OS X Online Backup (Configuration)

If you’ve made it this far, that means that you’ve successfully configured your encryption keys, connected to your backup server, and used rsync to backup some test data — congratulations!

(If you’re just joining us, you’ll probably want to look at Part 1 and Part 2 of this series before continuing.)

The next step is to configure our actual backup.

What to backup?

It’s worth taking a moment to consider what you actually want to backup. While it’s possible to backup your entire Mac, it adds somewhat to the complexity (there are files you have to exclude if you want to backup an entire running Mac), it takes a loooong time, and there may not be much point.

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OS X Online Backup (Connection & Test)

I’m assuming that you’ve gathered the materials indicated in Part 1 — specifically, that you’ve got an account set up with Talanov or a similar service, and have an FTP program that supports Secure FTP (SFTP) handy.

Our rsync transfers will be made over the Secure Shell protocol known as SSH. This insures that all of your data is transmitted in an encrypted fashion.

We could log into SSH with the username and password provided by our backup vendor (and we will while setting this up), but this would be a little annoying if we had to do it every time we backed up, so instead, we’re going to exchange encryption keys that will allow our Mac to automatically identify itself to the backup server (and vice versa) when our script is run.

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OS X Online Backup (Intro)

Online backup lets you backup your Mac to a secure remote server, using “spare bandwidth” from your broadband connection when there isn’t something else going on.

It’s a great idea, and there are really only three problems with most of the options out there for Macs — they usually exhibit some combination of being expensive, slow, or having limited capacity.

Linux server jocks, on the other hand, often take advantage of rsync, and a couple of great online storage facilities that support it — cheaply.

Rsync is a wonderful tool — it quickly compares files on both ends of a connection, and only sends the differences. This works clear down on the byte-by-byte level – if two copies of a file are different by 100 bytes, that’s all that gets sent.

Several firms specialize in selling industrial quality rsync backup cheaply. One of the best known is probably BQ Backup, who will sell you 100GB of rsync-able storage for only $20 per month (or 10GB for $5). There are competing vendors, and even those who resell BQ Backup at an even lower price.

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How OS X Updates Can Make Your Mac Unbootable

The good folks at Unsanity have posted this fascinating little piece…

When you see the “Optimizing System Performance” phase of a software update, Mac OS X is really updating prebinding. Updating prebinding has a very, very nasty bug in it (look at _dyld_update_prebinding). If multiple processes are updating prebinding at the same time, then it is possible for a system file to be completely zero’d out. Basically, all data in the file is deleted and it is replaced with nothing. This bug is usually triggered when updating Mac OS X and every update to Mac OS X has the potential to render your system unbootable depending on if the “right” file is deleted or not. It’s triggered during the “Optimizing System Performance” phase of installing an update. This phase is actually just running update_prebinding. If you launch an application that links to libraries that are not yet prebound, there is a chance one of those files will be zero’d out as dyld automatically redoes the prebinding on that file.

I’ve been tracking this particular bug for about 18 months now. Most of the real “random” failures reported on various Mac OS X “troubleshooting” sites after a user has installed an Apple software update are actually manifestations of this bug. By real I mean not imagined problems or ones that have been there for a very long time but the user is just now noticing it and artificially connecting the cause to the recent update (it’s called Pareidolia). Yes, this nasty prebinding bug has been reported to Apple and yes, it is 100% reproducible if you want to reproduce it.

Every single time you install an update to Mac OS X whether it be an iTunes update, a QuickTime update, an update for daylight saving time, a security update, an Airport update, or an actual Mac OS X update, you can be hit by this bug. In order to prevent yourself from being smacked in the face by this bug, follow this simple rule: When “Optimize System Performance” appears during the update process do not touch your computer and definitely do not launch any applications. Just back away from your computer box as if it were a swarm of bees. Yes, it does mean that if you install the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update, you may get hit by the bug.

(There’s more, go read it all)
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MacBook Pro Wishlist

I’ve had my Core Duo MacBook Pro for about a year now, and while it’s still got enough flavor left in it to keep chewing for awhile (hey, I hung on with a G4 PowerBook for a long time, and this is miles better), particularly as more and more apps are out as Universal Binaries, there are certainly some features I’d like to see in the not-too-distant future that would make me upgrade in a hot minute.

In no particular order…

• Flash Disk – We’re starting to see flash disks in the 64GB – 128GB range be announced, at not terribly unreasonable prices. These are only going to get bigger and cheaper from here out. I’d be thrilled to have a notebook with only a flash disk instead of a hard drive.
• LED Backlight – This will probably be out in the next generation of Mac notebooks — longer life, lower power, brighter displays
• Polycarbonate Case – The brushed aluminum is pretty sexy, admittedly, but it scratches and dents too easily, and (worse) it blocks RF signals. I’ve envied the iBook / MacBook folks their tough-to-abuse cases and two-bars-better-wifi-sitting-next-to-me for a long time, but the black MacBooks really tore it; I think a MacBook Pro with a black polycarbonate case (but still all of the “Pro” features) would be killer. Put some brushed aluminum accents on it if you have to, but keep ‘em away from the antenna loops.
• 802.11n – Yeah, I missed the curve of upgradable notebooks; obviously any new one is going to have this from here out
• Firewire 800 – Please bring my Firewire 800 back. I miss it.
• Faster CPU – A “duh” item, to be certain.
• More RAM – We’re hitting the point where notebooks really need to be able to accept a minimum of 4GB of RAM. More would be better, particularly if we’ve still got to deal with some essential apps that haven’t gotten converted out of Rosetta.
• Lose the optical drive – Ship the SuperDrive as an external unit (I guess it can’t be optional if it’s the only way to install an OS). Use the regained space for more battery, or give us a smaller lighter unit. As infrequently as I use the thing, taking out of my notebook bag and hooking it up is a small price to pay for not having to lug it around when I don’t need it.

That’s a start to it, anyway. I’m assuming that with LED backlighting and flash disk we’d see a battery life improvement, although faster CPUs and more memory might wash it away. Notebooks always need more battery life; that’s just a gimme.

Setting up local DNS (BIND) on OS X Tiger

Slow DNS servers are one of the banes of my existence. If the DNS server your ISP hands you is slow, then everything is slow — web pages that should come up in a fraction of a second take minutes to load as every little item and doo-dad on them that comes from different domains (ads, google-analytics, flickr pics, etc.) takes its own sweet time to look up.

Normally I don’t put up with it, and I usually have some box or another on my local network running a DNS server to make things come up quick and crispy.

Unfortunately, the other day I ended up re-purposing the current DNS box to do other things, which I immediately regretted once I sat back down at my MacBook Pro.

Around then the clue fairy happened to drop by and remind me that OS X is Unix, and it should be trivial to get a nameserver running on it.

Well, it turned out to be less than trivial, but not by a great degree.
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The Macbook Pro’s Best Party Tricks

There are a couple of things that are particularly fun about the MacBook Pro, even for the most jaded Mac user.

First of course is the Windows-in-a-window trick. Since I use Desktop Manger to keep a handful of virtual desktops around, I just run Parallels Desktop on a virtual desktop of it’s own. Desktop Manager uses the same visualization effects that Fast User Switching does, and it’s always fun to watch people’s heads snap around when you click on the desktop pager, and it does the rotating cube thing to swing around to a copy of Windows.
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Parallels Workstation for Mac

I’ve been using a Macbook Pro (the first of the Intel-based Mac laptops) for about 6 weeks now. I managed to wait long enough for most of the earliest adopter problems to be fixed in the build I received, but the system was still a bit green and wet as far as stability and quirkiness go.

Fortunately, most of those issues seem to be getting resolved with the steady stream of system updates, along with many of my “essential” applications being updated with universal binary support.

As a result, goal one — having a Mac laptop with decent speed — has pretty much been addressed. When running universal binaries (versions of applications that come with native Intel code, and don’t have to be run via the “Rosetta” emulation system), the Macbook Pro is crisp and responsive. Unfortunately, I’m still stuck with two major applications (Macromedia Suite, Microsoft Entourage) that are run in emulation, but hopefully those will get updated soon as well.

Goal two was a little loftier.
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Windows on MacIntel – OpenOSX

Well now, that didn’t take long… OpenOSX has ported their popular “WinTel/Bochs” x86 machine emulator to run natively on the new Intel-based Macs.

Experience full-compatibility with x86/Pentium® processors with disk images, CD-ROM support and much more on your Mac.

WinTel is our popular Cocoa graphical user interface used to control the included powerful underlying open-source “Bochs” x86 emulation software (Bochs is pronounced as Box). We now include both PowerPC and Intel optimized binaries.

We have successfully tested this version of WinTel/Bochs running Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows XP Professional in addition to the included ten ready-to-use operating systems (see below).

WinTel offers limited support for the following: a virtual Network Interface Card (NIC), “Sound Blaster” compatible card, USB, and 32-bit color SVGA Video.

A CD-ROM drive is supported and floppy disk support may be achieved by creating a disk image with Apple’s Disk Utility software. Use the Finder to transfer data between the emulator and the Mac OS X operating system.

The whole thing runs $25 ($30 if you want them to ship you a CD), and you’ll need to provide your own licensed copy of Windows (they include a number of x86 Linux and Unix distributions on the CD)

I’m sure this will only be the first among several similar solutions, but obviously it’s not going to be too hard to have Windows running in an OS X window on the new machines.

(via MacSlash)

Make Mac Firefox Faster

Sure Firefox 1.5 is faster than the 1.0x releases, but if you really want to squeeze the last few drops of speed out of Firefox on your Mac, you’ll want to go grab a release optimized for your particular CPU.

G4 users will want the G4-optimized Firefox 1.5 , while those with a G5 will want the G5-optimized Firefox 1.5.

If you’re not sure what processor you have, your Mac privileges will be revoked just take a look at “About This Mac” under the Apple menu.

As an added bonus, these already have the more Mac-like form controls that Firefoxy enables pre-installed — install this and grab a copy of the GrApple Eos Pro theme and you’re on your way to a browser that’ll make Safari cringe in fear.

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