Lyle Schofield's Technical Journal

OS X has a couple of ways to bypass the normal starup process from your main boot device.  One extremely useful one (for reasons discussed in a later post) is to start up OS X in “Firewire Target Mode”.  If you hold down the “T” key when powering up, the machine will start up as a Firewire drive.  The screen displays an extremely large version of the Firewire logo on the primary display and you can connect a Firewire cable from the machine to another machine’s Firewire port.  The computer should mount like any other external Firewire device, turning your computer into the world’s most expensive external disk drive.

This can be extremely useful for copying files off a machine to another one, and in my case what made it especially useful is that it is easy to boot up a machine in Firewire mode even if the video is not working.  You can easily hold down the “T” key while booting, even if the screen isn’t visible (more on that in a later post).  Any other transfer off a machine usually requires either physically removing the hard drive, or interacting with the operating system to turn on network sharing of one kind or another.  This is quite impossible when you can’t interact with the video.

This also brings up the importance of encryption of sensitive information, since anyone getting physical control of your machine can boot it up and attach another computer to it.  One encryption approach uses File Vault to encrypt your whole home directory.  This is very good encryption for someone that doesn’t want to think about it.  I personally don’t use it for a few reasons.  One, I don’t feel the need to waste my computer’s time encrypting iTunes songs, temporary internet files, and other trivia in my home directory that I don’t care about and that will lengthen a back up process.  And two, it complicates the ability to pull off files like with this Firewire trick.

Another encryption approach uses Disk Utility to define encrypted file shares of my choosing.  I define a dynamic file share and set encryption for it as needed for some of the categories of documents I store (like “Admin”, or “Financial”) and treat these file shares like top level folders on a drive.  There are multiple encryption choices and only the files I want encrypted are placed in the file shares.  These partitions are mounted or dismounted as needed for my work.

So, with the mounted Firewire computer I was able to drag off and backup the encrypted and unencrypted files from the soon-to-be-shipped-off-for-repair computer.  This made me feel safe about my data, and safe to ship off my computer with the sensitive files locked up.

A mass of cables.

The little weekend project last week was in the pile of electronics we now call a “TV”.  Tivo has replaced the need for the VCR.  iPod has replaced the need for the jukebox.  The new TV has aboiut 5 signal inputs, so running everything to the receiver first seemed silly.  It seemed like time to recable everything after removing the now obsolete components.  And, those HDMI cables replace about 5 other cables in the wiring scheme (3 video, 2 audio) so I thought I’d give them a try.

HDMI cables were a big waste of time.  While the concept is good, the problem is the HDMI interface also includes some kind of digital handshaking between the components connected in an effort to prevent copying of content illegally.  While I have no need to copy illegally (plus, it’s illegal), I ran into some kind of problem with this digital rights management handshaking which shut down Tivo.  There are no tools on either the TV or the Tivo box to monitor or control the HDMI channels – if the handshaking fails it disables them.

In the end I dumped the HDMI cables and used the component video and stero audio.  The picture and sound are just as good so it isn’t worth trying to debug the digital channel.

Important Video insert test:

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Technorati says I need to have a post with the above important text in it for them to connect to my blog.  So, here you go.

Product: Western Digital My Book Home Edition 1 TB External Hard Drive
Link: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=357

I’ve outpaced what I can back up on my original Accodata 160 G external Firewire drive, and went looking for a replacement.  I didn’t have a specific brand or model I was looking for since the Accodata drive, which I had never heard of, has given good, reliable performance for more than 4 years.  The only thing I cared about was Firewire and at least 500G storage.  I have done enough side-by-side use between the Firewire drive and a USB 2 drive to know that I’m not going to waste any time on a USB drive for important things.

WD MyBook 1 TB (on the left)

Western Digital has a series of drives called “My Book” in various sizes and interface options. They are all in a similar case, roughly the height of a paperback book in different widths depending on the drive capacity.  Best Buy had one on sale of interest, which I purchased on the web for in-store pickup.  It ended up being a minor debacle due to the product code on the web site not matching the product code of the product on the shelf.  And, of course the one I purchased wasn’t in stock.  So, the quick calculation showed that it wasn’t worth my time to come back or go to another store and I purchased a larger capacity drive with the same interfaces.  This is a 1TB My Book with Firewire 400, eSATA, and USB 2.0 interfaces.

There is not much to tell about installation.  You plug the drive in, and the operating system sees it and makes it available.  The only thing I did for preparation is to reformat the drive to use OS X native formatting.  The cross-platform FAT-32 formatting the drive comes with was not of interest since I’ll only ever plug the drive into my main iMac.  It’s use will be for backup – currently using the Apple Backup utility but migrating to Time Machine when I get some time to set that up.

The drive is fast – transfers are very quick – and 1TB is the most amazing amount of space anyone will ever need (until about 3 or 4 years from now, the standard disclaimer for any drive purchase).  The drive also has a very sexy LED display on the front that shows you the relative amount of space used (fills up like a thermometer), and the display does a lot of dancing and chasing when there is data transfers in progress.

My only complaint is that there seems to be some unknown dependency of actions to recognize the drive.  The drive is not recognized on power up/down sometimes.  There seems to be a specific sequence of power up drive – wait for ready light – power up computer to get the drive recognized.  And, the drive does not seem to enter power-down-state when turning off the computer.  However, I should upgrade OS X from Tiger to Leopard to determine if this is a drive issue or the OS.

This install of WordPress is 2.8 – a number of minor versions from where I was.  The work done on this product is pretty impressive, the Dashboard and management tools behind the scenes are slick, well designed, and easy to use.  The plugin and widget implementation have removed almost all my desire to tinker with the raw theme editor tools.

Of particular interest is the “import” capabilities.  You can now import content from old blog implementations, which is nice for someone like me that has reimplemented and somewhat abandoned installs over the years.  There are some rough spots.  My personal page import from Blogger only grabs 16 posts for some reason, leavin me with a cut & paste job on dozens of pages.  I found my old notes on “modblog”, another experiment long since died, but the Internet Archives had most of the articles and I’m pulling them over manually.

I also found a database backup from an old WordPress install on my home machine.  Able to load the data into MySQL, but alas, no WordPress install old enough to use it.  So, more cut & paste.

Hardly worth it for my little musings, but I’d rather load the content and get it onto this one server.

Google Voice – Full Review – Reviews by PC Magazine.

I’ve been using this for a few weeks – interest increased once they added the transcription service.  Agree with much in this review.

Today’s sync dumped the new v3 operating system into the phone.  Lots of improvements, including cut & paste, and the greatly anticipated text search through Email.  But, I’ve been extremely happy with the phone since I got it so I wasn’t really waiting for a lot of new features.  Sideways Email viewing will be nice as my eyes continue to get older.

Manufacturer: Logitech
Product: Wireless (RF 27MHz) Multi-Function Mouse
Model: MX 1000
Product Web Site: Here
Purchased At: CompUSA
Cost: Around $59 USD (normal 79, $10 instant rebate, $10 mail-in rebate)

The iMac recently purchased came with the normal Apple 1-button mouse. While the 1-button thing is an adjustment in itself, the size of the Apple mouse is tiny. We purchased the Apple wireless (Bluetooth) mouse with the unit, but this is the same size as the corded one. I’m not quite sure the perfect way to use the Apple mouse – I spend a lot of time pushing it with just my fingertips – but it’s been a little less than satisfactory. It does track wonderfully, however.

To make the adjustment easier we plugged in a Microsoft “Wireless Optical Mouse Blue”, which is a non-Bluetooth wireless mouse that requires a little “base station” plugged into a USB port. This mouse fits in your hand a little better, although its too small and its tracking on the Mac was spotty. So, we’ve been looking around for a better mouse.

CompUSA had on sale the new Logitech “Laser” mouse. This is a similar to the Microsoft product – non-Bluetooth RF connection to a USB connected base. However, there are a couple of interesting features. First, it has rechargable batteries built in which it charges from the base station (works like a Palm Pilot dock), so no scrambling for AAA alkalines in the middle of the night. Two, it is a physically larger unit that fits better in your hand, although a right-hander’s hand only (asymetical shape to it). Three, it has about 8 buttons on it – scroll wheel including side to side, 4 way button on the side of the scroll wheel (like a ring outside it), three buttons under your thumb, then the normal 2 buttons under your fingers. Finally, the optical technology is laser based and not the normal red/blue LED found in other optical tracking devices.

The laser technology is definately a step up from the normal optical technology. The tracking is dead on – never a skip or a lag. The tracking also works whether the surface is reflective or not. The documentation states that it is tracking “20 times” higher resolution than normal optical technology, which allows for finer, more accurate tracking. The laser seems to be outside visible light, so one down side is no cool glow from the mouse.

The number of buttons on the mouse would obviously make Apple nuts. The mouse comes with a control panel which allows sensitivity adjustments as well as changing the action for the various buttons. The pre-set configuration normally has them for scrolling, zooming, “forward” and “back” in a web page, and to step through applications like an alt-tab keystroke. Don’t see a need to change them now, although gaming would obviously change that desire.  (Follow up – multiple buttons are an absolute need for Halo)

The installation was easy. The only unusual part is the need to charge the device prior to using it. Took about an hour. There is a tiny wall wart (real tiny, doesn’t block other outlets) which plugs into the base, plus the USB connection. Worked immediately without the software install.

LEDs on the top (3) tell you the charge status on the batteries. The mouse seems to conserve power pretty quickly with no motion.

The Good: Tracking and usage is amazing. No sponginess like some cordless mice, and it tracks the same whether I have it on the mouse pad or the desk. This desk is a semi-gloss wood finish which normally causes some tracking annoyances with the other optical mice.

The Bad: None.

The Annoyances: None.

So far, only used it a few hours, but its an impressive device if you can get it for the same price I did.

Overall: Function A+, Value B+

It’s best to avoid reading about upcoming computer products after you made a purchase… Think Secret – Revealed: New Power Mac G5, iMac G5, eMac Specs