Considering upgrading your Powerbook G4 to Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard)? After running with Leopard since its release, let me give you some unsolicited advice:

Skip it.

No, really. Just wait, and get it on a MacBook instead.

It comes down entirely to performance vis-a-vis Tiger. Here are Hithlum’s Geekbench scores:

• Leopard with updates (10.5.1) and Spotlight indexing complete: 804
• Clean Tiger install (10.4): 813
• Tiger with updates (10.4.11): 917
• Tiger (10.4.11) with Spotlight indexing complete: 942

While Spotlight performance in Tiger may be slower than in Leopard, overall chip performance is 17% better. I knew that 10.5 was optimized for the Intel chips, but that’s crazy to think that that sort of degradation is acceptable.

By way of comparison, machines with Intel chips running Leopard do significantly better than PowerPC chips. Most of the MacBooks are around 2500-3000, with some of the Mac Pros clocking in over 8200. Leopard seems to be a pretty good investment for Intel-based Macs.

But combined with the Disk Utility problems, random crashes, and overall sluggishness I’ve experienced with Leopard, the upgrade isn’t worth it on my older PPC machine. I’m certainly not going to upgrade my mother-in-law’s G5 iMac to it after this.

So, it’s back to Tiger for me on my Mac. Experiment over, back to work.

Anyone want to buy a Family Pack Leopard DVD set? I’ll trade you for Tiger DVDs…

Mostly, it just leaves me grumpy that I purchased the family pack. I'm not going to upgrade any of my family's G4s or G5s at this point, and may very well go back to Tiger on Hithlum until it's time for a new laptop in a year or two. ]]> 4323@http://brettpeters.org/log/ Brett Peters Computer Log 2007-12-23T20:41:48-05:00 http://brettpeters.org/log/2007/12/22/bork-bork-bork.html#4322 I borked another two hard drives today. Lost around 600GB of files.

Why?

Because Leopard’s Disk Utility is a piece of crap, that’s why.

I, for one, am seriously tired of reformatting hard drives on a Windows computer.

I recently added a HP Media Vault into my networking setup, with mixed results.

The Media Vault is a Network-Attached Storage device (NAS) that provides an always-on place to store data, supporting NFS, SMB, FTP, and even HTTP connections. In theory, every laptop on my network can use it for wireless storage, allowing each laptop to offload non-essential files, like our huge iTunes library. Given that I have Mac, Linux, and Windows machines to deal with, cross-platform compatibility is somewhat necessary.

My main goal was to point iTunes to use the Media Vault as the primary library location, which would let me reclaim 45 GB of disk space on my laptop.

In practice, this doesn’t work. Not. At. All.

It’s not that it can’t work. The setup to stream media over wireless is fairly easy. The drives can be automounted so the iTunes Library files always point to the right location. And the Media Vault works quite well as network storage for archives and nightly backups, a serious point in its favor.

But if you aren’t using Windows Media Center (which I’m not), then the streaming functions of the Media Vault don’t apply, and you’re left with the restrictions around transferring large files over wireless to watch movies. Video is the real trouble spot; audio is actually fine. Playback isn’t initially compromised by wireless network speeds, but it eventually fails. Badly.

Unfortunately, video is kinda important in this scenario. So you’re left with the previous options of splitting apart your iTunes Library, or continuously culling and managing your disk space. Which, in turn, is totally counterproductive.

See, one of the things I like about applications like the iLife suite is that they abstract filenames and location away from you. I just wish they could take it a step further, and abstract the physical filesystems used (like ZFS) so that you don’t have to worry about where the file is, it just goes and gets it for you. Local caching of frequently-accessed content, intelligent offloading onto network resources…

(Just think of what .Mac could be as part of a Apple ZFS strategy in this case. Yowza.)

The problem here is really one of expectations; I wanted one thing, but the Media Vault is something different. It looks to do what it does pretty well. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what I really wanted, so I have mixed feelings about it.

So, to sum up: I got a NAS. It’s cool. I thought I was going to use it for live media storage, but it turns out it’s only really good for backups and archives, so that’s what I use it for.

The end.

Now, if only I could heed my own advice.

1. I was seriously considering upgrading the software that runs a few of my sites to Movable Type 4.x to allow the use of the the iPhone/MT interface plugin. Yes, you read that right: I'm considering installing an entire CMS to get an interface for my phone. This plugin makes posting from the iPhone very, very easy. And a clean install of MT 4.x is actually quite easy as such things go.

   But upgrading from an old version, with an extremely custom template and unsupported database? Very, very difficult.

   So difficult, in fact, that I gave up trying to upgrade the existing installation and instead evaluated how much effort it would be recode several sites on the clean install.

   And the answer? Way more effort than it's worth.

2. I'm of a similar feeling of my second recent upgrade, of that to Apple's Leopard on my G4 Powerbook, Hithlum.

   My first upgrade attempt resulted in an unbearably slow system. This was not the desired outcome.

   So, after several hours debugging processes, killing off all sorts of little performance-stealing problems, I opted for a clean Tiger (10.4) install and trusted my backups. Tiger was great in all the areas I remember, and weak in all the other areas I remembered (cough cough Spotlight cough).

   After a few days of that, I thought that since there were enough other people having success with a clean install, that I would give it a try with a clean upgrade back to Leopard. In other words, I lost my marbles.

   You know what? I have not been entirely happy with Hithlum since I started meddling. And really, there's no turning back.

   Leopard may be faster than Tiger, but it doesn't feel faster. The 10.5.1 update helped stabilize some of the applications, and I'm sure that on a newer machine that I would be happy as a clam with Leopard. But instead I ask, was this really worth the time, effort, and money I spent?

   I suspect that the answer is no.

So: Future Brett! Listen up! I will make this simple for you. NEVER UPGRADE! Okay? Never.

(I don't know why I bother. Future Brett never listens.)]]> 4287@http://brettpeters.org/log/ Brett Peters Site Log 2007-12-04T01:48:52-05:00 http://brettpeters.org/log/2007/10/18/macintosh-software-part-iii.html#4247

Yep, it’s time to inventory the Mac OS X apps I have running on Hithlum again. (Parts I, II.) I’ve added a few new programs to the mix.

• I’ve used Chicken of the VNC a bit to control some Windows boxes, but generally find Remote Desktop Connection or Fog Creek’s Copilot to be superior for desktop support.

• I tried out EtherPEG and think it’s an eye-opener. Literally.

• I’ve started using iMediaBrowser to find things quickly, but suspect this will go in the Utilities folder soon enough.

• NetNewsWire Lite has replaced Google Reader as my RSS feed reader of choice. Google Reader was just so slow.

• I’d already changed many of these system preferences via the Terminal, but TinkerTool provides a nice interface.

• I occasionally have Twitterific up and running, though I honestly don’t use Twitter enough to make it an essential app. (Usually I post through a Quicksilver+Applescript hack.)

• I’ve started using WriteRoom as a composing tool instead of JDarkRoom, and am generally happier with it.

• Visor is a quick half-screen Terminal window that I’m trying out. It’s faster on the command line than invoking through Quicksilver, but may require some adjustments.

• I’ve tried out the excellent DEFCON Globe Screensaver from Ambrosia Software, and it’s a keeper.

Still in use:

• Quicksilver
• MacGPG and GPGMail
• SignatureProfiler
• jUploader
• xscreensaver
• Backlight
• Adium X
• Mac The Ripper / HandBrake
• DynDNS Updater
• Excel
• X11 + The Gimp
• GLTerminal
• iTunes XHTML Playlist
• MarsEdit — I liked this one enough to buy the license.
• OTR Proxy

Rarely used, but still useful:

• Audacity and the LAME codec
• Colloquy
• Crack Attack
• Facebook Exporter for iPhoto
• ImageWell
• iStat
• MonoLingual
• Nocturne
• Stuffit
• Telekinesis

The following were installed, but have recently been ploinked:

• Apple Backup
• Camino
• Cocoalicious
• Entourage
• Firefox
• Flip4Mac
• Google Earth
• JDarkRoom
• Keyword Assistant (which I really liked, but was replaced by iPhoto 7.)
• Mail Stamps
• MailFollowup
• Mail Tags
• MacSaber
• pearLyrics
• Stellarium
• Think
• VLC

(I admit, it was a little startling to realize that I got my first computer 25 years ago.)

The interview is now up at his site.

(In particular, Ctrl-Shift-V is totally slick for clearing one’s inbox.)

And while I have a long list of gripes (contact and email searching are laughable, .pst archive size limits are a total hassle, and why must you hog all my bandwidth for mail?) I’ve never really thought that the flaws were malicious. Quirky, reflective of a bias towards all-things-Exchange, but never downright mean.

That is, until I tried to set my father up with an IMAP mail account today. Outlook’s support for IMAP is worse than you’ve heard. And you’ve probably heard how bad it is.

My father had set up his personal email account on his iPhone without a problem. I’m not a huge fan of IMAP, but the iPhone got me to switch from POP3 because that’s what the iPhone does. It does IMAP mail really well.

But after setting Dad’s Outlook up to use IMAP in addition to his Exchange account, any goodwill I felt towards Outlook is gone.

• Want to connect to the server? Restart your client.
• Want to store Sent mail on the server, and not locally? Create a custom rule. (You want a simple preference to do that? Dream on.)
• Want to delete your messages? Better expose a control buried several layers deep. (Instead of moving deleted messages to a separate folder and hiding messages marked for deletion, Outlook helpfully crosses them out… and leaves them there. This is actually representative of the actual server behavior, but not terribly useful.)
• Want to use SSL on your SMTP connection? Hope you remember that it’s port 465, because the port won’t change.
• Want to stay connected? Hope you like the IMAP timeout dialog popping up every few minutes, because it’s better to notify the user than it would be to simply reconnect when they need to use it again. Obviously.

Listen. I know that Outlook/Exchange helped Microsoft get where it is, and totally killed Lotus Notes. I don’t fault companies for making their products work really well together. Outlook is a good mail client, especially with Exchange.

But it sure looks like Microsoft went out of their way to make a really good mail client work really poorly with an open, competing mail standard, at the expense of their users.

And that turns what could have been a great thing into something really sad.

It’s called “jailbreaking,” and it’s the process by which you can add third-party applications to your iPhone.

I feel dirty, but I’ll get over it.

Nice, funny, and to the point.

Me: I’m glad drive prices are dropping. I just got another hard drive for my laptop.

Them: Oh, you’re upgrading?

Me: No, backing up. This will make it three total.

Them: Why not just burn everything to CD or DVD?

Me: Er, because they fail and take your data with them?

Them: What?

Me: Gesundheit.

I then follow up with my tragic story of how I archived my entire digital life to CD/DVD, but when I got my Mac and started loading everything back, I discovered the sad truth: CDs and DVDs will degrade over time, and you don’t know it’s unusable until it actually goes. About half of the disks I made within the last five years were gone, so I resolved to go with a strategy with visibility, redundancy, and easy access: everything on a hard drive. CD/DVDs are only throwaway backups or installation disks in my house. The conversation would usually end with me talking again about the cost of hard drives coming down, me realizing I’d just spent 5 minutes ranting about the failure rates of optical media, and then a polite change of subject.

Now, I admit, I haven’t handled this conversation particularly well. I feel particularly guilty for having had it with my Mom and not immediately following it with concrete, practical, written advice as to what you should do to prevent data loss. It’s complicated by my running on a Mac, and nearly everyone else I’ve talked to using Windows. It’s further complicated because I think of my Mac as a UNIX box, so I can’t just say “go download X program and set it up.”

Instead, I have to say something stupid, like, “I have a series of interlocking scripts that automatically archive critical files and rsync incremental backups between external and offsite drives to ensure that the data lives in as many protected places as is practically possible.”

In other words, I’m part of the Command Line Ninja Brigade of Mac users, which appears to exist in a different online world than the Sweet Delicious GUI Army of Mac users. I don’t understand why this divide exists in the online Apple community, but it seems like you’re either for the Terminal, or against the Terminal, and never the twain shall meet. The opinions each hold are strikingly different, yet the crossover between the two is so easy. That’s why it’s a Mac!

I honestly don’t understand it. But there it is, Horatio: yet another undreamt of thing.

So.

Here’s my concrete, practical, written advice for backing up stuff, no matter what you run, or how you personally feel about the command line.

• If you run Windows, I recommend Gina Trapani’s excellent Lifehacker article Automatically back up your hard drive for advice in both software selection and how to set up a schedule of backups that will save your butt when Murphy’s Law strikes.

• If you run a Mac and don’t want to mess around with the Terminal, there are a lot of programs out there like Carbon Cloner or SuperDuper that you can use. I’ve not used any of them, but there’s a Mac Observer tutorial on backups that covers them in some detail.

• If you run UNIX, or are a member of the Mac CLNB, perhaps you’ll find my backup strategy useful inspiration for polishing your own data archiving obsession.

I even wrote the backup script in haiku. Just for you.

• ⌘ = Command Key
• ⌥ = Option Key
• ⇧ = Shift Key
• ^ = Ctrl Key
• ⎋ = Esc Key
• ⏏ = Eject
• ⌫ = Delete

As you were.