OS X Safe Boot: easiest way to repair disk (fsck replacement)

It's oddly hard to find a clear explanation of what safe boot does, and how it compares to repairs using disk utility (boot DVD) or fsck:

Care and Feeding of Panther

... Under Jaguar, you could run an FSCK from here to manually fix system problems (see the earlier article 'Care and Feeding of Jaguar' if you are running any of the various iterations of Jaguar 10.2.x). Unfortunately, with the introduction of Panther, Apple included a feature called 'Journaling.' Journaling is a system that keeps track of your file and directory information. If something goes wrong, your system might be able to be reconstructed from the 'journaled' information collected prior to the crash. It's actually a pretty cool feature, and it may keep you from ever even noticing that your system had severe problems and fixed them!

The unfortunate part is that this journaling behavior also makes the old Single User Mode FSCK maneuver unworkable. You can force the FSCK in Single User Mode with a little extra code, but you are quite likely to encounter erroneous error messages such that the system seems to have problems but really doesn't. The FSCK routine may not give you a clear idea of whether or not your system is actually fixed.

Luckily, there's a better way to do this. If you reboot your system into what is called a 'Safe Boot' (by holding down the Shift key after the 'bong' like the old Disable Extensions in OS 9), you will see the words Safe Boot in the loading box. When you boot into Safe Boot, Panther automatically runs a complete FSCK during the load process. It may be a slow boot into Safe Boot, because the FSCK running in the process takes quite a long time. It may even be necessary to reboot and run Safe Boot a couple of times, since FSCK may fix one thing one time and then find yet another thing the second time.

It's particularly important to run this Safe Boot FSCK process if your system has had a total lockout like a ten-minute spinning pizza. If you have had to force re-boot your system without shutting it down properly, it is quite likely that certain temp files have gotten corrupted. This may not show up as a problem today, but a week from now, you could get really nasty behavior and even unexplained crashing. Save yourself a little trouble and quickly run Safe Boot if this happens to you.

Despite running a journaled system I do get minor errors on occasion. I think it's worth doing this after major system updates as a maintenance step.

All that google does -- one search page

Phil Bradley sent me to this one. A set of links that maps out Google's many activities: Simply Google

Aperture 1.1 bug: unsupported format

Uh-oh. This problem is still an issue in Aperture 1.1:

Aperture: Metadata import/export issues (IPTC, keywords, EXIF)

Issue: Aperture won't import certain files with added metadata
Under certain circumstances with certain cameras, Aperture may not be able to import files which have had metadata added by Photo Mechanic or similar applications. Sometimes the file may import but then result in an 'unsupported format' message.

This sounds like a problem I've had with PictureSync. I know GraphicConverter also rewrites EXIF headers, I wonder if it's vulnerable to this problem.

Google Calendar: No Safari, no sync?

Google Calendar does not support Safari.

I don't see a way to sync with iSync -- but maybe someone will build it.

Official Google Blog: It's about time

... integrated with Gmail so you can add events mentioned in messages to your calendar with just one click.
.... simple to see calendars from your friends and family, or calendars you find with the built-in calendar search tool, right next to your own calendar. You can choose to share as much or as little of your own calendar, too.
.... You can turn any event on your calendar into an invitation just by adding the email addresses of your guests. They can see and respond to your invitation, whether or not they use Google Calendar themselves.
... Event reminders by email and text message to your mobile phone
... supports the iCal standard
... can add customized Google Calendar event reminder buttons to their pages, letting visitors quickly add copies of events to their calendars.

The lack of Safari support is disappointing, but as I recall Gmail started out without it as well.

Aperture 1.1: cheaper, better!

Apple - Aperture - Aperture 1.1 Update

Wow. Apple has dropped the price by almost 50%. Clearly the 1.0 launch was botched.

With my Microsoft settlement check and my iPod battery settlement code and my educational discount this one's "free" for me. I guess it's time to buy and start testing.

Blogger defends a bad splog control process

Blogger must be getting a bit of static, because they defend their Spam Removal (splog delete) process. My experience was rather different. Needless to say, Blogger never apologized. They have been arrogant and cavalier in their procedures.

Update 9/18/06: See this note for more details.

Macintouch: Boot Camp and AVG Free edition

Macintouch an excellent OS X Boot Camp report. If I had an Intel Mac, I'd wait for the next release of the Boot Camp beta.

The article also includes a mini-essay by Henry Norr, a well known Mac guru -- on Windows antiviral solutions. I'm no fan of NAV, so I'm interested ...

... . After trying all the major commercial anti-virus products for XP - most recently TrendMicro's - I have for the last six months or so been running something called AVG Free Edition from Grisoft

http://www.grisoft.com/doc/289/lng/us/tpl/tpl01

I recommend it highly for home users. (According to the terms, "AVG Free Edition is for private, non-commercial, single home computer use only. Use of AVG Free Edition within any organization or for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.")

It's updated every day if necessary, automatically if you configure it that way, and it's very unobtrusive. I have no way of testing the protection it purports to provide, but the reviews put it in the same league as the top commercial products. Complete system scans are slower than with Trend Micro, etc., but since I have it set to do those in the middle of the night, it doesn't bother me. The free version is limited to one automatic update per day (!), so in theory you could be vulnerable to a new virus appearing between one update and the next, but the odds of catching a new virus on the very day of its release are pretty slim, especially if you practice basic principles of safe computing such as those Bruce outlines...

I left out the parts where Norr blames Windows users for not sufficiently securing their systems -- while denying he's doing so. Sometimes smart people can be pretty dumb.

Another writer mentions that XP rots relatively slowly if it's off the net. I think that's true; I've kept installs working for years. It's annoying that it rots at all, but I do fear that after 2 years of my laptop's install I'll need to schedule three days for a refresh and reinstall. (I have a lot of complex software on this machine, and a lot of complex configuration.)