The Other Wax Drum

Occasionally when I eject a CD or DVD using the normal Mac OS X methods (either pressing the "eject" button on the keyboard or dragging a volume to the trash", the volume disappears, but the disc doesn't come out. Every time this happens, I browse the usual troubleshooting sources (eg., macosxhints.com), and find the unhelpful procedure using the Terminal "hdiutil" utility. This only works if the volume is mounted.

This document is an excerpt from the Apple Knowledgebase

FireWire is the Apple Inc. name for the IEEE 1394 interface which operates at a bandwidth of 400Mbps. Since it supported a much higher bandwidth than USB 1.1, it was well suited for applications requiring large amounts of data transfer (scanners, disk drives).

FireWire interfaces first appeared in the PowerMac G3 (Blue & White), the iMac 350MHz (3rd generation), PowerBook G3 "Pismo", and second-generation iBook "clamshell" models.

As my web applications for artists became more sophisticated, I realized the value in having the ability for the app to dynamically resize images, say, to create thumbnails when an image is uploaded. Under PHP, the obvious choice is the GD libraries. While GD was available on my production server, I had to install it on my Mac OS X development platform. I found the procedure which I've included below.

Mac "Classic" on OS X

When OS X was introduced at the turn of the millenium, Apple provided a compatibility mode to allow software to run in "Classic" Mac OS. Even for the hard core OS X fans, there are still circumstances which require the use of OS 9 (or earlier, say, if you're a fan of "Crystal Quest".)

I love my iPod, and I'm glad that Apple has been so successful in this new venture. Just last week at MacWorld Expo, Steve Jobs announced this year's "insanely great" products, including the anticipated iPhone and AppleTV.

An inevitable side-effect of the iPod's success is that the small minority of users experiencing problems is much larger in number due to the overwhelming majority of market share Apple enjoys.

iPod Failures

Common iPod failures occur in the following subsystems:

• Battery
• Hard Drive
• Screen
• Scroll Wheel

Setting a User's Default Login Shell

When I became a Mac "switcher" in 1996, it took me a while to get accustomed to the GUI. My mind kept searching for the CLI "under the hood", so to speak. Gradually I came to understand the new paradigm, but now with OS X we've come full circle.

So, of couse, "Terminal" is one of my favorite apps. It's not ideal for everything, but better for some things. For example, I can often ssh to a machine on which the Finder is unresponsive, poke around, and usually fix it or at least reboot it cleanly.