After recompiling netatalk the other day in order to get it to work with Leopard, the next step was getting Time Machine to make backups over the network (and a wireless one by the way). 
Problem is: despite the netatalk-powered network shares worked great for “regular” files, when Time Machine started preparing the backup it always gave me an error.
Googling about it I’ve found several stories with different soluctions, some of which worked for some people, some others didn’t. The one that did it for me is this one:
Basically it consists in creating a “sparse bundle” disk image on the local hard drive using MacOS X’s Disk Utility, giving it a specific name, moving it to the network share and then configure Time Machine to use that share.
Worked for me. 
I’m installing a new fileserver at home (more on this one of these days…) and after installing the netatalk package I wasn’t able to connect to it from MacOS X Leopard, it returned an error after the user/pass prompt.
Googling about it I’ve found that you need to recompile the netatalk package, more info on this and a detailed step-by-step here: Make Netatalk talk to Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5)
Publicado el Marzo 24, 2008
en MacOS X.
Vía MacUser me entero de que hoy es el séptimo aniversario del lanzamiento de MacOS X, el 24 de marzo de 2001.
Por aquel entonces trabajaba en la empresa tecnológica de un grupo editorial, por lo que teníamos algo de contacto con los Macintosh, bastante comunes en ese sector. La verdad es que el system 9 era un mundo aparte, sólo los 2 ó 3 gurús sabían cómo resolver algún problema. Además algunas cosas no funcionaban todo lo bien que se espera de un sistema operativo moderno, por ejemplo la pila TCP/IP del OS9 era un truño, que unido a la “falsa” multitarea provocaba que cada vez que el ordenador accedía a la red se quedaba completamente frito. Así que cuando empezamos a leer que Apple iba a sacar una nueva versión del sistema y además basado en UNIX, a todos se nos pusieron los dientes largos, especialmente a los frikis de Mac y a mi, al friki linuxero de la empresa.
A las primeras versiones les faltaba todavía pulir bastante la integración entre los distintos subsistemas y programas que venían de serie (CUPS, Apache, Samba, OpenLDAP, etc.), y sobre todo se achacaba mucho el problema de la falta de aplicaciones nativas para OS X lo que obligaba a ejecutar las viejas aplicaciones de OS9 bajo el emulador del Classic. Pero revisión tras revisión se fue mejorando todo, y MacOS X 10.4 y el nuevo Leopard son una auténtica gozada.
“Fast forward” siete años hasta el presente, y nos encontramos con que desde el verano pasado mi ordenador en casa es un MacBook Pro al que ni se me ha ocurrido probar a hacerle otra partición para meterle Linux (ni mucho menos Windows) de lo a gusto que me encuentro con el OS X.
A small detail about Time Machine I hadn’t thought about before: this article recommends removing all the virtual disks from virtual machines like VMWare, Virtual Box, et al. from the backup.
Makes sense: Time Machine works at a file level, in the end it’s just something like this but with an über-posh interface. So every time you boot one of your VMs, some small change will inevitably be made on some file inside it, causing Time Machine to store a new copy of the full virtual disk.
Publicado el Febrero 9, 2008
en MacOS X.
Two useful MacOS X utilities:
- AppCleaner: it helps you to completely uninstall applications from your system. When you install an app it copies several files (like plugins, extra libraries, etc.) outside the Applications folder, but those files don’t get deleted when you drag the app to the trash can. But I think that the best way to describe AppCleaner is saying it’s a free AppZapper clone. It looks exactly the same, same interface, same functionality, usage, everything.
- MonoLingual: both the MacOS X system itself and almost every app you can think of come with translations for a shitload of foreign languages, which are a waste of hard drive space if you’re not going to use them. Besides, nowadays almost every binary is a “Universal Binary”, which is just a package with an Intel binary and a PowerPC one. Even more wasted space. MonoLingual allows you to remove every language you don’t need, and the binaries for the architecture you’re not going to use. Or like with AppCleaner: it’s a free Xslimmer clone. Just to get you an idea: after removing all translation files but the Spanish and English ones, and the PowerPC binaries, it has freed 2.5Gb from my system.
He estado esta semana jugando con la nueva versión 8.0 del Event Logger for TomTom GO (artículo anterior) y ahora funciona de maravilla en mi TomTom ONE. Sin cuelgues ni reinicios raros, y ya permite logar rutas que se aparten de las carreteras tomando la información directa del receptor GPS (antes sólo la podía obtener a través de un API de la propia aplicación de TomTom, que le aplica un procesado para ajustarla a las carreteras del mapa).
Y una vez que he visto que el invento funciona, me he ido a correr un par de veces ésta semana con el TomTom en la riñonera, para jugar un poco con el TrailRunner. Mola, importa el GPX perfectamente, y extrae por un lado la ruta y por otro la información del ejercicio de ese día, el tiempo que has tardado en hacer la ruta, calorías quemadas, etc. Está muy bien porque además puedes ir viendo por tramos la velocidad a la que has ido, y como el Event_Logger también registra la altura (aunque creo que no muy bien…) ves cómo afectan las cuestas al ritmo de carrera. ‘:-u
No se, si me aficiono a esto de ir usando el TrailRunner cada vez que me vaya a correr, igual acabo buscándome uno de éstos baratitos en eBay para no andar con el TomTom a cuestas todo el rato…
I start here a new section on my blog, Command Line (feed), where I will comment on UNIX commands (Linux and MacOS X mainly) that I find useful on my daily work. The articles will range from a very obscure command that I didn’t knew of until some day I needed something like it and found it and saved my day, new or creative ways to use old commands, or small shell-scripts that can make your life easier.
Unless otherwise specified, all these commands are just an “aptitude install” away on Debian and derivate distros (on Ubuntu they may be on universe or multiverse). For RedHat, CentOS, etc. there’s a good chance that you’ll find RPM packages on Dag Wieërs’ repository.
So, without further addo, the first command on the next entry.
I’ve been playing around a little bit with the MacOS X port of Virtual Box, and it looks really promising. Speed-wise it runs quite OK, I couldn’t tell wether or not it’s on par with VMWare Fusion. But I’ve had small problems with the keyboard (couldn’t get the alt and command keys to work right) and the “desktop resolution resizing” when in windowed mode.
Following these instrucions, I’ve made a small shell-script that converts a .vmdk disk image file from VMWare to a .vdi one for Virtual Box. It should detect the OS (Mac or Linux) and warn you in case you miss some of the dependencies (QEMU ’s qemu-img and Virtual Box’s vditool). It can be downloaded here:
Via Applesfera I’ve learnt about two applications developed by Hanynet that allow you to manage the internal firewall on MacOS X Leopard:
- NoobProof, easier to use for the average user, and
- WaterRoof (cool name XD), more detailed, for the technically-savvy
Very useful.
I’ve found a web with a list of MacOS X games and what hardware they support: if only PowerPC binaries are available (and then, how they perform under Rosetta), or if Intel or Universal Binaries have been released:
Besides, if you have problems while applying one of those patches to avoid the burden of inserting the CD everytime you want to play 
(the patch just quits and an error window pops up), you can fix it this way:
- copy the patch to your hard drive
- right click (or ctrl. left click) -> Show package’s contents
- go to the Contents/MacOS folder
- replace the iPatcher binary with this new one (mirror)
iPatcher fix for Leopard found on Wildan Aliviyarda’s page.
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