TidBITS#890/30-Jul-07
=====================
Issue link: <http://db.tidbits.com/issue/890>
The big Apple news this week is a stunning $818 million profit for
the third fiscal quarter of 2007, thanks to a record number of Mac
sales (and a goodly number of iPhone sales too!). For those of us
not rolling in that kind of cash, we have news about useful Mac
products and techniques that won't stress your checkbook. Adam looks
at options for mounting and reading bare hard disk drives that
aren't strapped into enclosures (and why you'd want to do this).
Glenn Fleishman notes the release of Webjimbo, a program that lets
you access your Yojimbo data remotely. Joe Kissell stays up late
trying to get his MacBook Pro to go to sleep, no thanks to Apple's
Safe Sleep feature. And lastly, we have a pair of new Take Control
ebooks: "Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon," which provides
practical and witty definitions of over 500 Mac- and
Internet-related terms, and an update to "Take Control of Syncing in
Tiger," which now covers the iPhone and Apple TV.
Articles
Apple Marks Best Quarter of Mac Sales for Q3 2007
Accessing Bare Hard Drives
Webjimbo Makes Yojimbo Data Web-Accessible
Stewing Over Safe Sleep
Take Control News/30-Jul-07
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/30-Jul-07
------------ This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by: --------------
* READERS LIKE YOU! Support TidBITS with a contribution today!
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/contributors.html>
Special thanks this week to Nico Macdonald, David Sacher,
Bob Hall, and Frederico Jayme Nasser for their generous support!
* SMALL DOG ELECTRONICS: TidBITS Exclusives for July 30 - Aug 13:
1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook + iPod nano 2 GB Silver(r): $1074.99
MacBook 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo, MS Office only $1114 after rebate!
Learn more and order today at <http://www.smalldog.com/tb/>
* FETCH SOFTWORKS: With Fetch 5.2, FTP and SFTP are simpler
than ever. Use it on Mac OS X to upload, download, mirror,
and manage your Web site, eBay images, and data sets.
Download your free trial version! <http://fetchsoftworks.com/>
* WebCrossing Neighbors Creates Private Social Networks
Create a complete social network with your company or group's
own look. Scalable, extensible and extremely customizable.
Take a guided tour today <http://www.webcrossing.com/tour>
* 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>
* Microsoft's MacBU: Supporting Mac users with Office 2004.
Supporting the Mac community through tech support newsgroups,
user group appearances, our new team blog, and more!
Check out our team blog at <http://blogs.msdn.com/macmojo/>
* VMware Fusion. Say goodbye to the Windows desktop and run any PC
program on your Intel-based Mac just as though it were a Mac app.
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/vmware-fusion.html>
* New Parallels Desktop 3.0: Run Windows on your Mac natively!
We erased the border between the Windows and Mac worlds. 10% Off
Upgrade! <http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/parallels-upgrd.html>
$10 Off New! <http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/parallels.html>
---------- Help support TidBITS by supporting our sponsors ------------
Apple Marks Best Quarter of Mac Sales for Q3 2007
-------------------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9088>
Sales of 1.76 million Macs between and April and June of this year
pushed Apple to an $818 million profit on $5.41 billion in sales,
according to the company's quarterly financial results. That's 33
percent more Macs than the 1.33 million sold in the year-ago quarter
(see "Apple Reports $472 Million Q3-2006 Profit," 2006-07-24) and
represents the highest number of Mac sales during a quarter. iPod
sales came in at 9.81 million, a 21 percent gain over last year's
third quarter.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/07/25results.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8609>
However impressive those numbers are (and for those of us who
remember the troubling Q2-1997 quarter, the figures _are_
impressive), the most eagerly awaited results centered around the
new iPhone. Apple reported sales of 270,000 iPhones during the
quarter, which doesn't sound too exciting until you realize that
number accounts for just 30 hours of sales (the iPhone was released
at 6:00 PM on 29-Jun-07, and the quarter ended at midnight on
30-Jun-07). In a conference call with analysts, Apple said it
expected to sell one million iPhones by the end of September 2007.
Apple also said it expects to launch the iPhone in a few major
countries in Europe by the end of this year, and to have it
available more broadly in Europe and Asia in 2008.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/659>
Prior to the release of Apple's numbers, the company's stock took a
beating after cellular partner AT&T reported in its quarterly
financials that it logged only 146,000 activations for the same
period, far lower than the number of iPhones that Apple said it
sold. The difference is most likely due to activation problems on
AT&T's end during the first days of iPhone availability. (Speaking
of AT&T, Brier Dudley at The Seattle Times reported that the telecom
giant is apologizing to iPhone buyers who were forced to buy
accessories from AT&T stores on the opening day of sales; those
customers can return the accessories for full refunds.)
<http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/brierdudley/2007/07/att_apologizes_for_iphone_bund_1.html>
<http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/brierdudley/2007/06/would_you_like_fries_with_that_1.html>
Accessing Bare Hard Drives
--------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9089>
Most Macintosh hardware products do a good job of hiding the actual
electronic parts inside sleekly designed cases, and for most people,
that's probably best. But if you want to go beyond the basics, to
soup up a Mac past the stock configuration, or troubleshoot certain
problems, sometimes you need to get down to bare metal.
Take hard drives. Cases provide physical protection, a certain level
of useful industrial design, and conversion from the hard drive
mechanism's native power and interface connectors to standard power
jacks and ports such as FireWire and USB 2.0. But making it possible
to power a hard drive mechanism and connect it to a computer doesn't
require a case, just the connector conversions. Several new products
now enable you to do just that - use a hard drive mechanism directly
on a Mac or PC without a case.
Why would you want to? Perhaps a friend or client is switching from
a dying PC to a Mac and needs to transfer content from the PC's hard
disk to a VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop installation on a new
iMac. Maybe, working as a consultant or help desk support
technician, you regularly encounter situations where you need to
make backups of or recover data on disks installed in computers that
are otherwise non-functional. Or perhaps, like me, you've had
trouble with a FireWire drive case or drive bay used for regular
backups. The problem isn't with the drive mechanisms, but you're
still dead in the water unless you can get those drives to mount.
I haven't needed to use these products extensively, but I and a
friend have successfully used the NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive
Adapter, which costs $29.95, and the slightly more expensive USB 2.0
High-Speed Bridge Adapter from Granite Digital, which runs $39.95.
The two devices seem essentially identical, in that they provide
flexible power and connectivity cables for all 2.5", 3.5", and 5.25"
drive mechanisms, whether they're IDE or the newer SATA (I or II).
You're unlikely to find many 5.25" hard drive mechanisms these days,
but the products work with bare CD and DVD mechanisms as well.
<http://www.newertech.com/products/usb2_adapt.php>
<http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg64_usbtosataidebridge.htm>
To my mind, the main downside of these devices is that they're
USB-only, which makes them significantly less useful with older Macs
that rely on FireWire for high-speed connections and have only slow
USB 1.1 ports. USB 1.1 runs at 12 Mbps, USB 2.0 at 480 Mbps, and
FireWire 400 at 400 Mbps. Even though USB 2.0 isn't as fast as
FireWire 400 in real world usage, it's plenty sprightly for drive
use, whereas USB 1.1 is painfully slow.
WiebeTech sells a pair of products that address this lack of
FireWire compatibility, but they come at a price and with
limitations. Their FireWire DriveDock and ComboDock products are
boxes that attach to the back of 3.5" IDE bare drives, providing
power and connectivity, and then connect to a host Mac via FireWire
400 (for the FireWire DriveDock) or 800 (for the ComboDock). They
also include power switches and feedback LEDs. Unfortunately,
WiebeTech's docks cost noticeably more at $99.95 for the FireWire
DriveDock and $169.95 for the ComboDock. And if you want to use the
ComboDock with drives other than 3.5" IDE mechanisms, you need
additional adapters that cost between $49.95 and $99.95 (the full
kit with all six adapters costs $499.95). Although I've not used the
WiebeTech docks personally, my impression is that they're aimed more
at the technician working with four or five different drives every
day, rather than someone who needs to access a bare drive only
occasionally.
<http://www.wiebetech.com/products/firewiredrivedock.php>
<http://www.wiebetech.com/products/ComboDock.php>
<http://www.weibetech.com/products/v4_adapters.php>
But what about the other function of a hard drive case: physical
protection? It's certainly true that you could install a bare drive
in an inexpensive hard drive case, but most cases lack the interface
flexibility of these bare drive adapters, and it's often fussy to
insert and remove drives from cases. The WiebeTech docks come with a
bottom plate to protect the drive electronics (and you can purchase
additional plates if desired). But Granite Digital has a better
answer to this problem: Drive Shields, available either in stretchy
silicone ($9.95) for quick insertion and removal or aluminum
($19.95) that offers more protection and cooling for longer term
use. A package of the silicone Drive Shields includes shields for
both 2.5" and 3.5" drives; the aluminum Drive Shield works only with
3.5" drives.
<http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg67_driveshields.htm>
The bottom line is that if you ever find yourself needing to work
with bare hard drive mechanisms, one of these inexpensive adapters
will prove an essential addition to your toolkit.
Webjimbo Makes Yojimbo Data Web-Accessible
------------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9087>
Adrian Ross has released Webjimbo 1.0, a Web-based interface for
Bare Bones Software's Yojimbo organizer software, enabling both a
view into stored items and the capability to update some of that
data. (Neither Adrian Ross nor his software have a direct connection
to Bare Bones.) Webjimbo is a compact Web server that runs on a Mac
with a launched copy of Yojimbo. Webjimbo preserves a lot of
Yojimbo's look, feel, and interaction by using AJAX Web technology.
(AJAX combines JavaScript and XML to send and receive information
between the browser and Internet applications, like a Web server, as
well as to update parts of a Web page without reloading it.)
<http://www.webjimbo.com/>
<http://www.barebones.com/products/yojimbo/>
Yojimbo centralizes and organizes the variety of content that we
accrete in using the Internet. You can print PDF documents from any
application directly to Yojimbo, drag PDFs straight in, create notes
and encrypt them, add Web site and other passwords, note serial
numbers, and organize bookmarks. Yojimbo can also create static
archives of Web pages. (We reviewed Yojimbo 1.0 in "Let Yojimbo
Guard Your Information Castle," 2006-01-30; it's now at version
1.4.)
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8407>
The program has become a constant resource for me, as I split my
time and usage among a home office (a living room couch) and a real
office. Yojimbo can use .Mac synchronization, which enables me to
keep everything both centralized in the program and distributed
among my computers. In fact, I had written Rich Siegel, head of Bare
Bones and a friend of TidBITS, a few days after getting my iPhone to
ask when a Web-based version of Yojimbo would make my life even
easier given the iPhone's poor storage of passwords; he noted that
the independently developed Webjimbo was already well into beta
testing.
Webjimbo is simply a Web server that uses AppleScript behind the
scenes to expose data from Yojimbo. While you can view PDFs inline
within Yojimbo, Webjimbo provides them as downloads, which can be
viewed inline in a browser if you have the appropriate Acrobat
plug-ins. Encrypted notes and passwords can't be edited in this
release; similarly, encrypted Web archives can't be viewed.
The server requires an IP address that's reachable from the places
you want to access your data. On a local network, that's not a
problem, but it's likely that you would run Webjimbo to access
Yojimbo's data store remotely. That won't work for many users,
because you must have a routable IP address, something most home
Internet service providers charge extra for or don't even offer.
If you use an AirPort base station or other gateway to handle access
among multiple computers for a home broadband connection using DHCP
and NAT to assign addresses, you could be out of luck in this
release. Some remote control systems - such as LogMeIn and CoPilot -
connect a client application with a central server to allow access
to computers behind such gateways. (I write about some ways around
this annoyance in "Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Extreme
Network" if you're using a 2007 model of the AirPort Extreme Base
Station.)
<https://secure.logmein.com/>
<https://www.copilot.com/>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/airport-n.html?14@@!pt=TB890>
Ross could choose to add such support on a subscription or other
basis in the future; it's not technically difficult to create such
servers and linkages, but it requires full-time operational support,
just like a hosted application. It could also be tied into Skype,
which provides application hooks for traversing gateways.
On the security front, Webjimbo does a good job keeping Yojimbo data
private. First, the software requires that you set a password for
the server, rather than just using your Mac OS X account password.
You could set the Webjimbo password to be the same, but that would
reduce security.
Second, because Yojimbo doesn't allow access to its encrypted notes
and passwords via AppleScript by default, you must choose to enable
that access. You can turn on access via scripts to notes or
passwords or both. (The settings are in the Security tab of
Yojimbo's Preferences dialog.)
Third, Webjimbo allows only SSL/TLS connections from a browser,
providing strong encryption for data in transit - this is especially
critical for iPhone users, as the iPhone lacks a simple way to
secure an entire data connection consistently. (See my Macworld
article, "Securing Your iPhone's Traffic.") Ross took a shortcut
here, using a self-signed certificate; this can save considerable
expense on his part. These certificates can't be validated via
information that's pre-loaded into Web browsers, and your browser
will throw up a warning the first time you access a Webjimbo server.
You can choose, depending on the browser, to accept the validity of
the certificate once or for subsequent connections. (For more on
self-signed certificates, see Chris Pepper's "Securing
Communications with SSL/TLS: A High-Level Overview," 2007-06-25.)
<http://www.macworld.com/2007/07/features/iphone_security/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9049>
While Webjimbo is primed to be an iPhone-focused application,
development started before the iPhone and associated developer
information was released, and Ross promises an iPhone-optimized
version in the future.
Ross charges $29.95 for a single user license of Webjimbo and $49.95
for a five-user household license. It requires Yojimbo, which Bare
Bones offers for $39 for a single user, $69 for up to five users in
a household, or $29 for a single educational user.
Stewing Over Safe Sleep
-----------------------
by Joe Kissell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9090>
Imagine that you've just bought a new car, and the car manufacturer
has thoughtfully included a new piece of technology, a Dead Battery
Preventer. In order for the DBP to work its magic, your car must
continue to run for 49 seconds after you turn it off - every time
you turn it off - during which time you can't open the doors. But,
as the car dealer reassures you, surely this is a small, barely
noticeable inconvenience compared to the tremendous savings in grief
you'll experience on those occasions when you'd otherwise find
yourself stuck, unable to go anywhere due to a dead battery. No
waiting for a tow truck to arrive, no frantic calls to AAA. Just
activate the DBP and drive away.
There's no such thing as a DBP, but that's the closest analogy I
could come up with for a feature that has been built into all Apple
laptops for the past couple of years. It's called Safe Sleep, and
it's comparable to the hibernation mode typically found on Windows
laptops. In this mode, your laptop uses no electricity whatsoever,
and the entire contents of your RAM before entering Safe Sleep are
safely stored on your hard disk. The main point of this feature is
to protect you from a situation in which your computer has gone to
sleep with an unsaved document, and then your battery, which can
ordinarily sustain your computer's RAM during sleep for hours or
even days, has drained completely. When you plug in your laptop or
replace the battery... Oh no! Your unsaved document is gone! But not
with Safe Sleep: your computer automatically restores the contents
of RAM from that file on disk, and you're right back to where you
were before. The cost for this safety net? A short delay whenever
you put your computer to sleep so that your RAM can be copied to
disk.
In most of the articles I've read about Safe Sleep, it has been
hailed as a tremendously helpful feature. There are utilities and
hacks to enable Safe Sleep on certain laptops where it wouldn't
otherwise be available, and you can download any of several free
tools (such as Deep Sleep, Midnight, and SuspendNow) to force your
laptop directly into Safe Sleep (as opposed to ordinary sleep). But
I don't like Safe Sleep one bit - at least not the way it's
currently implemented. I especially dislike the fact that Apple has
not merely made it the default setting, but has omitted any
graphical interface for turning it off - and the fact that if you
use the command line to do so, chances are good that Safe Sleep will
turn itself back on when you least expect it.
<http://deepsleep.free.fr/>
<http://www.tekuris.com/products/midnight>
<http://www.jackoverfull.altervista.org/applicazioni/suspendnow/index-en.html>
This is not merely a suboptimal or marginally infelicitous design
decision. It's a bad way of doing things that Apple should be
actively ashamed of and should remedy immediately. To explain why I
feel this way, I want to provide a bit more detail about Safe Sleep
and how its current design falls far short of Apple's ordinarily
high usability standards.
**Stages of Sleep** -- My trusty old titanium PowerBook G4 belongs to
a generation of laptops before Safe Sleep existed. When I put my
TiBook to sleep, it goes to sleep immediately. Right away, the power
light begins pulsating gently, and right away I can put it in my
bag, or back under my seat on the plane, secure in the knowledge
that the hard disk is parked and therefore relatively immune to
everyday shocks and jarring. When I open the lid again, everything
immediately returns to its previous state. While the laptop is
asleep, it uses a little bit of electricity - enough to maintain the
contents of RAM and keep a few other key components minimally active
- but I know from experience that the computer can stay asleep for
some time. If the battery held close to a full charge before I put
the computer to sleep, that period of time can be several days or
longer, but even if it was close to empty, I know it will last for
at least a few hours.
The situation is different on more recent Apple laptops - every
portable model starting with the 15-inch and 17-inch Double-Layer
SuperDrive models introduced in October 2005. These models do have
an ordinary sleep mode, just as before. But Apple's documentation
warns you that when you put such a laptop to sleep (by closing the
lid, for example), you must not move it until the power light has
begun pulsating. During the first moments after you close the lid,
when the light is on steadily, Mac OS X is busily copying the
contents of your RAM to your hard disk in preparation for the
possibility that your battery might later drain completely - forcing
the computer into Safe Sleep mode. And during that time, when the
disk is spinning, any untoward movement could cause damage to the
hard drive mechanism. (You can also employ a command-line hack to
force it to bypass the ordinary sleep mode and go directly into
hibernation after saving the RAM, if you so desire; I discuss this a
bit later.)
So far so good, but here's where the problems start. It takes more
than a "moment" for your computer to write this hibernation file to
disk and go to sleep. The length of time it takes is proportional to
the amount of RAM you have installed. On my new MacBook Pro with 4
GB of RAM, it takes 49 seconds for the computer to sleep when Safe
Sleep is active; with Safe Sleep turned off, it takes only 4
seconds. That's an enormous, and enormously annoying, difference.
Moreover, for each gigabyte of RAM you have, you effectively lose a
gigabyte of storage space on your hard disk, because of the space
required for this special RAM cache file. Given the higher cost and
lower capacities of laptop hard drives, this space usage is a
nontrivial issue. In essence, there's now both a performance penalty
and a storage space penalty for buying the latest hardware and
maxing out your RAM!
Even so, the inconveniences of Safe Sleep would be slight if Apple
offered an easy way to turn it off. But as things stand now, you
have to do this in Terminal, using the same pmset program Glenn
Fleishman had to employ to solve another sleep-related issue (see
"Sleepless (and Latchless) in Seattle," 2006-10-09). To disable Safe
Sleep and delete the existing disk image used to hold the contents
of your RAM, open Terminal and enter the following two commands:
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8702>
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage
The new settings take effect immediately; no restart is required.
(To return Safe Sleep to its default setting, repeat just the first
command, replacing the 0 with a 3. To change the behavior so that
your computer always goes directly into Safe Sleep without waiting
for the battery to die, replace the 0 with a 1. And if you have Use
Secure Virtual Memory selected in the Security pane of System
Preferences, replace the 1 or 3 with 5 or 7, respectively.)
Still, however, the problem hasn't quite gone away: even after I did
that on my computer, I found, more than once, that Safe Sleep had
turned itself back on. I haven't yet discovered why or when this
happens. I do know that using the pmset program modifies the same
file used by the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.p
list. At first I assumed that making any change to the Energy Saver
preferences overwrites all the settings not explicitly shown in the
preference pane with their default values, and that Safe Sleep had
turned itself back on because I'd changed some other setting there.
However, this is not the case; I've made changes to the Energy Saver
preferences and verified, afterward, that the hibernatemode value in
the preference file was still at 0, just as I'd left it. But
something that happens periodically on my computer does reset that
value to its default from time to time, and I realize this only when
I attempt to put my computer to sleep and notice that it takes far
too long to comply - invariably at the least convenient moment.
**The Wrong Solution** -- I understand, of course, that software
development involves a never-ending series of compromises. Sometimes
elements of usability must be sacrificed for some greater good. But
in this case, I believe that the good is not greater, and that Apple
had other options available.
In the first place, consider the problem Safe Sleep is trying to
solve. Safe Sleep is useful only when all three of the following
circumstances exist:
* Your computer enters sleep mode with unsaved documents.
* Enough time passes (generally, multiple days) for the battery to
drain completely.
* After inserting a charged battery or connecting an AC adapter, you
expect your computer to return immediately to the state it was in
before it went to sleep.
This set of circumstances never, ever exists for me. First, I
habitually save my documents frequently, and allow any application
with an auto-save feature to save files on its own every 10 minutes,
if not more often. So, the maximum amount of work I could lose, if
not using Safe Sleep, is 10 minutes. Second, I always travel with an
AC adapter and a spare battery, so I'm never away from some source
of power for longer than my computer can stay asleep. And finally, I
don't expect my computer to protect me from my own carelessness: if
I've neither saved my work nor arranged for enough power to keep my
laptop's memory alive, I don't assume that the computer will somehow
magically forgive me.
But that's me. You might have different habits or expectations;
seemingly enough people do that Apple considered Safe Sleep
important. And I don't mind at all that Safe Sleep exists. As I said
earlier, what I mind is that it's on by default - a significant
reduction in usability - without any obvious means of turning it off
or getting it to stay turned off.
Apple could have done things differently. For example, they could
have put a Safe Sleep control in Energy Saver Preferences so that
you can turn it on or off, or adjust its behavior, if needed. But I
think even that is unnecessary aggravation. You don't have to stop
jogging and wait for 49 seconds before your iPod will shut off. In
fact, you don't have to shut it off at all. The world's zillions of
iPod users wouldn't tolerate such an inconvenience, and Apple quite
reasonably designed the iPod in such a way that you never have to
think about whether it's in motion or perform some lengthy ritual to
put it to sleep safely. I have to believe that Apple's engineers are
smart enough to figure out how to do something comparable for a
laptop.
Interestingly (and ironically), all the Apple laptops that come with
Safe Sleep enabled by default also include a Sudden Motion Sensor
(SMS), a little device that detects when your computer might be
moving too much and parks the hard drive to prevent damage. If the
SMS works as advertised, it should be unnecessary to avoid moving
your laptop when it's busy caching your RAM; what should happen is
that if your computer moves too much, the SMS steps in and keeps
your hard drive safe. All this can and should be invisible to the
user. And for all I know, maybe the SMS already works just fine if
you jar your computer while it's saving your RAM - but if so, there
should be no need for all the warnings about keeping your laptop
still, and no intermediate "not-quite-asleep" mode to know about.
**Lights Out** -- I eventually worked around this problem, for myself,
on my own MacBook Pro. It took me all of a few minutes to write a
three-line shell script to turn off Safe Sleep and delete the RAM
cache, if any - and then to set up a cron job (or I could just as
easily have used Launch Services) to run this command with root
privileges every hour, just in case I've inadvertently done
something during that time to turn Safe Sleep back on. My script, by
the way, was simply:
<http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/secrets/februarygeekfactor/>
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/pmset -a hibernatemode 0
rm /var/vm/sleepimage
But then, I'm a propellerhead. I don't mind doing that sort of
fiddling. Ordinary non-geeks shouldn't be subjected to such
silliness.
**Asleep on the Job** -- I remember being in the audience for a Steve
Jobs keynote several years ago in which he was demonstrating
wireless streaming video. A PowerBook was playing a video clip that
was being streamed over an AirPort connection from another Mac. To
show how robust this capability was, Steve closed the PowerBook's
lid while the video was playing, putting the computer to sleep, and
then, a few seconds later, opened it again to demonstrate how the
video immediately picked up where it had left off. We all applauded:
that's how seamlessly things were supposed to work.
You can't do that anymore - at least not without using an
unsupported hack. You have to wait almost a minute before your
laptop will sleep, during which time you should not be moving it
around. Look, it's 2007 and I'm a Mac user; if I can't put my brand
new computer to sleep and into its bag in less than 10 seconds,
something is seriously wrong.
Take Control News/30-Jul-07
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9086>
**Get the Last Word on Mac OS X Terminology** -- We Mac users sling
technical jargon around every day, but if you've ever felt uncertain
about what a term actually means, help is here in our latest ebook.
"Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon" is a mad romp through over 500
Macintosh- and Internet-related terms. You'll learn how to figure
out if your optical drive can write to a dual-layer DVD, why 404 and
501 are interesting numbers, how to work with the three main types
of dashes that you can type on a Mac, and much more. We're not
talking about some dry old dictionary here - these definitions are
loaded with useful tips, practical advice, humor, and empathy.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/mac-lexicon.html?14@@!pt=TRK-0053-TB890-TCNEWS>
Written by veteran Macintosh authors Andy Baird and Sharon Zardetto,
the 191-page ebook extends the familiar Take Control design with
handy alphabetic navigation tabs on every page, oodles of custom
graphics, and over 2,000 internal links. Want to learn more about a
particular entry? Margin icons link to hand-picked external Web
sites, TidBITS articles, and other Take Control titles. (Needless to
say, the internal links and margin icons can't be clicked in the
print version, so if you prefer reading on paper, we encourage you
to purchase the ebook first, after which you can buy the print
version via the Print Book link on the cover; the price is the same
either way.)
Make no mistake - this book won't teach you how to make your Mac
dance or turn you into an instant network administrator. But we're
sure you'll have fun reading it and learning more about the Mac
because the draft generated far more and far livelier comments from
the Take Control authors and other expert technical reviewers than
any other ebook we've published. So take a look, and if you want to
see a full list of the defined terms in advance, download the
sample, which includes the first page of each letter.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/samples/TC-MacOSXLexicon-SAMPLE-1.0.pdf>
**Updated Ebook Explains Syncing iPhone and Apple TV** -- We've just
released an update to "Take Control of Syncing in Tiger" to add
details about syncing to the iPhone and the Apple TV. The book,
written by Mac expert Michael E. Cohen, is packed with real-world
advice for syncing data and files from a Mac to iPods, cell phones,
PDAs, and other Macs. Now the book also covers the specific quirks
of the iPhone and the Apple TV. Those who already own an earlier
version of the ebook can download a free update via the Check for
Updates button on the ebook's cover. The print version of this
update to "Take Control of Syncing in Tiger" is also available now.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-syncing.html?14@@!pt=TRK-0040-TB890-TCNEWS>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/30-Jul-07
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9092>
**Sites with info for new Mac users** -- Following last week's mention
of the MyFirstMac site, we receive other recommendations. (3
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1389/>
**Personal Finance Program with Shared Database** -- Are there any
finance programs for the Mac that allow two people to make separate
entries on different computers, but access all the same data? (1
message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1390/>
**Recovering data from single density floppy disks?** Dig back into
your Mac memory to find out how to read data from old 400K floppy
disks. (20 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1391/>
**Cell Phone Prepaid Plans** -- Last week's article on prepaid
cellular plans raises a variety of questions from readers. (8
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1392/>
**Rumour Site "MacOSRumors" Off The Air?** A Mac rumor site has gone
dark. We'll all adapt somehow, or at least that's the rumor. (7
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1393/>
**Multiple mailboxes on the iPhone** -- The iPhone's Mail program
supports multiple folders, but they must be created on the Mac
first, apparently. (9 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1394/>
**Writing software for novelists** -- A novelist gives high marks to
Scrivener, a program designed specifically for the needs of serious
fiction writers. (3 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1395/>
**Palm Software** -- What's the best approach to synchronizing an old
Treo with a modern Mac? (7 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1396/>
**Actual iPhone sales and activations** -- Although Apple claimed
270,000 iPhones sold within the third fiscal quarter of 2007, how
were those numbers calculated? (2 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1398/>
**iPhone Features & Software** -- A reader looking to replace his Treo
650 with an iPhone seeks advice on replacement software and tasks,
too. What's available for the iPhone now? (7 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1399/>
**iPhone batteries v. laptop batteries** -- Will iPhone batteries
withstand charging cycles better than laptop batteries, and if so,
why? (1 message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1400/>
$$
This is TidBITS, a free weekly technology newsletter providing timely
news, insightful analysis, and in-depth reviews to the Macintosh and
Internet communities. Feel free to forward to friends; better still,
please ask them to subscribe!
Non-profit, non-commercial publications and Web sites may reprint or
link to articles if full credit is given. Others please contact us. We
do not guarantee accuracy of articles. Caveat lector. Publication,
product, and company names may be registered trademarks of their
companies. TidBITS ISSN 1090-7017.
Copyright 2007 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license.
Contact us at: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
TidBITS Web site: <http://www.tidbits.com/>
License terms: <http://www.tidbits.com/terms/>
Full text search: <http://www.tidbits.com/search/>
Subscriptions: <http://www.tidbits.com/about/list.html>
Account help: <http://www.tidbits.com/about/account-help.html>
--
If you want to unsubscribe or change your address, use this link
http://emperor.tidbits.com/webx?unsub@@.3c557dc4!u=306a67f9
