The persistent virtue of old machines

I'm typing this post on a G3 iBook running OS X 10.3 and Camino 1.6.8.

I've not used this laptop for a while, it sits in the kitchen and Emily owns that space. So I was surprised to discover that it works very well as a web client (though the battery life is rather minimal -- the LiON battery died years ago).

The secret, of course, is to know when to stop upgrading. Theoretically it could run 10.4, but I know that would be slower than heck (it came with OS 9 and, I think, 10.1 or 10.0). Camino is a beautiful browser and this version runs very well on 10.3 (even has Expose!) . The iBooks always had great radio reception, and the 802.11b Time Capsule connection works (though there were some oddities initially).

Google, of course, is doing the heavy lifting. They keep getting faster, so my iBook keeps getting faster. That's the Chrome OS promise.

It's not just the iBook. Upstairs, with some hardware fixes and a few workarounds, my ancient XP box keeps getting faster with each release of Chrome. (My G5, however, is kinda slow with 10.5. I should have stuck with 10.4. The MacTel transition shortened the G5 lifespan.)

Computing ain't what it used to be. Feels to me like we need one powerful machine to manage photo, video, backup and file services, and everything else can just coast ... (Wii for games.)

PS. Considering the build quality of many netbooks, an old laptop with a newish battery is pretty price and performance competitive.

Facebook Pages: Beware the traps

I recently created a Facebook "Page" for the Minnesota Inline Skate Club. It was easy to create it, but I ran into two well known flaws.

I’ll describe those, but first I need to distinguish a Profile from a Page. A Profile is the representation of a person and is typically bound, behind the scenes, to a phone number. So a Profile is a pretty strong identity claim. Every Facebook user has a Profile.

A Page is a public manifestation, it’s always associated with exactly one Profile. The Profile owns the Page. Pages typically belong to organizations, businesses, and public figures.

Pages are fairly easy to create, though like all things Facebook there’s no obvious documentation. There are, however, two significant flaws:

1. The Page Creator is the Page Owner. Ownership cannot be changed; Pages cannot be moved from one Profile to another. The Owner is always an admin. The Owner may appear in the list of Fans, but they cannot post as a Fan. Everyone else who ‘friends’ a Page is a Fan. The Owner may make Fans administrators.
2. Owners can appear in the Fan list, but they are not truly a Fan. An owner cannot post with their Personal Profile, they always post as the Page.

The Facebook Page Admin forums have hundreds (thousands) of posts complaining about these two issues. The pleas are not answered.

It appears that the “proper” way to create a Page at the moment is to

1. Create a new Profile that will own the page (Page_Profile). Do this using a transferrable email address. So this is a transferrable Profile.
2. Create the Page.
3. Logout and login with your personal Profile (Personal_Profile). Become a Fan of the Page.
4. Logout and login with your Page_Profile. Promote your Personal_Profile to admin.

Now, depending on how you login to Facebook (which Profile you wear) you can post to your Page either as a Fan or as the Page (ex. Minnesota Inline) itself.

This is obviously a rather awkward arrangement; I wonder if the creation of a Page_Profile is even legitimate with Facebook’s Terms of Service. Facebook really does need to fix this, but I’m sure the fixes are not trivial.

Managing wet gadgets

This Macintouch reader report is the best summary I've come across on how to manage a wet gadget. Above all, remove the batteries ...

Macintouch - iPod: Washed iPods - Mark Hosking

Moisture and humidity are the enemy of any electronic device that has been "drowned" or dropped in liquid, because it causes oxidation of the metal components inside, especially if the unit is powered up as the electricity also "galvanises" the oxidation process.

If a pet urinates on any gadget or it gets dropped or carried into the ocean, or falls in an undesirable liquid, the first action should be to remove the power source and all batteries. Also DO NOT press the power up button to see if the device still functions in the event that it got wet when powered off.

Instead the procedure is to immediately clean any salt water, dirty liquids or pet pee out of the device, with distilled, purified or soda water. Do not use tap water as the chlorine in it is an oxidiser and this will cause more possible damage down the track.

Next carefully shake as much excess liquid (which should only be clean water now) out of the device and dry it with a soft cloth so that the exterior is also dry.

Finally to rapidly, and more effectively than any other method, remove all the remaining moisture and humidity that would otherwise cause oxidation and damage to the internal components of your iPod, phone, video or still camera, or any other expensive, delicate electronic device, grab a vacuum cleaner that has a hose attachment and patiently suck out the remaining dampness from the previously wet device using the vacuum cleaner.

Using common sense, pay particular attention to all the slots, sockets, battery storage areas and openings in the device as these areas will allow the suction of the vacuum cleaner to draw air and moisture from deeper inside the wet device.

The amount of humidity and dampness involved in this procedure should not represent a hazard to the vacuum cleaner.

Be patient and spend at least 20 - 30 minutes using this technique to dry the device thoroughly, changing the placement of the hose nozzle every minute or so to ensure that you get at the location of all the internal cavities. Do not rush this procedure, there are no shortcuts.

Never choose to dry any water damaged electronic device using heat such as with a hair dryer or placement of the device in hot sun or in a warm oven. This process will cause the internal moisture to turn to humidity that will lodge itself deeper into the internal components and this will ultimately cause more harm and ongoing oxidation. Therefore what may seem like a successful repair can often develop faults weeks or months later, related to the oxidation that you will have encouraged.

Next, clean and dry any previously removed batteries and reinstall them into the now dried device and power the device up, if it powers up and all the functions are OK then you have just saved your product's life and all it cost you was some patience and electricity to run the vacuum cleaner for 30 minutes.

Remember that time is also your enemy when needing to dry the moisture from the wet device, leaving it in a bag of any "drying" agent for several days will not arrest the oxidation the begins immediately the unit got wet, a vacuum cleaner will arrest the oxidation immediately when you use it to very effectively dry out the internal aspect of the device ASAP. As we all know "rust never sleeps".

Delayed write failed: Ultron and PSEXESVC.EXE

I really don't like it when I google on error messages and get zero hits.

My corporate XP box is giving me two forms of the same delayed write error message (image left). They reference two paths:

\SMSW161\ADMIN$\PSEXESCVC.EXE

\ULTRON\ADMIN$\PSEXESCVC.EXE

The only Ultron I know dates to my childhood, it's not a very friendly name for a directory.

Of course it's natural to think about viruses, but I'd have thought there's be some more hits on the topic ...

 

Update 8/4/09: A virus, after all. Some variant of Win32/ilomo.bc – but one that seems to spread over a network rather than as a trojan.

Oddest OS X settings: Audio MIDI Setup

Just about every configuration feature in OS X is done through "System Preferences" (Preference Panes).

Just about - but not all. There are some audio settings that can only be performed by a very obscure utility ....

Mac OS X 10.4 Help: Using Audio MIDI Setup to configure your audio system

... You can use Audio MIDI Setup to configure the audio input and output devices you use with your computer, such as microphones and audio playback equipment. The settings you can change in Audio MIDI Setup depend on the audio device you are using. For example, you can adjust the level for each channel your audio output device has available, if the device supports changing the level. To learn more about using Audio MIDI Setup, open Audio MIDI Setup, in Applications/Utilities, and choose Help - Audio MIDI Setup Help...

Mostly AMS duplicates other preference panes, but the channel bit rates, speaker configuration and output volumes are uniquely managed here. Every few months someone uses AMS to solve some obscure sound related problem, occasionally it's a voodoo cure for other oddities.

It's strange that it persists over so many releases. It should be Pref setting, not a utility. I wonder if it finally goes away in 10.6.

(I have an odd feeling there as a similar utility in MacOS Classic 6 ...)

After the battle: The improved Google Voice Web App

As every geek knows, the demise of the Google Voice iPhone app marked the start of the Apple-Google wars.

Barring successful FCC arm twisting, Google Voice customers must use the mobile web app with the iPhone.

The good news is it's much better than the last time I looked at it. In my testing today it was very responsive. In fact, it was faster to use for placing a call to Canada than GV Mobile, the native app I've been using.

The GV web app follows RESTful principles, so I save a phonetop bookmark for a specific call. In my case, I can create a bookmark that takes me directly to the call setup for my regular Canada call.

To complete my regular long distance call I tap the bookmark, tap the "call" button (or SMS) then choose the calling number (defaults to my mobile) then tap call. I tried saving the last screen so it would be a 2 tap operation but it didn't work. So it's 3 taps, but it's significantly faster than using GV Mobile (but not quite as quick as using the long defunct GrandDialer).

It's not nearly as good as the dedicated iPhone app we aren't going to get, but for my purposes it's pretty decent. Note phone search only returns Google Contacts with a phone number.

OS X Tip: Open all windows from the dock

I've slowly come to love OS X Expose. It's moved me away from browser tabs and towards using F9 to view all windows in miniature.

Problem is, docked Windows don't show up, and there's no obvious way to undock them all.

The answer -- hold down the Option (alt) key and click on any docked window -- all windows for that app will undock.

I discovered this one simply by assuming someone at Apple would have a fix, and knowing that the Option key is often used for this sort of thing.