Snow Leopard installs converted to Lion end up with file corruption in /etc/hosts.

1. cat /etc/hosts
2. copy it into your paste buffer
3. paste it into text mate (or other)
4. select and re-copy to your paste buffer
5. delete your /etc/hosts file
6. vim and insert into a new /etc/hosts file

Day Watch

Night Watch

i’ve mounted my 27″ iMac to my wall, over the desk in my room. my desk is therefor ‘clear’ of electronics (other than the BT keyboard and mouse), and this gives me lots more room to keep my ‘project of the day’ spread all over it.  but that’s not the coolest part.

since the iMac is in my room, and the desk is on the wall opposite my headboard, i get to use Front Row for it’s best purpose, watching my store of Alias, Stargate, Eureka, Warehouse 13, etc, from bed. but that’s not the coolest part either.

i’ve also implemented Mira, which is a dream, and lets me do many usefull things like sleep the iMac monitor without sleeping the machine (so i can drift off to iTunage sans annoying led backlight), and various other useful goodies.  but that’s just cool, not ultra-cool.

you see, i don’t really like clutter on the walls. or on surfaces. or at all, really. so i don’t have a clock. who needs a clock when you have an iPhone, iPad, and iMac all within 20 feet of each other. but i also don’t like to fumble around for the ipad just to see the time. and i have to keep the iPhone over on the desk so that i don’t just silence my alarm and fail to make it to my 10:00am departmental standup.

i wish. i wish i had a nice clock to bring up with the apple remote (which i keep in the same place all the time so that i can find it in my sleep). wait, what about that ‘large type’ functionality i’ve seen in the address book??

that’s it! i’ve used the Mira popup menu (available via the apple remote) and set the ‘default’ button (i.e. i press the play button once) to run an applescript app that calls BigHonkingText and passes it the current time. voila!

here’s the command, if you need it:

date +%H:%M:%S | /usr/local/bin/BigHonkingText -p5 -

BigHonkingText

- Mary Ellen Kelly

Oh! Ok.

SSL encrypted data transfer to an AES256 encrypted file repository isn’t nearly as safe as FTP. Note the lack of an S there, people. that’s right! clear text unames and passwords. booyah!

oh, i subscribed to YouSendIt. 25 user corp account. “use this!”, i decry. “distributed access. high bandwidth infrastructure. better security than your average bank. (ask me how i know. better yet, don’t.)”

but alas, alack. my people were all about it. “great job!”, they laud. “oh, but wait. The customer can’t get the file”.

“qua?”, I quack.

“their IT department has blocked YouSendIt. they worry that it’s not safe. they’ve opened up FTP to our public IP’s though.”

i quack again, and again for emphasis, and swim away to my little pond of sanity.

truly, “quis futuō”.

update:  since i wrote this, we’ve been able to convince everyone to use an https upload/download system provided by Wing FTP.  its very nice. and obviates most of the nuttiness of the above rant.