I've been working with CrashPlan Pro recently, seeding backups from my Macs to a 750 GB hard disk that will eventually live at a friend's house and serve as our offsite backup. It all went well for a while, but all of a sudden, CrashPlan Pro on each of the Macs started complaining that the destination Mac was out of disk space. That made no sense, given that my 750 GB disk had over 580 GB of free space, and everything was still set correctly in the CrashPlan interface. Late in the day, I sent email to the CrashPlan folks asking what might be going on.

Before I heard back the next morning, however, Mac OS X warned me that my startup disk was almost out of space, so I fired up GrandPerspective to see where my disk space had gone. Mac OS X's virtual memory can hog disk space, but there should have been at least 5 or 6 GB of free space. A few minutes with GrandPerspective, and I found my culprit, a folder in /Volumes.

Background and Explanation -- The Volumes directory, which is normally hidden in Mac OS X, is the mount point for external disks. That means that when you attach a hard disk to a Mac, that hard disk appears in /Volumes, and the Finder shows it to you on the Desktop and/or in the sidebar, depending on your preferences.

My external 750 GB hard disk is called "Adam's CrashPad" and when I looked in /Volumes, there was a normal folder with that name, to which CrashPlan had been happily backing up gigabytes of data. Although the disk appeared as "Adam's CrashPad" in the Finder, in /Volumes it was called "Adam's CrashPad 1".

As I dug into the situation more, things became muddier. It turns out that the main way this kind of replacement can happen is if a disk is unmounted in such a way that applications using it aren't made aware that it is no longer present, usually by powering it down, or removing a FireWire or USB cable without ejecting properly first. Certain applications then continue to write to the path where the disk had been, and the end result is a folder (and its embedded file structure) that matches what would have been on the disk, had it been present.

Needless to say, applications should notice the disappearance of a disk, and Matthew Dornquast of Code42 Software said that they had spent nearly 100 hours on trying to prevent CrashPlan from writing to a folder in /Volumes if the disk disappeared. However, I received reports of a wide variety of applications suffering from this problem, including the BitTorrent client Azureus, the Perforce version control system, Apple's Xcode development environment, and Mac OS X itself. (This is speculation, but Unix applications and Java-based applications may suffer more than Cocoa-based applications because cross-platform developers are more likely to use generic code that happily creates subdirectories if the parent directory in /Volumes doesn't exist; that way, the same code can work across different operating systems.)

Mac OS X can fall prey to this problem if you set your user's home folder to live on an external disk (which might be your laptop in FireWire Target Disk Mode, a technique that lets you use the same data on a desktop Mac at work and on the laptop at home, for instance). If that external drive is unmounted improperly, which is easy to do if you're leaving work in a hurry and grab your laptop without unmounting it from the desktop Mac, Mac OS X on the desktop Mac blithely recreates your home folder in the /Volumes directory.

You might wonder why /Volumes is writable to user-level applications at all, and the answer seems to be that such permissions are necessary to allow anyone, even a restricted account, to insert removable media, which of course needs to be mounted in /Volumes. If /Volumes weren't world-writable, user-level applications wouldn't be able to create new folders there.

Delete and Reboot, For Now -- Solving my particular problem was easy. I simply viewed /Volumes in the Finder by choosing Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu (Command-Shift-G), and then typing /Volumes in the dialog that appeared. Once I could see /Volumes, I trashed the "Adam's CrashPad" folder, emptied the Trash to reclaim the necessary space, and rebooted quickly, before CrashPlan could recreate the folder in /Volumes. A similar process should work in other situations.

More generally, this is an architectural problem in Mac OS X that Apple needs to fix. Although applications bear some responsibility for creating folders in /Volumes when they shouldn't, the operating system should protect itself from such an obvious misuse. Unfortunately, a vast amount of code, both from Apple and other developers, assumes that /Volumes is writable, which means that fixing the bug would require lots of other changes, and Apple hasn't had the fortitude to force such an unpalatable solution on developers.

Until such time as Apple re-architects this aspect of Mac OS X, it will remain up to developers to work around the problem by avoiding coding techniques that happily create entire hierarchies of files and folders even if the parent volume is no longer present.

 

Copyright © 2008 Adam C. Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

WebCrossing Neighbors Creates Private Social Networks
Create a complete social network with your company or group's
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I've been using a Kensington SaddleBag to haul my laptop and associated crud around on trips for more years than I can remember. It's a messenger-style bag with a padded pocket for a laptop, another large pocket for gear, a zippered pocket with lots of small internal pockets for cables, pens, business cards, and coins. There are also two external pockets, one on the big flap that closes the bag, and another on the back that's good for magazines. But what has always set the SaddleBag apart for me is a clever pocket on the outside flap that's sized perfectly for airline boarding passes (which I'm always nervous about dropping otherwise) and the hidden backpack straps in the back pocket. Although I usually rely on a nicely padded shoulder strap, there have been numerous times over the years where converting it to a backpack made for more comfortable carrying.

My beloved SaddleBag has been fraying a bit around the edges, but I'm not sufficiently vain that I'd ditch such a highly functional bag based on looks alone. But on our last trip, the unthinkable happened, and a major seam on the side gave way, threatening to spread various electronic gadgets over the floor of the plane. It was time for a new bag for my MacBook and gear (which likely weighs more than the MacBook itself).

My first step was to re-read Jeff Carlson's excellent overview of how to choose a laptop case (check out "Buying a Laptop Bag," 2004-04-05). But as much as I appreciated having all the possible features and pitfalls brought to my attention, it was also a bit frustrating, since I couldn't lay my hands on bags from highly regarded manufacturers like Tom Bihn, Brenthaven, Crumpler, and Matias. If only it had been Macworld Expo time, since many the bag manufacturers have booths at Macworld where you can poke and prod most of their models, as Karen Anderson did last year (see "Macworld Expo Laptop Bag Roundup and Slideshow," 2008-01-23).

Amusingly, the replacement bag topic came up on a mailing list I'm on just as I was starting my search, and a surprising number of people strongly recommended the Brenthaven Pro 15/17 Backpack, which is designed specifically for Apple's 15-inch and 17-inch laptops. (Many bags, including my SaddleBag, can't handle the 17-inch models).

This was about the time I started to freeze up on the decision. I'm one of those people who is congenitally incapable of purchasing something without knowing all the alternatives, options, and price points. It's a curse, especially when it comes to something like a laptop bag, where there are hundreds of models, each differing in subtle ways that I could probably discern only in person, and ranging in price from $20 to $200. If I was ever forced to buy an iPod case, my brain would probably short-circuit.

That was when I had a flash of insight. I actively liked my Kensington SaddleBag, and the only reason I was in the market for a new bag was because of a seam ripping out. (And yes, it ripped in such a way that I wouldn't have trusted myself to repair it with any guarantee of long-term success.) So I popped over to Kensington's Web site, where I discovered that they still sell the SaddleBag, along with the SaddleBag Pro, which features a bottom-mounted drawer for cables and other junk. Some random searching around the Web also revealed the existence of a SaddleBag Ultra, which still exists on Kensington's Web site, but oddly isn't linked from the main navigation. The SaddleBag Ultra seems almost identical to the original SaddleBag, but with the addition of a webbed pocket on one side for a water bottle, which would be great, since I always disliked putting water bottles inside my SaddleBag with my electronics.

So why not just buy basically the same bag again? Sure, I wasn't expanding my horizons, but we're talking a laptop bag here, not some new hobby for my non-existent free time. All my familiar spots for storing different bits of gear would still be there, and years of muscle memory for opening and closing the bag and pulling things out wouldn't be wasted. But what clinched my decision to buy the SaddleBag Ultra was the discovery, via Amazon.com, that it was readily available for between $30 and $40. Compared to what you can pay for a laptop bag, that's practically free.

It arrived a few days ago, and although I haven't had a trip since, I fully enjoyed transferring everything I regularly carried from the old bag to the equivalent spot in the new one. The handle lacks the foam pad from the previous model, but it's similarly padded, and I don't anticipate it being a problem. The backpack straps on the new one are much more padded, though, which will be highly welcome. I can't compare the shoulder straps, since I have a really padded one that I bought separately and enjoy every time I use it. Some of the smaller zippered pockets have a slightly different configuration, with some being better and others worse, but all-in-all, it's basically the same old bag. I can't say if it's the perfect bag for you, but it's inexpensive and meets my needs well.

And that's what I now know I really wanted: the same old bag, slightly updated and improved. This may be a sign that I'm getting old, but luckily, since I am getting older, I don't care.

 

Copyright © 2008 Adam C. Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

Bare Bones Software's BBEdit 8.7 -- Latest version offers a
major interface overhaul, new prefs, text clippings, improved
JavaScript, new Ruby/SQL/YAML/Markdown support, code folding.
Over 160 new features in all! <http://www.barebones.com/>.  

• PageSender 4.3 from SmileOnMyMac offers minor updates to this fax application, including options to clear the Recent Faxes and Recent Emails list. ($39.95 new, free upgrade for 4.x users, 7 MB)
• CrowzNest 2.0 and Captain FTP 5.3 from Xnet Communications are new versions of two intertwined file upload and remote file management programs. CrowzNest links local files to remote destinations using FTP, SSL, SFTP, or WebDAV ($11 new, no upgrades, 2 MB). This release provides a little more flexibility, allowing files to be sent to multiple remote hosts, archiving files after upload, and notification after upload. Version 2.0 requires Captain FTP 5.3, a full-featured file transfer client, which fixed a couple of bugs in this release as well. ($29 new, free upgrade for 5.x users, 10 MB)
• AOL Desktop 1.0 replaces the horrible, horrible America Online client that's been in use for many years. The new AOL Desktop software, which works with AOL's free "bring your own broadband" offering and their paid services, uses Apple's Webkit underneath their tabbed browser, and can import email and favorites from the older client. Did I mention how horrible that older client was? (free, 12 MB)

 

Copyright © 2008 TidBITS Staff. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

Bare Bones Software's BBEdit 8.7 -- Latest version offers a
major interface overhaul, new prefs, text clippings, improved
JavaScript, new Ruby/SQL/YAML/Markdown support, code folding.
Over 160 new features in all! <http://www.barebones.com/>.  

Looking to get more out of the latest version of Apple Mail, the one that ships with Leopard? Help is now at hand in the form of Joe Kissell's 95-page book, "Take Control of Apple Mail in Leopard." This title is chock full of handy tips, carefully considered procedures, and troubleshooting assistance. Along with coverage of 14 new features in Leopard's version of Mail, Joe delves into the nitty-gritty of account setup; helps you get organized so you can read your most important messages first; and thoroughly covers the ins and outs of addressing, composing, and sending email. Plus, he examines making Time Machine backups of your email, Address Book integration, Notes and To-Do items, archiving messages, and how to proceed if you run into a problem with not being able to send or receive email, or some other annoying bug-a-boo.

Joe has also updated "Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail" for Leopard, and it goes far beyond the three pages of basic spam-zapping advice offered in "Take Control of Apple Mail in Leopard." Weighing in at 71 pages, "Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail" gives you background information so you understand more of what's going on with spam, detailed advice for configuring Mail to maximize its effectiveness at eliminating spam, and carefully researched coverage of utilities that can improve Mail's spam-slaying capabilities. "Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail" comes with a coupon for $5 off SpamSieve (normally $30), Joe's top pick for a third-party spam-fighting utility.

Each title costs $10 singly, but you can save $5 by purchasing them together in a bundle. Look for a bundle option at the left side of either book's Web page.

Owners of "Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger" who purchased before 01-Oct-07 can click the Check for Updates button on the first page of the ebook's PDF to access a special upgrade discount. Everyone who purchased on or after that date should already have received a download link for a free update. Contact us at tc-comments@tidbits.com if our email didn't arrive. Owners of "Take Control of Email in Apple Mail" (the Panther edition) can click the Check for Updates button on the first page of the ebook's PDF to access a special upgrade discount.

If you already own "Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail", you can upgrade for free. Open your existing PDF and on page 1, click Check for Updates, and download the new version from the Web page that loads.

 

Copyright © 2008 Adam C. Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

WebCrossing Neighbors Creates Private Social Networks
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Carrying on from my earlier blog post about the hacked version of GrandPerspective and how to use it on your Time Machine backups: It turns out there was something I didn't appreciate correctly. The hack here is that if a file is hard-linked, it's filtered out, as if it didn't exist at all.

So this means that my earlier statement, that this version of GrandPerspective gives you a better idea how large your backup folder is, was totally wrong (and has been cleverly expunged). Even more important, it raises the question: "So what's the good of that?"

It's good for two reasons. First, a big file or folder whose contents are changing faster than the frequency of your Time Machine backups (snapshots) will not be a hard link, it will show up in the GrandPerspective display, and so it will be easy to spot. The efficacy of this depends somewhat on your not making snapshots too often, or on your pruning your backups. But I do prune my backups (using Delete Backup to remove entire snapshots at a time), so it is efficacious.

Second - and this is really the clincher - a lot depends on when you use this version of GrandPerspective. A really good time to use it is immediately after making a snapshot. Point it at the "Latest" backup folder, and you will instantly learn what was copied into your backup folder in this most recent snapshot. What you learn may surprise you, and may help you take some control of your backups.

Here's what happened to me today. I made a snapshot and was amazed to have Time Machine tell me that it was copying 3GB. Why? I ran GrandPerspective to find out, and saw that this was all a bunch of MP3 files in my iTunes Library. But these files weren't new! No, but they were changed. I had recently assigned them an album, to help clump them together on my iPod.

This is just the sort of thing that's wrong with the whole Time Machine concept. Here we are, backing up 3GB of songs, duplicating the existing 3GB of songs within the backup folder, just because I made one tiny little change. Each of these songs now appeared in two versions in the backup folder - unnecessarily.

Time Machine doesn't give you an obvious way out of this situation, but with a little luck, you can mess with its head. Here's what I did. I entered the Time Machine interface, found the files in question, and told Time Machine to delete all copies of them. Now each song appeared in no versions in the backup folder. Then I exited the Time Machine interface, and immediately made a new snapshot. Now each song appeared in one version in the backup folder - which is just what I wanted.

 

Copyright © 2008 Matt Neuburg. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

Fetch Softworks: Fetch 5.3 has WebView, the easy way
to view files in a browser and copy Web addresses from Fetch.
Also a new look for Leopard, droplet shortcuts, and more.
Download your free trial version! <http://fetchsoftworks.com/>  

I was one of those people who never intended to purchase an iPhone before Apple released its putative second version. Yet, I somehow found myself sitting on an airplane home from San Francisco with a new iPhone in my pocket. It may have been the last day of Macworld Expo; to be honest, things are a little fuzzy. The iPhone has quickly become both an indispensable tool and my favorite toy. And like any security geek, I've spent a fair bit of time digging through all the options and making sure the iPhone is as safe as it is a pleasure to use.

We don't spend a lot of time thinking about the security of the phones in our pockets, mostly because the odds of losing or breaking it are far higher than someone hacking it. One thing I realized quickly when using my iPhone is that I need to think of it more as a cross between a computer and a phone. We iPhone users check email and browse the Web on our iPhones as much as on our Macs, but there's one key difference: the iPhone is always in a pocket and always on the network. While there isn't a lot you need to do from a security standpoint, I do have a few recommendations that stem from how we use iPhones differently than other devices.

Set a Passcode -- The first thing that I recommend you do is set an access passcode in case you lose your phone. Your iPhone becomes inaccessible when it's locked down (at an interval you set) until you enter the passcode. Corporations often require passcode protection for smartphones that they require employees to carry, but it's not something we think about for our consumer phones. Since the iPhone contains all your email accounts, all your contacts, and possibly access to private Web sites that control access via cookies, you have more to lose than with a standard phone. If you find that entering the passcode over and over again is too much trouble, think carefully about the data that you've stored on your iPhone, so you can minimize damage in the event that your iPhone is lost or stolen. For example, be prepared to immediately change all your passwords for email accounts you read on the iPhone.

You can set the passcode from Settings > General > Passcode Lock. Don't forget the code you set, or you'll have to reset your phone in iTunes to regain access. I keep my iPhone set to lock itself automatically every 15 minutes since I'm paranoid (as a security writer, I'm a bit more of a target than most people), but most people will be fine with a 1-hour lock.

Don't Remember Open, Unencrypted Wi-Fi Networks -- One nice feature of the iPhone is that it can remember the settings for every Wi-Fi network you connect to, and automatically reconnect to these networks in the future. Have it memorize your home and office network names (the SSIDs) and passwords, and you're automatically connected when you move between home and work, using AT&Ts (slow) EDGE network when you're out and about.

The problem is that a lot of networks use the same network name, like "linksys" (for Linksys wireless access points), "tsunami" (for Cisco), or "default". Your phone can't tell the difference between different open, unencrypted networks that use the same name, even though Wi-Fi access points also broadcast a unique embedded number.

All a bad guy has to do is set up an open access point with a common name and start collecting the network traffic of anyone passing by. If you live in a rural or suburban area, this probably isn't much of a concern, but if you spend time in urban areas, airports, or conference centers it's a small, but real, risk. If any of that traffic is unencrypted and sensitive, say an email password, the bad guy (or, more likely, curious teenager) can capture it.

I wrote more about these risks on my blog, and the solution is simple. On your iPhone, go into Settings > Wi-Fi and set the slider for "Ask to Join Networks" on. For those times you need to connect on an open network, just make sure you "forget" it from the iPhone interface (again, in Settings > Wi-Fi) when you're done.

For networks that you control, like your home network, just make sure to at least enable wireless encryption (preferably WPA). A unique name is also a good idea: with WPA and WPA2, the network name is used as part of the encryption process, and changing the name from its default setting improves your security there, too. (Apple names its base stations with part of the unique network address by default, like "AirPort Network 00b33f", you'll likely want to change that anyway!)

Your phone won't connect to a network with the same name (should you run across one) unless both the network ID and password match. And if you use Apple's AirPort base stations (Extreme or Express), AirPort Utility makes every effort to keep you from setting up an unencrypted network, and even marks an open network as a configuration error.

Use a VPN -- With an ever-increasing number of hotspots offering free Wi-Fi, such as at all Starbucks stores as AT&T takes over their hotspot network, it's likely that we iPhone owners will find ourselves connecting to more open Wi-Fi networks in the future to take advantage of free, high speed bandwidth. Any open Wi-Fi network is a risk, free or not, but I for one have always been turned off by overpriced wireless and use free options much more frequently. As we expand out use of free networks, it's also more likely we'll eventually wander into an open network with a name we've remembered, probably near a college, where someone decides to sniff the traffic.

The good news, yet again, is that Apple includes a virtual private network (VPN) client on the iPhone. Virtual private networks are encrypted tunnels between you and a gateway, but by default, they only encrypt traffic destined for that network. If you connect to a VPN to check your email, only that email traffic is encrypted unless you tell your iPhone to "Send all traffic" to the remote network. This is also, conveniently, an option in the VPN settings on your iPhone.

Setting up a VPN is beyond the scope of this article (see Glenn Fleishman's "Secure Your iPhone Connections at Macworld Expo - and Beyond," 2008-01-09, for more details), but if you use the PPTP option, be sure you set the encryption level to "Maximum" to prevent bad guys from sniffing your VPN password.

The biggest problem with the iPhone's VPN is that it doesn't engage automatically. If you wander in and out of a Wi-Fi network's coverage, and the iPhone switches to EDGE and back, you'll lose your Internet connection (if the VPN connection tries to remain active) or your VPN protection (if it does not). Here's hoping Apple fixes that in the iPhone 2.0 software.

Relax and Enjoy -- That's about all you need to do to secure your iPhone, and as I said, keeping an iPhone safe is more about not leaving it in a cab or knocking it onto a hard floor than encrypting every bit of data in and out. Most of you will never have to worry about network sniffing or advanced attacks, but a few extra, simple precautions never hurt. Especially those of you wandering around college campuses or technology conferences.

 

Copyright © 2008 Rich Mogull. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

VMware Fusion. The most seamless way to run Windows on your Mac.
Backed by nearly a decade of proven virtualization technology.
Try VMware Fusion today for free, or order online for only $79.
Visit: <http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/vmware-fusion.html>  

ManOpen/OpenMan Usage -- Could Leopard be the reason that the ManOpen graphical interface to the Unix man program isn't working for a reader? (3 messages)

Mixing "n" Express with "b/g" Wireless Network -- Mixing wireless networking standards has resulted in a slower network, but where's the bottleneck? (5 messages)

Back to My Mac Leads to Recovery of Stolen Mac -- After reading Glenn's article about Back to My Mac helping to rescue a stolen laptop, a reader points to Undercover, software designed just for that purpose. (1 message)

 

Copyright © 2008 Jeff Carlson. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

VMware Fusion. The most seamless way to run Windows on your Mac.
Backed by nearly a decade of proven virtualization technology.
Try VMware Fusion today for free, or order online for only $79.
Visit: <http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/vmware-fusion.html>  

Sometimes our April Fools issues are a little too prescient. Rich Mogull, our security editor, wrote "Mac Users Affected by New Virus" (2008-04-01) in such a way that it took a few paragraphs before it became clear he was talking about a biological virus, not a computer virus. But by the end of the article, the fact that it was a spoof should have become obvious.

Unfortunately, at the recent JavaOne Conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco, 70 people fell victim to a norovirus, suffering nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea just as had supposedly happened in Rich's spoof. 67 of the victims were staff working at the conference, although 3 attendees also fell sick. None were hospitalized.

So next time you're at a conference, we really do recommend washing your hands a lot. And as I'm constantly reminding the 9-year-old Tristan... with soap!

 

Copyright © 2008 Adam C. Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

Fetch Softworks: Fetch 5.3 has WebView, the easy way
to view files in a browser and copy Web addresses from Fetch.
Also a new look for Leopard, droplet shortcuts, and more.
Download your free trial version! <http://fetchsoftworks.com/>  

When I was reporting from CES in Las Vegas last January, one of the more interesting technology experiences I had was away from the show floor, back in my hotel room. After a long night and little sleep, I decided to watch a little television; apparently this is common in Vegas, as my budget hotel considered a 42-inch plasma TV to be normal furnishing for a room that omitted a couch and a comfortable chair.

There were a few dozen local and cable channels on the menu, and if I found those boring, I had plenty of on-demand movies to choose from. Most amusing: the $40 daily package for both wireless Internet and the entire library of, ahem, adult entertainment. That's a bundle that knows its target (expense-accounting) audience.

But I had other options, in case there was nothing on, or if the remote control was too far away from the bed. My new Palm Centro had both SprintTV and MobiTV installed; for a few bucks a month, I could catch about 100 channels there. Meanwhile, my MacBook was on the night table, and I had a few movies and a season of The Simpsons on the hard drive.

Then I realized that the cable TV that I pay for is 2,000 miles away; if only I had had the foresight to buy a Slingbox, I could have watched my home Comcast lineup on either my MacBook or my Palm.

I love technology, but this is just whack.

Brave New Digital World -- What made all of this particularly interesting was a video that the Consumer Electronics Association was distributing, titled "DTV 101." Don't bother looking for a copy yourself; it's the most boring video you can imagine. Here's the summary of what the CEA wants you to know:

• On 17-Feb-09, analog TV broadcasts in the United States will be cut off and replaced by digital-only transmission.
• That will free up all of the current analog broadcast spectrum that is now being used for Law and Order episodes and Head-On commercials. The CEA strongly wants to imply that this spectrum will go to police and firefighters, as opposed to making billions of dollars for consumer electronics industries.
• The CEA repeats ad nauseam that you'll continue to get free broadcast TV, and all you need to do is add a converter box to your old TV. That will cost around $50, but there will be a $40 coupon from the federal government. This is starting now, in 2008, in an apparent bid to drive voters to the Libertarian Party when they realize Uncle Sam is buying everyone a new gadget.

But if you're a member of a typical American family, your home is populated with more televisions than people, and each of your older sets will need its own converter. Charmingly, even then your old TV is probably the wrong aspect ratio (4:3 versus the increasingly common 16:9; your widescreen Mac is 16:10, just to make it more confusing), so 25 percent of your screen will generally be filled with thrilling black bars.

Reading between the lines, you won't be forced to buy one or more new TVs next year, but you're probably going to anyway. Eventually, your analog sets will go the way of TVs with UHF dials. Note to younger TidBITS readers: "UHF channels" are where we used to go, late at night, to watch really bad movies and sitcom reruns. This is why your parents still think cable TV is niftier than you do, and why we're amused when you choose to watch TV Land and really bad movies.

The truth is that you will see a vastly improved experience with the new technology. In the past we've seen upgrades from black-and-white to color, and from broadcast channel selection to the far greater bandwidth of coaxial cable; digital television, likewise, is the sort of change that will eventually make you wonder how you ever got by in the old days.

Unfortunately, the upgrade is coming with a cost, and one that's greater than the mere price of a shiny new TV.

Complexity by Design -- For example, take a look at this screen capture from the CEA video, showing a standard digital-to-analog converter setup. Look closely at that remote control on the right, which is just for the converter. The people who stick with their old TVs are the demographic least likely to be able to navigate yet another 100-button remote control, but they're going to be stuck with them. My parents, who lovingly drove me insane with their technology choices, decided that the universal remote control I bought for them was too complicated; instead, they Velcroed three remotes to a triangular Lucite block. For families like mine, it's time to buy a bigger chunk of Lucite.

The pernicious issue is that my parents, like most people, saw 400-button remotes as nothing more than an annoying inconvenience. This is extremely odd considering how central television has been to our culture: Americans average over four hours a day watching the tube, and for most people it's their primary source for news, politics, and what remains of a shared experience in a highly fractured culture. Most of this is true in all modernized societies. Yet for some reason we continue to think that discussion of technologies we use to control television is frivolous.

We have been carefully and methodically trained to believe it's our fault when important technologies make us feel inadequate and incapable. We have accepted the creation of a category of digital have-nots, who either rely on tech-savvy friends and family, or who do without.

This is not an accident. The seeping loss of control from the individual naturally places that control in the hands of the providers of media and the manufacturers of technology.

A perfect example came when I took the screen capture of the converter that I provided earlier. When I was watching the CEA DVD through Apple's DVD Player, Mac OS X's Grab application gave the following error message: "Screen grabs are unavailable during DVD playback." Due to agreements between the creators of commercial DVDs and computer manufacturers, including Apple, a standard feature of the Mac is disabled during this special case to prevent copyright infringement. In other words, Grab is designed to fail deliberately. As a geek member of the digital "haves," I knew this issue was easily resolved by watching the same DVD with Videolan's VLC, which does not trigger the automatic failure.

Take a moment to think about what is occurring here. The consumer electronics industry produces a DVD for the express purpose of writers like me using it to write articles like this one, but my consumer electronics are designed to prevent me from using it. Then I find that I can use it regardless - but only because I am proficient with the technology.

It can only be seen as ludicrous when CEA policy, as implemented in the shipping technology, blocks the usage of CEA's own media outreach. But ludicrous does not mean laughable or unimportant. The technology is attempting to control how I may use this media; for most people, and many other journalists, that control would be successful.

Control Means Ka-Ching -- You're probably already familiar with one way in which the industry uses technological control to create revenue streams. Let's say, back in that hotel room, I was struck with a sudden urge to watch Spider-Man 3. I could watch it on Sprint TV, where it would cost $5.99 for a three-day rental, streamed at 320 by 172 resolution. I could purchase (but not rent, as of a few weeks ago) the movie from the iTunes Store for $9.99 and watch on my MacBook. I could rent it on-demand in my hotel room, which would give me a plasma screen picture, but would cost $11.99 for 24 hours. Or with my MacBook and MasterCard in hand, I could wander down the street and rent a DVD with all the extras from a kiosk for $1.99. Of course, if I already owned the DVD, and had left it at home, that wouldn't have mattered at all; the cost to rent another copy remains the same.

Unless, of course, I spent 30 seconds setting up an illegal Internet download, which would give me a permanent copy, at an arbitrarily high resolution (up to and including Blu-ray, if I had the patience), that I could watch anywhere regardless of whether I had purchased the physical media, or had it with me.

Most of us have in some sense already paid for Spider-Man 3, as well as hundreds of other movies: they're part of a river of programming that show up on our television systems. But unless you've set up some form of digital recording system, unless you've figured out how to move those videos from there to your computer, unless you've mastered converting those videos into other formats, those videos stay locked in their own walled gardens. Many of us have done all of the above, but the vast majority have not and cannot. This allows Columbia Pictures to claim that mechanism is as important as content, which is why the same movie can be $12 in one place, $2 in another, and time-limited everywhere.

This is great for the studios, but it's not how the audience thinks (or should think) of their product. Paying for some form of content should directly connect to real received value: a performance of a movie in a theater. A DVD with additional commentary and deleted scenes. And yes, convenient on-demand availability, when appropriate. But too often, the "value" is based upon an indirect conspiracy to make it difficult or impossible to use the media you've already paid for, making the end result a tax on the technological have-nots.

Going forward, this situation is primed to worsen steadily. As I mentioned earlier, there are Trojan horses in the digital television picture, as copyright protection mechanisms such as HDCP are unavoidably bundled with new hardware. Already it is clear that the technological elite will always be able to circumvent such mechanisms, and if not, will probably continue to be able to "borrow" content from the Internet in formats that allow the freedom that can't be paid for.

Free Speech, Not Free Beer -- I want to be clear which argument I am not making. We do not and should not have unlimited rights to any and all media. I'm not arguing for the abolition of copyright; even authors who serially release their works into the public domain or Creative Commons would insist upon their right to continue to choose to do so.

Likewise, it's a diversion from my argument to frame this solely in terms of economic cost. Cost is an issue, of course, but not the primary one; there is nothing unethical about Columbia Pictures attempting to charge me $12 to watch a movie in a hotel room. What is unethical, in my view, is the crippling of essential technologies for the sole purpose of allowing that $12 tax on the technologically unsophisticated to exist. The question we need to ask ourselves is not how we need to protect the creators of content, but rather, what societal costs are we paying when technology is designed to fail because we value protecting a movie over all other uses the technology may have?

There should be a way to create consensus on how we should interact with media. Restrictive technologies, computers that are designed to fail, and punitive laws that prop up those technologies do not advance that discussion or society in general. The more we tolerate such activities, the more we purchase these products with no argument, the greater the danger that we allow the 21st century to develop with corporate control trumping our rights to free speech amongst ourselves. There's more to come, so stay tuned.

[Special thanks for valuable commentary on drafts of this article go to Adam Engst, Tarleton Gillespie, Peter Hirtle, and Fred von Lohmann. Jeff will be presenting a talk on this topic to IEEE Philadelphia on 20-May-08.]

PayBITS: Interesting thoughts about our digital future? Why not
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Copyright © 2008 Jeff Porten. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

Bare Bones Software's BBEdit 8.7 -- Latest version offers a
major interface overhaul, new prefs, text clippings, improved
JavaScript, new Ruby/SQL/YAML/Markdown support, code folding.
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• Parallels Desktop Build 5600 from Parallels offers full support for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 (whether running from a Boot Camp partition or a separate installation), improved MacBook Air compatibility, and numerous other bug fixes and improvements. ($79.99 new, free upgrade, 99 MB)
• MacGourmet 2.3 from Advenio brings to the recipe management software a new plug-in framework (so you need to download new versions of any plug-ins), an optional $9.95 Mealplan plug-in for meal and menu planning, a new shopping list editor, new display and print themes, better integration for the Nutrition plug-in, automatic updating via Sparkle, integration with MarsEdit for posting recipes to blogs, and more. ($24.95 new, free upgrade, 7.4 MB)
• Comic Life Magiq 1.0 from Plasq is a completely new version of the photo-comic publishing software for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The comic page layout engine supports complex and creatively curved comic panels, speech balloons, and captions, and new brushes provide a hand-drawn feel to lines. Comic Life Magiq also includes a collection of artist-commissioned templates, props, balloon shapes, and spraycans. ($44.95 new, $29.95 crossgrades from previous versions of Comic Life, 152 MB)
• FoxTrot Professional Search 2.0b3 from CTM Development extends the company's Spotlight-like search tool with powerful features such multiple search criteria, multiple search sources, multiple indices with automatic updating, multiple document previewing, searching within found documents, and more. The program is a free download during a public beta period. (99/199 euros for single/5-user pack new, 6.3 MB) CTM Development also released FoxTrot Personal Search 2.0b3, which lets users toggle between search-as-you-type and on-demand searching, supports Quick Look in Leopard, works with multiple simultaneous users via Fast User Switching, and can selectively limit Spotlight background time usage. (29 euros new, 15 euros upgrade, 6.9 MB)
• Quay 1.1 by Rainer Brockerhoff continues to give Apple's implementation of stacks (folders in the Dock) heavy competition. Even though Mac OS X 10.5.2 brought back the option for Dock folders to have hierarchical menus showing their contents instead of those dreadful "pick-a-card" fan displays when clicked on, Quay's hierarchical menus can be larger and can provide item sizes and modification dates, plus CPU and memory usage for applications, and more. (7 euros new, free update, 1 MB)
• Freeway 5.1 from Softpress Systems enhances the recently revised Web page authoring tool with support for publishing RSS feeds, support for the SVG graphics format, more flexible in-flow block items, and numerous bug fixes. ($249 Pro/$79 Express new, free update)
• Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 from VMware adds support for multiple displays (up to 10) - all accessible within virtual machines running Windows on your Mac. It also introduces experimental DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D support, provides an easier way to import a Parallels Desktop virtual machine or a copy of Windows running under Boot Camp, improves printing from within Windows, enhances the user interface in numerous ways, and fixes several bugs. The company has stated that the upgrade will be free to registered owners of version 1.x when it ships. ($79.99 new, free while in beta, 299 MB)
• CopyPaste Pro 1.0 from Script Software is a complete rewrite of the long-standing multiple clipboard utility, giving it a snazzy new interface akin to Mac OS X's application switcher for navigating through previous clipboards and archived clipboards. You can now edit clipboards with an integrated editor called Bean, and CopyPaste Pro is now much faster than previous versions, particularly on Intel-based Macs and in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. ($20 new, 2.3 MB)
• Opal 1.2 from A Sharp brings some new Leopard-specific features to the outlining application (the successor to the popular Acta outliner of yesteryear). Also new in Opal 1.2 is the capability to limit how much of an outline is copied to the clipboard, importing of RTF files as outlines, grammar checking, and fixes for a number of bugs. Opal 1.2 requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard; version 1.1.1 remains available for those using Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. ($32 new, free update, 2.7 MB)
• Caboodle 1.1.4 from Dejal Systems fixes bugs in the free-form and field-based snippet keeper. The update resolves problems related to spell checking, creating child entries, exporting, and more. Caboodle is unusual among snippet keepers in that it allows free-form storage of text and graphics (including Web links, various types of lists, and tables), but also lets you create specific fields for different types of structured data. Caboodle also supports attaching arbitrary files, encrypting entries, and more. ($14.95 new, free update, 4.5 MB)
• DocHaven 2.0.5 from Holy Mackerel Software fixes some minor bugs in the cross-platform document management software that enables workgroups to check documents in and out of a virtual library that tracks multiple versions of documents. DocHaven works with Mac OS X 10.3 or later, Windows 98 or later, and Linux, and it relies on MySQL for its database backend and FTP for document delivery. ($40 per user new, free update, 12.1 MB)

 

Copyright © 2008 TidBITS Staff. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

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If you've been inundated lately with bounced email from addresses you've never sent a note to, you're experiencing the heartbreak of backscatter. Backscatter is an attempt by scammers to get you to read unsolicited email by sending it using your return address - forging it, which is simple - and then having you open the messages that mail servers innocently return.

I've received thousands of backscatter bounces in the last few weeks, even as my spam filters have worked relatively well. It's irritating, because I have to handle it much more manually than any other unfiltered message. Sometimes there are commonalities in the bounces that make it somewhat easier to filter - for instance, the last time Adam Engst suffered a backscatter attack, most of the bounces came from Russian addresses, so he temporarily filtered mail from .ru domains to the trash until the problem died down, which it usually does.

Your return email address can be forged without any effort by anyone - including systems that let you forward links to other people from news sites - because return addresses aren't registered in any fashion. DNS may control the use of domain names, but there's no such similar method of looking up email addresses to validate them.

Four years ago, I wrote "Sender Policy Framework: SPF Protection for Email" (2004-03-2), an article about an independent effort to create a way to register authority for email return addresses via DNS. Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL all got in the game in different ways, extending SPF, developing their own systems, deploying anti-forging rules, or adopting rules to prevent forged messages from arriving for their email users and customers.

But none of the efforts has emerged as a winner, and verifying return addresses is still only one of several pieces that would restrict spam of a con-game nature. It's a shame that even with several companies handling hundred of millions of email accounts, the kind of cooperative work that would be required to improve several parts of the way in which Internet email still seems beyond our reach.

 

Copyright © 2008 Glenn Fleishman. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

MARK/SPACE, INC: The Missing Sync provides the very best in
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We at TidBITS try to avoid obsessing about the iPhone - there are plenty of other media outlets that already do that. But a number of recent events are worth summarizing for what they indicate about both the current utility of the iPhone and its future in the United States and worldwide.

Wi-Fi: It's Up, It's Down, It's All Around Confusing -- AT&T toyed with its customers' affections these last two weeks by offering a peek into what it plans to provide in the way of free Wi-Fi to iPhone subscribers on its aggregated hotspot network. AT&T scored a deal in February 2008 to take over Starbucks' Wi-Fi network from T-Mobile (see "Starbucks Deal Brewed with AT&T Has Hints of Apple," 2008-02-12), and began converting locations starting with AT&T's headquarters city of San Antonio, Texas, a few weeks ago. They're expected to be complete across all 7,000 Starbucks company-owned freestanding outlets in 2008.

But eagle-eyed Wi-Fi users spotted a new network name - "attwifi" - at Starbucks stores at the same time as on the T-Mobile network - "tmobile" - a square link appeared in the upper right corner of their gateway page welcoming AT&T customers. That wasn't unexpected or odd. However, a MacRumors reader seems to have been the first to document when on 30-Apr-08 an iPhone-customized gateway login page appeared that asked for a subscriber's phone number to gain free access.

A few days later, that gateway page went away. On 07-May-08, MacRumors again was apparently first with the news that AT&T's iPhone plans page had been updated to note that an iPhone included free access to 17,000 U.S. hotspots available through AT&T. Two days later, that text was gone. AT&T told Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt that it was all human error, but they planned ultimately to provide free Wi-Fi to iPhone users, as has been expected all along.

(Seven million AT&T residential customers - anyone with DSL that's 1.5 Mbps downstream or faster or their fiber service - already get free access to AT&T Wi-Fi Home, a set of 17,000 U.S. hotspots that includes 9,500 McDonald's locations and 7,000 Starbucks - in progress - but excludes most hotels and some airports that are found in AT&T's broader Premier roaming package. Premier service includes all U.S. hotspots and 53,000 international locations, and costs $10 more per month for those who qualify for free service, and $20 per month for everyone else.)

AT&T Wi-Fi will clearly ultimately be available and free to iPhone users, but it's vaguely incomprehensible why AT&T has muffed this whole Starbucks transition and not simply offered the network already. It's part of a long-term loyalty play by the company to retain its subscribers, and would improve your iPhone experience by giving you faster Wi-Fi based access when you need it at no additional cost.

iPhone 2.0, iPhone SDK, 3G iPhone, and No iPhones to Purchase -- It's 10-May-08 as I write this, and there are no iPhones to be had via the online Apple Store in the United States nor via O2, Apple's UK partner. That's plain weird. Apple has said that it plans to release its revised iPhone 2.0 firmware along with a release version of the iPhone SDK (software developers kit) in June 2008, most likely at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) (see "Apple Announces iPhone 2.0, Releases SDK," 2008-03-06).

This is when everyone anticipates the expected third-generation (3G) iPhone, one that uses AT&T's faster HSPA (high speed packet access) network, will be announced or released. The HSPA network has speeds AT&T reports as an average range of 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps downstream versus the current 2.5G iPhone's 100 to 200 Kbps downstream rate.

So it's quite peculiar that Apple and its partners should happen to run out of stock now. Would this argue that a 3G iPhone is ready to go, and we'll see a surprise announcement this next week? Hard to say. I can't quite believe Apple would give up a full four weeks' sales just to avoid making more phones in the interim. As usual, they give no indications, and we'll just have to wait and see.

Expanded Carrier Relationships in Europe, Latin America, Asia/Pacific -- Even as the iPhone seems to be in scant supply in the United States and the UK, Apple has inked deals with carriers for broader relationships. Vodafone, which owns a minority percentage of AT&T competitor Verizon Wireless, will sell the iPhone starting later this year in territories that encompass several billion people: Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa, and Turkey. Apple will let both Vodafone and Telecom Italia offer the iPhone in Italy, and SingTel (via subsidiaries and affiliates) will distribute the iPhone in Australia, Singapore, India, and the Philippines. This marks a move away from Apple's previous single-provider approach, since Italy, India, and Australia will be served by multiple carriers.

To the west, America Movil SAB will sell the iPhone to customers across Mexico and 15 other Latin American countries as well as Puerto Rico. The firm has 37 percent of the market in its territory.

Apple seems well on its way to meeting its target of a cumulative 10 million phones from the device's first sales until to the end of 2008. In fact, Apple seems to think its biggest problem is that there's so much pent-up demand for the iPhone that perhaps as many as half of the iPhones sold have been purchased unlocked or later cracked to allow their use in countries that don't yet have a domestic carrier offering the phone. Apple's chief operating officer Tim Cook said in April 2008, "We see this phenomenon as an expression of very strong interest in the iPhone globally, and in that way it's a good problem to have."

iPhone Forever -- Sequels sometimes suck, but iPhone 2.0 and the 3G iPhone - which may arrive together or nearly so - will likely improve and extend the product. I've owned an iPhone since the night Apple unleashed them on the world, and while it's by no means perfect, it has the lowest frustration to enjoyment ratio of nearly any electronic product I've ever owned, and is at a fair approximation 100 times better than any cell phone I've owned or tested. Bring on the next release!

 

Copyright © 2008 Glenn Fleishman. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

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A clever Mac user who had her laptop stolen led the police to the alleged burglars using Back to My Mac. Three roommates in White Plains, N.Y., had about $5,000 worth of computer and entertainment equipment stolen 27-Apr-08. Then this last Tuesday, one victim who works at an Apple Store, Kait Duplaga, received a text message from a friend, who, spotting her on iChat, thought she'd recovered her computer.

She said no, and used Back to My Mac's remote screen sharing feature to monitor her laptop's built-in iSight camera to grab a photo of one of the alleged thieves. She then used remote file sharing to find pictures of another person stored on the laptop. She turned this information over to the police, who arrested the two men in the picture, finding them in their apartment with the stolen equipment all over; those charged are reportedly friends of a friend of the roommates who had their stuff stolen.

Fortunately for Duplaga, the alleged malefactors had a router with UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) or NAT-PMP (Network Address Translation-Port Mapping Protocol) turned on, without which Back to My Mac rarely works. And they left the victim's laptop signed into .Mac.

I'm finishing up a book on Back to My Mac, and one thing I've discovered is that the service can both be hard to get up and running and hard to eliminate from your system. (I address both in the book.)

While I've heard of people using tools like iAlertU to capture images of someone in the process of using your computer without permission, this is the first remote sleuthing I've heard of with Back to My Mac.

A commenter on this story at BoingBoing wondered if the Back to My Mac access goes both ways - and that's a supremely valid and freaky concern. Back to My Mac assumes that you control the .Mac account in question and any computers on which you've logged into .Mac. The alleged thieves could just as easily have monitored Duplaga, had she logged in to .Mac and enabled Back to My Mac on another Mac, just as she monitored them.

If you want to forestall this problem, use the .Mac preference pane to log out of your .Mac account, and then run Keychain Access in Applications > Utilities. Find all the .Mac referenced certificates and passwords attached to your login identity and delete them.

 

Copyright © 2008 Glenn Fleishman. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

Fetch Softworks: Fetch 5.3 has a new look for Leopard,
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I'm always a little depressed when someone beats me to writing a cool article, and this one was on my list. In this case, however, Adam Pash at Lifehacker has done a fine job of explaining a neat hack for many consumer-grade Canon point-and-shoot digital cameras. CHDK, for Canon Hacker's Development Kit, is a non-destructive firmware enhancement that adds six categories of features:

1. Enhanced ways of recording, including support for raw format images, longer video times, and additional video compression options.
2. Additional data on the camera's LCD, including a histogram, battery life indicator, depth of focus, and more.
3. More photographic settings, such as longer exposure times, faster shutter speeds, and automatic bracketing of exposure.
4. Scripts that can automate various camera functions. Scripts are written in a version of BASIC. With these scripts, you can do things like take multiple photos with different exposures, or even take a picture when the camera detects motion.
5. Remote control of the camera (either taking a picture or running a script) via the camera's USB connection.
6. Various new capabilities for the camera, such as a file browser for the memory card, games like Reversi, and so on.

CHDK works with a number of Canon models, though not all of them, so you'll need to check the compatibility list before going any further (and no, as far I can tell, no other manufacturer's cameras have any CHDK-like hacks). What's especially nice about CHDK, apart from all the useful functionality it provides, is that it modifies the camera's firmware only when you explicitly load it, and everything is back to normal when you next power up the camera. Have fun hacking!

 

Copyright © 2008 Adam C. Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

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Hard on the heels of my discovery of a version of GrandPerspective that lets you peer into your Time Machine backups to see what big unnecessary files they contain, here comes tms, a command-line tool by Robert Pointon that lets you explore your Time Machine backups in ways that were previously impossible.

To use tms at this early stage you have to be willing to fiddle with the command-line in Terminal. (If there is eventually a GUI version, one would expect it to be pretty great, since Pointon is the author of the astonishing fseventer, which lets you track every file change on your hard disk in real time.) But I know you're curious, so laugh insanely and give it a try.

Start by downloading tms. Move the resulting zip file to your Desktop and double-click it. A folder called "tms" appears on your Desktop. In the Terminal, say:

$ cd Desktop/tms
$ sudo cp tms /usr/local/bin

You'll be asked for your password. You have now installed tms so that it's available as a command-line tool. To test that this is so, say:

$ tms help

You'll see a list of available sub-commands (to use them, precede them by "tms"). For example, let's learn the status of our Time Machine backup:

$ tms status
/Volumes/SecretSharer: name=...
/Volumes/SecretSharer/Backups.backupdb/hume: name=...
/Volumes/SecretSharer/Backups.backupdb/hume/2008-05-01-100145: num=205 ...2008-05-01-10:01:45.551763

(The ellipses indicate places where I've omitted parts of tms's response.) Okay, so tms sees my backup disk (SecretSharer) and it tells me that my most recent backup is number 205 and was performed on May 1 at 10 AM.

Now let's track a file backwards through time. Hmmm, I wonder how many different versions of iTunes I've stored since I started keeping Time Machine backups?

$ tms log /Applications/iTunes.app
...num=1 oldest=2007-11-01-10:33:29 newest=2007-11-05-03:38:41
...num=40 oldest=2007-11-05-20:10:38 newest=2008-02-12-06:32:14
...num=199 oldest=2008-03-12-19:49:47 newest=2008-04-04-17:38:20
...num=202 oldest=2008-04-05-13:56:09 newest=Current

So I've got four versions of iTunes stored; besides the current version, there's the version in the snapshot of April 4, the version in the snapshot of February 12, and the version in the snapshot of November 5 of last year. Sure enough, if I enter the Time Machine interface, select iTunes, and use the backwards-arrow to move backwards in time, those are the four versions I'm shown. So with tms, I'm exploring my Time Machine backups without having to use the Time Machine interface!

Next let's get a list of all snapshots:

$ tms snapshots
...num=205 ... complete=2008-05-01-10:01:45.551763
...num=204 ... complete=2008-04-25-08:35:39.562235
...num=203 ... complete=2008-04-09-10:04:04.166687
...

So my most recent snapshot is 205. How big is it? How much had to be backed up in that snapshot? It turns out that every time Time Machine does a backup, it keeps extensive log information about what happened. But it isn't normally willing to show you that information! With tms, you can see it:

$ tms snaplog 205
...num=205 state=4 type=1 ver=1 start=2008-05-01-10:01:33.086632
...
Running preflight...
Calculating size of changes
Should copy 3027 items (663.7 MB)...

And now for the moment of truth. Okay, tms: so between snapshots 204 and 205, what changed? Exactly what did snapshot 205 actually back up?

$ tms delta 205 204

The result is a long list of files. Each file's pathname is followed by one of three symbols. A right-arrow means that this file didn't exist in the previous snapshot.

... SunFlower.app: ->

Makes sense; I only recently installed SunFlower.

A left-arrow means the file was deleted; it exists in the earlier snapshot, but not in the later.

...Desktop/classicaland.com:index.asp.webloc: <-

Yup, I remember that file; it was a Web Location file. I deleted it after I entered its information among my bookmarks.

A not-equal sign means the file was changed and had to be backed up again.

...Documents/Bookmarks/Startup Items/MattsBookmarks: !=

That's the bookmarks file where I entered the Web Location information.

Well, that's enough playing for now. I hope this suffices to show the kind of thing tms can do. And don't worry; it has no write capabilities, so it can't harm your Time Machine backups - it merely explores them.

 

Copyright © 2008 Matt Neuburg. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

MARK/SPACE, INC: The Missing Sync provides the very best in
synchronization for Mac users with BlackBerry, Palm OS, or
Windows Mobile devices. Integrates with Address Book, iCal,
Entourage, iPhoto, and iTunes. <http://www.markspace.com/bits>  

Those who read about (or watched) Adam's April Fools talk already know about Cornell's IT Architecture Forum, a monthly seminar series I've been organizing for over two years. This month's session, by popular demand, was a roundtable about supporting Macs in a Windows-heavy world, and the session video is online if you'd like to watch it.

We talked about the sharp rise in Mac market share on college campuses and using Entourage as an effective client in a Microsoft Exchange environment, but one of the things that impressed me most was a Cornell staffer's demonstration of using Apple's Workgroup Manager application to manage Active Directory accounts in a Windows Server 2003 environment. Shukwit.com has a variety of scripts useful for integrating Mac OS X and Active Directory.

 

Copyright © 2008 Mark H. Anbinder. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

VMware Fusion. The most seamless way to run Windows on your Mac.
Backed by nearly a decade of proven virtualization technology.
Try VMware Fusion today for free, or order online for only $79.
Visit: <http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/vmware-fusion.html>  

Recently I've heard the name Myanmar pronounced several different ways on news broadcasts, and I was curious to know what the officially correct pronunciation was. So I looked it up in Leopard's built-in dictionary. Wow.

Other dictionaries offer a wide range of suggested pronunciations, but Apple's definitely takes the cake.

Update -- A couple of people wrote to say that Dictionary on their systems (running Mac OS X 10.5.2, just like mine) had the correct pronunciation shown. Reader Jonathan Lundell solved the mystery. Dictionary has three different options for displaying the pronunciation key, which you can select in the Preferences window: US English (Diacritical), US English (IPA), and British English (IPA). It turns out that only the two IPA (international phonetic alphabet) choices show the pronunciation of "Burma"; the US English (Diacritical) pronunciation is correct. Mine is set to US English (IPA).

 

Copyright © 2008 Joe Kissell. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

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According to a story by Ina Fried in CNET's Beyond Binary blog, Microsoft has rescinded its offer to purchase Yahoo. In early February, Microsoft offered Yahoo $31 per share (see "Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion for Yahoo," 01-Feb-08). Although speculation about the offer provided fodder for innumerable news stories and blog posts, in the end, it came down to money. Microsoft upped its offer to $33 per share, adding another $5 billion to the purchase price, but, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Yahoo's board of directors held out for $37 per share, a level to which even Microsoft wasn't willing to go. In theory, Microsoft could have taken the offer directly to Yahoo's shareholders, but Ballmer felt Yahoo would take steps during the process (most notably, forge a closer relationship with Google) to make the company undesirable as a takeover target for Microsoft.

So we're back to where we started, with Microsoft still looking for ways to fend off the hard-charging Google while still raking in $14.1 billion in profits on $55.1 billion in sales in 2007, making it the most profitable technology company according to Fortune. That's well ahead of Google ($4.2 billion in profits) and Apple ($3.5 billion).

Whatever problems Yahoo may have had before, the company's handling of the Microsoft offer would seem only to have worsened them - see Kara Swisher's report on the mood of Yahoo executives in All Things Digital.

 

Copyright © 2008 Adam C. Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

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Congratulations to Paul Schumann of mac.com, Kelly Greenwood of juno.com, and Rachael Watson of hotmail.com, whose entries were chosen randomly in last week's DealBITS drawing and who received a copy of the $40 HoudahGeo photo geocoding software, as did Aleta Watson of cox.net, who referred Rachael to this DealBITS drawing. If you didn't win, don't fret, because you can save 20 percent on HoudahGeo; it's only $32 through 18-May-08 if you use coupon code "DEALBITS08" when ordering from Houdah Software. Thanks to the 480 people who entered this DealBITS drawing, and we hope you'll continue to participate in the future!

 

Copyright © 2008 Adam C. Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

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iPhone Effect -- An AdWeek article argues that the iPhone is pushing companies to take mobile marketing seriously. (4 messages)

AppleWorks Replacement -- A reader discovers a replacement for AppleWorks Spreadsheet in DataGraph. (2 messages)

How long is AT&T's Exclusive Contract with Apple? Is Apple's five-year exclusivity deal with AT&T a lock, or will the provider market open up once owners' two-year service contracts are up? (13 messages)

Skating Now Possible on the River Styx! Canada is finally getting the iPhone. (1 message)

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auto-filing of read mail in Apple Mail -- More Eudora-to-Mail woes, this time the inability to automatically file read messages. However, the solution might be tackled from the opposite direction. (3 messages)

Using MacBook power adapter with MacBook Pro -- The two adapters output different power levels, but seem to work fine on either machine. What's the difference? (8 messages)

 

Copyright © 2008 Jeff Carlson. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

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