Apple's 2 GB Limit

If you are using Peak LE, iMovie, or Photoshop and you are experiencing problems dealing with files greater than 2GB, you may need to reformat your drive. If the drive is formatted as HFS or FAT32, then filesize on external drive is limited to 2GB.

You need to format the drive as Mac OS Extended. This will eliminate the 2GB limit problems.

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Radio Shark

Last year at MacWorld in NYC Griffin Technology announce a new tool called Radio Shark. It like a TIVO for the Radio. I saw a couple of prototypes on the show floor and it seemed like a cool tool. I liked it because it the only audio program that you can set to schedule a radio show. The only other Macintosh audio program that can schedule recordings is Audiocorder.

Its been 1 year since Griffin Technology announced Radio Shark, and the webpage still says it 'shipping soon'. They are about as bad as Microsoft in announcing a product well before its finished.

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MacWorld Boston 2004

Today I was lucky and had the opportunity to get away from work and at least checkout the exhibit floor at MacWorld Boston. This was a far cry from the days when they split the show between the World Trade Center and Bayside Expo.

There were only 80 exhibitors this year, a much smaller than the last show in Boston. While everyone knows that Apple wasn't there, there were some other notable exhibitors missing from the show floor.

• Adobe
• Microsoft - They could have capitalized on Apple not being at the show!
• Aladdin Systems
• Macromedia
• Bare Bones - Makers of BBEdit, this is their home town!
• MacSoft

However, the there were lots of attendees and the exhibit floor was filled with people looking to buy software/hardware. I heard over and over again, that this is only a beginning, and the success of this show will only lead to a bigger show next year.

One of the Town Hall panelist said that Apple didn't need to be at the show since 80% of the American population lives within an hour drive of an Apple store, so if they wanted to see the latest Apple hardware and Software they could goto their store. The show was an opportunity for other developers to show their stuff.

Anyway the next Boston MacWorld is July 18, 2005, we'll see what happens next year.

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Ipod Playlist

I uploaded my daily commute playlist that I have on my iPod. Many of the songs are ones that I put together from my own music collection.

I typically select this playlist when I drive to work every morning, and sometimes on my evening commute, if there isn't anything exciting on any of the local Boston stations.

The Child Stars song comes right from the DVD. Instead of buying the soundtrack for Dickie Roberts for one song, I used Ambrosia's WireTap. If you are a Macintosh user, you can download Wiretap for free from Ambrosia Software website.

The Airplane sound is pretty funny, and this is usually the first sound I select when I leave in the mornings. This is a short sound byte that I captured before an airplane crew was about to open the cabin doors. I'll put it in my sound library shortly.

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120 GB Hard Drive

I was thinking of getting a new hard drive for my desktop computer. So this evening I spent a few minutes looking around the web at some electronic stores near me to see who had the best pricing for a 120 GB internal hard drive. (Since this is to be for storage, the speed of the drive didn't matter.)

Best Buy	Maxtor	$113.99
Comp USA	Maxtor	$119.99
Micro Center	Maxtor	$139.99
Staples	Maxtor	$119.98

It appears that Best Buy had the best pricing option. Not only that BestBuy.com has the ability to order online and pick it up at the store, so you'll know it will be there when you arrive. (It isn't fun going to the store and finding out that they don't have it in stock.)

However looking online, I noticed that MacSales.com has a Maxtor 160GB drive for $117.99. So if I am willing to wait a couple of days, I can get a 160GB drive for about the same price of 120GB drive.

I'll probably go for the MacSales.com option.

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Itunes Problems

I am in the process of making my new apartment to be pretty high tech. Right now I have a wireless network and a webcam setup. In fact, you can see the latest photo online.

In order to do this I have one of my old Macintosh computers, Powermac G3 400Mhz, in my living room. So I thought I would take advantage of the computer and use it as a personal stereo. I have run into two problems:

1. The speakers I wanted to use are not working, this is probably because I have the wrong input connector, and buying an adapter at Radio Shack should fix this.
2. The more serious problem is that I can't see other Itunes libraries from my two newer computers. This seems to be a 'known' problem since other people are encounter this.

So, once everything is successful, I'll be able to stream music from my office to the living room and the dinning room. Apple just announce a cool new adapter, I'll have to check that out to see if it will fit into my network.

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MacJournal

For the past few months I have been using MacJournal by Dan Schimpf Software. This is a great Macintosh application that allows you to store data in a Journal form.

Does this mean I am writing a book? No, I am logging all my PHP, ASP and Cold Fusion code so that I can use them again. This application allows you to store the data in an organized way and the find it easy.

For the past 2 years I was using BBEdit, and saving the files in a Library folder. However, this makes searching hard, and BBEdit doesn't support images.

If you do any development on a Macintosh, you should check out MacJournal.

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Carbon Copy Cloner

A year ago I mention a neat Mac OS X utility called Carbon Copy Cloner. Well once again I need it again since I'll be install a new 60GB hard drive into my laptop. Most of the software I'll be installing will be from scratch, but Carbon Copy Cloner will help with migrating some other programs.

Carbon Copy Cloner is an easy way to copy one hard drive to another. Its a great backup utility for people who have laptops and want a complete backup of the system.

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MSNBC and Apple

If you use a Macintosh and visit MSNBC you'll discover that you are not able to utilized their website. All the video content checks the operating system and will not play the video if you are not using a Window's system, even thou Windows Media Player is available for the Mac.

I was also getting errors when I was clicking on several news links. It appears that MSNBC is using some special HTTPD redirect commands that are not industry standards.

This isn't a major issue since there are lots of sites that offer news on the Internet, but it just goes to show how Microsoft tries to force people to use their technology even if its not the best.

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Make Directory in PHP

Since March, 2002 I have been keeping track of my daily work by creating a folder on the desktop. This folder has the current date, so its easy to find something work I did for any particular date. This also handy for DVD and CD backup of my work.

This morning I decided to automate creating a daily folder by installing some PHP code into my index.php file. This way everytime I open up my web browser, a new folder is created on the desktop only if there isn't already one created.

<?
// Create a Directory for Today's Work
$name = date('n.d.y');
if (!is_dir("/Users/$user/Desktop/$name")) {
mkdir("/Users/$user/Desktop/$name", 0777 );
chmod( "/Users/$user/Desktop/$name", 0777 );
}
?>

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