Options

Andy's Un-Official Unsolicited Mac Advice Thread

1121122124126127153

Comments

  • Options
    W.W. WebsterW.W. Webster Registered Users Posts: 3,204 Major grins
    edited December 12, 2008
    Andy wrote:
    1.86ghz w/ 120gb SSD and 2gb RAM.
    Solid state disk, eh? Nice! Is the performance good?
  • Options
    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 12, 2008
    Solid state disk, eh? Nice! Is the performance good?
    I like it! Seems very very responsive. Quiet, too :D
  • Options
    W.W. WebsterW.W. Webster Registered Users Posts: 3,204 Major grins
    edited December 12, 2008
    Andy wrote:
    Quiet, too :D
    Just the muted groan in your hip pocket!
  • Options
    cabbeycabbey Registered Users Posts: 1,053 Major grins
    edited December 22, 2008
    Just the muted groan in your hip pocket!

    More likely smuggy bought it, so the groan is really going to be an anguished scream when the countess sees the bill. But that will be muted by the almost 3000 miles between them. rolleyes1.gif
    SmugMug Sorcerer - Engineering Team Champion for Commerce, Finance, Security, and Data Support
    http://wall-art.smugmug.com/
  • Options
    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 23, 2008
    cabbey wrote:
    But that will be muted by the almost 3000 miles between them. rolleyes1.gif

    Less than a buck a mile!
  • Options
    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited December 26, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Anybody want a free license to one of my all-time favorite apps, 1Password? Serious interest only, please. :D


    The free-ness of 1Password returns!

    MacHeist is giving it away for free for the holidays. I'm not sure how long it lasts, so if you want it, jump on it now. There's other stuffz for free, too! clap.gif
    Moderator Emeritus
    Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
  • Options
    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited December 27, 2008
    OS-X 10.5.6 update can break MacBook Pros
    If you are running old firmware, the latest update can screw up your machine. Further info and a fix can be found here.
  • Options
    aquaticvideographeraquaticvideographer Registered Users Posts: 278 Major grins
    edited December 27, 2008
    So if I'm running Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B03 and 10.5.6 and everything is working, should I run this firmware update?
  • Options
    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited December 27, 2008
    So if I'm running Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B03 and 10.5.6 and everything is working, should I run this firmware update?


    I'm of the mind that you should always run the firmware updates.
    Moderator Emeritus
    Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
  • Options
    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited December 27, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    I'm of the mind that you should always run the firmware updates.

    I tend to agree, but with all software updates, I like to wait a week or so after they are released and check the net for possible problems first. Firmware updates are not immune to issues and all vendors are suspect. Let the user beware.
  • Options
    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited December 27, 2008
    You can see what kinds of problems people are having at macfixit.com, but they also tend to be a bit alarmist about this stuff.
    Moderator Emeritus
    Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
  • Options
    rainforest1155rainforest1155 Registered Users Posts: 4,566 Major grins
    edited December 28, 2008
    corrupted file on Mac
    I discovered one file on my MBP that can't be copied anymore. Finder says it can't read or write the file when trying to copy it. MU commander copies 2/3 of the file and then stops. So it's the source file that is corrupted. The file is not within the FileVault.

    Disk utility doesn't detect this as it seems to rely on its journal data and doesn't allow for a complete scan of the disk, or does it?

    I'm not too worried about this single file, but I fear other files might be corrupted as well without me knowing.

    Anyone know how to get a complete disk scan going on a Mac? Would Tech Tool Pro or DiskWarrior do the trick? If so, which one? Neither seem to have a free trial.
    Or is there a free way to scan the entire disk? I also checked the command line version of diskutil and fsck, but they don't seem to offer a full disk scan. Maybe there's a hidden parameter?

    Thanks for any advice.

    Happy new year,
    Sebastian
    Sebastian
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • Options
    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 28, 2008
    They're causing Smuggy customers lots of trouble with the Safari problem in OS 10.5.6 :cry

    http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8636637
  • Options
    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited December 28, 2008
    I discovered one file on my MBP that can't be copied anymore. Finder says it can't read or write the file when trying to copy it. MU commander copies 2/3 of the file and then stops. So it's the source file that is corrupted. The file is not within the FileVault.

    Disk utility doesn't detect this as it seems to rely on its journal data and doesn't allow for a complete scan of the disk, or does it?

    I'm not too worried about this single file, but I fear other files might be corrupted as well without me knowing.

    Anyone know how to get a complete disk scan going on a Mac? Would Tech Tool Pro or DiskWarrior do the trick? If so, which one? Neither seem to have a free trial.
    Or is there a free way to scan the entire disk? I also checked the command line version of diskutil and fsck, but they don't seem to offer a full disk scan. Maybe there's a hidden parameter?

    Thanks for any advice.

    Happy new year,
    Sebastian

    Disk Warrior is awesome for fixing your directory. I'm not techie enough to know if it would fix the kinds of problems you're talking about, but I think it's the best solution out there to keep your disk healthy. It's something you should have in any case.

    The problem with copying could be a permissions issue. Get info on the file and see if you have permission to read/write the file. If not, fix that and you should be able to copy it fine.
    Moderator Emeritus
    Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
  • Options
    BradfordBennBradfordBenn Registered Users Posts: 2,506 Major grins
    edited December 28, 2008
    Airport, Printer and HDD Question
    Howdy All-

    So of course I can't leave well enough alone. I want to hook up both a USB printer and USB Hard Drive to my Airport Extreme. If I connect the Printer, it works. If I connect the USB HDD it works. If I connect both through a powered USB hub, only the printer works ne_nau.gif Anyone got any ideas? I did a firmware update on the Airport Extreme with no change.

    MacBook Pro with 10.5.6 running on it.
    -=Bradford

    Pictures | Website | Blog | Twitter | Contact
  • Options
    colourboxcolourbox Registered Users Posts: 2,095 Major grins
    edited December 28, 2008
    Anyone know how to get a complete disk scan going on a Mac? Would Tech Tool Pro or DiskWarrior do the trick? If so, which one? Neither seem to have a free trial.
    Or is there a free way to scan the entire disk? I also checked the command line version of diskutil and fsck, but they don't seem to offer a full disk scan. Maybe there's a hidden parameter?

    As far as I know, out of that list only TechTool Pro might have a full disk scan. DiskWarrior only does a disk directory scan, and I think that's what diskutil does too.
  • Options
    rainforest1155rainforest1155 Registered Users Posts: 4,566 Major grins
    edited December 30, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Disk Warrior is awesome for fixing your directory. I'm not techie enough to know if it would fix the kinds of problems you're talking about, but I think it's the best solution out there to keep your disk healthy. It's something you should have in any case.

    The problem with copying could be a permissions issue. Get info on the file and see if you have permission to read/write the file. If not, fix that and you should be able to copy it fine.

    Thanks David. DiskWarrior has another scan to scan files and the structure, but it didn't find anything.

    Good idea about the permissions, but in this case the permissions are all right. In fact, I can partially copy the file until the damaged area comes up. I used MU commander for that.

    Sebastian
    Sebastian
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • Options
    rainforest1155rainforest1155 Registered Users Posts: 4,566 Major grins
    edited December 30, 2008
    colourbox wrote:
    As far as I know, out of that list only TechTool Pro might have a full disk scan. DiskWarrior only does a disk directory scan, and I think that's what diskutil does too.
    Thanks. I bought TechToolPro just to notice that there doesn't seem to be a download version included. So I'll have to wait for it.

    Out of impatience, I bought DiskWarrior, too. As mentioned in my last post, it didn't find the error, but once I've figured things out, I'll use it to optimize my directories.

    Cabbey gave me an easy shell script that helped me to find the other broken files. Now I just have to find out why the files were corrupted. I hope that TechTool with its surface scan might be able to tell me if the drive has any faulty sectors. If that scan doesn't reveal any, the corruption might be originated in some recent crashes.

    Here's the shell script from Cabbey if anyone's interested in doing a complete read of all the files on his drive:
    find / -type f -print0 | xargs -0 cat > /dev/null

    The / (slash) defines the path on where it starts. To just scan your user folder, you could use:
    /Users/{your user name}

    Sebastian
    Sebastian
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • Options
    cmasoncmason Registered Users Posts: 2,506 Major grins
    edited December 30, 2008
    Isn't TechTool included with AppleCare?

    https://support.apple.com/techtooldeluxe/main?id=dl
  • Options
    rainforest1155rainforest1155 Registered Users Posts: 4,566 Major grins
    edited December 30, 2008
    cmason wrote:
    Isn't TechTool included with AppleCare?

    https://support.apple.com/techtooldeluxe/main?id=dl
    Supposedly, it is. I don't have AppleCare, but a way cheaper replacement care program from a German Apple vendor. Even with the TechTool costs, it's still a lot cheaper and I do get the Pro version.

    Sebastian
    Sebastian
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • Options
    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited December 30, 2008
    cmason wrote:
    Isn't TechTool included with AppleCare?

    https://support.apple.com/techtooldeluxe/main?id=dl


    Not the same thing as Tech Tool Pro.
    Moderator Emeritus
    Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
  • Options
    cabbeycabbey Registered Users Posts: 1,053 Major grins
    edited December 31, 2008
    Thanks. I bought TechToolPro just to notice that there doesn't seem to be a download version included. So I'll have to wait for it.

    Out of impatience, I bought DiskWarrior, too. As mentioned in my last post, it didn't find the error, but once I've figured things out, I'll use it to optimize my directories.

    Cabbey gave me an easy shell script that helped me to find the other broken files. Now I just have to find out why the files were corrupted. I hope that TechTool with its surface scan might be able to tell me if the drive has any faulty sectors. If that scan doesn't reveal any, the corruption might be originated in some recent crashes.

    Here's the shell script from Cabbey if anyone's interested in doing a complete read of all the files on his drive:
    find / -type f -print0 | xargs -0 cat > /dev/null

    The / (slash) defines the path on where it starts. To just scan your user folder, you could use:
    /Users/{your user name}

    Sebastian

    You know Seb, if you've actually got more than one corrupt file, you might wanna just ask the drives if they're healthy: http://www.corecode.at/smartreporter/ I can't recommend this tool enough. the premise is simple: the disks know when they're falling apart before we do... so periodically ask them how they're doing. Using a Linux tool (smartmon utils) that does the same thing on my raid arrays has twice caught a drive before it failed so that I could have a new drive ordered and sitting here ready to go in when it the raid set kicked the original drive out as failed. (yeah, I let them fail and do the replacement on a degraded array when it's my home arrays... at work we would have pulled the suspect drive the minute we got a notice it was not 100% healthy, replaced it with the cold spare and ordered an overnight delivery of a new cold spare. To-May-toe, to-mah-toe. ;)
    SmugMug Sorcerer - Engineering Team Champion for Commerce, Finance, Security, and Data Support
    http://wall-art.smugmug.com/
  • Options
    SeamusSeamus Registered Users Posts: 1,573 Major grins
    edited December 31, 2008
    cabbey wrote:
    http://www.corecode.at/smartreporter/ I can't recommend this tool enough.

    I installed this app, thanks for the tip!

    Shay.
  • Options
    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited December 31, 2008
    Seamus wrote:
    I installed this app, thanks for the tip!

    Shay.


    You're all lagged by 2 years! lol3.gif
    Moderator Emeritus
    Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
  • Options
    SeamusSeamus Registered Users Posts: 1,573 Major grins
    edited December 31, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    You're all lagged by 2 years! lol3.gif


    Reading is hard rolleyes1.gif
  • Options
    rainforest1155rainforest1155 Registered Users Posts: 4,566 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2009
    cabbey wrote:
    You know Seb, if you've actually got more than one corrupt file, you might wanna just ask the drives if they're healthy: http://www.corecode.at/smartreporter/ I can't recommend this tool enough.
    Thx, but that's not showing anything wrong. I still suspect the crashes I've had (freezes, crashes upon coming back from safe-sleep and accidental power knocking outs) as the source of corruption.

    Sebastian
    Sebastian
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • Options
    RogersDARogersDA Registered Users Posts: 3,502 Major grins
    edited January 4, 2009
    In the Applications folder there are separate application "icons" for Lightroom, Lightroom 2.1, and Lightroom 2.2. The last two were created when the 2.1 and 2.2 upgrades were installed.

    Question: Can I safely delete the Lightroom and Lightroom 2.1 apps or do I need them to run version 2.2?
  • Options
    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited January 5, 2009
    RogersDA wrote:
    In the Applications folder there are separate application "icons" for Lightroom, Lightroom 2.1, and Lightroom 2.2. The last two were created when the 2.1 and 2.2 upgrades were installed.

    Question: Can I safely delete the Lightroom and Lightroom 2.1 apps or do I need them to run version 2.2?


    Are they apps? Or the disk images of the installers? Seems really odd. And it sounds like you did something out of the ordinary.
    Moderator Emeritus
    Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
  • Options
    RogersDARogersDA Registered Users Posts: 3,502 Major grins
    edited January 5, 2009
    DavidTO wrote:
    Are they apps? Or the disk images of the installers? Seems really odd. And it sounds like you did something out of the ordinary.
    They are the apps and not the dmg files.

    When the upgrades were downloaded to my desktop I executed the dmg files. They installed the apps as separate entities in the applications folder. I deleted the dmg files from my desktop already.

    I assumed that these upgrades would overwrite the necessary files from the original ver. 2.0 installation. If I double-click on the ver. 2.0 app it will run Lightroom 2.0. Likewise, double-clicking on the 2.1 or 2.2 apps will run Lightroom 2.1 or 2.2, respectively.

    I then have to manually delete the Lightroom icon in the dock and replace ith with the one for ver. 2.2. That's easy. But I am still confuddled as to why the dmg files created separate apps.
  • Options
    RogersDARogersDA Registered Users Posts: 3,502 Major grins
    edited January 9, 2009
    MacBook Wheel
    The Onion Awesomeness again.

    MacBook Wheel
    rolleyes1.gifroflrolleyes1.gif
    "Everything you need is just a few hundred clicks away"

    "spent 45 minutes typing an email to his friend"

    "virtually unbreakable unless dropped or hit"

    Read the fine print, too.
Sign In or Register to comment.