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Musing of a Techie – Stuff I WISH I Could Forget


2010
01.05

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I’ve been working on the Center for Expressive Culture for the last week in an effort to complete its transition into a fully grown, independent, self functioning and self sufficient lab.  I feel pangs of worry that no one will pay the amount of attention to it that I have over the years.  Will it be OK?   Will it survive, or better yet, grow into something even more exciting?  Will is lie quiet, waiting for its next caretaker or will it be slowly dismantled?  I’ve been involved in the project for nearly 7 years.  I think it is going to be a little strange turning over the keys.

As I have been trying to compile all the information in my brain on one single web page that won’t (hopefully) drive readers CRAZY and MAKE THEM RUN AWAY
I have run across all kinds of stuff that I keep saying “I better write that down” or I’ll forget…and I can’t because someone WILL come asking:)

There is nothing like IMAGING OLD SCHOOL – It makes you feel like you “earned” it.

Making the Bootable Drive

Remember to have to have your OS Disk
Plug in drive (firewire)
Insert OSX install disk
It will reboot computer
Select drive
Open disk utility
Set formatting options to map GUID or it won’t work (especially if it has been formatted on a PC)
Install the OS
Do the updates!

Making the Image

Machine to Machine
Firewire cable to both machines – make sure you have the right one
Boot machine hold T (machine to be imaged or machine to take image from)
Till firewire logo appears
Open Disk Utility
Select drive (firewire) (images underneath HD represent partitions)
Unmount
File>new>disk image from disk (name of drive)
Set to compressed (not a cd/dvd master)
Set name of image file
OK

Machine to Disk
Firewire cable to machines and bootable drive
Go into system preferences > startup disk > choose bootable drive (or hold down alt key) > reboot the machine
Open Disk Utility (you will be using the disk drive)
Select machine drive (images underneath HD represent partitions)
Unmount (click the hard drive use unmount in disk utility)
File>new>disk image from disk (name of drive)
Set to compressed (not a cd/dvd master)
Set name of image file
OK
REMEMBER THAT YOU NEED THE DRIVE ADMINISTRATOR PASSWORD!

Restoring the Image

Plug in firewire drive
Boot machine holding down option (alt) and choose to boot off firewire
Open disk utility
Select the machine partition that needs to be imaged
Click on restore tab
Source = backup file
Destination = hard drive
Check erase destination
Click restore > erase > OK
Note: if the restore fails you forgot to scan the image!  Images have to be scanned before they can be restored.  Click on the image you want to restore >go to Images > scan disk to restore.  This will take awhile.  Go TAKE A BREAK!

External Drives, Personal Machines (PCs NO LESS) & Video, OH MY!

Drive Facts – HOW DO I EXPLAIN THIS TO THE USERS?

MAC drives use HFS+ file system = permits file sizes in excess of 4GB, are not viewable on a PC

PCs use NTFS for file sizes > 4Gb. The Catch? An NTFS HD is read only when plugged into a Mac. (You can drag files from it to your Mac but you CAN NOT drag them back or edit them on the drive)

FAT 32 is compatible for both PCs and MACs as long as the files are NOT >4GB
THE BEST SOLUTION FOR MOST – STICK TO ONE MACHINE/USE ONE DRIVE


How to Reformat an External Drive to HFS Journaled
Go to your Applications folder -> open the Utilities folder
Open Disk utility
Select your external hard drive in the listing on the left side of the application window. If you haven’t plugged your external drive, do so now.
There will be four or five tabs on the middle screen -> First Aid, Erase, Partition, RAID, Restore.
Click on Partition.
Select one Partition, give your hard drive a new name, and select Mac HFS (Journaled)
Select Options and choose GUID Partition Table (this is for Intel-Based Macs)
Click Apply
Close Disk Utility when complete. Your drive is now ready.

Read/Write NTFS and HFS+ on Windows/Mac – ONLY FOR ADVANCED USERS
One suggestion provided by Tze Chuen’s Weblog (Tech Tip: Read/Write both NTFS and HFS+ volumes on both Windows and Mac) is to install the following apps in order.

MacFUSE – http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/
look for MacFUSE-Core-10.5-1.3.1.dmg if you’re using Leopard, and MacFUSE-Core-10.4-1.3.0.dmg if you’re using Tiger.

NTFS-3G – http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/
the latest blog post should provide you the latest version with download link, i.e. the latest version is 1.2129 at time of writing – NOTE: YOU CAN USE A 15 DAY TRIAL BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO PURCHASE THIS

I’m sure there is more but for today, that is all I can wring out of my tired mind.  Maybe next week I can write down how to install MAMP and WordPress MU (a little trickier than a straight forward stand-alone installation).  I know I have my notes “filed” somewhere.

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Ketchup


2006
09.14

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Posted in Musings of a Techie, Process | No Comments »

In case anyone is actually reading this you can probably tell that right now I am playing ketchup with the blog posts trying to get all the completed works into the process blog so I can move forward with the new ones. In addition to playing ketchup on the blog posts I have been spell checking (please note that this does NOT mean grammar checking) all the posts from before July 9, 2006.

I have also been driving The Professor crazy because I have gone rogue, become completely illogical, and taken on a devil may care attitude about completing this project by Friday when Vermont starts reading applications. Somehow I have miraculously completed the portfolio and managed to get the sidebar to show up on the right side of the Process page in alphabetical order. A little knowledge is very dangerous in WordPress land. I must take a moment to thank Jerry though because he continues to come and help me on Wednesdays even though I show my appreciation by completely disregarding his advice and messing with things. And much to his credit, when I get completely frustrated by this he is still nice to me and tries to make me feel better by saying things like, “I’ll fix it” instead of “Stop messing with things you don’t understand” like he should.

So here is a recap of what I have learned over the past couple of days:

*If you are using SimpleViewer and don’t know what the hell your doing use Picassa to generate the slide show. After this ONLY edit the caption fields in the xml file. DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT under any circumstances move the folder you save the SimpleViewer stuff to. You will have to regenerate it because it will break. I don’t know why, and at this point I don’t care. The Professor is very troubled by this.

*Turn of the WSYWIG editor in WordPress. DO NOT USE IT! It screws everything up. I had to go through the code of 80 posts last night to find div and ul and li tags. The Professor told me to do this and I ignored his advice. Silly Me. By the way, if you choose to ignore this part you will also have the joy of fixing your posts and dreaming html code all night. So, if you are willing to believe here’s how you do it:

1) In WordPress Admin Panel deactivate “Use the visual rich editor when writing” in “User” – “your profile”.

2) P. S. It is at the very bottom of the page will you will never see it, so scroll DOWN. Here’s the post where I found the info: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/65239.

*How to fix your WordPress blog categories so that they display in alphabetical order with Hierarchy:

1) Go to WordPress Admin – Themes – Modify Themes – Click Sidebar

2) Find <?php wp_list_cats(); ?>

3) Replace the code with <?php wp_list_cats(’sort_column=name’); ?> to alphabetize with Hierarchy

4) OR replace the code with <?php list_cats(FALSE, ‘ ‘, ‘name’); ?> to alphabetize without Hierarchy

5) Click Update

6) For more information read the WordPress Category Support Post at:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/11766#post-392307.

*NEVER NEVER NEVER cut and past from Word. You will regret it.

*Research IE Hacks. It appears that if you want stuff to work correctly in IE you have to find the right hacks for the job. Here’s a quick link for a list of them to get you started: http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html.

So that’s about it for ketchup. I will mention that Plan B is misery and I will catch you up on that sometime this weekend. I am now off to post a few more back entries before bed and try to finish spell checking the remainder of the posts.

Cheers.

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More WordPress Woes


2006
06.15

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Posted in Musings of a Techie, Process | No Comments »

That’s IT! OK, so I got the date back but I think I lost the “Edit This”. I finally got this freaking thing published. I think WordPress misses Jerry.

Part III:

Now I’ve lost the date. I Give up. I should have drawn instead like I was supposed to do. I am going to bed.

Part II:

Don’t really know what happened, tried to publish the post and the darn thing got set to private so I had to cut/paste and republish. CRUD. Will have to ask Jerry the Omniscient what happened. So here goes again… the cut and paste:

Part I:

Today was grueling.  Good News:  We are down to DAY 6 OF THE INSTITUTION.

I did at least learn how to make comic book illustrations today in Photoshop and figured out how to scan in my original drawings, change the opacity, and sketch over them with my wacom tablet. This will allow me to add layers for color and effects. This is very cool and I am sure I will be doing more of this in the near future with the superhero drawings.

I also started trying to figure out how to customize the portfolio stuff but I just could not continue with it this evening. My brain is mush.

So, saying that I will be signing off.

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