Admin privilege escalation in snow leopard requires a restart

My first nasty regression with my new machine's Snow Leopard - making a user admin, or removing admin privileges, now requires a restart.

This is a pain!

Obviously done for security reasons, but it's a nasty usability regression.

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My transiently flickering i5 iMac and notes on academic store purchases

After an unusually prolonged period of weakness I bought a 27-inch Core i5 iMac. It's a lot of money, but we've had a moderate need for a new machine for some time.

I purchased it through the UMN apple store (I'm adjunct faculty) so I got $100 off but paid taxes (MN needs the money). The alternative is Amazon, where the final price is a bit lower (no taxes, free shipping) but there's a higher risk of shipping damage, a longer wait, and the modest hassle of pickup.

It's been a while since I bought at the UMN store. One things I'd forgotten is that it only looks like an Apple store -- it's a separate business. They don't allow any returns at all after something is opened (!) and they don't have access to all of Apple's bulletins and internal documents. Their mildly discounted AppleCare came with $100 off an iPod, but we already have a lot of iPods so we passed on it. My AMEX card doubles the standard 1 year warranty.

The store was selling Crucial memory for $180 (w/ discount), the same memory from Crucial is $114. I passed, the machine has 4GB. I'll get more after it's settled in. The Apple mini-display port to DVI adapter cable costs $30 and lacks analog pass through, Amazon currently has one for $8 (plus shipping!) with decent reviews and a full set of pins.

I'm sure I'll run into bugs. Here are the first three ...

1. After a restart it seemed to have trouble finding the bluetooth mouse. It put up a warning note but it found it a few seconds later. I gather this is a known glitch.
2. When I went to show the machine to Emily the screen saver started to stutter! I was going to tell her how trouble free things had been. It hasn't done this since, but there are known problems...
3. There's an old glitch with MobileMe registration that probably impacts me and five other people.

The MobileMe glitch hits people who have "mac.com" Apple accounts and MobileMe accounts that didn't migrate from the original .Mac account. It's not an unexpected glitch -- Apple has trouble with the five of us. It's easy for a geek to work around and only a geek would ever be in this odd situation.

The packing and unpacking really is a zen experience. There's one cord on this machine, and that goes to the wall socket. The screen doesn't feel big to me, I can get used to big screens very quickly.

I'll update this post or add new ones if I find any more surprises.

Update: An unofficial site claims Apple is replacing the video card and holding shipment. If I'd caught wind of this one I would have waited until the end of January. I'll go slow on making this a primary machine until we find out if it will need to go for repairs or replacement. It's quite heavy to move!

Update: After a few hours of running a network accessed slide show we saw one episode of severe flickering and another of stuttered image display. So I have the video problem. I strongly recommend holding off purchases of this machine. My serial number is W8946HAH5PJ (emphases mine), that would mean it was manufactured in week 46.

Update 12/13/09: It is a weird problem, but I can't believe Apple hasn't known about it for weeks. I wonder if this is why none of the three local Apple outlets had an i5 on the floor. The flickering video would get quite a bit of attention! The issue has started to get trade pub attention, so I hope we'll get an Apple response this week.

My particular machine passes all hardware tests, and I did the never-useful PRAM reset thing, but it still shows up during my screen saver photo slideshows (images are on a server, network is 802.11n). I called Apple Care just to create a tracking number for my machine problem, but I didn't ask for a replacement.

Most recently, I'm finding that after an hour or two (on average) the zoom and pan transitions will start to stutter, with occasional violent jerks. If I move the mouse the screen is fine again. I haven't had this occur except during the screen saver shows because I've made so little use of the new machine. I'm reluctant to move it into production use since there's a good chance I'll have to return it in the next week or so - which will mean a full reinstall.

I'm betting this is a hardware defect and it will require a recall or a firmware "fix". I wouldn't be shocked if there were problems in more than one hardware component.

Sigh. I know better than to buy a new Apple machine. I was weak, and I'm only getting what I deserve.

Update 12/13/09b: Saw this post on how a tech fixed his own machine. It hints at what to look for if there's a recall ...

Apple suggests ...

1. Verify if it occurs with an external display too. If it does (see separate chart)
2. Check all four cables for being damaged, pinched, etc...
3. If it still occurs shine bright (low heat) flashlight into front of LCD. Verify if an image is being displayed when flickering issue is occurring. If so, replace vertical sync cable (between LCD panel and upper end of LED backlight board) and retest.

If issue persists, replace LED backlight board.

If not, replace internal DisplayPort cable (between logic board and LCD panel), and retest.

For horizontal lines it says:

1. boot from dvd and see if it still does it, if not, it is a software issue
2. if it does still do it, check external display, if it does it there it is not the lcd, but could be the video card.
3. If video card is replaced and reseated and it still happens
4. Check ram by using only one module and testing with another available module.
5. If it still happens replace logic board.

Update 12/16/09: A relatively technical post from the PC World about flickering and the i5's graphics card. Reading the Apple Discussion threads it feels like there are more than one set of problems going on.

Update 12/21/09: Apple has a graphics card firmware update out for the ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850. Some machines may have the updated firmware: " You should see revision 113-B9110C-425 or 113-B8030F-260 if the update has been successfully applied." Apple is also busy deleting posts from the original discussion thread -- I wonder if the entire thread will disappear. Some of the deleted posts reported the firmware update reduced GPU clock speed and heat -- so it seems the update might reduce GPU performance.

Others have already reported the update did not fix their display issues.

This smells like a fragile graphics infrastructure prone to multiple pathologies leading to flicker and image mangling. It may take several different fixes to clean up the mess.

My own display flickering resolved a week ago without applying any update after I moved my i5. The only changes were a new outlet, very close proximity to my 802.11n router, and possibly a cooler room (but not much cooler).

Update 1/12/10: An interesting comment on Macintouch:

Patrik Montgomery

... There seems to be at least two different defects. One is a software thing that the firmware update is supposed to fix, and another is the display cable coming loose internally - possibly during transfer, which is why the problem seems to be more common with CTO machines.

The software defect seems to be something in the settings getting corrupted. A PRAM reset can correct this, but if the defect is still there, it might happen again at any point. The firmware update is there to correct this defect, so a firmware update + PRAM reset can be a permanent fix. One big gotcha is that the wireless keyboard apparently cannot reset PRAM reliably, so you may need to do it with a wired keyboard. A Windows keyboard works fine, if you don't have a wired Mac keyboard - just hold the Windows key instead of Command and left Alt instead of option (so Windows-left Alt-P-R).

Update 1/21/2010: I've not seen any flickering since the first 1-2 days of use. I did move it upstairs. Maybe a loose cable moved into alignment?

Update 2/2/10: MacFixit has a good discussion of the state of the fix after the 2nd firmware update. The newest update aims at the mysterious chip, not the graphics card, that controls the display, which I'm impressed they can update. Since this feels like a multi-factorial problem, this would leave people suffering from a loose cable that moves around when the case is moved. MacFixit suggest PRAM and SMC resets be applied after the firmware updates.

Update 2/24/2010: No flickering - so I never had any more after that two-three days of use. I wonder if a cable had shifted when I moved it around. I checked the Apple forum flicker thread -- Apple had to lock it on page 300 because browsers were choking. They hit some kind of forum software maximum. Apple opened a new thread to continue the complaints. I've never seen them be so accepting of unhappy customer posts. The second firmware update, the one that worked on the display chip, did seem to help many.

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OS X Apps to contemplate

The unexpectedly vital Macworld has several list of OS X apps and products to contemplate...

• Gems I’m thankful (nov 2009)
• Mac Gems of the Year (2009)
• GemFest 2009: All-time favorite affordable software
• 25th annual Editors' Choice Awards

Some of these I use all the time. Others sound interesting, but potentially risky. The ones that I personally might look into include:

• Shimo - VPN management
• RipIt - copy DVD
• ClickToFlash - Safari plug-in
• Back-In-Time - advanced interface to a Time Machine backup
• BusyCal 1.0 - tempting. iCal doesn't merely suck, it wretches
• Dropbox - I've been resisting, but I'm becoming resigned to yet-another-service
• Acorn - vector and raster for $50. That's hard to equal.

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Creating a photo collage: Picasa on OS X (Intel)

My family does some things well, but family pictures are not among them. So for the Solstice this year I had to go the "collage" route.

iPhoto does many things well, but Collage creation is not among them. (Neither is Library merge, but don't get me started.) So for our Solstice collage I had to turn to Google's free Picasa 3.6 for OS X (Intel only). It worked very well.

If you do go this way, and you're not a Picasa expert, these install and setup tips might help:

1. Download and install Picasa 3.6 for OS X Intel. It's a very straightforward drag and drop to Applications install.
2. Launch. It will start reading in your photo library. You don't have all day, so you want to turn this off. Go to Tools:Folder Manager and remove everything.
3. Go to Preferences and turn off face recognition. You don't need it and it will slow things down.
4. From iPhoto export your images to a desktop folder. (Picasa can browse your iPhoto albums (not events) in a mixed year/name hierarchy, but it won't let monitor just one album/folder. It's all or nothing for iPhoto monitoring. So you have to export.)
5. Using Tools:Folder Manager monitor the folder you just created to.
6. Select what you want to work with, and choose Create:Collage.

I didn't fully investigate the Collage tools, but they're impressive. Right click on images to change their stacking order. Click and move the red dot to change size and orientation. There's a "Clips" view on the left side you can add from, but I didn't investigate it further.

From here you can create your collage as a JPG that can be edited and exported. Export and them move it back into iPhoto.

I might start using Picasa for Mac as a supplement to iPhoto. Among other things, it's a powerful tool for reviewing and managing Picasa Web Albums -- which Apple conspicuously fails to support. If I do I'll write more on that, and add a link to this post.

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Google Groups and the lost free version of Google Apps

Google Groups, long thought to be following DejaNews into extinction, has been reborn as a Google Apps service. It provides mailing-list like functions, something that Gmail makes (intentionally) very tedious.

Google Apps Premier that is ... (emphases mine)

About groups - Google Apps Help

... As a Google Apps administrator, you can create and manage groups for your entire domain. If you enable the user-managed groups service (available for Google Apps Premier Edition and Education Edition)...

So we can't add it to our free family Google App.

The free version of Google Apps doesn't show up on the main page any more. It's still around though, hanging off Business Apps page (nonprofit is there too). I imagine it's a pain for Google to (non) support.

If the business version were $25 a user I'd pay for it, but $50/year/user is steep for what my family does.

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Build your site from Google web elements

Code fragments to embed bits of Google properties into any JavaScript compatible web site: Google Web Elements.

Note "JavaScript compatible". That rules out Google's all-but-forgotten Sites.

Louis Gray has the details (via Jesse Stay), he reminds us that YouTube is the most famous "embed" ...

... In a recent meeting I had with Google engineers at the company's Mountain View campus, I was told the expansion of Web Elements is an extension of the company's goal to be open and enable data to flow between sites, rather than keeping all the traffic for itself in a central location. But it is perceived that Google hasn't yet done a fantastic job of highlighting this available content, so, starting today, Web Elements on downstream sites will feature a Web Elements logo and click through to the service's directory...

I've updated the "translate" button on this Blogger-generated page (using the HTML/Javascipt widget) with the new Web Elements "translate" function. It displays correctly in the language of any visitor. Here's how one of my blogs looks translated to Hindi:

Not bad! On the other hand, their Calender embed is broken. They've replaced the "subscribe to calendar" button with an "Elements" button. WTF?!

They did better with the new "reader shared items" seen on the right side of this blog page and inline below. The new version now includes a portion of your "notes".

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AT&T call quality – down the tubes in the Twins

Until recently Minneapolis and St. Paul AT&T customers were spared the misery of the San Francisco and Manhattan iPhone users.

Alas, our day has come. Even as AT&T makes more noises about transaction-based pricing dropped calls have become a serious problem for me. I just had 3 drops in a 60 minute conference call.

I’ve installed AT&T’s free “Mark the Spot” app and submitted my first report. It makes me feel better, even if all it does is generate an SMS response from the death star. In the old days I’d have the more satisfying experience of joining a class action lawsuit, but the Bushies more or less cut that option off. Now we have to hope more US Senators start using iPhones. Those customers can get satisfaction.

I’m sympathetic to AT&T’s problems. The industry’s business model was predicated on their customers owning crummy phones that used very little bandwidth. That “tragedy of the commons” model collapsed when the iPhone landed. I doubt Verizon would have done much better.

AT&T does need to switch to bandwidth, transactional or tiered pricing. Problem is, they won’t be able to resist the temptation to shaft their customers during the transition. For example, if AT&T introduced tiered pricing but made SMS messaging a bundled component of transaction use, they might fashion a win-win for us and them.

I don’t see them being that smart however.

Sigh. I’ll put “Mark the Spot” on my home screen.