Howdy, this is my personal online journal for whatever I feel like writing about.
Target Mode: Turn your Mac into a FireWire Drive
This is one of those cool Mac tricks that you tend to not hear about until you actually need it, and then its a lifesaver. I learned about “target mode”, a feature of all but the oldest Macs that turns your computer into the world’s most expensive external FireWire drive.
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:
- Shutdown the computer that you want to copy to (the target)
- Connect the source computer to the target computer via FireWire cable
- 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.
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Ethereal Network Protocol Analyzer 0.99 Released
Version 0.99.0 of the Ethereal Network Protocol Analyzer has been released. Ethereal has all of the standard features you would expect in a protocol analyzer, and several features not seen in any other product. It runs on all popular computing platforms, including Unix, Linux, and Windows. (No Mac port as of yet unfortunately)
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Significant update to FireBug for Firefox
Joe Hewitt has released a significant update to the popular FireBug extension for Firefox.
FireBug lets you explore the far corners of the DOM by keyboard or mouse. All of the tools you need to poke, prod, and monitor your JavaScript, CSS, HTML and Ajax are brought together into one seamless experience, including an error console, command line, and a variety of inspection tools.
One of the really cool new features is the inline editing. Navigate through the content/DOM inspector and modify HTML and attributes and see them updated in real time on the web page.
If you are a web developer of any sort, you need this tool!
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Solution: Intel Mac Wireless Networking Issues
I’ve heard several reports about poor downloads performance on the Intel Mac over wireless LAN. The symptoms are unusually slow download speeds, intermittent connectivity problems, and general flaky performance.
Turns out that it is a conflict between the Bluetooth and Wireless card in some configurations. I finally dug up the solution in this thread from an Apple support site. The gist of the problem and fix is here:
The engineering departments says that there is interference between channel 6 on wireless routers with Bluetooth. They told me to change to any other channel and the problem should be solved. I just changed my D-Link 624 to channel 11 returned to our wireless keyboard and wireless mouse and we now have screaming fast download speeds that match our 15 inch PB.
Surprise, this is the default channel on the popular Linksys wireless router. To fix it, visit your admin server panel (normally at http://192.168.1.1) and select a different channel:
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Escape From Alcatraz
“Escape From Alcatraz”, by J. Campbell Bruce, was written in 1965 around the last days that Alcatraz was used as a Federal prison. I didn’t know that when I started this book, and was surprised at its age, though I was wondering why it was written in the present tense. This book’s finale is the famous Morris escape, chronicled in the Clint Eastwood movie Escape From Alcatraz.
Far from focusing solely on escapes, this book details the entire history of “The Rock” and its inmates from its earliest days as an army prison, to is final closing. Sometimes it focuses too much on the history of the inmates in fact, detailing their childhoods and misdeeds. Surprising to learn however was that the majority of inmates were not the “worst of the worst” that the prison was supposed to be made to house, but pretty much run of the mill robbers and crooks.
The ingenuity of the prisoners is simply amazing. Their escapes and ability to improvise would bring a tear to McGuyver’s eye. I’ve read a number of interesting escape books, notably Great Escape. This was good, but I’d say only half the book or less is escapes, the rest is history.
I’ve been to Alcatraz (as a visitor, not a resident), and I think it would have been much more interesting with the background and stories from this book fresh in my mind.
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Mac Performance Comparison at Geek Patrol
The folks over at Geek Patrol gives us rundown of relative performance amongst a variety of processors, the most wide reaching I’ve seen. To quote from their conclusions:
The PowerPC G4 has served us well, its time has past. It still performs reasonably well as a lower-end CPU, but when compared to the PowerPC G5 and the Intel Core Duo it’s sorely lacking; it was blown away by both processors in almost every test (save for the Blowfish tests). With the Intel Core Duo in both the iMac and the PowerBook1 hopefully we’ll see the Intel Core Solo replace the PowerPC G4 in the Mac Mini and the iBook.
Other comparsions:
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Mr. Lucky: A Novel of High Stakes
This is the second book I’ve listened to by James Swain and his casino caper inspired Tony Valentine series of books. This series of books is very much in the style of Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard. A little offbeat, a little strange, and often set in Florida for some strange reason.
Like the rest of the series, this book’s gimmick is that Tony Valentine is an expert in casino cheating, so you get to hear about all the scams and capers that the Vegas/Mississippi/Atlantic City hustlers use to beat the house.
In this particular instance Tony pursues Ricky Smith, an Arkansas hick who miraculously beats Vegas in just about every game there is, followed by amazing wins in his home state lottery and horse track. Tony is hired by the casinos, who apparently don’t like giving up their money to cheaters.
Enjoyable, interesting, and I guess you could call it educational.
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Lone Star Nation
If you grew up in Texas, you know that Texas History is a required course for all students. While our history may not not as long as that of our Yankee friends, it’s probably more colorful. Either I’ve forgotten much of what I’d learned, or I never learned it properly in the first place because this book taught me plenty.
As an avid history reader and proud Texan, I’d like to think I know a thing or two. This book covers a lot more than just the major battles, encompassing the bigger picture of historical context as well. I wasn’t aware of the issues surrounding the Mexican revolution of 1824 and its effect on Texas, for example.
Another surprise was that many Texans were originally fighting only to become an independent Mexican state, rather than its original status as part of a larger Mexican state.
Entertaining, and never dry, Texas and non Texas both would enjoy this book.
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Bluetooth Laser Keyboard
This is just too cool. Projecting a virtual laser keyboard onto any flat surface, it allows you to add keyboard functionality to your PDA, computer, or other bluetooth device. We’ve seen variations of this type of gadget for sometime, but the bluetoothness just tips the scales. It even features virtual click sounds as you “type” each letter.
I have nothing other than geeky, gadget lust for this new Bluetooth Laser Keyboard that ThinkGeek is selling. I don’t spend a lot of time in small areas where a laptop would be too unwieldy (like a submarine or a Mercury space capsule), but that doesn’t make me want one any less.
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I’m a Stranger Here Myself
I’m a Stranger Here Myself, by Bill Bryson, is a collection of short essays from a column originally intended for British readers. Bryson, an American by birth, spent many years in England before moving back to American.
The essays generally point out the humor and absurdity of American life and customs. In a few cases they are compared to life in Britain, but in general these could have been targeted at an American audience with the same effect.
All and all, a funny book that’s easy to enjoy.
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