I finally narrowed it down to bad QuickTime plugins. I had probably two dozen QuickTime plugins in /Library/QuickTime that I had accumulated over the years. Many of them I probably don’t need any longer thanks to Perian. I compared these to a stock Leopard install and removed everything else.

Once I removed these from the folder, everything worked fine. I can even import through the “import from camera” interface and not just via file import, as some have reported. The following files are in my /Library/QuickTime folder now, which include the stock Leopard plugins, as well as Flip4Mac and Perian:

• AC3MovieImport.component
• AppleIntermediateCodec.component
• AppleMPEG2Code.component
• Flip4Mac WMV Advanced.component
• Flip4Mac WMV Export.component
• Flip4Mac WMV Import.component
• Perian.component

I kept all of the other ones around, in case it turns out that I need them, but so far so good.

One popular solution is to just copy offending shared libraries from svn 1.5 over those in /usr/lib. There are two problems with this. The first is that doing so you are messing with the default libraries and something may not be happy. In fact, apache isn’t happy. This solution appeared to work fine until I restarted apache and it complained about missing libraries. A better solution is as follows.

I originally found the basis of this solution on this thread, thanks to a follow up by Jean-Daniel Dupas and subsequent changes by Philippe Casgrain. The idea is to install svn 1.5 into /opt/local, leaving the stock svn and libraries untouched, and then patch the Xcode subversion plugin to use these new dynamic libraries. This is nice and clean, and leaves everything else in its original condition. It didn’t work entirely for me on the latest Xcode, so I updated the script accordingly. Here are the steps I followed:

Step 1: Install Subversion 1.5 binaries

Download subversion binaries and install them into /opt/local. Modify your search path to run subversion from this directory, or create appropriate aliases. This won’t effect Xcode directly yet, but gives you both subversion 1.4 and subversion 1.5 installed.

Step 2: Run the patch script

Quit Xcode. Download this SVN Xcode Patch o your computer, chmod 755 to make it executable, and run as super user. The first argument is the full path to the Xcode subversion plugin and the second is the root directory where svn libraries are installed. For example:

sudo UpdateXCodePluginToSVN1-5.sh /Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/XcodeSubversionPlugin.xcplugin/Contents/MacOS/XcodeSubversionPlugin /opt/local/

The script makes a backup of the plugin first, feel free to make your own if you don’t trust it. It then uses install_name_tool to patch the executable to change its dynamic library paths from /usr/lib to /opt/lib. You’re done!

“I went back to the iTunes download page in IE x64 (spoofing Vista’s UA) and started monitoring with Wireshark. I started the download, and Wireshark was able to see the URL that was being requested. I finally had the direct URL!

http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/iTunes8/061-5526.20080911.gtre4/iTunes864Setup.exe

Once the file was downloaded, I was able to proceed with the iTunes 7.6 guide. I extracted the MSI files out of iTunes864Setup.exe using 7-Zip. I installed the AppleMobileDeviceSupport64.msi file. I already had the QuickTime files from QT Lite. I opened up iTunes64.msi in Orca and changed the version from 600 to 501, then installed it. I installed the GEAR burning drivers. I skipped the last part about manually choosing the iPhone drivers, as I don’t have an iPhone and just want iTunes 8 for the HD features.

After rebooting to complete the GEAR driver installation and copying GEARAspiWDM.sys as the guide suggests, I no longer get the warning about CD burning upon starting iTunes. I was able to open up iTunes and watch the free HD episodes they’re currently offering.”

Via iTunes 8 on Windows XP x64 | PCTech.invisibill.net:

To resolve this issue, the static library should pass the -ObjC option to the linker. This flag causes the linker to load every object file in the library that defines an Objective-C class or category. While this option will typically result in a larger executable (due to additional object code loaded into the application), it will allow the successful creation of effective Objective-C static libraries that contain categories on existing classes.

In my case I had to put these flags on the primary application target (the one using the library) rather than the library itself, which strikes me as odd.

Update: You also have to add -all_load in some cases

Turns out that’s ok, cause there is an easy work around. Just use the Mac’s built in support for Windows file sharing (via samba) to access your drive. Under Mac OSX just enable “Windows File Sharing” from your Sharing preferences pane. Then, under Windows I mount my home directory by accessing \iMac\duane, enable reconnect at login, and ta-dah.

Yes it seems a little odd to share files between two operating systems running simultaneously on the same computer, but hey – it works great.

How much drive space does Boot Camp need?

A basic installation of Windows XP Pro takes about 5 gigs, so that’s my baseline. Add in Visual Studio, Office, Firefox, and so on gets it up around 10-15 gigs. For my needs, this is fine but I still want some slack space available for smaller apps, documents, and media files. Ripping DVDs or any other disk intensive activity means you might need substantially more. Then, there’s the filesystem type issue, NTFS or FAT32?

Should I use NFS or FAT32?

Windows has two different filesystem choices. FAT32 (the “old way”) and NTFS (the “new way”). In case you aren’t aware of the tradeoffs from choosing one or the other, here they are briefly:

• NTFS supports larger partition sizes. Windows XP provides native support for NTFS volumes of pretty much any size, while a FAT32 volume is supported only for sizes up to 32 GB.
• NTFS supports larger file sizes. Under Windows XP NTFS supports a maximum file size of up to the disk size, while FAT32 supports a maximum file size of only 4 GB.
• NTFS is faster and safer.. New file system features, journaling, boot time improvements, and other performance improvements in Windows XP have been implemented only for NTFS.
• Some features require NTFS. Some features like Active Directory, symbolic links, and NT Domain membership require NTFS.
• MacOS can not write to NFS volumes. It can however, read them just fine. FAT32 volumes however have read/write access.

Converting from FAT32 to NTFS

convert C: /fs:ntfs

More details are available from Microsoft. Note, there is no easy going back from this step! (See below)

Converting from NTFS to FAT32

What if you want to go the other way, converting your nice fast, modern NTFS filesystem to FAT32? A little harder, but still possible (as long as your partition is smaller than 32 GB). The strategy here is to create a backup image of the FAT32 filesystem from the Mac side, then recreate the partition as NTFS and restore the image to it.

Use Disk Utility to make an image (dmg) of the Windows drive from MacOS X and safe it on your Mac drive. Then, boot from the Windows XP install disk and reinstall/reformat, selecting FAT32 this time. After the format is complete and it starts to install Windows turn the computer off to abort the process. Now boot back into Mac OS X. What you have done is create a basically blank FAT32 disk. Now you can use Disk Utility to restore the NTFS image you created earlier, restoring the files to the now FAT32 filesystem.

Hey, I didn’t say it would be fun, just possible.

Accessing your Mac drive from within Windows

By default your Mac drive is invisible to Windows. Which is too bad when all your documents and music are on your Mac drive. Plus, in my case it is highly desirable to allow both operating systems to share all of my slack space for music, video, and so forth.

Luckily, all you need is the reasonably priced MacDrive 6 for Windows. This software package provides transparent, integrated support for Mac drives (HFS/HFS+).

You can download a free trial edition from their website. It lasts a measly 5 days, but I guess it doesn’t take long to prove it works. After installing and rebooting your Mac partition appears as a new drive with full read/write access. You don’t use special tools, just the Windows explorer – beauty!

What I ended up with

Being that much of the ASP.NET code I’m working on relies on NTFS, I decided to stick with that. In the modern hardware era, FAT32 just isn’t done and there’s no telling what might explode on me. I create an image size of 30 GB, which means I could use the painful NTFS to FAT32 conversion steps above if I change my mind. This is probably more space than I need, but I can always image and restore later if I have to.

I’m also installing a copy of MacDrive. That will not only let me access my Mac files, but will let me easily communicate between the two worlds. For example, I can rip a DVD under Windows and burn it on the Mac if I need. This turns out to work pretty well.

In any case, I finally found an ideal solution with Apple’s Bonjour technology (formerly Rendevous). Bonjour lets you create an instant network of computers and devices just by getting them connected to each other. The computers and devices take over from there, automatically broadcasting and discovering what services each is offering for the use of others. This is the same magic that makes iTunes auto-discover other iTunes clients on the network. With Bonjour services installed on your Windows machine, you can magically discover your shared Apple printers on the network. It’s a brain dead setup/install process:

1. From your Mac’s Sharing preferences pane, make sure that Printer Sharing is enabled.
2. On your Windows machine, download and install Bonjour for Windows
3. After installing, click on the “Printer Setup Wizard” shortcut installed by Bonjour on the Windows desktop
4. Select your printer from the list of network devices found by Bonjour
5. Select “Generic PostScript Printer” (the default) as the printer type

I’m not too clear on why you need to use generic postscript driver rather than the native driver, but you do. I tried using the native driver for my Canon i960 but it failed to print. I’ve seen several other folks reporting this as well. It’s even selected by the Wizard by default. In any case, it works well with full color support and so forth.

That old hub works fine on the iMac,but it is of course USB 1.1. That’d be fine except I have an external drive connected which is pretty much worthless at USB 1.1 speeds. Swapping in the new hub is the problem. D-Link claims that it fully supports the Mac, but I guess their flexible on this point. To me, its a show stopper.

I do NOTWANT to leave my Mac on all the time. I WANT it to behave! Anyone have any brand/model of USB hub that they have had success with? The D-LINK DUB-H7 hub I’m using is powered, and seems to be pretty high quality. It’s got 6 of the 7 ports used (scanner, printer, UPS, keyboard/mouse, card reader, drive), but nothing else magical.

My wife and I have this problem. We certainly don’t have our own sets of photos, but we do manage our own accounts. The old way was to wrap iPhoto in a bourne shell script that set the umask before each execution, maintaining group permissions. This works fine, but has the significant downside of having to be rebuilt every time a new iPhoto update comes down.

I’ll be trying out this solution to see if it works better for us. It also mentions in the comment trail that a similar approach could solve the problem for iTunes. What I really want though is for each account to share the same music library (the songs themselves), but maintain different ratings and playlists for each account. I’ve seen nothing that will do that for me yet however.

I needed this the other day when moving files between my old PowerMac and new Intel iMac. FireWire is 4X faster than ethernet, but you lose a bit if you have to copy from computer A to an external drive, then connect the drive to computer B and copy it back. Enter “target mode”. How to use target mode:

1. Shutdown the computer that you want to copy to (the target)


2. Connect the source computer to the target computer via FireWire cable


3. While holding down “t” on the keyboard (t for target of course) power on the target computer

After a few moments, the FireWire logo will dance around the screen and you should see the target computer appear on the source computer’s desktop. It will look like any other external FireWire drive. Drag and drop! When you are done, “eject” the target computer, then power it down.

Elegant, simple, but amazingly useful. How very Apple.