OK, I will do second backup NOW!

Last night I came across a sad story about a guy who loose almost all of his data, including some voice files of his passed mother.

Well, I do have backup. For work, I got one extra hard disk in Mac Pro, which got synchronized with the main HD whenever I am having lunch in weekdays. At home, I have tons of old harddisks storing my huge music library. In my Linux server, I scheduled important files backup to another drive every single night. But is it a bulletproof solution? I know it's not.

What if my office got fire? Then both the HD in Mac Pro will be gone. What if my home got fire or theft? Then all my personal data and work are gone. OK, may be these are a little bit extreme. How about if the power supply of my computer got surged? The result is the same. One backup = no backup.

So I just subscribed Mozy. It recently got a Mac backup solution. For about USD5 per month, I have unlimited storage for backup. Though it may take month to perform a complete backup of all my stuff (well, the approximate upload rate stays at about 60KB/s), for long term, it should be a bulletproof solution. Just no need to get worried about backup anymore.

I am glad that I have read the story, and even more glad that I have made the decision immediately.

iPod touch - not good enough

Steve Jobs just announced the iPod touch today. I don't like it, because...

1. 16G ?
For a 80G iPod user, I am already filled my 5.5G iPod with over 60G of Apple Lossless audio files. How could I accept an brand new iPod with 16G space? OK, the new iPod Classic has 160G. But we need a better PMP. Only the new iPod touch can deliver this. So should we buy both iPod touch and the iPod classic together? Hey Steve Jobs, I want an at least 80G iPod touch!

2. WiFi?
May be in States this is practical. But in HK, only having WiFi is not enough! Give me bluetooth for both network access and A2DP!

3. iTunes WiFi store?
Where is it? (in HK)

4. Starbuck?
All I can see the plans for implementing "Starbuck" music feature is in the States. Where is it?



As iPod get more functionalities builtin, I am more tempted to perform a comparison with my Dopod U1000.

a) Both can play music
iPod has better UI and audio output quality. But U1000 can play much more variety of audio types. (ogg, flac, wma...)

b) Both can play video
But U1000 can play more video types (DivX, Xvid, wmv...)

c) Both have WIFI

d) Both have browsers
May be the user experience in Safari is more pleasing. But Opera Mobile is not that bad!

e) Both can play YouTube

f) Both is touch screen, and wide screen
Just that iPod is multi-touch, and U1000 is argh...single touch. ;)

g) a2dp?
U1000 only.

h) gps?
U1000 only.

i) HSDPA?
U1000 only.

j) Camera?
U1000 only.

k) Install new applications?
Urgh...as iPhone will soon be able to easily to have this. I think iPod touch will have the same chance. But installing new application for Windows mobile is just a piece of cake, plus there are so many applications out there...

l) Storage size?
iPod touch has 16G. U1000 has 8G (microdrive) + 4G SD = 12G.

m) price?
Oh....iPod completely wins in this category.

So as I have an U1000, I don't need iPod touch. :)

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My most used Mac applications

Below are my most used Application List in Mac:

1. jEdit

Actually I have tried many editors, including Textmate, TextWrangler, BBedit, Smultron. But I settled with jEdit for its powerful plugins, including sftp support (which is a must for me), customizable and extensive syntax highlighting support and customizable keyboard shortcuts.

Another big reason is its multi-platform support. It's a very painful experience to use another editor whenever you need to change OS environment. As jEdit is in Java, it can be run in Windows, Mac and Linux.

2. iTerm

A great alternative to Terminal. As compared with Terminal, it has multiple tabs, and fast shortcut to bookmarks. Previously versions of iTerm has problem of screen refresh slow down when a session is opened for a long time. Recent versions has fixed this and quickly become my favorite app. (Well, note that starting from Leopard, Terminal will also have tabs. Wow!)

3. muCommander

A great sftp/ftp application. Another cross-platform application. Beside sftp and ftp, it also support SMB and http. One of its killer feature is, you can perform file transfer across different servers directly, no special requirements on the remote servers! (as opposed to some ftp programs in Windows in order to achieve this). Though you can only have 2 columns opened for 2 servers in one window, you can create more windows of this app and connect to more servers. Files can be drag and drop across diff. windows (and hence different servers!). Another feature I like is its keyboard oriented navigation, which allows me not to touch the mouse at all.

4. VLC

A great media player which support huge list of video formats. It can be a great alternative as a music player also. One thing I don't like iTunes is that it force you to add the music files to its library before they can be played. But not every music file (mp3 etc) you would eager to add to the library. For this case, I willl drag the files to VLC.

5. CotVNC (Chicken of VNC)

Best VNC client in Mac. It even supports Bonjour to discover VNC servers in LAN. Together with ssh tunnelling (using ssh command), I can perform VNC connection to many remote PC/Mac behind firewalls. Oh, for Mac VNC server, you can try Vine Server (Vine)

6. Parallels

I don't think I need to tell you what it is. Actually I think it is a killer application for Mac, which drives many people to use Mac hardwares. Being a programmer, Parallels allow me to run a Ubuntu server inside Mac, not to mention to use IE7 for testing web page layouts.

7. Skype

For video conferencing, I think the quality (especially voice) is even better than iChat.

8. Thunderbird

Add-ons support and more fine-tuned settings is why I keep using Thunderbird instead of Apple Mail. Besides, it's also a good RSS Reader and newsgroup reader too.

9. NeoOffice

You can also try OpenOffice. But NeoOffice offers a much better Mac user experience.

10. QuckSilver

Hands down the killer app. for Mac. Apple Spotlight even not comes close. You won't believe you can do so many things with your keyboard.

11. Journler

If you look for well categorized notes application, this is it. But it can do much more than that. It has Smart Folder, tags, super fast keyword search, blog support, iLife support, embbeded browser..... If you know how to sync its data files to multiple Macs, then your essential information/notes/ideas is always with you.

12. Camino, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Flock

You may not believe me. But I do use All of them. Each serves its own purpose, and has its own strength for different purposes. Camino is a fast, mac oriented UI and mozilla rending engine browser. Firefox provides huge of addons, and hands down the best browser. Netscape (only v9 or later!) provides a fine-tuned firefox experience, it feels a little bit faster (at least for start-up) and add some good tools by default. Opera is the fastest browser, plus you can use it for BT too. Flock provides great integration with Flickr (and other photo services) , blogs, bookmarks services. It's also mozilla based too.

You should try every of them to see which one suits your needs most.

My brand new iMac 20" arrived

DG Group told me Apple unfortunately has delayed once again my iMac 24". As I really don't know when will the "true" shipment will be, I finally decided to switch back to 20" iMac. So here I go, I am using it right now. :)

I saw from Apple forum that many users don't like the glassy display, and the display has a typical problem of being too bright on the bottom while too dim on the top. Well, in my eyes, it's acceptable to me. Just not so sure how to correctly calibrate the display yet.

This iMac just took about 1.5 hour to transfer about 80G files from my Macbook. So far so good.

Mac + Parallel + Ubuntu + wm6 net access

My major web development platform is Kubuntu, which I installed inside Parallels. Since I want to freely test the web application in any of my machines, I choose bridged networking (both macbook and Kubuntu are set to using static IP addresses). On the other hand, my Macbook can access the net through shared networking of my U1000, which provides the HSDPA connectivity to it. I have two problems to solve for the above setup:

1. When I am on the go, since my ethernet is unplugged, my Macbook cannot ssh to my Kubuntu.

2. And of course, my Kubuntu can't access the net, even my Macbook is connected with my U1000.

Recently, I have found a solution. But before this, I need to say something about my home networking configuration first. I have Linux server at home, acting as NAT gateway for all the machines inside my house. The Linux server has 2 ethernet cards, one connected with modem from ISP, the other connected to internal LAN. I don't have DHCP server setup, as I want to have more control on IP on each machine. Say my network is 192.168.0.0, my Linux server is having IP 192.168.0.1. So every machine in my LAN is setting 192.168.0.1 as gateway and DNS server. This includes the setting for my Macbook and the Kubuntu VM.

You may wonder why I need to setup my home networking this way instead of all set to DHCP. The major reason is this setup is exactly the same as in my working area. So my Macbook (or whatever mobile devices that I brought between my working area and home) doesn't need to change anything for joining the network of two places. Another reason is I usually like to remote access any other machine from another machine at home (mostly due to my physical laziness). So I don't want my home computers to change IP time to time.

Anyway, Below is my solution on the go:

1. During on the go, change the Kubuntu networking inside Parallels from "bridge networking" to "host guest".

2. In Macbook -> Preference -> Network, Create a new location profile, say "OnTheGo". In this profile, edit the "Parallels Host-Guest" device to have the IP address of the gateway address being used by Kubuntu. (In my case, it is 192.168.0.1)

3. In Macbook -> Preference -> Sharing -> Internet, set

Share your connection from "Bluetooth PAN" to ethernet Adaptor (en?) of "Parallels host-guest"adapter.

After the above is set, you should already be able to perform any networking operations from Macbook to the Kubuntu. After you have connected the Macbook with wm6 through BT PAN, the Kubuntu will be able to access the net also.

When I am back to home, I just need to change the Location setting back to default (or whatever used at home), and Parallels setting back to "bridge networking". This way, the "Parallels host-guest" adapter's IP address won't get conflict with my Linux server.

I am waiting for my iMac 24" :)

Well, many guys don't like the new glassy screen, but I like it, just as I like my prev. VAIO glassy LCD.

My iMac spec.:

• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 2GB memory
• 500GB hard drive¹
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory

I never have a LCD as large as 24". Will this make my programming faster? :P

Why I switch to Mac OS X

I have been a PC user for more than 15 years, and have been both Windows and Linux users since their very early version. (DOS 5.x to Windows 3.x to XP, Slackware to Redhat to Gentoo). I have also been a user of OS/2 for about 1 to 2 years.

Recently I have switched to Mac OS X for the following reasons:

1. Easy to use, cool looking, well thought and stable GUI readily available. Supporting Chinese and those default good looking Chinese fonts just can't be available in common Linux distro by default.
   
2. BSD Unix behind the scene. So I can still do whatever I can do previously with Linux (Apache, Jboss, mysql, gcc, perl,php)
3. I am not a gamer, so most of the applications I usually use in XP do have similar equivalent in OS X.
4. Plug & Play usage for my iPod and firewire/usb external drives. (I can even connect my plain old Creative Jukebox thr. USB, just need to install an extra app)
5. No more virus/spamware problem.
6. Can run some great killer applications like Photoshop/Dreamweaver etc.
   

For the first 2 weeks with my Mac, I am struggling with searching for similar applications I used to have in Windoz. Now my search is nearly over:

Browser -> Safari/Firefox
BT -> Azureus
FTP -> Fugu/Transmit
Text editor -> jEdit
Media Player -> VLC (and realplayer for rmvb)
chm ebooks reader -> xchm
Photo viewer -> FFview/GraphicConverter
SSH client -> Terminal!

Well, I know every platform is not for everyone. For me, I need a rock solid OS which can both do GUI and server applications. Linux should be the default answer, but the GUI from both KDE or GNOME just isn't as cool as Aqua. And you just can't plug and play with most hardware with Linux. Don't flame me on this. That's personal choice. :)