Time Machine problem

After installing the recent update to Safari on my iMac, suddenly Time Machine gave me errors that my Time Machine drive is read only. WTF? I checked the permission, it said I can read & write, but on the Get Info pane of the Time Machine drive still said it’s read only. I restarted my iMac, no difference. I fired up disk utility, did a verify disk and canceled it (because it’s taking too long), and suddenly Time Machine is okay. I restarted my iMac again, and Time Machine gave the error again. Finally, I ejected the drive, unplugged its cable, and reconnected it, and everything is fine so far. Weird.

This is an issue with MacOS in general. Most of the time, the OS is great without issues, but then there are times when weird things like this happened without a definitive solution/answer. I googled the issue and various people pretty much tried all things that I did above as trial & error in solving the problem.

 

Getting rid of the genre list in iTunes 8

This is used to be selectable by user in iTunes prior to version 8. To remove the genre list in iTunes 8 on OS X, run Terminal, and type this (without the quotes): “defaults write com.apple.itunes show-genre-when-browsing -bool FALSE”

Thanks to iLounge.

 

Revisitting ripping audio CD on MacOS X

In Windows, my process in ripping CD is from EAC to WAV image + .cue to CDex to Lame MP3. On my Mac, I’ve been using Max to rip my CDs to WAV image + .cue, then XLD to encode to Lame MP3.

Max CD ripper is okay, but the musicbrainz tagging is close to useless. It never recognize any of my CDs. Now, XLD can rip CDs! Even better, people are saying it’s secure, similar to the gold standard EAC. That means I can use just 1 program, XLD, to rip and encode CDs to MP3. I do notice that ripping speed is a bit slower vs Max. Another excellent thing about XLD is you can set the number of threads, useful if you have dual/quad-core processors. Setting it to 2 means XLD will encode 2 tracks at the same time, utilizing 2 cores, saving quite a bit of time. XLD seems to get frequent updates lately, which is good. Plus, it can patch itself now, no need to uninstall/re-install manually. Great program, and XLD is free!

 

MacOS X 10.5 Leopard impression, part 3

Finder: I wish I could set certain folders on certain view mode. For example, I prefer most folders to have columns view, but my Documents and Pictures folders would be better using cover flow. Nope, I have to switch manually depending on where I’m at. Annoying.

Preview: This is probably one of the most useful apps in the OS. Why? You can crop and resize images with it. You no longer have to run iPhoto or download other software to do simple things like cropping and resizing. There is also a feature called instant alpha. I haven’t really played with it, by the idea is to be used for getting rid of backgrounds, something that was usually only doable in advance photo editors.

 

Aluminum Penryn iMac

Just arrived.

Unpacking.

Setting up is fairly quick. There is only 1 cable in the box, the AC cable. 🙂

The 20″ looks small in stores, especially when compared to the 24″. However, it’s pretty big on my desk.

First sweet impression is the smooth aluminum. Apple does know how to design this beauty. The aluminum and black frame + black Apple logo really makes the iMac look professional.

When I turned it on, I found the glossy screen to be very bright, too bright for my taste. All my previous desktop LCD monitors are not glossy. I ended up reducing the brightness to the lowest level. Yup, the lowest level, and it is still pretty bright. The glossy LCD doesn’t seem to have a very wide viewing angle.

One annoying thing I find is the lack of USB ports. Most recent PC desktops have at least 4+ USB ports on the back and one or two USB ports on the front. The iMac only have 3 USB ports on the back (one which is automatically used for the keyboard, leaving only 2 free left). The wired keyboard has 2 USB ports on its side, but the location prevents anything other than a USB cable or those super tiny USB key to be connected to them. I find this to be annoying. Jobs compared the iMac with a cable cluttered Dell PC during the aluminum iMac announcement. Well, the cable clutter is still here, considering the iMac is non-expandable. Adding storage means external drives, which means extra cables and AC adaptors. A USB hub is definitely a must, especially if you have many USB devices like iPods and digicams, thus more cable clutter. Then there’s the ethernet and audio cable. The location of the USB ports on the back is not really convenient. I hope the next iMac revision will have more USB ports, preferably on the iMac’s sides, and maybe add an SD card slot too.

Transferring my stuff from my Macbook is pretty easy. For calendar, email, and address book, I simply used my trial of .Mac sync. For my iTunes music, I simply copy the iTunes folder from my Macbook to an external drive, and then to the iMac. I use the same username so everything came out as if nothing has happened. Same thing with iPhoto. iPhoto 08 simply convert my iPhoto 06 library into a single file. Setting Time Machine cannot be easier. I use a Firewire external hard-drive. First run takes quite a while since Time Machine is copying the whole hard drive.

Setting up the iMac is not as quick as Jobs advertised (5 to 10 minutes), more like at least 15 to 30 minutes, including downloading and installing all the latest patches, setting up the firewall and other preferences, etc. At least Apple didn’t pre-install the Office and iWorks trial software anymore. Still better than a store bought windows PC where you will waste time uninstalling crap and installing firewall, anti-virus, anti spyware software, etc. The cable clutter is not going away, unless you’re going wireless with bluetooth and wifi.

The move to Penryn really makes the new iMacs cooler. I use a widget called iStat nano to monitor various temperatures on the iMac, and it never gets as hot as my Mac mini, and is definitely way cooler than my Macbook. Of course, comparing a desktop with a notebook is not really fair, but my Merom based Macbook can reach high temperatures fairly quickly under normal use.

A lot of people that only use Windows always complain about Macs being too expensive. If you compare spec per spec, Macs are priced quite competitively, considering all Macs come with wifi, bluetooth, Firewire, and gigabit ethernet, things that are not usually found on a typical windows PC. However, the difference is that you cannot configure Macs to be cheaper than what Apple already set for the baseline config. If you configure a Dell, you can configure it to cost as low as couple hundred dollars to as high as couple thousand of dollars, even on the same model. Not with Macs, you can only go up, not down. For example, you cannot configure the 20″ iMac to be cheaper than $1199. Also, certain configs can only be obtained on the next more expensive model. For example, you cannot get the 20″ iMac with the new GeForce 8800GS video card. For that, you have to spend more getting the 24″. If you’re looking for the cheapest barebone computer, or a computer that you want to expand later (without spending a lot of dough on Mac Pros), Macs are not the choice. However, if you are willing to spend enough to get a complete PC, Macs are definitely something to look at. The OS experience is just better than Windows.

 

"Start Menu" in Leopard

This is what I get for putting the Application folder as one of the Stacks, set the view as “List.” Great! I don’t have to pick apps via Finder anymore. Next step I would do is to clean up my dock icons to only a few ones. Kinda like Windows’ “Quick Launch.” LOL. I guess I still have Windows in my mind on doing things.

 

MacOS X 10.5 Leopard impression, part 2

When using Leopard, I find that certain things make more sense compared to Tiger. Stacks is a welcomed feature. Although it is easily emulated on Tiger, Stacks keeps the desktop clean. The translucent menu bar has drawn many criticism, but the translucent effect can be turned off now with the latest update. Many don’t like the 3D dock either, but I prefer the dock to be on the side so it’s a non-issue. I still think Windows’ Start menu is quicker to start apps, rather than starting Finder (kinda like using Windows Explorer to find and start your Apps). In general, the aesthetics are great and nicer compared to Tiger. Small things like rounded menu edges and higher resolution/better contrasted icons are pleasing to the eyes.

A new feature in Finder that I find very handy is that now Finder can list all networked computers on the sidebar. Definitely provides easier access compared to Tiger’s Finder. This also works great with my Windows Home Server unit as all the shared folders are automatically listed. Tiger’s Finder feels like a big hassle now. Network drives connectivity are maintained, even after putting my Mac to sleep. However, Leopard still doesn’t mount networked drives automatically unless you specifically assign them as a start-up item. I missed Windows’ ability to just map a networked drive into a drive letter.

Frontrow now uses Apple TV’s interface. Although it looks better, it only shows thumbnails of videos. Frontrow in Tiger will show a preview of the videos. The same alias trick can still be used to allow Frontrow to read files from any other locations in addition to the local media folders. Works great streaming videos from my Windows Home Server. Also since my HP WHS unit has iTunes server capability, music streaming via Frontrow has never been easier.

All this network capabilities are great, but it makes me wonder about security. Well, guess what, the firewall is NOT enabled by default in Leopard. Although there is probably a very low chance of attacks on Macs, not enabling firewall by default is not nice, considering XP SP2 has its firewall enabled by default. Also, Leopard’s firewall has a quite confusing interface. There’s only 3 options, allowing all incoming connection, blocking everything except essential services, or application firewall. Do a search on Google and there is a lot of controversies and discussions about Leopard’s different approach of firewall. Well, choosing the second option made all my networked shares disappear in Finder. Picking the 3rd one made them appear again. We’ll see how effective/intrusive this is on a daily basis.

I used a trial for .Mac to transfer my email, address book and calendar from my Macbook, and it works flawlessly. Still not sure if it is worth the subscription fee though.

Overall experience of Leopard seems very smooth. Performance seems to be very snappy, even on my old Core Duo Mac mini with only Intel’s GMA950. In fact, IMO MacOS seems to be the only OS where the general GUI experience doesn’t fell to be slowed down by the stupid integrated graphic. I have a WinXP PC with the same GMA950 integrated graphics, and I felt performance issues with the regular GUI response compared to a PC with a dedicated graphic card. It doesn’t help that most PCs with integrated graphic have low end processors too. Maybe it’s the dual core.

I have not tried Time Machine. Have to buy an external drive first. 🙂

Leopard is a nice aesthetic upgrade from Tiger. Although it draws many criticism, there are just many small pleasant things that contribute to the better overall experience. Tiger is still a fine and solid OS, but Leopard will give you a smoother Mac experience, even on the same hardware.

 

MacOS X 10.5 Leopard impression, part 1

My Leopard Mac is up and running. Installing the OS was probably the easiest and smoothest OS install I’ve ever experienced. I chose a clean install. During the start of the installation, the program did a forced self-check integrity of the DVD, similar to Ubuntu’s CD test but not optional. It takes quite a while since I have a notebook DVD drive. After that, the setup is straight forward and easily understandable.

The nice thing about MacOS installs is no drivers installs! Yup, since Apple controlled the specs of most Macs, pretty much all the drivers are included in the OS. So no need to hunt down drivers, F6 installs, etc etc. Once the OS install finished, the system rebooted, and voila, the sleek welcome video started. The next step was to simply run software update and install all the patches and updates.

I notice a funny behavior of Apple’s patches. The first run of software update only contained updates to 10.5.2 and few other patches. After installing all of them and rebooted, a second run of software update revealed a whole different set of patches, incremental. A bit different than windows where Microsoft pretty much put out almost all the hundreds of patches on a first run of Windows Update.

More impressions next.