Apple released patches for several apps in the iLife ’08 Suite. iPhoto 7.1.4 is the only one that contains feature enhancements in addition to the typical “compatibility” and “stability updates”: This update contains new holiday greeting card and postcard themes for use with Apple print products. There’s also iMovie 7.1.4, iWeb 2.0.4, and a general iLife Support 8.3 update. All three contain the terse description: This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues. It is recommended… I applied the update to all my Macs without [...] Read the rest »
Windows Home Server Power Pack 1
Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 has been officially released and I just finished instalngli the update on my Windows Home Server. The update was straight-forward and quick, taking less than 30 minutes. Even though WHS can do folder duplication to prevent hard disk failure, that doesn’t do much if he whole server goes down or files are corrupted (or an OS update goes terribly wrong) so I always have copies of the files elsewhere. Because of this I didn’t have to worry about backups. I also hadn’t installed the [...] Read the rest »
WordPress 2.6 Released
WordPress 2.6 has been released. It’s an upgrade to WordPress 2.5.x so the WordPress 2.5.x branch won’t be updated anymore. Eventually there’ll be a security related update that requires upgrading to WordPress 2.6.x so I figured I’d get it over with sooner rather than later. It’s a fairly straight-forward upgrade, just some file copies. It took me longer to verify the backups than to do the actual upgrade. I didn’t have any plugin compatibility or other problems and found this line from the announcement to be true: 2.6 is pretty [...] Read the rest »
Attack of the Hard Drives
I just connected another hard drive to my iMac which meant I ended up with the mess shown below. That’s 4 drives, with 1.8TB of space (that’s in addition to the 500GB in the iMac itself). Seems like overkill to me. In my defense I submit that I’m paranoid about backups and as far as I’m concerned a file doesn’t exist unless it’s in two places. To make matters worse I don’t consider RAID or my WHS file duplication to be two places since it’s still one device. Still, things [...] Read the rest »
So Long MobileMe
Just before the .Mac to MobileMe conversion I received an e-mail that my .Mac account was up for renewal in August. I’ve already gone in and set it to not renew. MobileMe still doesn’t work reliably for me on either of my Macs. Apples inability to service existing customers during the planned conversion has soured me on the service. .Mac had been going well and if it wasn’t for the MobileMe fiasco I probably would have renewed as the path of least resistance. Instead it’s time to make sure I [...] Read the rest »
Fail: Windows Home Server System Disk Replacement
Back when I wrote an article about replacing Windows Home Server data disks I received some comments about replacing the system drive. At the time I didn’t think I’d be replacing the disk anytime soon since there was little benefit. The drive is used last for data storage so it would be easier and more beneficial to expand the data drives. In my mind having the OS on a separate drive from the data but would provide better performance, at least in theory. Events changed and I needed another drive [...] Read the rest »
Windows Activation
I finally had to use the telephone Windows Activation process today. My Windows XP Home Edition (yea, it’s old) install had finally gone through enough changes that it wouldn’t activate via the internet. The problem was relatively painless. I called an 800 number (at least here in the US). It was all voice automation. I answered a few yes/no questions and read a rather long number that was displayed on the activation screen. More yes/no questions then I typed in a rather long number that was given to me. The [...] Read the rest »
MobileMe: New Name but Old Problems
Apple may have given .Mac a new name, but it’s returned the service to it’s old ways. Way back when I started with .Mac it was unreliable, so much so I didn’t renew. I signed up again just under a year ago and it’s been pretty reliable since then. But the conversion to MobileMe has been a disaster for current .Mac users. There a several long threads in the support forums. This morning my iMac received it’s update for MobileMe. During the upgrade my local iDisk as deleted (luckily a [...] Read the rest »
Apple TV 2.1 Released
Apple released Apple TV 2.1 today which includes support for MobileMe and a new Remote Control app for the iPhone/Touch that will be available in the App store. It also contains several security updates. I updated without a problem or anyt noticeable change. MobileMe has been down and I don’t have an iPhone/Touch. Read the rest »
WHS Add-In Updated: Windows Home Server Disk Management 1.0.8.6
Windows Home Server Disk Management, my favorite and most useful add-in for Windows Home Server, has been updated. My previous version was 1.0.7.3. Functionally there’s not much that’s different, but but the enhancements improve an already fine add-in. Like other add-ins I’ve used, the old version must be uninstalled before the new version can be installed. In general the settings are saved but in this case the server wireframe (diagram of disk usage) had to be re-created. This was documented on the download page which also provides templates that came [...] Read the rest »
