Time to write a backup script

Does Mac TimeMachine suck?

… I am fast coming to the conclusion that it’s pretty useless and you are better off with a backup script.

I have switched off TimeMachine after I discovered it runs my machine 15C hotter and forces the fans to run faster. Too much stress.

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How long before HURD dies?

The GNU Hurd – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF)

Although the POSIX interface is provided, some additional interfaces like POSIX shared memory or semaphores are still under development. All this applies to the current development version, and not to the last release (0.2). We encourage everybody who is interested to try out the latest development version, and send feedback to the Hurd developers.

Hurd has been under development sinse about 1990, surely it’s time to do the decent thing and put it down (or is it already dead)?

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The continuing of rise of the Web OS in 2008?

BBC NEWS | Technology | The technology with impact 2007

the rise of web apps that are flexible, platform-neutral and accessible from anywhere I have a net connection has made my life almost pain-free

Darren Waters of the BBC explains why Web OS is his killer technology for 2008. He gives a brief personnel and lucid explanation of why he thinks they are important. Whilst the idea is not new I thought it was a nice outline of what it’s about from a user perspective.

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BOO! Apple does not give education discounts to school children

Apple Store for Education

Student
University TAFE
Other accredited higher education

Apple gives some nice discounts to students and staff, but not to teanagers at high school (or younger). I would have thought the more they can rope in at an early age the better. At my son’s school there is wall to wall Windows (except in the art department). It would be nice to see an alternative; it could also open the door to more Linux as well, once people can have a choice.

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My favourite Leopard improvements

After a couple of weeks with Leopard here are my top reasons to switch

• WiFi management just works! I had to keep choosing my favourite SSID every time my Macbook woke up under Tiger. Worth the price of entry alone
• It’s faster
• Finder is slightly better at displaying information
• I think I like spaces…, but still trying to get used to that
• Stacks is useful
• erhh.. that’s it for me. I don’t use AppleMail,iCal, iChat etc etc.

Handy Hack: Freemind on Mac, Fix ‘Add Child’ shortcut

The excellent FreeMind mind mapping tool started to play up when I tried to use it on Leopard. I couldn’t use the keyboard to insert a new child node, a pretty basic function really. I apologise to anyone at  last nights Perl Mongers meeting distrurbed by me pounding (gently) on my machine trying to make it work during the presentation, as I have taken to using Freemind for note taking.

The fix turns out to be very simple. In Tools/Preferences/Keystrokes (scroll down a little) make TAB the shortcut for ‘Add Child’ as well as ‘Add Child Mac’

Does Mac TimeMachine suck?

Mac OS/X 10.5 (a.k.a Leopard) sports a new backup program called TimeMachine. However I am fast coming to the conclusion that it’s pretty useless and you are better off with a backup script.

The problem seems to be the user interface, visiually attractive but it has no way to easily identify files and changes as the presentation is time base. i.e. it is possible to go back to a certain time, but no look at when a file (or group of files) has changed.

Usually when I want to restore something I want to locate an object and then perhaps look at it’s history. No the other way around.

Jack’s first foray into video publishing

Well I guess it’s back to PostScript for publication

BBC NEWS | Business | Yahoo to put adverts in PDF files

Yahoo to put adverts in PDF files

It’s not clear from this article how it would work, but my first reaction is that I don’t want my documents to have adverts in them and I should consider publishing my documents in PostScript instead of PDF.

Update: A little research on the Yahoo web site reveals that PDF publishers have to opt-in, so that’s cool (as much as targeting advertising can be).

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A big thanks to the Bell Labs team

Dennis Ritchie Home Page

Dennis M. Ritchie

The C programming language and the UNIX operating system both came out of Bell Laps in the 70’s. I and many other owe a big debt to Dennis and the teams that he was part of. I have used UNIX, Linux and OS/X for years; and for a long time earned a living as a C programmer. The influence of the C language is still being felt after more than 30 years.

Dennis’ home page lists a lot of resources for those with a historical interest.

I was lucky enough to meet and chat to Dennis for an extended period when he visited the UKUUG Winter conference in 1997. A very interesting man who never tired of answering my questions.

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