Lame MacBook DVD drive

Maybe that's too harsh. It works great. It's a wonderful drive. I've never had a problem doing what it's supposed to do.

But, doing "other things"... that's another story. I was trying to make a perfectly legal backup of one of my DVD's, "NH", and I found that I couldn't rip it using MacTheRipper nor convert it using Handbreak. I can't give it another shot, because someone else is borrowing it right now, but I was just thinking that the drive might be too finiky to handle CSS decryption. I remember reading that it was impossible to remove the region encoding on the drives, hypothetically of course, as I had hypothetically done with my old PowerBook G4.

It seems that the PB has a much more flexible, albeit ancient, drive as I recall only having problems ripping one or two DVD's in the past.

Oh, well. I just have to remember to make my legal backups using my PB.

iPod in the house

Well, not really my house... the dept. scored a 30GB iPod, much to Katya's doing, this past month. It came from unspent budget money and we've already been putting it to good use, and there were those who said we wouldn't use it. Damn, all the teachers should have their own. Dubhgan has been showing in-class video projects, Katya and I have been playing sound files through the classroom TV's... the iPod kicks butt. We have it on manual updating so that we can share it between all of the computers. It's easier than erasing the thing each time. Making me drool over one for myself. I'm holding out for a large screen, high capacity model. Think 80GB iPod + iPhone.

Can't move blog to another account!

Looks like I'm not the only one who's had problems. This sucks. I wish Blogger warned us about this and updated their damn website. Now I'm stuck with two accounts unless I cut-and-paste all of the old posts into my new account.

phpMyAdmin

I got phpMyAdmin running on my server the other night. It was my second attempt to get it running. I had problems configuring it to work since the scripts couldn't connect to mysql even thought it was already running. I thought it was a problem with the sockets, but it was the "localhost" string. Apparently with my server, I need to use 127.0.0.1 whenever installation directions call for "localhost". Once I did that it fired up with out a hitch.

The second problem I ran into was an authentication issue. The database user that I defined wasn't able to connect to mysql via the script. When I removed the password for the user in the script, phpMyAdmin worked well enough. I didn't like the idea of running the scripts without password verification, so I took it off line temporarily until I figure out what's going on.

It's always best if I jam on a problem for a while, then leave it and come back to it later. The fresh perspective always helps me to see a different solution. I almost get frustrated at the things I missed the previous attempts, but I'm usually just happy that I figured out the solution.

Upgraded Blogger

I gotta say, this so-called Beta version of Blogger really kicks butt. I was hesitant to upgrade this particular account since I had done a fair amount of code hacking. I'll have go back in and add some JavaScript to make collapsible in-line comments, but I'm not too worried about that. The benefits of easy customization out weigh the re-coding.

PHP bulletin board

Now, I'm getting greedy. I want my own BB!
Dunno what I'll use it for... just to have one to play around with will be enough. I wonder if I can just use my moodle... this is just too fun. Too bad I have to work too.

Expanding FTP options

I've been running Mac OS X Server Tiger for a couple of months now with great success. One of the services I've configured and use quite a bit is FTP.

I've been trying to make the process as easy as possible for any user I would authorize to use my service (i.e. my students). I think our network is behind a firewall that prevents us from using WS_FTP. I use FireFTP over FireFox all the time from my laptop here at work, so I know the service is working from here.

I've tried two PHP options: phpwebftp and mywebftp both of which haven't worked. phpwebftp wasn't too hard to get up and running. I had a problen when I configured the default language as "english", but once I removed that, it would start properly in the browser. Then I tried to configure the default to "binary" and was able to do that after searching both of their forums. Finally, I was stalled at "Directory emtpy..." or some hogwash. I can't get phpwebftp to properly display directories and their contents. mywebftp failed even earlier for me. I couldn't install the scripts. I ran the setup.php and things didn't install properly, so I'm not even going to bother.

I found another service, net2ftp and I hope that I can get that running this evening. I've been using their interface for class and we had some problems, but I don't think it was due to the FTP client software. I think my G4 laptop choked while transferring zipped archives over to it from school. Oh well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Been gone, but busy...

Well, I'm back to bloggin. Since my last post I've:

1. Converted my G4 laptop into a server running Mac OS X Server Tiger
2. Installed two moodles - one running on Tiger client and the other on the new server
3. Switched to Parallels for running Windows XP on my MacBook
4. Changed the network entirely utilizing my new server's capabilities
5. Wiped and reinstalled HJ's laptop with an English version of Windows XP instead of her original Windows 2000 Korean version
   

The Powerbook G4 gets an upgrade

I'm still trying to remember when I bought my G4. I believe it was before I started my Masters degree which would put it around 1999. It's been serving me very well since then. I've been milking it for every penny. And it was a pretty penny indeed. I don't even remember how much I paid, but it was over $2000. When I put it like that, I feel like I need to get at least five more years out of her. The screen is practically broken off, but when that goes, I'll just add on an external screen. Since I'm running MacOS Server on it, I might just do without one all together.
I just installed its first new part: a brand new 80GB drive. It was a little pain in the ass to get it in there, but in the end, it was a pretty quick job. It gave me a chance to reorganize my files and install the Server edition to start with a fresh beginning.

I've been trying to hold off making any major electronics purchases here because everything is about 30% more expensive if not more. I found this drive at Hyakuman Volt for about $100 and wasn't really in a position to wait until I could get something from the States. It was worth it.

Localize.rsrc file won't delete!

And then I found my answer...

Every partition has its own trash folder. This is necessary because it means you can delete stuff without the system copying files to one main trash directory. On external drives, this folder is in the root folder called .Trashes (note not .Trash).

You may need admin permissions to see it. If you type this into terminal, it will list the trash contents on a drive:

sudo ls -al /Volumes//.Trashes

It will ask for you password.

Normally, the trashes folder has a list of folders named by user ID. I think 502 is the default admin ID so inside .Trashes there should be a folder called 502. To see what's in there, you would just do this:

sudo ls -al /Volumes//.Trashes/502

to empty it, you would type

sudo rm -rf /Volumes//.Trashes/502/*

Again to save typing the name, you can drag the volume to the terminal but don't drag it from the Finder sidebar. This will just remove the drive from the sidebar. If you don't mount volumes on the desktop, add the computer to your Finder sidebar (or go menu>computer) and access it there.

You can also use tab as an autofill so if you type /V (for /Volumes... above) and then tab, it will fill in the rest of the name.

In general, it's not a good idea to use sudo rm. Save it for those times when it's absolutely necessary. You can actually erase important stuff that way. This is why it's good to drag stuff to the terminal too because if you accidentally left a space out between the first / and what came after it, you'd erase your entire partition.

Free file hosting

Test File: How to Make Your Own Blog
FileFactory - registered!

FileSpider - no .exe files
Eggdisk - ?? not much info
FastDump - 150 day limit
Broomhosting - only images

Video converter for YouTube

I've only ran one video through this site and it rocks! We needed something for Katya's class and it worked perfectly. Now she can show this video in her class up to full-screen sizes.

.mdf files on MacOSX

Burning info
Split and Concat 1.6

Knights of the Old Republic

KOTOR has been crashing on me between scenes. It would load the next scene and then crash. Some days I can play for hours and others I can't get out of a small area. I also have problems just running around in some areas. The characters just get locked into one place.

I have been able to find some articles that say that it's due to Rosetta. The game isn't Intel compatible. Great.
Problems on a MacBookPro
PPC games on Intel

MacBook random shut down

I've got the problem too and there's tons of posts on the web about the problem. I'm just not sure how to handle the problem since I'm here in Japan, but bought my computer in America. I've got some calls to make.

Google: macbook random shutdown
Ubergeeks: Macbook woes continue, with random shut downs
Macbook quits unexpectedly

New iPods

Sooo beautiful!
The different iPod models
The iPodLounge

Vmail Pt1
Vmail Pt2
Vmail Pt3
Vmail Pt4

Wireless for Casey and Chieko

Went to Hyakuman Volt today to grab a wireless router for Casey-folks. We decided on an NEC Warpstar WR7850S, I think. We got the router set up alright, but weren't able to get the USB adapter to work with his iBook. If he doesn't buy an Airport card then he needs to use a Mac compatible USB adapter.

Currently the plan is to use a similar router which will allow them to use their work computers at home wirelessly. In the meanwhile, we're gonna look for either an Airport card here in Japan, or grab one of those Mac compatible USB adapters metioned above. Unfortunately there aren't many of either available.

Bring me Blogger Beta!

I've finally done some reading about the beta version of Blogger and it sounds pretty cool. I'm most interested in labels right now. That would be perfect. I wouldn't have to search backwards through my blog to find certain posts. The process is a pain in the ass. I can't wait to upgrade.

Windows OS registration numbers

http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml
Microsoft Windows XP
FWJ87-4QBRX-9Y9BH-8H76W-BVYTD

http://www.winxpfix.com/page15.htm
http://opensourcerules.info/oem_key.html
http://opensourcerules.info/cdkey.html
http://opensourcerules.info/programs/XPKey.exe

Gettin' round with my Garmin

Click on a link below to see where I've been wandering.

GEO001 - Geocache in Maui, "Fourth Marine Division Memorial Park"
GEO002 - Geocache in Maui, "Fourth Marine Division Memorial Park" Pt. 2
HI001 - Grandma and Grandpa Matsueda's Tree
HI002 - Haleakela National Park Trail Marker
HI003 - Haleakela National Park Picnic Ground
HI004 - Haleakela National Park Tent Site
HI005 - Makena Beach
HI006 - Haleakela Scenic POI
HI007 - Haleakela POI
HI008 - Haleakela Sliding Sands Trail POI
HI009 - Kauai Airport
HI010 - Kauai Hidden Tunnel Attempt
HI011 - Kauai Boat Rental Launch
HI012 - Kauai Haena State Park
HI013 - Kauai Napali Coast Hike
HI014 - Kauai Napali Coast Tent Site
HI015 - Iao Valley Swimming Hole
HI016 - Seven Sacred Pools Parking Lot
HI017 - Hana Highway Sunset Lookout
HOME - 114 Aiai Street
HOMEJP - Fragrance Perfume 201
JPN001 - Iwama Onsen Parking
JPN002 - Iwama Outdoor Onsen
JPN003 - Iwama Natural Outdoor Onsen
JPN004 - Tateyama Hike
JPN005 - Tateyama Lodge
JPN006 - Tateyama Ridge Hike
JPN007 - KIT Seminar House
JPN008 - KIT Niigata Ski Resort
JPN009 - Kite Park
JPN010 - Local Bamboo Forest Hilltop
JPN011 - Hot House Indian Restaurant
JPN012 - Pottery Studio
JPN013 - Osaka Station North Central Exit
JPN014 - Osaka US Consulate
JPN015 - Kanazawa Climbing Wall
JPN016 - Niigata Star Hotel
JPN017 - Picnic and Campsite
JPN018 - Tactical Defense Indoor Airsoft
JPN019 - Tedorigawa Airsoft Field
JPN020 - Hokuriku Expressway, Niigata Chouoh Exit
JPN021 - Niigata Aquarium
JPN022 - Shirone Kite Museum
JPN023 - Hokuriku Expressway, Kite Museum Exit
JPN024 - "Horse" Shrine
JPN025 - Hokuriku Expressway, Yamamoto? Exit closest to home
JPN026 - Parking Lot next to the bridge 2777'
JPN027 - Look out on the way to 4067'
JPN028 - Trail Head 4126'
JPN029 - KIT abandoned house 3019'
JPN030 - Hut along the trail 4866'
JPN031 - furthest Trail junction 4980'
VT001 - Little River State Park Campground
VT002 - Hellbrook Trailhead Parking
VT003 - Hellbrook POI
VT004 - Sportsman's Club of Franklin County, Inc.