The long awaited Apple Final Cut Server was released today, ahead of this years NAB show. It’s been a long time coming (more than two years almost), but you can finally have your cake and eat it too. From Apple’s FCS page:

Whether you work in a production boutique or a global news network, you can use Final Cut Server to free up more time for creative work. Final Cut Server can automatically manage thousands of assets, execute dozens of routine production tasks, and keep every member of your team in sync.

The scalable client/server software makes it easy to work the way you want to work, using as many or as few features as you need — whether you’re producing a 30-second spot, the nightly news, a documentary film, or a major motion picture.

1) Bring up VLC and select File/Open Capture Device (Ctrl-A). You should see this screen modify the bottom portion (Advanced Options), so it looks like this picture below. You can decrease screen-fps to 15 if you like to speed things up a bit.

2) On that same screen Click on the Settings… button beside Stream/Save and you’ll see the following screen. Make sure it’s configured this way if you want to do the streaming through HTTP protocol. Audio Codec does not need to be checked, since there is no audio, I just put it in as habit. Note the Address field is the IP address of the same machine (the server in this case), which is 192.168.1.1. This can be a bit confusing.
3) Press Okay twice and your VLC server is up and running serving your desktop to whoever wants to watch (Note: This WILL slow down your server machine considerably).
4) Go to your client machine (192.168.1.2 in our case), run VLC and go to File/Open Network menu option and fill it in as follows. Note that we’re connecting to our server at 192.168.1.1 now.
5) Press okay and you should see the stream from your server now…..DONE!!

A friend passed this on today (thanks Jeremy). If you use a mic in your day to day businness (or even if you’re an occasional ichat/skype user, you should check this out. RevoLabs have introduced a new line of Wireless microphones that come with RF-Armor. What does that mean, well the next time your GSM phone rings/sync/receives email, your microphone won’t be going all crazy. Plus their Solo mics come in three different types:

• Wearable
• Tabletop Boundry
• XLR adapter for handheld mics

All their mics use a base station that hooks up to your PC or Mac via USB (no driver needed) and show up as a sound device. As a bonus the wearable one also has a audio out so you can wear it around your neck (on in your pocket) and hook up a headset to it as well.
They also have larger 4 channel and 8 channel wireless systems that you can mix and match using different solo mics. The preconfigured systems even come with a 4 or 8 channel Gentner echo cancellation device by polycom. Very nice…..

Apples remote desktop service is great and it comes in handy, but what happens when you’re 5000 miles away from your desktop, only to find that remote desktop is turned off. Dooohhhh. Well here is a quick tip to turn the damn thing on and off in a second through a remote ssh connection. To turn on the service, ssh to your machine and issue the following commands:$ cd /Library/Preferences
$ echo -n enabled > com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchdAnd once you’re done, you can turn it off by issuing the following through an ssh session:$ cd /Library/Preferences
$ rm com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchdI’m pretty sure that this only works under Leopard (10.5+), so if you’ve got Tiger you need to look for an alternate way. I don’t have access to a Tiger machine so I can not guarantee that it works or not.

While the world was busy trying to figure out how to sync their palm pilots to Windows 98 (or was it 95) Andrew Tridgell was working on his thesis……Rsync. The endall-beall in the world of syncing. You see, if you’ve ever tried any syncing program before you’ll appreciate the ease with which rsync works. You’ll also see the efficiency of it’s algorithm in dealing with changes/updates, and for that you can thank Andrew. I’m just gonna show you how to use this excellent tool along with ssh (another must have/must use free software utility) to setup automated secure backups between two different platforms.

For the purpose of this article I’m using a PowerMac G5 with a 1TB Firewire disk hanging off it as my backup server. As my client I’m using the departmental research server (yes, forget that it’s a server, in this exercise it’s a CLIENT).

So first we need to make sure we have the tools: ssh and rsync. They are already part of my distribution (SuSE Linux 10.1 on the client and OSX 10.5.1 on the server) so I didn’t have to install anything. You want to make sure that your rsync uses protocol version 2.x.x on both sides. (type: rsync –version on your machines to see the protocol version).

Note: You can also grab RsyncX for older OSX versions and/or cwRsync for windows.

Step 1. Is to remove the interactivity that happens during an ssh session (ie: password prompt). To do this we must generate passphraseless keys that we can initially manually exchange between our machines. So in our case we want to grant access to our client machine — via ssh — from the server. Now here is were things get a bit OS specific. Under OSX there is no root account (atleast not one you can log into) by default. In my setup I want to allow root@server.domain.ca (OSX machine) to have access to root@client.domain.ca (Linux machine), so here is what I had to do.

On the OSX machine (server or machine initiating the rsync session) login as the standard user/admin and issue the following commands:
$ sudo su - (you'll be asked for your password and then be in a root shell....be careful).
# cd ~ (this is just to make sure we're in root's home directory which is /var/root under OSX).
# ssh-keygen -t dsa -b 1024 (do NOT put in a passphrase when prompted....just press Enter).
Generating public/private dsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/var/root/.ssh/id_dsa):
Created directory '/var/root/.ssh'.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /var/root/.ssh/id_dsa.
Your public key has been saved in /var/root/.ssh/id_dsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
03:cc:52:7a:ed:ae:bf:53:48:9c:dd:45:c7:a9:bd:f1 root@server.domain.ca
Make sure you don’t enter a passphrase when prompted (remember we want a automated operation here). If everything goes right you should have two new files in your .ssh directory named id_dsa (your private key….don’t ever give this to anyone) and id_dsa.pub (your public key which we are going to use).

Now you need to transfer the id_dsa.pub key file to your client somehow. I do this just using ssh again. If you want to be totally super secure you can stick it on a usb key and walk it over to your client machine. So still on the server (OSX) machine I do the following (still in roots account, so be careful):
# scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub root@client.domain.ca:/root/.ssh/authorized_keys
# ssh client.domain.ca -l root "chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"
So the first command transfers id_dsa.pub from the server and copies it to the root’s .ssh directory on the client (and renames it to authorized_keys). The second command issues a remote chmod command to set the right permissions on the authorized_keys file on the client (Linux box).

Now, to verify, while still logged into root on the server (OSX) try to ssh to your client machine (using root’s account on client). If everything works you should be able to log into root’s account on the client (Linux machine) without a password prompt. If you’re prompted for password, stop here, and redo/recheck your procedure.

Step 2. Pheew…..You made it, that was the hard part….the rest is pretty simple. Now we just need to test to make sure things are running smoothly and once that’s done we can automate everything using a cron job (Step 3.). So lets start our test run. For this I’ve chosen to backup the /etc directory on the server (lots of small files, nothing earth shattering) and my chosen path on the server is /Volumes/TERADISK. This is where OSX mounts my firewire drive (your milage may vary). I’ve created a folder on TERADISK called FULLBACKUP, which I use to have rsync house my backups. So to test issue the following command as root (yes still, so be carefull) on the server:
# /usr/bin/rsync -a -v -z -e ssh "root@client.domain.ca:/etc/" /Volumes/TERADISK/FULLBACKUP/etc
Notice I use /usr/bin to make sure I’m running the kosher version of rsync under OSX Leopard (I have an older rsync in /usr/local/bin that rsyncX installed). Now a word about slashes in rsync. Note that I follow the first /etc with a slash, but not the second occurrence. That’s because I’m telling rsync to grab the files INSIDE /etc on the client (hence the extra / at the end) and sync them to files in /Volumes/TERADISK/FULLBACKUP/etc existing directory on the server (hence the missing / at the end). You can think of a trailing / on a source as meaning “copy the contents of this directory” as opposed to “copy the directory by name”. So hopefully this command worked for you and after a few minutes you have a copy of the /etc directory on the server. If not please stop and review your steps. Do NOT do Step 3. unless Steps 1&2 are verified and working.

Step 3. Well we’ve reached the end. All you have to do now is to use crontab -e command while still logged in as root on the server to add rsync entries for folders you want synced between the client and the server. Note that I do NOT backup absolutely everything off the client, only specific folders (and their subfolders ofcourse). I’m pretty sure that rsync will get confused if you try to sync things like your dev directory from the linux client. In my cron I have the following:
0 4 * * 6 /usr/local/bin/rsyncmanu.sh
Which runs the rsync shell script on the server (as root) every saturday at 4:00 am.

That’s it. Hopefully this has been useful…..

I bet you didn’t know that Frontrow, Apple’s Media Centre software that ships with every Mac, can actually playback those HD trailers from their site. Well here is a quicktip to enable that functionality:
defaults write com.apple.frontrow EnableHDMovieTrailers TRUE
Once you type this into terminal, start up Frontrow and note that you get a new option under trailers. To disable this functionality issue the following command from a terminal window:
defaults write com.apple.frontrow EnableHDMovieTrailers FALSE

And that’s exactly what it does. A fantastic new product from evernote that offers you the opportunity to offload your brain of all those ideas/clippings/musings. Basically this thing is the kitchen sink of organizers….and it does OCR to boot.

So head over to evernote.com and sign up for an invite, download whatever method of interface you want/need (webbased/OSX/Windows) and start clipping and organizing your life/brain. One of coolest thing about evernote is that you can feed the elephant anything (sound/image/text) and it will make it searchable. In the case of an image for example, you can shoot your buddies business card using your cellphone, send it to your evernote account and it will automagically OCR the card content and make it searchable. Same with handwritten notes, memos, doodles, stickies. All this works in Windows/OSX and on the Web……very nice.

Now if they could add a bit of RSS import/export goodness to it, I think it would make the perfect central hub application for all your social interfaces (blog/twit/flick/wiki/etc….).

Okay these guys are my new best friends….Head over to cooliris.com and grab your copy of their cooliris previews extension…..trust me you’ll not be disappointed…..makes browsing faster and more fun. You’ll wonder how you ever got by without it.

Just hop on over to piclens.com and grab their Firefox/IE plugins (OSX, WinXP/Vista) and start enjoying your online pictures again. This little gem works with either browser (and pretty much all the derivatives…..ie: Flock, Bonecho, etc.) and will totally knock your socks off. Just install it, go to a random flickr page (or one of the other services they support) and press the little blue play button in the address bar area or on the actuall pictures…..It even supports the little mac remote……Now I have a excuse to buy that mac mini :-)

To be honest, I’ve had a twitter account for a while, but since I need a browser (or phone) to get access to it and twit, I hadn’t used it. But that’s about to change (maybe), since I found out how you can twit from command line. Yep, twit away from any UNIX, Linux, OSX (and Windows) Command prompt. Here is how:

1) First find the program CURL for your intended platform. It comes built into OSX and most Linux distros and there is a port for windows as well (use google).
2) Setup your twitter account.
3) Use this command when you want to twit:
curl -u yourusername:yourpassword -d status="Your Message Here" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml
Now one thing to remember is that the username and pass get added to your shell history, so if you’re on a public machine (or friends) you might clear the history file (ie: use history -c in bash to clear the command history).

Just came across this article over at Lifehacker that outlines how you can build your very own cross platform backup server for FREE…….more information on Restore’s own website. These are some of the key features that set RESTORE apart from the competition:

• Browser Based- Access your RESTORE system remotely from anywhere using the internet. This allows for users and administrators to run backups or check the status of automated backups at any time from any web accessible location
• Access Backups via WebDAV- RESTORE provides the ability to access prior backups via WebDav.
• Web Host Model Reseller environment- RESTORE DC was developed with the web hosting environment in mind also, shifting customer backups from a cost of doing business and turning it into an income generator.
• Permissionable at User Level- Give individuals and groups specified permissions on filestores.
• Security- Set up what you want your users and groups to access.
• Multiple Revisions- of filestores, which allow you to choose the specific filestore you wish to recover at a certain time.
• Error Reporting- Receive reports of errors on the system on various levels and at various intervals.
• Dynamic Scheduling- Allows for simple and complex scheduling that is fully customizable.
• Backup Many Operating Systems- Linux, OS X, Windows (95, 98, 2000, ME, XP NT) and Novell Netware.
• Rapid Recovery- Quickly and easily restore files that you need recovered in real time.
• Incremental- RESTORE will backup only the files that have been modified since the previous backup took place, optimizing disk space and bandwidth usage.
• SSH/SFTP- Backup Linux/Unix operating systems including OS X.
• MySQL Database- You can backup your MySQL Database.
• Servers and Workstations- Backup all server and workstations regardless of operating system.
• FTP Sites- Allows your company to backup websites and online storage.
• Notification- RESTORE will email the administrator and users of successful and failed backups.
• Offsite Backup- (coming soon) Your company can have a separate copy of data kept at an off-site location as a second security resource.

So STOP NOW and backup your system….otherwise you’ll be very sorry, and I will do my standard HhaaaHhaaa when your hard drive takes a nose dive :-).

TrueCrypt has finally released version 5.0 of it’s fantastic File/Volume/Disk encryption software and with that introduced the Mac World to “True” Encryption. Now I know all OSX junkies out there are trying to point out that OSX comes with FileVault (for free), but FileVault only encrypts the users home directory….that’s all. TrueCrypt gives you a lot more flexabilities than FileVault (and BitLocker under Vista). TrueCrypt (atleast under OSX) is implemented as a MacFUSE module (more info on MacFUSE here and here).

Main Features:

• Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.
• Encrypts an entire hard disk partition or a storage device such as USB flash drive.
• Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.
• Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:
• Hidden volume.
• No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).
• Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: XTS.

New features in version 5.0:

• Ability to encrypt a system partition/drive (i.e. a partition/drive where Windows is installed) with pre-boot authentication (anyone who wants to gain access and use the system, read and write files, etc., needs to enter the correct password each time before the system starts). For more information, see the chapter System Encryption in the documentation. (Windows Vista/XP/2003)
• Pipelined operations increasing read/write speed by up to 100% (Windows)
• Mac OS X version
• Graphical user interface for the Linux version of TrueCrypt
• XTS mode of operation, which was designed by Phillip Rogaway in 2003 and which was recently approved as the IEEE 1619 standard for cryptographic protection of data on block-oriented storage devices. XTS is faster and more secure than LRW mode (for more information on XTS mode, see the section Modes of Operation in the documentation). Note: New volumes created by this version of TrueCrypt can be encrypted only in XTS mode. However, volumes created by previous versions of TrueCrypt can still be mounted using this version of TrueCrypt.
• SHA-512 hash algorithm (replacing SHA-1, which is no longer available when creating new volumes). Note: To re-encrypt the header of an existing volume with a header key derived using HMAC-SHA-512 (PRF), select ‘Volumes’ > ‘Set Header Key Derivation Algorithm’.

So stop reading, click here and grab yourself a copy.

Continuing with our coverage of “Free your Apps”, here is how you can free your Server (and workstation) of those expensive (usually useless) so-called Enterprise Applications. BitNami stacks make it incredibly easy to install your favorite open source server software. Application stacks include an open source application and all the dependencies necessary to run it, such as Apache, MySQL and PHP or Ruby. All you need to do is download the Stack, provide a few pieces of information when prompted by the installation wizard, and that’s it. By the time you click ‘finish’, your new application will be ready to run. All stacks have been packaged using BitRock’s multiplatform installer.

Bitnami Infrastructure stacks are designed for developers and system administrators and provide you a way of installing a LAMP or Ruby environment, but do not include any extra applications. It is not necessary to download an infrastructure stack to use an application stack.

All this ofcourse for free, so again to recap, here is a complete list of what they offer:

• Infrastructure
• LAMPStack
• MAMPStack
• RubyStack
• WAMPStack
• Blog
• Roller
• WordPress
• Bug-Tracking
• Mantis
• Redmine
• Trac
• CMS
• Alfresco
• Drupal
• Joomla
• KnowledgeTree
• ECM
• Alfresco
• KnowledgeTree
• Forum
• phpBB
• Poll Management
• Opina
• Portal Server
• Liferay
• Wiki
• DokuWiki
• MediaWiki
• eLearning
• Moodle

So what are you waiting for…..fire up those downloads :-)

Are you constantly hearing about Open Source software and are wondering how to go about getting started. Do you want to cleanse your Mac or PC from all those so called advanced applications that don’t do what they advertise, yet take up all the diskspace on your computer. Or maybe you’re just sick of BSOD’n/Beachball’n apps that you brand new computer came loaded with and are ready for some Open Source Lovin’. Well WinLibre and MacLibre have your answer. Both are free to download and both offer you an easy way to install the best Open Source Apps that are out there.

MacLibre Featured applications

• Create
• Audacity
• Blender
• Gimp
• Inkscape
• Internet
• Adium
• Colloquy
• Cyberduck
• Fire
• Firefox
• Nvu
• Thunderbird
• Vienna
• Multimedia
• HandBrake
• MPlayer
• VLC
• Office
• AbiWord
• NeoOffice
• Utilities
• ClamXav
• DesktopManager
• iTerm
• VirtueDesktops
• X11

WinLibre Featured applications

• Create
• Audacity
• Blender
• Gimp
• Inkscape
• Internet
• NVU
• Firefox
• Gaim
• Thunderbird
• FileZilla
• Multimedia
• WinLAME
• CDex
• VLC
• Zinf
• Office
• PDFCreator
• OpenOffice
• Utilities
• ClamWin
• Notepad2
• 7-Zip
• TightVNC
• NetTime

A buddy of mine (thanks Mike) showed me this today. There is a input Access module in the newer versions of VLC (0.8.6+) called “screen” which makes this possible. To stream your desktop to another machine (ip address: 192.168.1.2 in this case) just use the following command in Linux (sorry command line only):vlc screen:// :screen-fps=30 :screen-caching=100 --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,vb=4096,acodec=mpga,ab=256,scale=1,width=1280,height=800}:rtp{dst=192.168.1.2,port=1234,access=udp,mux=ts}'or in Windows (slightly different syntax) use this command:vlc screen:// :screen-fps=30 :screen-caching=100 :sout=#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,vb=2048,scale=1,acodec=mpga,ab=192,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=rtp,mux=ts,dst=192.168.1.1:1234}}This is one massive command, so lets take a look at it in more detail:

• screen:// is our input module selection (if you just run vlc screen:// you’ll see your own screen on the server inside vlc….kinda cool)
• :screen-fps=30 specifies that we want to screengrab at 30 fps (from default 5 fps)
• :screen-caching=100 sets the internal caching to 100ms (from default 300 ms)
• –sout is our output chain.
• #transcode tells vlc that we first want to transcode the input using parameters to follow
• {} contains our transcoding parameters
• vcodec=mp4v sets the video codec to mpeg4 video
• vb=4096 sets the bitrate of the transcoded video (4Mb/s)
• acodec=mpga sets the audio codec to mpeg audio (mp3). Audio does not work yet, this is a place holder.
• ab=256 sets the bitrate of the transcoded audio (256 Kb/s)
• scale=1 sets the scaling value
• width=1280 sets the width of the transcoded video to 1280 pixels
• height=800 sets the height of the transcoded video to 800 pixels
• :rtp tells VLC that we want to use rtp protocol to send the encoder output to our receiver machine using Real Time Protocol.
• dst=192.168.1.2 is the ip address of our destination/playback machine
• port=1234 is the default port on the destination/playback machine
• access=udp specifies UDP protocol
• mux=ts sets multiplexing to mpeg-2 Transport stream

Now on the destination machine just open vlc, goto File/Open Network and by default the Media Resource Locator on top of the window should read udp:// and UDP/RTP with port 1234 should be selected. If it’s not select UDP/RTP (option 1) and put 1234 as the port number. Press Okay and you should see the video stream from the other machine (your server machine). That’s it….Opensource comes to rescue again :-)

Well, you learn something new everyday. Here is what I picked up today….If you ever install an application that came as a OSX package, there is a good chance that the installer has installed files all over your machine. There is also a good chance that the installer has left you a little gift — a way out if you like — in /Library/Receipts folder on your mac.

You see, if the author/packager has done their job correctly (most do), there is a Bill Of Material (known as a bom file) that is copied onto your system. In the example below I wanted to check the files that got installed on my machine by the MacFUSE installer so here are the commands I issued:
Brainiac:/ mayromlou$ cd /Library/Receipts/MacFUSE\ Core.pkg/Contents/
Brainiac:Contents mayromlou$ ls
Archive.bom Info.plist PkgInfo Resources
Brainiac:Contents mayromlou$ lsbom Archive.bom
So in this case I cd to the folder for the application in question (under the /Library/Receipts folder) and go directly to the Contents Folder. Then I get a directory listing and notice that there is a Archive.bom Bill of Material file there. Then I proceed to issue the lsbom command which will decode the bom file and shows me the following output:
. 40755 0/0
./Library 41775 0/80
./Library/Filesystems 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Contents 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Contents/Info.plist 100644 0/0 2591 1626887788
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Contents/Resources 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Contents/Resources/English.lproj 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/InfoPlist.strings 100755 0/0 6092 580475608
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Contents/version.plist 100644 0/0 456 3975516369
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext/Contents 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext/Contents/Info.plist 100644 0/0 1032 1833265120
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext/Contents/MacOS 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext/Contents/MacOS/fusefs 100644 0/0 282292 3125657523
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext/Contents/Resources 40755 0/0
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext/Contents/Resources/MacFUSE.xcconfig 100644 0/0 42 965707547
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/load_fusefs 104755 0/0 29212 3910787877
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/mount_fusefs 100755 0/0 52008 3511781209
./Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/uninstall-macfuse-core.sh 100755 0/0 4419 3035817197
./usr 40755 0/0
./usr/local 40755 0/0
./usr/local/include 40755 0/0
./usr/local/include/fuse 40755 0/0
./usr/local/include/fuse/fuse.h 100644 0/0 28075 1689529217
./usr/local/include/fuse/fuse_common.h 100644 0/0 6623 3278924455
./usr/local/include/fuse/fuse_common_compat.h 100644 0/0 738 1569919976
./usr/local/include/fuse/fuse_compat.h 100644 0/0 8749 3548531510
./usr/local/include/fuse/fuse_darwin.h 100644 0/0 2304 4217317508
./usr/local/include/fuse/fuse_lowlevel.h 100644 0/0 40397 1846692219
./usr/local/include/fuse/fuse_lowlevel_compat.h 100644 0/0 7572 2140056707
./usr/local/include/fuse/fuse_opt.h 100644 0/0 7307 3645063899
./usr/local/include/fuse.h 100644 0/0 246 2097503619
./usr/local/include/ulockmgr.h 100644 0/0 701 3653182913
./usr/local/lib 40755 0/0
./usr/local/lib/libfuse.0.0.0.dylib 100755 0/0 272548 3600984730
./usr/local/lib/libfuse.0.dylib 120755 0/0 19 2829363220 libfuse.0.0.0.dylib
./usr/local/lib/libfuse.a 100644 0/0 861224 2222446251
./usr/local/lib/libfuse.dylib 120755 0/0 19 2829363220 libfuse.0.0.0.dylib
./usr/local/lib/libfuse.la 100755 0/0 804 1483864331
./usr/local/lib/libulockmgr.0.0.0.dylib 100755 0/0 38900 610654515
./usr/local/lib/libulockmgr.0.dylib 120755 0/0 23 4013380549 libulockmgr.0.0.0.dylib
./usr/local/lib/libulockmgr.a 100644 0/0 41056 3770607053
./usr/local/lib/libulockmgr.dylib 120755 0/0 23 4013380549 libulockmgr.0.0.0.dylib
./usr/local/lib/libulockmgr.la 100755 0/0 832 341285231
./usr/local/lib/pkgconfig 40755 0/0
./usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/fuse.pc 100644 0/0 276 3834070396
The listing above shows all the files that were installed by the MacFUSE installer, so now I can easily go through the list and remove the files (either command line or with Finder). Have fun uninstalling those uninstallable beasts :-).

Okay so hot on the heels of my MacFUSE install, I find iTunesFS which is a FUSE module for iTunes written by Marcus Müller…..YUMMY :-). Now it’s a read-only module (ie: it lets you take stuff out of itunes/ipod/iphone storage, but most of the time that’s all you want to do anyways. If you want to try it just download the FUSE module from Mulle KybernetiK. Make sure you have the MacFUSE core package installed first.

I think so, you see I’ve been waiting for about a year — since last years Mac World announcement — to try MacFUSE, but to be honest I’ve been a bit of a chicken. In my book you rarely, if ever, play around with the filesystem. Specially with ported beta code and all the “uncertainties” of Apple’s latest feline.

Anyways, today I finally got up the courage and had enough time to try out MacFUSE 1.1.1 (specially compiled for leopard). You can download the required files from the Google Code’s download page. For those of you who don’t know, FUSE stands for Filesystem in USErland, and it provides a generic interface that lets the operating system see virtually anything as a filesystem. FUSE provides a single interface that filesystem modules use to interface with the OS. Best of all, anything that provides the correct interface can be interpreted as a filesystem. There are a bunch of modules out there for FUSE and most of them work nicely under MacFUSE.

To start you have to install either one of the core packages. MacFUSE-Core-10.5-1.1.1.dmg for Leopard or MacFUSE-Core-10.4-1.1.0.dmg for Tiger. Once you’ve got this installed and rebooted, you’re ready to use any MacFUSE module to access services as filesystems. I’m gonna talk about sshfs (which you can download from the same google code page). There are quite a few modules out there that you can start using, examples of file systems that work and have been tested (to varying degrees) include sshfs, ntfs-3g (read/write NTFS), ftpfs (read/write FTP), wdfs (WebDAV), cryptofs, encfs, bindfs, unionfs, beaglefs (yes, including the entire Beagle paraphernalia), and so on. You can try these once you get comfortable with the basics. Let’s take a look at getting sshfs module working:

1. Download sshfs module from google code download page.
2. Save it somewhere on your mac and double click the dmg file to mount the disk image.
3. Once the image is mounted you’ll find a single file inside called sshfs.
4. For my own use I created a macFUSE folder in Applications where I’m planning to keep all my FUSE modules.
5. Double clicking on the sshfs will run it and bring up the following dialog. I’m going to specifically mount just my Sites folder during this setup. This will allow me to run iWeb and have it natively save my website changes directly to the server. Web developers and anyone else who manages files via SFTP/SCP should rejoice. Using SSHFS means no more synchronizing files with an SFTP client.
6. Next you’ll be prompted to enter your ssh server password.
7. Now you should have a new network mounted disk that gives you secure ssh access to your directory on the remote server (in my case my website folder).

Notice that all the files on the server are treated as local files, you get the preview icons, you can drag and drop them on to your desktop or even double click on the files and edit them right on the server, through a secure connection. Now that’s power. Hope you have fun with this, also try out the other modules that are around and let us know which ones you like, which ones work nicely with the mac and so on…..

Once in a while you might want to dig deep into OSX’s dhcp client and find out what dhcp packet the server sent it. A quick command to spit out this info:
# ipconfig getpacket en0
This produces the following output:

op = BOOTREPLY
htype = 1
dp_flags = 0
hlen = 6
hops = 0
xid = 1956115059
secs = 0
ciaddr = 0.0.0.0
yiaddr = 192.168.4.10
siaddr = 192.168.4.1
giaddr = 0.0.0.0
chaddr = 0:3:93:7a:d7:5c
sname = dhcp.mycompany.net
file =
options:
Options count is 10
dhcp_message_type (uint8): ACK 0x5
server_identifier (ip): 192.168.4.1
lease_time (uint32): 0x164a
subnet_mask (ip): 255.255.255.0
router (ip_mult): {192.168.4.1}
domain_name_server (ip_mult): {192.168.4.1}
domain_name (string): mycompany.net
end (none):

Here are some notes for those of us working with Macs, who also have to deal with networking gear that usually have a serial console for local control. I recently purchased a IOGEAR USB 1.1 to Serial Converter Cable that uses the PL2303 chipset (pretty much any brand of these usb to serial converters use this chip). I was hoping that this dongle would allow me to access our network switches serial interface (which you kinda need when the switch has gone berserk). So after looking around the net I found that there is a opensource driver out there for it and that it performs better than the driver provided by Prolific (the company that manufactures the chip). So once everything was installed I hooked up the serial cable and realized that I needed a serial console program.

screen /dev/tty.PL2303-0000101D 9600
where /dev/tty.PL2303-0000101D is the device for the dongle (easy to find….just do a ls -l /dev/tty.* and pick the one with PL2303 in the name). The baudrate is 9600 in case you haven’t guessed it already.

This will open up a new screen session in your xterm/terminal and from there you can control your serial device. Once you’re done you need to issue the command Ctrl-a Ctrl-\ to get out of screen and back to your shell prompt.