Okay so the cat is on its way, time to put some planning into action - hey, it'll give the TNT site a break from my continually checking where it is.

Upgrading Mac OS X can be typically done one of three ways, direct update (in place upgrade), Archive and Install (backup system files, retain user documents, network settings etc.) or Erase and Install which is exactly what it says. At each major OS upgrade I've used the opportunity to clear out the cobwebs and do an erase and install. This means there are no dodgy kernel extensions, input managers and the like hanging around. Archive and install would achieve the same, but the directory and file system would still be fragmented. So, to backups.

Backup Rule 1a: you can never have too many backups.
Backup Rule 1b: never trust your data to fewer than three different sets of media.

Kathy & I typically have three or four different backup sets on the go each. Daily (different location, same disk), Weekly, external drive and an old 4Gen iPod which is then stored in a safe at an Undisclosed Location. Also, occasional DVD burns of same, and very occasional backups of big stuff like pictures, iTunes libraries to an external HD. Each backup set has at least a couple dozen instances. Retrospect makes all this so seamless you almost don't realise it's going on. All I need to remember is to plug in the external drive before starting our own version of Iron Chef on Saturdays.

Backup Rule 2: test your backups.

What point is all this backing up if you can't get anything back? Regularly test that you can actually retrieve files and folders from your backups (and that the files are readable.) Here's an interesting one; I don't know if Retrospect actually runs under Leopard [update: it does], so while it's good insurance to have (Kathy's going to hang back on 10.4 for a while) I'm going to go with a more native approach and use Mike Bombich's excellent Carbon Copy Cloner. This clever piece of work can do a full bootable clone to another hard disk, but it can also backup to a disk image which is what I'll be doing since I know Leopard will read these.

Backup Rule 3: backup your configuration as well as your data.

Network settings, keychains, what applications you have installed, da woiks. All these play a vital part in getting going after a fresh build. What's the point in having a shiny new OS if you can't get your Mac onto your airport network? And without a list of installed apps, it can take you weeks of adding "just one more thing" to get the full collection of tools back together again. Luckily one of Apple's own tools helps out with this: Apple System Profiler. This critter not only gives you a full inventory of your apps, it also notes every network detail of every network location, except passwords. Those you'll need to track yourself using either Keychain or a password manager (my tool of choice is Web Confidential. Years old, but dependable.) Use System Profiler to save a complete profile to your backup disk.

If you have an Apple ID (if you've shopped at Apple online or iTunes Music Store you have one) it's handy to note it and your password down on paper, as well as your current airport network password (if applicable.) This will help fill out a lot of account information when the install is complete (even if you don't feel like registering.)

After all this, we're about ready to go... except I checked with our mail room and TNT have been and gone so it looks like my copy of Leopard isn't going to arrive until Monday.

<sigh>

But hey, at least I'm ready for it. In a cat-like state of readiness, in fact.

[not to be confused with the excellent iTunes add-on SRS iWow.]

So yesterday Apple did their much anticipated Apple Event (AppleScript geeks like me will likely cackle away at that term) and introduced a knock-your-socks-off gorgeous whole new iMac.

Were I not addicted to their MacBook Pro line I'd be slapping down plastic for one right now whether I could afford it or not (read: I cannot.)

There were other releases during that event that also caught my eye. The Mac Mini line was quietly refreshed with faster processors. It's curious. These little Mah Jong tiles are just so cool and functional and yet The Steve gives them at best grudging acknowledgement. A stay of execution if you will. Rumour is that he hates them. And I just don't understand why. Kathy uses one. They rock.

Long. Live. The. Mac Mini.

Another two updates caught my eye: iLife 08, and iWork 08. iLife I don't use that much so wasn't really compelling for me, but what really got my attention was iWork. It's all growed up! Pages >= M$ Word, Keynote >= M$ Powerpoint. This much we knew from the previous version, but there was a facet missing, and they added it:

Numbers >= Excel.

So, I must admit it's only now I've changed my thinking of iWork as being a poor [wo]man's AppleWorks (may it rest in peace, and ClarisWorks before it) but as a serious contender/replacement to the current Mac version of Office. And that's no mean feat. The MacBU division of M$ really knew what they were on about - and really grokked Mac. Hats off to them. But the new iWork suite is really something special. It is built for intel Macs[1], it 100% groks the Mac, and (I don't know whether this is new or not) it has jaw-dropping compatibility with M$ Office docs.

This is something new for me. In times past I would always, say, fire up a new version of OpenOffice or NeoOffice and eagerly hope this was the version that would handle Office documents. They would always do an admirable effort, but with compromise. One key trip point I'd frequently hit is the handling of multi-column docs.

OO (and probably NeoO) would have kittens with these. And in an 'I need to be compatible' world of a Mac-unfriendly environment, this is a deal-breaker. So, I ended up using M$ Office for Mac.

Until now.

Earlier this evening I zipped my M$ Office folder and assigned ownership of relevant docs to their relevant iWork counterparts.

Let's see how this works out; I'm hopeful.

[1]- BTW, may I add my vote to bitch-slap the guy who asked at said AE why Macs didn't sport the oh-so-classy 'Intel-Inside' sticker - so doesn't get the whole Mac Thing. Update: MacUser listened again to the Q&A and identified the guy. Have a listen to the audio of that moment (link on the article), it's quite a laugh.

Okay so this is old news, but it's one I keep under-appreciating and thinking 'yeh, that's pretty cool, must blog about it one day' but hopefully one or two of you may find it useful.

As you know, my current sidearm is a MacBook Pro. Love it. It rocks. It really really rocks.

I also love scrollwheels on mice. They just save so much mousing over to scrollbars to get to where you want to go. I also like right-clicking, so at each location I have either a Logitech or Dell (rebadged Logitech perchance?) mouse parked nearby. But what happens when you're truly mobile and either don't have a mouse or a flatish surface to ride it on? You use the trackpad of course. Okay so you need to make some compromises... or do you?

Q. Where's the right-click!?

A. ctrl-click (you knew that one, right?)

Q. Where's the scrollwheel?

A. This one isn't obvious unless you actually RTFM. The answer for current MacBooks/MacBook Pros is you're looking at it. That's right, your trackpad is the scrollwheel. Just glide two fingers down (or across) the trackpad and you get silky smooth scrolling.

Q. Scrolling across!?

A. Yup, works left to right too. And if you're using a real scrollwheel mouse you can do the same by just holding shift down while wheeling.

Q. You smug bastard, my PowerBook's too old for that!

A. That wasn't really a question, was it?

Q. That wasn't really an answer either.

A. Okay got me there (I'm blogging to myself to save latency...) but the last couple of generations of PowerBooks have trackpad hardware smart enough to track two simultaneous touches too, the OS just doesn't enable this functionality. So third parties to the fore: have a look at Sidetrack for scrolly PB G4 goodness.

We use Cisco VPN for remote connectivity with the Uni. While it's still technically under test (so used mainly for on-campus wireless and offsite support work) thanks to our resident network ninjas it works flawlessly.

There's quite a good Cisco VPN client for Mac OS X and it works exactly as advertised. Problem is (and here's where your average Mac user gets shown up for being spoilt by a consistent, elegant interface in all things Mac) how shall I say this?

It has a good face for radio.

Well, the folks at Nexumoja thought that too and decided to add their own touch. Enter Shimo. Shimo is one of those gems that does a simple thing well, ie. put an elegant interface in front of the Cisco VPN client. The main thing it does is give you an unobtrusive menu to switch between VPN profiles, connect and disconnect. It also utilises the (also elegant) notifier Growl to let you know what it's doing. Bonus points: the menu icon shows you the state of your VPN connection.

Okay, so hitting your Quicksilver keyboard shortcut and (er... you are running Quicksilver aren't you?) typing VPN then clicking connect isn't too arduous, but geez Shimo makes it a snap.

Okay, it's time I introduced you to one of my other friends/colleagues in our team (I work with some very cool people!), allow me to introduce you to one of our resident network guru/ninjas Rob. He's a serial flasher.

I should clarify a little by saying he's a serial EPROM flasher.

Rob's a cool guy. One of those quiet types. Think he subscribes to the "tread softly, wield a big stick" thing. Kinda like Chuck Norris only without the beady eyes and the really crappy 'I don't care what you think, I know I can sing' thing. Oh, and he does martial arts so he knows more than a roundhouse kick.

Let me tell you why he's a serial flasher. Rob is one of those switchers I told you about. He knows and puts up with Windows, he likes linux, but he's recently got religion about Mac OS X. One of the enlightened ones.

I'm going to disregard one of my unspoken rules about not talking too much about work and tell you our situation. I use a Mac at work, as does Rob (and Ben and Chappo for that matter.) We do operations on our workstations that can immediately affect hundreds, sometimes thousands of other people every day so it's critical that a) we have a rich set of capable tools that interact with our computer environment, b) that the platform is rock-solid reliable, and c) that said platform is secure to the point that it can be trusted with network admin-level credentials.

Windows just doesn't cut it for that scenario.

Due to politics and the old "nobody got fired for choosing M$" xenophobic thinking, we have to use what scraps of Mac hardware we can get hold of. In this case it's a bunch of retired G4's that were once top of the line but are now a few years past their use-by date (though still able and willing to beat up current Windows hardware and take their lunch money.)

Problem is that when we want to do stuff like run multiple monitors we have no way of even getting orders for commodities like second video cards approved by Those Who Approve Stuff. Again, we have to make do with what we can find - or finesse a solution with stuff that we can buy. It's a bizarre situation.

For a year or so I'd actually been running my work Mac with a (very!) old second video card I'd ripped out of one of my home machines. Funny thing is even though it was some 10 years old, it still out-specced memory-wise the current PC hardware we were using. But there was a problem. Mac OS X would work with it fine, but it knew it was dealing with an old card so couldn't use anything nice like video acceleration. End result, everything on that screen rendered very slowly. Rob took this as a challenge (he was also trying to do the same thing.) Long story short he researched, researched, researched, tried, and eventually succeeded re-flashing a couple of PC video cards we'd managed to acquire so they'd work with complete capabilities on Mac hardware.

Rob's tenacious like that. Nice work mate.

P.S. If you're trying to do the same, I have one word: strangedogs.

While visiting a friend's guest appearance on another blog I noticed they were using something pretty cool with their links so decided to give it a try here. It's called Snapshots and what it does is show you a -er- snapshot of a remote site when you hover over the icon just to the right of a link. Here's Apple for example, and The Reg. Dead easy to set up and a no-brainer to use. Read about it at Snap's site.

I'm curious to hear what you think. Does it get in the way, is it a pain, does it slow pages down or do you like it?

With the advent of the intel-based Macs which are able to run pretty much any flavour OS (thanks to the brilliant Parallels and VMware virtualisation products) and Windows XP/Vista with Apple's own Boot Camp, I'm seeing an interesting phenomenon at work. One by one, people who'd either resigned themselves to putting up with Windows or had been getting along with various flavours of Linux (which, like Mac OS X, rocks) have been making the switch to Mac hardware. These aren't just garden variety users, they're smart, savvy IT professionals. I think the security blanket of "well, I can always boot up Windows/Linux if I need it" (read: familiar ground) is the last nudge they needed. Getting jack of Windows' constant security, virus, spyware hassles is also a driver: what's the point in using an OS that a) you don't trust, and b) you spend more time maintaining than using? Let's not mention the Windows Update "okay here's your update but before you get it [shines light in face] PROVE YOU'RE NOT A PIRATE!" thing. "Genuine Advantage" is what it's called. That's funny. That's lawyers talking through Marketroids on crack.

And then they experience Mac OS X.

And they finally see what they've been missing: a rock solid "I'm not here to get in your way, let's just do stuff!" OS that is truly user-friendly, secure, savvy with corporate environments as well as anything the internet can throw at it and plays very nicely with others. Everything is intuitive, everything just works. And then they wonder why it took so long to make the jump from working around an OS, to enjoying an OS and having it work with you. So far the switch count in the little department I work in is three going on five in just the last few months. One such switcher while, I'll add, extolling the virtues of Macs to a curious Windows user who asked "are they good?" said - and this is a guy who seriously knows his stuff (hi Ben!) - said "Best move I ever made." Without exception that's the reaction I've seen with our switchers.

Aggressive hardware pricing is likely another driver. With .edu discounts, the current Apple MacBook line is significantly cheaper than a Dell laptop. That's quite something.

But as always there's the resident M$ fanboy saying things like "another person fooled" when he hears of another colleague switching to Mac OS X. Deluded xenophobe. Bless. He's probably still trying to stay in denial about backing the wrong horse.

I have to head south for a three day conference in a couple of days (three days away from Kathy - ARGH! ) so I'm doing what any self-respecting geek would do and loading up the lappy with games to while away the evenings in the hotel room.

Between bouts of Vice City I've been re-visiting the worlds of Myst, so I thought I'd try to get at least a couple of them running on the new hardware. Here's the thing; intel-based Macs don't run Classic, yet the earlier titles in the Myst series, Myst & Riven aren't Mac OS X native. This is one of the reasons I picked up an older G4 desktop on eBay (AU$80 is hard to go past!) so we'd still be able to play the retro stuff - but I'm obviously not going to drag a desktop along for the ride.

So, Myst III Exile and Myst IV Revelations were the candidates, the latter installing and running perfectly. Installing Exile proved to be interesting: the installer only runs under Classic. Bugger. So the gaming G4 comes into play. Install Exile on it, patch it to 1.22 and then the Mac OS X native version, then copy the folder over to the lappy and add the remaining disks of the complete install. Bonus: the latest patch allows the complete install to run without asking for any disks! Now came a curly problem: Exile ran perfectly (the animation is liquid smooth) but some of the soundtrack cut out every 2 seconds making it unplayable. Well, you could play it I guess but immersion is the key to any Myst experience and that's one helluva distraction.

A little searching found this thread over at the Ubisoft forums. The folks there identified that the sound issue only happened on dual-processor machines (which the MBP is) and infiniteline there came up with an ingenious workaround. Doesn't work with two processors? Disable the second processor. You can do this by grabbing the latest CHUD developer tools from here and installing it. You'll now see a CPU panel in your System Preferences where you can disable and enable the second processor on the fly. Nifty eh? After you disable the second processor, fire up Exile and revel in perfect sound once more. Thanks, infiniteline!

Oh and when you're done don't forget to re-enable the second processor so your Mac is back to it's full beat-other-computers-up-and-take-their-lunch-money speed.

When I was growing up I was notorious for not labelling my cassettes, yet somehow going by the look of the tape or the brand I could pretty reliably pick them, I'm sure all us old schoolers did that once in a while. Times have changed, and we now have digital music collections, so labelling is key.

Thanks to Kathy's influence I like to keep my iTunes collection well tagged. It helps with iPod navigation, playlist creation, and is generally just a much better way to go. The lads at work occasionally chortle as I try to remind them to name the tracks (if CDDB doesn't find a match) when they whack a random CD into the team iTunes player. I must admit I get a little fanatic about it to the point of deleting any song with a title of Track x. It's worth it though, I tell you!

That said, sooner or later your collection probably ends up with a small gaggle of untitled tracks that you can't quite identify but don't want to either re-rip or let go. The best example I can think of was back when I'd had to dash back to NZ because my siblings told me that Dad was getting to his last days. When I got over there I discovered in my backpack a mix CD that Kathy had secretly burnt and planted containing the most beautiful tracks to keep me going while we were apart. She's beautiful like that. Love you Kathy.

Enter iEatBrainz. This is a really, really cool app that can take a look at selected iTunes tracks in your collection and query them against MusicBrainz. Here's where the magic starts. MusicBrainz looks at the audio footprint of a selected track, compares it with a database and gives you an amazingly accurate short list of the title, artist, and album. It's kinda like playing a mystery record for your local music guru and he/she closing their eyes, listening for a short time, then nailing the title, artist, album, release date, what they were doing the first time they heard the track, etc.

iEatBrainz is brilliant in that it makes this whole process of interacting with iTunes so seamless. Just brilliant. Hats off to you Jay Tuley, thank you!

Oh by the way, MusicBrainz clients are available for other OSes too if you're into that sort of thing... Why aren't you using Mac OS X anyway?

About a year ago our home suffered a break-in. Few things are worse than backing up the driveway and seeing a security screen half torn off and a window open. We lost a laptop - Kathy's - we were spared the second since I take mine to work, my external backup drive (password protected, thankfully) some ID documents and cheques of mine which started a whole other sordid story I'll spare you, and Kathy's much prized digital Canon EOS 300D.

The last was particularly heart-breaking since we'd only returned recently from NZ where we'd been to Dad's funeral and the only copies of the pictures of all family, friends and the beautiful photo montage of Dad's life (which was on the coffin lid) were - you guessed it - on Kathy's laptop and the Canon Digi's flash card.

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Just in case anyone actually visits, I thought yesterday that it'd be pretty nifty to have some sort of traffic monitoring happening on the site to see where people are coming from etc. Since my dear friend Merujo (who's a far better writer than I and a very cool person) uses Statcounter I thought that'd be a good place to start, and indeed it was. Free service for low traffic sites (nice touch!) and dead easy setup. You basically signup, choose what web publisher you're using or go with generic, copy & paste some HTML on to your site and away you go.

So, thanks to the good folk at Statcounter I can now say good morning Ms./Mr. Rhode Island, thanks for dropping by.