WHS. There are various help suggestions across this blog and elsewhere if the latter is a secondary issue. :-)

Moving along.... Basically what happened is Windows has locked you out for security purposes. So all you have to do is remote log-in (or physically if you can) into the server and reset the "Account is Locked Out" radio button.

You'll find that particular option by navigating:

My Computer --> Manager --> Local Users and Groups --> Users --> (login account) --> Properties --> (uncheck) Account is Locked Out

IPEVO SO-20: Skype and Conferencing

I returned the IPEVO S0-20 to Fry's yesterday after a brief test. Yes, it works as a nice Skype wi-fi phone but has some signal degradation issues due to being just 802.11 b/g. That is what started my look for a device that is 802.11 N

pfSense: Squid Proxy and Error 504

Somehow through tweaking pfSense and configuring the Squid package the cache files started to fill. At first I was particularly confused if Captive portal was still on as every site I was trying to get to required a login -- failing to do so kicked me out with an Error 504. The Squid service also refused to be started.

At this point I proceeded to re-install Squid and noticed that even without it the continuous login request persisted. By some luck I started to play around with other pfSense options and checked the disk space -- BAM! Thats where it dawned on me that my Squid cache had absolutely filled my 80GB hard drive and there were but a few KB of space free?!

Now that I knew the most probably reason, that launched a few searches on how to properly clear or compact the cache. pfSenseDocs has a guide. Using the Command option under Diagnostics didn't seem to help as the disk space didn't change. On initial setup of Squid, I had to twiddle with a few settings via terminal access on SSH and this is where I remembered that under System -> Advanced that Secure Shell was on -- and that is what I did.

1. SSH into pfSense will drop you into the same menu you'd see if you had a monitor connected. Choosing option 8 gives you a shell.
2. From there I shut down the Squid service and proceeded to delete everything under /var/squid/cache
3. Once space had been free'd, initiate squid -z to recreate the required directories.
4. Reboot pfSense and,
5. you can now run the Squid service

Problem solved! Now to keep watch on disk space and tweak how much cache info is kept.

Apple MacBook Pro: Maximum Memory Upgrade?

So its been several months and we're still waiting for some of our favorite applications to be Snow Leopard compatible.

There may be a whole lot of improvements in this new OS including the claim of better memory footprint or management but really the downside in my current experience is that other applications need more memory.

I've been struggling mightily now to get Outlook Entourage, Firefox, Flock, Safari, VMWare and Parallels to co-exist without having to hang my systems.

That is why I finally decided to bite the bullet and make my first hardware upgrade in 2010. And since I don't believe in doing half-baked improvements (do it all or don't do it at all!) it was only natural for me to do some digging to find how far to go. I have a late-2008 non-unibody MacBook Pro 17" which according to OWC (my first choice for memory know-how on the Mac) my machine can actually take 6GB instead of the recommended 4GB according to Apple.

Do we go NewEgg, Amazon, eBay, BestBuy, Fry's, WalMart or Apple? Having had success with the G.Skill brand on the HP MediaServer I chose to stick with it.

Did it work? Proof images attached.

Speed improvement? YES!

Happy? Not yet, all my apps as mentioned aren't yet fully ported. But this will do pig, this will do. (from Babe)


Now that I've got a spare 2pcs. of 1GB, what to do with them? Hmm ... I know, upgrade the wife's MacBook and make her happy.

Make myself extra happy by maxing out her RAM as well.

AppleCare: Why Care?

This office MacBook Pro was purchased in the 2nd-half of 2008 and with it the default AppleCare. Forgetting that the default was some 90-days only the warranty had lapsed as of last August (around the time of my Snow Leopard upgrade!). This I realized only recently and scrambled to get it re-instated.

I don't have to tell y'all that its worth having it and my call to AppleCare confirmed my belief that Apple service is simply awesome. They were able to get my protection back in a matter of minutes and didn't give me any hassle (it does help of course that I keep all my receipts and invoices for record).

To answer the question, "Can my out-of-warranty Apple product be re-instated for AppleCare?" is a definite YES. But (and this is important!) you need to make sure that you have the original invoice. It doesn't matter that your MacBook may have been gifted or purchased 2nd-hand, if you got it then the nice people at Apple will let you have it.

Good job Apple!

pfSense: Speed-up Transparent Squid Proxy

Its been a few days that I did some tweaking on Squid Proxy and it appears stable! This all came about as I was trying to speed-up data fetching and finding that for some reason the cache was just too slow for actual use. I wondered if it was at all worth it (obviously slow proxy means unhappy users ... especially if its your home users).

In gratitude to the discussion I found in the forum, its reposted and message re-arranged here in summary below:

Question:
Why squid is so slow?

Answer:
The default configuration of pfSense is a router not as a server, that is why kern.ipc.nmbclusters="0". Simply remove this line and Squid will be just fine.

Add the lines below to the /boot/loader.conf
kern.ipc.nmbclusters=32768
kern.maxfiles=65536
kern.maxfilesperproc=32768
net.inet.ip.portrange.last=65535

Alternatively, just delete it and replace with:
autoboot_delay="1"
#kern.ipc.nmbclusters="0"
hint.apic.0.disabled=1
kern.hz=100
#for squid
kern.ipc.nmbclusters="32768"
kern.maxfiles="65536"
kern.maxfilesperproc="32768"
net.inet.ip.portrange.last="65535"

Laptop and Netbook: HD on chip?

There's a big push as well as demand for high definition capable hardware. The simple reason being that once you've seen HD done right then there's really no point going back to standard definition (SD).

Most places are now offering HD versions of movies and even video game trailers are usually transmitted in this format to provide users an actual feel of how it would render on the actual console.

My journey to build an HD record and playing rig (PVR) was fraught with a lot of frustration recently and that was because I simply refused to cannibalize my stock pile of parts and use the best of the best and purchasing expensive hardware was not an option. The reality of course is that high definition viewing requires computing power not just from the CPU but also on the GPU.

Video cards that support h.264/x264 aren't cheap but prices are falling. For laptops and netbooks however we're all stuck in the waiting room. That is, until recently.

Broadcom's Cyrystal HD running on chip as BMC70015 is one of the top contenders. Already there's been some scramble to get products out since May and adding to your long term view pleasure only costs $30 on top for the add-on video accelerator.

The other chip in the market is from Quartics via the QV1721. This is secret sauce since I first got wind of it only a few months ago and wondered which product would carry it. The estimated add-on price would be $20 accordingly. On another note, they also offer the QB7xx (51/61/71) which are PCI-Express (PCI-e) solutions for the rest of you PC users.

ZiiLABS is promoting its ZMS-08 chip with competing Blu-Ray capabilities. This Creative subsidiary will be going against some giants so it'll be tough unless they can provide a competitive price. I haven't been able to find a vendor they've already tapped but shipping volume is expected also in the first month of next year.

The other news in town would be the nVidia ION 2 chip which was said to cost from $50 to have. If you were luck enough to pre-order back in September then you'll probably be getting a $399 notebook come January 2010 (yes, chip released in Q4 2009 but product integration and all is something else).

Personally by just looking at specs I was more wow'ed by chip capabilities of Quartics. That being said, the first vendor that comes out with it is going to be high on my shopping list .... for 2010. Take a look at my other projects on the blog and there shouldn't be any questions what for :-)

HP MediaServer EX470: HP Software Update 1.3-R and Home Server Power Pack 3

Its been a hectic few days, what with all the meetings and reporter interviews. Not to mention system maintenance and all that.

On the side though, its time to break out in song: At Last

At last my love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song ...

My HP MediaServer EX475 is once again alive and kicking and rid of that pesky lit RED LED. This same issue with the light was actually fixed some time after PP1 but it never dawned on me that somehow through some freak mishap the automatic installation of PP3 just recently actually rolled the server updates back.

How? I'm not so sure.

What is sure is that my membership in the WHS Beta Program still stands and that part of being a member is to be able to get bleeding updates. I dropped the ball and interest after PP2 came out and proof that's what was installed is the existence of the PVConnect plug-in. At the same time my HP Server Update version was 1.3.6.21622 and for some reason today it had rolled back to 1.1.1.13411?

To review, here's the HP MediaSmart Server Software Version list thus far:
1.1.1.13411
1.3.6.21622
1.3.8.25155

I also spent partial half of the whole afternoon trying to understand and reconfigure the internals of Photo Webshare due to the Error 500 page. Imagine the annoyance to find that after the initial update and the succeeding 1.3-R that it now works after all. Argh!

Right, with that being said everything is now working well and it feels a lot more snappy.

To recap .... Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 - check; HP MediaSmart Server Update 1.3.8.25155 (aka 1.3-R) - check; red warning light off - check; Photo Webshare back - check; and as you'll probably notice there's 2GB RAM already installed from a previous upgrade primed for HP Server Update 2.5 - check!

Its time to enjoy the WHS once again, that is as soon as the Drobo finishes its data protection run which it has pegged to keep going for over 24-hours. Its now apparently "usable" though even if the rest of the message says the Share isn't protecting any of my data at this time. Duh?

pfSense: Triple Load Balancing

After several wrong turns, I've finally gotten my rig to play nice with three-(3) WAN connections load balanced.

Everything is running on an old Intel P3-1000 with 1-GB of RAM and 40-GB PATA drive. Obviously its got four-(4) Ethernet ports with parts scrounged from various spare cases in the garage.

How'd I do it? More details on the adventure shortly....

There's a fairly easy Multi-WAN tutorial to follow over at pfSenseDocs which deals with a basic dual-LAN setup. Using the funny discussion at one of the forums gave me confirmation of what I needed to do. Next thing you'll need to do is make sure outbound is likewise working.

Enjoy!

Comcast Business: Speed Test

As a result of needing to do large file transfers, I ordered another line from Comcast on Tuesday. The technician (Josh) was really helpful in providing options where to correctly place the new router -- we ended up drilling a hole through the wall to drop a line into the garage.

Everything started to work 2-modem replacements later since the units he had along were swapped-out versions during the day or whatever was left in the pile before driving out in the morning. Of course, last night I decided that it would be better to keep the systems together and so transferred the modem back into the office.

The new SMC modem is DOCSIS 3 compliant and has 4-ports gigabit speed. That fact became more obvious when the FVS336G speed led lit up green (1000 Mbps) instead of amber (100 Mbps).

In terms of the feature interface, no changes at all apart from the fact that Full Speed 1000 Mbps is now available. Hmm, time to call Comcast Biz and get the other modem router replaced! Why? Well, see the speed test on that one under no load :-/