MacBreak Tech

I came into the office to the sound of something not unlike a very unhappy animal trapped under a Dremel. I knew right away that was the sound of a drive gone bad. usually you get days warning but this one was normal on last Wednesday and not normal today. the Disk Utility tool showed me which drive was bad. which was Disk 1. so I powered down, opened the case, unplugged Disk 1, and powered back on to see if the screaming stopped. it did. ahh, silence.

fortunately I have a spare drive(s) for this server. they weren’t that much money to begin with so it made sense to buy more at the time. there’s no telling when the next drive will fail. and for that time when only one drive is doing the work it’s not a good time to be waiting for more drives to arrive. the better to have a way to keep RAID1 alive is to have drives waiting in the wings.

the new drive had to get formatted. and once that was done I dragged it to the RAID window to add it to the list. it warned “adding this drive will destroy it’s contents.” because I named it something different I clicked yes and it started it’s rebuild. which, according to a progress bar, should be complete in about 5 hours.

total time to complete all the steps for that swap was about 15 minutes.

lessons:
drives fail. have spares.
RAID1 is an okay backup. but you should have an archive strategy for the long term.
listen for the signs of pending failure.
run one of the two apps that will notify you of a failed drive on OS X.
work or play think about how

please stand by. we’re undoing some weird wiring.

We’re reminded again of just how amazing the Airport Express is after setting one up last night. from the setup to using it could not be simpler. naming the network was a longer discussion then actually configuring it including turning on internet, music and printing features.

after it was working with the internet we plugged the printer into the USB port on the Express. and about a minute later it was printing from two Macs after adding the printer from the Bonjour list. printing to it appeared no different in performance then when it was directly connected. allowing a Windows machine needed Bonjour for Windows to work. printing commenced after installing it. here’s the directions for adding a printer to XP for an Airport Express.

last we plugged a long cable running to the main stereo into the 3.5mm jack. the demo for that was this:

Open iTunes on your computer.
Okay.
Down on the lower right side there’s a thing that says “computer” click on that.
It’s says “Lily” and “Computer”
Right. That’s your network. Select “Lily” and then play something.
[music plays from main stereo]
DUDE! that’s my music!
ROCK!
ROCK indeed…

one thing that I hadn’t noticed before is a feature called “Global Bonjour” which allows to anyone print to your printer anywhere on the internet if they know the address. must learn more about this potentially way awesome feature.

airport express

NOTE: an alternate version of the show has been created that fixes some of the audio problem towards the end of the show. thanks camuel! click to download or listen.

Back to My Mac either just magically works or it doesn’t at all. There are several reasons why it doesn’t just work:

Older Router
Configured incorrectly
Double Router 
Weird wired or plugged into the wrong connection.
ISP or BOFH blocking ports.
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 Working with Back to My Mac [52:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (581)

Preview is a super powerful yet underrated tool.

[more notes go here]

 

 Preview [39:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (650)

if you’ve never read Programmers at Work it’s because it’s been out of print for almost two decades. you can find it used on Amazon but I’ve never seen in a used bookstore. it’s a book that captures a mind set for problem solving in a infectious way. some would say that it’s so old and out of date there’s no useful information in it. but keep in mind these people were making computers do amazing things back in the day with limited resources. remember that Visicalc is just 27K. anyway the book is now online made available by the author. check it out!

programmersatwork.wordpress.com/

once in a while you re-explore a project only to find that it’s nearly impossible to find things, items are missing and it’s a complete mess. everyone from the programmer to the photographer can benefit from having a consistent file naming and folder structure system in place. rememember you don’t have to do it like we do. use whatever works for you, stick with it, and modify it over time.

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 Saving Your Project [52:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (656)

the MBT feed is officially borked. thanks everyone for writing to tell us. we have notified the authorities. the peoples are working on it.

note from Ben: “it looks like a bad cut and paste job.”

sorry about the no new podcast in a while. everyone has been busy doing something. Kenji is on the right coast. Ben is upgrading some code. Craig is getting a new jorb. And John is galavanting about the west coast working on something fun. it all boils down to not much time for any of us to make a useful recording. it’s not like there isn’t lots to talk about. like for example:

G4 NAS drive part 2
getting Back to my Mac to actually work
Print to the Internet
ZFS one year later
and more coding, server and hacking stuff.

With the WWDC just a month away we’ll also start planning the who where for pinning down experts that might be attending the week of geek. anyway don’t hold your breath. it won’t be until the middle of the week at least until there’s a new conversation. in the mean time make a back up of your doorbell (aka phone) or learn to sync it so it’s done automagically.

see you on the other side… OWT!