The two best ways to avoid OS X Problems: backup before problems start and don’t fix what’s not broken.

Avoiding OS X Problems - Backup Before Problems Start

Before making any chages to your Mac, backup your current system by making a mirror image of your current system.  This places an exact copy of your entire Mac hard drive onto an external drive such as a USB hard disk or a secondary internal hard drive on your desktop Mac.

Making a full mirror image backup or clone of your Mac is simple with SuperDuper free backup software from ShirtPocket. This program makes it easy to perform full backups of your entire OS X Leopard Mac without any technical knowledge.  By making a mirror image backup of your system before you make changes, you can always rollback your system to this previous pristine backup version of your Mac.

Understand that there is a major difference between Apple’s Time Machine and mirror image backups using SuperDuper. Apple’s Time Machine makes incremental backups of individual files. SuperDuper backs up your entire hard disk as a mirror image copy.

A SuperDuper backup placed on an external USB drive can be used to boot or start your computer. You cannot do this with Time Machine. Seriously. Try this: install SuperDuper, make a full clone of your current drive onto an external drive (do this before going to sleep or if you have a few hours to do other things), then reboot your Mac and press & hold down the Option key (double up arrow key beside the Apple key).  After a few moments you’ll see two hard disks appear on the Mac bootup screen. Release the Option key.  One disk is the drive inside your Mac and the other is the SuperDuper clone you just made, attached to your Mac via USB.  Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, move the highlighted disk on the screen to the clone backup system on the USB drive and press Enter.  Your Mac will now boot up from this clone on your USB/Secondary drive that you made using SuperDuper.  Once the bootup is finished, you’ll be running your Mac from the mirror backup sitting on your backup drive.

This is the ultimate in security, safety and simplicity in terms of backups! If you happen to drop your Mac off a cliff or it gets stepped on by an elephant and you have a SuperDuper cloned backup, just pop that disk into a new (hopefully insurance covered) Mac and bootup as if nothing had changed.  You can get back to work (or play) immediately. Zero downtime.  Apple’s Time Machine will not be able to do this as it creates incremental file backups, not a mirror of the operating system itself. To restore a system using Time Machine you need to reinstall Mac OS X from scratch and perform a restore from Time Machine.  A lengthy process.

Avoiding OS X Problems - Don’t Fix the Unbroken

I’m loathe to suggest this, but I don’t recommended installing Apple updates to an operating system unless it addresses a specific problem you’re experiencing. I understand that security updates are important, and that stability and other compatibility issues are nice to fix, but if preventing these rare but possible issues comes at the cost of rendering your Mac unusuable then is it really a wise update to perform?

This is akin to injecting a vaccine that prevents disease but is likely to kill the patient. Unless you’re very likely to be exposed to the disease, should you really be taking the risk?  With any medical treatment, a doctor always considers whether the treatment’s possible risks are outweighed by its benefits. If the risks are high and the success of the treatment low, the treatment will be avoided in search of better alternatives. You should think about this too before haphazardly installing Apple Updates only to be rewarded by one of the common OS X problems that can occur.

One Mac OS X problem that generates a lot of frustration and discussion is Airport wireless network connections disconnecting from a router every 15 minutes.  This is an extremely common Mac OS X update problem that is incredibly difficult to diagnose and fix. And, it often starts just after an OS X Update.

When to install a Mac OS X Update:

1. the update closes online security holes that you’re likely to run into because you perform risky Internet behaviour
2. software that you currently use has issues that are fixed with the latest update
3. you’ve just mirror image cloned your system with SuperDuper

You really should never install a Mac OS X update before cloning your current OS X install.  It takes nothing more than a spare drive, some free software and a few hours while you’re asleep.  The cost of an external drive is really reasonable these days.  I just picked up a Western Digital Terabyte USB 2.0 drive for 135€ delivered from Amazon (which you can find it even cheaper in the U.S.).

With respect to Apple OS X upgrades, have a surefire way to return your system to its previous (working) versions: create an image backup of your current Mac OS X system before upgrading by using SuperDuper.

ps. I don’t work for Shirt-Pocket software.  They just make damn good software.

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Apple, which hasn’t licensed the use of NTFS technology from Microsoft, has only supported reading from Windows drives from OS X Tiger/Leopard/Snow Leopard.

There is also a free NTFS program for Mac called NTFS-3G which may do the trick for you, albeit with a little less polish (and perhaps stability) than the commercial solution above.

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Many are claiming that VisualHub is now open source, (freely downloadable programming code hosted at SourceForge.net that can be used to build a working program), but, this is not true.

What has been released as open source code is not VisualHub, but a mish mash of code that compiles into a transcoder that… doesn’t actually work.  None of the blame lies at Techspansion for this sensationalism, it’s the various “tech sites” that are hyping this.

In theory it’s great that Techspansion has opened up some random AppleScript code that others can pick up to start building a transcoder to try and replace VisualHub.  In practice, TranscoderRedux, the name of this open source project, is 100% useless for about 99% of the population that simply wants to put videos on their iPods with ease. And with little doubt, the timeline of the project producing anything close to VisualHub is at least a year away.  Many cooks in a unorganized kitchen rarely produces spectacular software on short notice.

I’m not sure why VisualHub wasn’t turned into donationware or freeware like NewsFire did a while back.  At least that way people could still benefit from all the effort that was put into VisualHub, cram ungodly amounts of video onto mobile devices like iPods and iPhones, which puts development pressure on hardware producers (like Apple) to increase the capabilities of their hardware to serve the growing market.  Letting people flounder around with poor substitutes to VisualHub (iSquint excluded) just slows the eventual progress of the mobile video market, letting the weaker offerings survive to see another online day.

Perhaps the true programming code behind VisualHub is up for sale?  If that were true, those putting time into TranscoderRedux would be mighty disappointed…

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If you visit the Apple page regarding graphics performance you can find several graphs touting the noticeable boost in performance of the GeForce 9600M GT dedicated graphics chip over the 9400M power saving chip.

Here’s the problem: The 9400M is far slower than the current Macbook Pro’s 8600M GT (”Penryn” core).  So, sure, the 9600M GT will be much faster than a crappy low power graphics chip aimed at painting spreadsheets (9400M).

Some folks claim the difference in performance between the current 8600M GT and the new 9600M GT chip, would be virtually unnoticeable.  And hence the benchmarks from Apple showing the difference between the “spreadsheet chip”, the 9400M, and the 9600M GT rather than the 9600M GT vs. the current 8600M GT equipped MacBook Pro’s.  A small difference between the old and new MBP’s graphics performance would surely lower the amount of people upgrading to the new alu-book.  Less upgrades = Less Income = Lower AAPL Earnings per share.

Check out the benchmarks provided by Matt Peckham of PC World:

Granted these are from different machines running different CPU’s, but I’m assuming these benchmarks are the result of a Boot Camped MacBook Pro with all other variables held constant (same Windows version same nVidia driver version, same game settings, etc.).

In direct contrast to the above performance review is a benchmark test from PC MAG showing a roughly 50% increase in true game performance between the current “Penryn core” 8600M GT MacBook Pro’s and the new “dual core” 9600M GT’s.

And finally there is much Apple forum debate on this subject that provides lively arguments on both sides of the graphics war.

No doubt the new Macbook Pro is sexy with its CNC water-cut aluminum mono-block case and all glass LED backlit screens. But, I’m not going to pull out my wallet until they put a next generation architecture graphics chip, like the 9800M GT, underneath that sexy skin.  A quad core Intel CPU wouldn’t hurt either <wink>.

For more information on the 9600M GT chip, see this Notebookcheck.net article.

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UPDATE: as of 11am EST the story on iReport.com has been removed. Instead of offering a retraction of the story and leaving it available for people to review, iReport.com is covering up the fact that it carried a patently false story.  Way to go iReport.com… journalism at its finest. See the original article at the end of this post.

Citizen Journalism?  More like another tool for stock market manipulation.

When the unfounded report by user johntw on iReport.com, CNN’s citizen journalism site, Put options (makes money when a stock falls) on Apple’s stock rocketed up in price.

I received a news alert at 9:44 EDT that Steve Jobs had allegedly suffered a major heart attack.  I immediately started watching AAPL Put options, +QAAVR in particular.  Within a span of 10 minutes it moved from 2.85 per share, to 6.25, then back to 2.90.

Someone, say johntw for instance, the author of this heart attack “report”, bought some Apple put options just before publishing the report.

Options contracts are purchased (usually) in sets of 100, thus someone buying 1 option would pay 2.85 x 100 = $285.  5 minutes later, each one of these contracts would have been worth $625 each.  More than 2x your money.

Not a bad way to make some quick cash, kill the reputation of iReport.com, and generate a lot of negative publicity iReport.com and CNN.com (the parent company).

Here’s my prediction of the day: iReport.com will be dead due to zero credibility and constant manipulation for personal gains.

Original story removed by iReport.com:

(thanks to Silicon Alley Insider for taking a screenshot of the disgraceful post at iReport.com)

A special note for johntw, the “author” of this iReport article: I hope you weren’t stupid enough to post this for purposes of profiting from market manipulation.  It wouldn’t be difficult for the SEC to subpoena iReport.com for server logs to determine your IP address, ISP, your physical location, your identity, and records from any trading accounts you own.  Or they could simply match up unusual equities/derivatives transactions made before and after the article was published and apply some heat.

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They claim to rank content rather than popularity (number of incoming links to a web site). Unfortunately, that type of understanding programmed into software is a long way off.

A simple search for “carte orange”, the Paris public transportation pass, returns a lot of weak results on Cuil:

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=carte%20orange&sl=long

Whereas on Google, the majority on spot on for finding good in-depth information on the correct subject:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=carte+orange&btnG=Google+Search

Cuil has some nice features though: pictures in search results, category refinement (search within search results by clicking on a category), and instant search suggestions which are already quite good.

Google has gotten lonely up at the top.  It’s nice that Cuil may give them some competition.

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I spent a good two hours trying to install reCaptcha for SMF and ended up failing. Why? File permissions for one. Without setting the entire SMF directory to full file permissions for everyone (777), I could not get an SMF Mod to install. Next, after getting the reCaptcha mod installed, I couldn’t enable it. The instructions on the Mod page at SMF is either far out of date or simply wrong (Admin => Registration => Settings doesn’t exist).

And to top it all off, the look and feel of SMF is not user friendly. It’s as if the only people to have contributed to the user interface design of SMF are programmers, rather than designers. For instance, finding the New Topic button requires effort and searching. Whomever created the style sheet for the default theme of SMF, spent all their time blending all page elements together rather than making important features stand out and capture attention. For forum software, used by all skill levels of computer users, user-friendly design should be the most important feature. If people cannot use the most basic functionality of the software, the rest of the features are completely wasted.

The golden rule of user-interface design: “Don’t make me think“. In order to use SMF Forum, you have to do some serious searching to perform even the most basic function: posting a new message.

In my estimation, SMF is going to be losing ground to phpBB steadily over the next few years and will slip into obscurity unless they fix their UI and setup/permissions issues.

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WiFI Encryption Methods available on Leopard

• WEP - Wired Equivalent Privacy
• LEAP - Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol
• WPA - WiFi Protected Access
• 802.1X WEB - Port based Network Access Control

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Here is a list of changes in Leopard OS X 10.5.3 posted at Apple Support.

Most important to me would be this one:

“Addresses reliability issues when performing a full restore from a Time Machine backup.”

[Hint: don't install the Leopard 10.5.3 update for a week or two if you aren't suffering from any of the problems fixed in the list of changes. Why? Remember 10.5.1? That was a fiasco that led to so many problems that 10.5.2 was quickly released to "fix the fixes". Basically, let others find the bugs within 10.5.3 and have Apple fix those before you install the update. If there are any major issues with this latest release, you'll avoid the worst of them by waiting a couple of weeks. I'm actually still using 10.5.0 since it's rock solid and the updates released since don't affect my day-to-day usage. I'd rather have reliability than having all the software that I don't use up-to-date.]

That’d be pretty annoying to use Time Machine religiously and when finally disaster strikes and your backups aren’t fully useable? Ouch.

Regardless, I’d still recommend SuperDuper! for bootable Leopard backups in concert to Time Machine file backups, since Time Machine’s backups do not give you a bootable backup disk to restore from. If Time Machine backups are all you have, you’d have to reload Leopard from DVD, then restore your settings and documents from Time Machine.

With SuperDuper! you could simply connect the drive you used via FireWire/USB, reboot your Mac, hold down the alt key, select your SuperDuper backup and be working from that drive like nothing has changed.

Even more hard-core, you could simply remove the failed drive within your Mac, install the SuperDuper disk in its place, boot, and theoretically you should be operating normally as if nothing had happened.

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Camino just released version 1.6.1 (May 20, 2008), which fixed stability and security issues from their last major release, 1.6, which was made available a month before that, so the latest release should be pretty solid.

Having offered Camino as an alternative to Safari, I actually not only still use Safari, but I also use Firefox, basically the three major browsers on Mac. Why the heck would I do this? Each browser has its benefits.

Camino

Best mix of speed, features, and compatibility. I still find certain javascript/ajax issues such as with Google Documents drop down menus, but not much beyond that. Did I mention blocking of all Flash Ads and Pop-ups, with exceptions or white-lists available for both? Hot.

Firefox

Best overall website compatibility. Lets face it, Apple still has a ways to go before Mac penetration gets beyond even 15% of the user base that Windows has. As such, most websites are optimized or tested for “Internet Explorer” and none other. This can lead to rendering issues on Mac browsers such as Safari and Camino. Firefox is the least susceptible to these compatibility issues, which are generally due to Internet Explorer not being standards compliant. But, that’s another story for another time, by another blogger.

Safari

Fastest browser. Faster than both Camino and Firefox. Safari is what I think of as a “light browser”: a lean, mean, browsing machine. This was the first browser for Mac and it’s the most “integrated” with the operating system. But, it lacks some “power-user” features that I can’t live without on a day to day basis. For example: text or link searching using “forward slash” or “single quote”. In Camino simply hit the “forward slash” key, start typing, and Camino will move to the next word containing the string of characters you are typing. Hitting Ctrl + G will move to the next match. The same works with “single quote” link searching. Once the link you’re searching for is found and highlighted, simply press Enter/Return and the link is opened. This is seriously efficient and fast browsing, much much faster than messing around with a mouse or trackpad and hovering the mouse pointer over the correct few centimeters of display in order to open links. Try this inline search feature on Camino and I bet you will love it.

Safari has its own search/find feature that’s pretty tight as well, highlighting the word you’re searching for and darkening the rest of the page. This is great for serious text reading on big documents, but for navigating and general surfing, I’d much rather have Camino’s inline search with keyboard navigation.

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