Wifi Apps for Mac OS X (Snow) Leopard

I have a bunch of wifi applications and widgets installed on the mbp that I use mostly for work. While i only use 2-3 of them on a regular basis, I try to keep them all in my Apps folder since they also come in handy at times, depending on their capability. After upgrading to Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), most of them have stopped working due to compatibility issues.

The purpose of this post is to list these apps that are known to be working on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), so I can check from time to time if a 10.6 version (Snow Leopard) have been released.

MBP Battery Issues

Since I got the MBP back roughly 3 weeks ago, I noticed that the battery life has diminished. And significantly that is. I can use the machine for a maximum of two hours now, whereas it can stay almost 3.5 to 4 hours before. I wonder if the logic board replacement has got anything to do with it (although I highly doubt). For all I know, this could have been going on for a while but I was just unaware of. It’s been more than a year anyway.

Anyhow, before I check with Apple Care, I decided to diagnose it myself first (not an expert, so let’s just check the stats). This way, I can avoid excuses technicians always make when dealing with customers (i.e. like try to reset PRAM first, etc).

How-To: Install (Snow) Leopard from Firewire or USB Drive

I learned this trick when I misplaced the Leopard DVD that comes with the Macbook Pro. This time, I tried (with assurance from other blog/forum posts that it actually works – there are probably tons of more detailed tutorials than this.) doing the same for Snow Leopard.

What you need:
- External Hard Drive (USB or Firewire) –
WARNING: should not contain important files, since we will format this.
- Snow Leopard installer DVD or DMG file

Application to Use:
Disk Utility

Steps:
0. Create DMG file
Select the DVD drive from the Left Pane of Disk Utility. Then click “New Image” icon from the Top Menu. Type the filename of your choice (or retain as Mac OS X Server Install Disc) and the select destination folder and SAVE.

How-To: Time Machine Backup on a Network Storage

Again, I’m writing for convenience here (i.e. for personal reference in the future). There’s a bunch of more helpful posts on the topic out in the information jungle (the Internet). This post is a summary of the command that worked for me based on this macosxhints discussion.

It’s been a while, yes. But now I’m jumping into the bandwagon.

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To configure your machine to use Time Machine, go to System Preferences -> System -> Time Machine. Click on the slider to turn it on.

Then select the Disk to be used for backup. Normally, it will only detect local drives. If you are going to use network storage, like what i will do, make sure to issue this command. Time Machine should now list your network storage along with local disks.
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Now this is the usual error i get. This is the culprit why i did not continue setting up Time Machine before. If like me, you encounter the message “The backup disk image could not be mounted” after a few minutes of “preparing”, then issue the ff. command:
hdiutil create -size $SIZEg -fs HFS+J -type SPARSEBUNDLE -volname "Backup of $HOSTNAME" $HOSTNAME_$MACADDR.sparsebundle

$SIZE is the size of the backup volume; the appending g is for GB, m for MB and so on..
$HOSTNAME is the computer name
$MACADDR is well, the mac address of the machine, without the colons. This is the same mac address of the ethernet card. To check, go to System Profiler -> Network -> Ethernet, then copy the mac address field.

Mount your network storage (as AFP in my case).  Then copy the file created above.

cp -r $HOSTNAME_$MACADDR.sparsebundle /Volumes/Backup/


Open Time Machine settings from System Preferences. Select the NAS Volumes as backup disk. Set Options to select which folders not to backup. Then you’re all set.

So that’s it. You’re done.

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UPDATE

Commands to use after changing the Logic Board:

cd /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
xattr -p com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress MyMac

$ sudo fsaclctl -p /Volumes/Time Machine -d
$ sudo mv .00f9e8d7c6b5 .001a2b3c4f56
$ sudo xattr -w com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress 00:1a:2b:3c:4f:56 Backups.backupdb/MyMac
$ sudo fsaclctl -p /Volumes/Time Machine -e

Note: This doesn’t seem to work for NAS. One reason probably is the mac address of the Sparse Bundle. I’ll give it another go sometime.

Core9, Mac and More

Hello.. nothing much to blog about.. except for some challenging config stuff over the weekend.

Problem #1: Core 9’s messy network management

Got Fedora Core 9 working on my desktop PC replacing the old OpenSuse. The entire installation setup is smooth as usual. Network settings nicely set up during install. When it finished however, it’s like i never configured the network yet. So after setting up again, ifconfig, network restart… oops, still the same. Tried adding a new wired network on the Network Management interface, but it results in errors. After reboot, it now sees two ip addresses, one static and another is dhcp although i only have one interface.

Solution: Turn off the Network Manager. Just use the old school network service.

sudo /etc/init.d/NetworkManager stop
sudo /sbin/chkconfig NetworkManager off
sudo /sbin/chkconfig network on

Then start the old network service, which is now disabled by default

sudo /etc/init.d/network start

And if the network settings all messed up by now, you can reconfigure the device using the ff. command:

sudo system-config-network

Sulfur’s net management sucks! At least for me, it’s totally useless.

Problem#2 Xserve’s Server Manager Crashes

I’m getting an error on starting/stopping the dns service using server admin. The service itself runs just fine. But the server manager interface crashes. Here’s the error:

A service has encountered an error.
Try to refresh the view (x2-lan.local/DNS). Report the problem to the administrator if it persists.
(“servermgr_dns” server-side plugin may have unexpectedly quit)

Solution: Don’t use Server Admin’s DNS service. It’s for dummies. If it bothers you, just remove the application so other services can be used w/o the error popping out. Remove the file DNS.bundle from

/Applications/Server/Server Admin.app/Contents/PlugIns/

Note: Got this excellent tip from the Apple Forum, thanks to whoever you are.

Problem#3 Installing Xcode from the Terminal/Console

Now this one’s more of my fault. Ok so now that i’m not tied with the Server Admin DNS package, i wanted to try installing an updated Bind version. (too lazy to update before since somehow the gui’s just appealing.) Xserves bundled package is 9.3.4-P1 but current versions are 9.4.2 or 9.5.0rc1
So there, so i can install the source, first i need Xcode.

hdiutil attach xcode25_8m2558_developerdvd.dmg

This is where it got me..

cd /Volumes/Xcode Tools/
sudo installer -verbose -pkg XcodeTools.mpkg -target /

Solution: The folder should be..

/Volumes/Xcode Tools/Packages

Otherwise it will return errors..

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Just some stuff i learned today. Had to write here for future reference..