Recycling your iPod q2years

Dan's Data letters #130

Regarding longer life for LiI - nothing that I know of helps. It's a general rule that rechargeable batteries will last for more partial cycles than full cycles, and that applies to LiI batteries too; don't worry about running the battery flat, just top it up when you feel like it. The main problem with LiI is that it naturally ages quite rapidly no matter what you do with it; some LiI packs last better than others, and not leaving your iPod to bake on your dashboard in summer will help a bit, but you shouldn't expect any iPod pack to be good for much after three years, even if it's never been used at all. Death in two years is perfectly possible; common, even. That's just the price you pay for the excellent energy density of LiI - and it's also why I've got a Luddite affection for NiMH, and even NiCd.

---

The LiI battery in my iBook seems to last about 12 months. After two years one can either leave the iPod in its cradle and buy a new one for portability, or pay to have the battery swapped.

Why firewire drive enclosures are probably a bad idea

Drivers & Updates

INITIO AND OXFORD FIRMWARE UTILITY DOWNLOAD CENTER

MAXTOR MAKES BAD DRIVES: WE HAVE RECEIVED INFORMATION THAT MANY MAXTOR 250GB 8MB 7200RPM Drives MODEL 6Y250P0062811 (mostly made in June and July 2004) DO NOT WORK PROPERLY IN ANY FIREWIRE ENCLOSURES!

WE HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION: IF you are using Oxford 911 ,912 or 922 you will need to change DMA modes down to UDMA5 (down form UDMA6 default). This will fix Transfer Issues with these Maxtor Drives.

---

Firwire is a problematic standard. Oxford is a problematic chipset. Hard drives can be problematic. OS support for firewire can be problatic. Cables can be problematic.

So what's the chance that everything actually works?

Mac OS X 10.3.6 - example of a troubleshooting technique

Mac OS X 10.3.6: "Peter Chin
To all that were having calculator problems: I was able to get Calculator to show the Basic window every launch (its normal execution) by deleting ~/Library/Caches/Calculator and ~/Library/Preferences/ com.apple.calculator.plist. Do this and then relaunch Calculator and this should fix it.

It was interesting to note that ~/Library/Caches/Calculator was only re-created after I updated the currency rates. Little Snitch told me that Calculator had tried to access an Apple address and the International Monetary Fund."

Annual Business Registration - State of Minnesota

Annual Business Registration - State of Minnesota

Businesses in Minnesota are required to register with the state every year. I have a consulting business that is very active some years, and does nothing in other years. This year it's inactive and I misplaced my registration form. I tried finding a form online, but I didn't know the search terms. The State Govt site was of no use.

I finally dug through some old files and found a prior registration form. Once I knew the search terms from that form I found this site in seconds. That's when the real shock came. I could register on the site! As far as I can tell, it works. It took no time at all.

I'm still stunned. I never expected this level of competence.

The problem with finding such a site, however, is another matter. Perhaps this entry will turn up in someone's searches and help them.

KW: LLC, company, registration, annual, business

Training SpamAssassin

Lunarpages Web Hosting :: View topic - How-to: Train SpamAssassin

Entirely too esoteric for me, but an unusually detailed discussion.

LaCie likes DriveSavers for data recovery

LaCie - External Storage: Hard Drives, CD-RW Drives, DVD-RW Drives, Tape, Monitors

Before sending a drive to a data recovery company, check with the drive manufacturer to verify that the company is authorized to perform data recovery. If it is not an authorized company, the warranty will be voided.

We recommend DriveSavers at 800/440-1904. They are certified by all drive manufacturers to do what is necessary to recover data from the drive.

---

Good reference to keep. Never know when one will need a data recovery service.

OS X QA outsourced to Microsoft XP team: Another firewire debacle with 10.3.6

Apple - Discussions - 10.3.6 Possible Firewire Incompatibility

I just installed 10.3.6 using the software updater, and was surprised to find that my external firewire drive could no longer boot. I tried to mount using disk utility, but neither it or techtool can see the drive. The funny thing is, the system profiler does see the drive, but not the volume. Anyway, I'm sure it isn't the drive, as that works fine, and the case it is in is a brand new MacAlly external firewire 400 case (installed yesterday).

---

A convincing series of user reports are coming in: OS X 10.3.6 has run into firewire compatibility problems.

Just like about 5 other OS X updates.

The most likely explanation is that Apple has outsourced OS X tech support to the Microsoft XP team. Note that XP SP2 ALSO breaks Firewire.

Or, alternatively, OS X Firewire support is profoundly hacked and broken.

Or, alternatively, Firewire is a botched standard.

Or all three.

It is astounding. USB 2.0 is a much better choice for peripherals on Macs that support it.

Firewire is a cool name though, maybe we can use it for some other standard.

This is seriously ridiculous.