OS X: The OS without backup software

I can't figure out how to link to the Daring Fireball post that sent me to rentzsch.com: Hole in the Umbrella: Backup 3 but it was a good one.

Wow. This is bad.

Rentzsch suggests using Retrospect. Uhhh, no. Retrospect was acquired by EMC, a mega-corp with zero interest in the home market and even worse support than Dantz (which is saying a lot). It was a creaky and ailing software package before EMC bought it, it's now a zombie. [I use an old version of Retrospect Pro for Windows, I'll use it as long as it works.]

There are some small distribution backup solutions for OS X, but they're hardly home user friendly.

Backup is in bad shape under Windows, but it's in even worse shape in OS X.

A handy tutorial on passwords

How To Spot A Psychopath :: Nonsense passwords :: October :: 2006. He likes nonsense words, and uses KeePass to measure entropy. 70 bits sounds like a useful metric.

The OS X keychain utility has a similar built in password generator and metric. GRC has a web accessible random string generator. I'd like to see GRC add a 4th option limited to characters that are clearly distinguishable when printed, thus avoiding i and j, 0 and O, 1 and 7. (Means you need a longer string to meet entropy requirements.)

Internet Acronym Server

This service dates to 1988, so it is of the age of Archie and Veronica and many other forgotten services of the pre-web Net.

It's rather nice to know that it's still running. Note the domain name: Internet Acronym Server.

MacBook random shutdown: balky heat sink sensor

I'd read many theories about the random shutdown problem with MacBooks. None of them turned out to be right. Apple had a hard time sorting it out -- they were replacing motherboards and machines for a while. The problem, apparently, was in a heat sink sensor:

PC World's Techlog MacBook Shutdowns: Case (Finally) Closed?

... Last Monday: I get a phone call; my system is ready for pickup. The courteous Genius who gives it back to me provides more details on the defect: Some MacBooks have a heat sink sensor that malfunctions, thinks the system is overheating when it isn't, and shuts down the machine thinking it's preventing potential damage.

Modern laptops are insanely complex. Apple needs to invest more in self-diagnosing hardware.

iSync users: avoid Motorola phones?

Reading this and a related iSync article I come away with the impression that sync is unreliable with Motorola phones, but I'm very intolerant of sync errors.

I think Motorola sells the most phones in the US...

Google product search without the parasites

Give me back my GOOGLE™ is a Google front-end that's designed to screen out the morass of software generated and fraudulent 'review' sites that now infest results of a product review search. The author uses a basic blacklist approach. Yahoo! had a similar product that allowed one to bias search away from vendor sites.

I hope Google is figuring out how to get rid of these lice, but in the meantime it's nice to see prototypes for future solutions. In the meanwhile I use Amazon for review information -- if you sort for lowest ratings first then read up you get excellent product information. If you're a hardware geek, the newegg.com reviews are quite good as well. Then there's Ars Technical, Tom's Hardware, limiting search to bloglines subscriptions, etc.

So it is possible to find good product reviews, but Google isn't yet part of the solution.

Force iPod to mount in manual mode

A good way to mount an iPod without overwriting it with an unwanted sync:

macosxhints.com - Sync parts of iTunes libraries from many Macs to an iPod

...hold down Command and Option when you first connect the iPod to mount it in manual mode...