OS X firewire problems: occult solutions

MacInTouch Home Page:

About a week ago, I decided to add some new music to my 4G click-wheel (40 GB model). I placed the iPod in the dock and waited for the appearance of iSync and iTunes. And neither appeared. The iPod did not mount. Took the iPod out of the dock and put it back in. Still no joy. Checked all cables and connections (FireWire in my case) and nada.

I'm running 10.3.6. and iTunes 4.7, plus latest updaters for iPod on a MDD 1.25 ghtz G4.

So I ran the Apple Hardware test and it reported a problem with my FireWire bus. (I have no other FireWire peripherals.) The diagnostic suggested that I read over my warranty information and get in touch with AppleCare.

So I went to the Apple website in search of a link with which to do this. Decided to check the Knowledge Base and, lo and behold, I found an article about FireWire problems. The article suggested that I shut down the machine, disconnect the power cord and all peripheral inputs EXCEPT for the FireWire line, and wait at least five minutes and then reconnect everything and then boot up.

I followed this procedure and the FireWire bus came back up. iPod mounted normally and has done so since. No explanation in the article as to what causes this or how the fix works, but it did work.

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Firewire is too bizarre to live. It reminds me of SCSI.

Xcelis: cell phone to VOIP

Xcelis

This peculiar service is primarily useful for making international calls via a cellphone. In my case I all Canada several times a week. My employer has no trouble with personal calls on my corporate cellphone -- but not with calls to Canada! So if I switched to a corporate phone, this service could be very interesting.

OS X Setup Assistant Use

MacInTouch Home Page: "Following up on discussion of Mac-to-Mac migration, Steve Chambers suggests a trick that could be a big help when you have multiple disks on an older computer, only one of which will appear in FireWire disk target mode:

Actually you can copy the Setup Assistant to the old Mac; it runs just fine. Then you have access to all the drives and Apple's migration utility."

The magic that makes Google tick: ZDNet Australia: Insight: Software

The magic that makes Google tick: ZDNet Australia: Insight: Software

Quality of search results: One big area of complaints for Google is connected to the growing prominence of commercial search results -- in particular price comparison engines and e-commerce sites. Hölzle is quick to defend Google's performance 'on every metric', but admits there is a problem with the Web getting, as he puts it, 'more commercial'. Even three years ago, he said, the Web had much more of a grass roots feeling to it. 'We have thought of having a button saying 'give me less commercial results',' but the company has shied away from implementing this yet.

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I want that button! Great article on google's infrastructure.

Spyware and licensing - the stupidity of EULA contracts

Claria License Agreement is Fifty Six Pages Long

This web site is worth a quick read. A libertarian would enjoy this. Legal action against spyware companies will be very difficult; it's a libertarian world out there.

Buy a Mac.

Global Moxie :: Big Medium - Perl based web content management system

Global Moxie :: Big Medium

I may try this one out. I like the RSS features.

Getting Things Done and Managing Email with Lookout for Outlook

GTD: The Fallow's summary

A month or so ago I posted about the Fallow's summary on GTD. (see link). Here's a revised update. (PS. Too bad Blogger doesn't support trackback links!)

Getting Things Done (http://www.davidco.com/).
See also:

Atlantic Online | July/August 2004 | Organize Your Life! | James Fallows
David Allen's book. (This is a bit dated, he needs a new edition.)

1. If you can do it in two minutes, just do it.
2. Get everything out of your head. Appointments, tasks, notes, contacts -- get it into one place (eg. Outlook).
3. Tasks have three important relationships:
the minimal context needed for the next action (ex: anywhere, phone, desk, computer, network, office ..)
the project(s) that contains the task
date of next action
4. Tasks always have a next action. Identifying and executing 'next actions' is critical.
5. Record tasks/ideas at time they are recognized.
6. Weekly review of about one hour. (This takes me at least 2 hours but I'm trying to speed my review.)
7. Tasks don't have priorities. (Personally I use priorities on tasks but Allen assumes if a task is scheduled then it should be done. I see his point.)

How I handle email (using Lookout)

(Note this works for any email solution that supports full text indexing. I think it would work for OS X Mail in Panther, it will definitely work in Tiger.

Lookout for Outlook:

1. Install Lookout. Note this is an early product and has some rough edges. I force a complete index rebuild every night. Still, value is enormous. It has not affected my system stability.

2. Read message. Follow GTD protocol as above (see book too). Then either:
- delete
- create task and save
- save

3. If a task is needed, I create a task by dragging the message to the Outlook task icon. Outlook creates a task that incorporates the message content (text only).

4. If the message is to be saved I
- edit the subject line to be more descriptive of the message
- rarely I edit the message text or subject line and add terms I'd use for a Lookout search.
- drop the message in my "Save" folder (that's it). I don't use subfolders anymore and don't spend time filing anything.

Update 3/2/05: This related article talks about environmentally-induced ADD.