macfidelity

The default setting of TimeMachine let you backup only to directly connected drives (usb & firewire i guess) but not to the network.

Well sounds pretty far away from perfect…at least for me.

To enable the network support open Terminal.app and enter the following:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Now TimeMachine should support unsupported network volumes.

Today i found the following article on technabob.com

Teaser:

Hereâ �� ��s an interesting new tangible interface design for a music sequencer. Rather than using an array of buttons or a 2-dimensional control screen on a computer, this one generates rhythmic patterns using ball bearings.

Image:

More Background (quote):

The BeatBearing sequencer interface was designed by Peter Bennett, a researcher studying for his Doctorate at the Sonic Arts Research Center in Belfast. Peterâ �� ��s thesis studies have been focused on new interaction techniques for digital musical instruments.

The article features a youtube video too…as live demonstration. Watch it :d

Just found the following page: http://www.ifixit.com/

About iFixit:

iFixit’s goal is to empower people to do repairs themselves by giving them the knowledge, tools, and parts to do so. So far, we’ve helped over 30,000 people repair their computers and iPods.

We started iFixit while attending Cal Poly in 2003. Since then, we’ve grown a bit. We’re now the largest Mac laptop parts store in the world, and we’re rapidly moving into the iPod parts market.

iFixit is the Mac+iPod do-it-yourself company. iFixit launched in 2003 and instantly became the leader in the Mac laptop part industry, and introduced iPod parts in 2006. iFixit is dedicated to helping people everywhere keep their Macs and iPods running longer. For more information, visit: www.iFixit.com or call 1-866-61-FIXIT.

iFixit is a for-profit, Christ-centered company.

Haven’t tried that myself, as it is basicly Airport based…so nothing for me…but here the theory:

You can use Airfoil to:

send any audio to one AirPort Express, to multiple AirPort Express units in sync, and even to other local Macs! It’s your audio â �� �� everywhere.

more quoting from the project page:

With Airfoil you can take audio from any application and send to one or many AirPort Express units, as well as other local Macs running Airfoil Speakers, plus your local machine, all in sync! You can “wire” your whole house wirelessly and give your audio wings with Airfoil.

Use Airfoil for all your wireless audio:

• Transmit audio from RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, QuickTime Player, and other media players.
• Send audio from web-based applications like Pandora, Last.fm, and other to the AirPort Express.
• You can even stream audio from audio devices like RadioSHARK, XM and Sirius radios, around your house.

With Airfoil, you can send audio from almost any application to the AirPort Express, as well as other local Macs. Read more about Airfoil or just download it right away.

Seems like several users have problems with Dashboard after switching to 10.5 / Leopard.

Personally i don’t � use Dashboard at all (disabled it already) but for those having issues here a link to Apple Docs regarding this problem

The usual quick quote:

Issue or symptom

After switching (via Fast User Switching) to or from an account that has Parental Controls enabled, you may not be able to access your Dashboard widgets any longer, even while using an account that does not have Parental Controls enabled. This can also happen is a managed user account is logged out after reaching a set time limit as defined in Parental Controls.

Just found a funny project called: MacMiniColocation

From the FAQ:

What is macminicolo.net?
We are a data center based, colocation service. We provide you with a menu of services including multiple redundant very high speed internet connections, remote control electrical power, a highly secure location to house your Mac mini, remote monitoring and remote human hands. You can then control your server via any remote protocol you like.

The images here are pretty funny

Just found a nice app for all windows-heads called Process Lasso:

A quick quote:

Process Lasso is a unique new technology intended to automatically adjust the allocation of CPU cycles so that system responsiveness is improved in high-load situations. It does this by dynamically temporarily lowering the priorities of processes that are consuming too many CPU cycles, there-by giving other processes a chance to run if they are in need. This is useful for both single and multi-core processors. No longer will a single process be able to bring your system to a virtual stall.

In addition, Process Lasso offers capabilities such as default process priorities, default process CPU affinities, termination of disallowed processes, and logging of processes executed. With Process Lasso you essentially create rules to manage processes running on your system. For example:

Examples
1. Make notepad.exe run at below normal priority each time its launched.
2. Make firefox.exe run only on CPU #1 each time its launched.
3. When any process is consuming 35% or greater of the CPU for 1.5 seconds or more and the total system CPU usage is 95% or greater, lower that process’s priority until it returns to 5% CPU utilization.

Just found that nice article on MacWorld.com

quote as teaser:

One of 10.5’s new features that I use quite often is the built-in screen sharing. You can use screen sharing from iChat, which is great for family tech support, but I’m referring specifically to screen sharing in the Finder. With multiple machines in the house, I often want to see the screen on a given machine while seated at another. In the pre-10.5 days, this was doable, and not overly difficult you had to click a couple buttons to enable things, then run a VNC viewer app to make the connection. But with 10.5, the viewer is now built into the system. Screen sharing is based on Apple’s full Remote Desktop package, which offers more control over exactly how remote screens are shared. Luckily for us, Apple left at least some of that functionality in the more-limited screen sharing application it’s just disabled by default.

First, here’s a potentially easier way to share the screens of other Macs on your network. First, realize that the screen sharing feature is just an application. It resides in /System/Library/CoreServices, under the tricky name of Screen Sharing. Find it now, and drag it onto your Dock, or into your sidebar, or your toolbar whichever you prefer for quick launch access.

Read it….

My conclusion:

1. To run Screen Sharing without using Finder -> Shared, drag:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing.app

to your Dock

2. To enable Screen Sharing’s Bonjour Browser, open Terminal.app and enter:

defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing ShowBonjourBrowser_Debug 1

3. To enable Sceen Sharing’s ARD-like toolbar, open Terminal.app and enter:

defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing \
'NSToolbar Configuration ControlToolbar' -dict-add 'TB Item Identifiers' \
'(Scale,Control,Share,Curtain,Capture,FullScreen,GetClipboard,SendClipboard,Quality)'

You can download Spark here

Screenshot:

Quote from the project page:

Spark is a powerful, and easy Shortcuts manager. With Spark you can create Hot Keys to launch applications and documents, execute AppleScript, control iTunes, and more…
You can also export and import your Hot Keys library, or save it in HTML format to print it.
Spark is free, so use it without moderation!

Spark required Mac OS 10.4 or later

Based on a post on macosxhints.com

While lookupd was existing & working in 10.4 to clear DNS Cache the command was replaced in 10.5 with:

dscacheutil

So now you can flush your DNS cache with

dscacheutil -flushcache

Here the link to the matching post for Tiger / 10.4