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These are the most recent WiKi and WebLog entries, sorted by change-date.
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All the sudden my MacBook is periodically driving me nuts. All the sudden the Web Browser will become completely unresponsive (spinning ball), even though it seems like there should be plenty of processor left.
Update: I was travelling at the time, so one various WiFi networks: airport, client office, hotel, etc.
Because I was getting tired of FireFox v3 issues, I tried using SaFari as my primary browser. I think this more-extreme-than-FireFox problem arose after trying that. But switching back to FireFox hasn't made the issue go away.
At one point mds was grabbing lots of cycles, but that eventually went away. (I just left the MacBook open/running for a chunk of time. Maybe [Spot Light] was trying to index something it found on the network?
May11 update: Today I was noticing kernel_task taking up a fair amount of processor when things dragged.
This thread suggested running Console.app (in the Utilities folder) to get more info.
I found 1 message (in the Log Database Queries), about [DivX]: mach-o, but wrong architecture.
This thread suggests that some app installed some bad [DivX] codecs. And says I need to follow the appropriate uninstall process for the naughty app, rather than just crudely deleting codecs. But if you don't know what app caused the problem, how do you figure it out?
Looked in other areas of Console: in system.log found some messages just before the [DivX] message
disk0s2: I/O error
Error loading /Library/QuickTime/DivX Decoder.component/Contents/MacOS/DivX Decoder: dlopen(/Library/QuickTime/DivX Decoder.component/Contents/MacOS/DivX Decoder, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:\n /Library/QuickTime/DivX Decoder.component/Contents/MacOS/DivX Decoder: mach-o, but wrong architecture
I quit FireFox, relaunched. It noted updates available for plugins ([YSlow], PDF Download): installed them. Haven't had problem recur yet.
Jun29: have been having problems again.
check Console.app, found a bunch of 'kernel[[0]]: disk0s2: I/O error' entries
of course I don't have a fresh BackUp, never got around to hooking up to the Time Capsule. Start manually copying stuff to my tiny USB drive, but keep getting stopped by a few individual file errors, and each time it seems to require rebooting the whole thing, so I stop (of course, will regret that later...).
ran [Disk Utility]-Verify, it says I have problems, need to boot from install-disk
doh, this would be a good time to have your CD-drive working! Mine has been broken roughly forever.
ah, connected to JiHi IMac in [Fire Wire]-target mode, running Repair from there...
hmm, didn't seem to ever do anything, just ran for hours without any progress notes. Finally killed it. Suspect it had lost its connection sometime (there was a grayed-out note about "Not mounted"), though it let me run anyway.
rebooted, tried again. Now it's working.
Jun30
trying the boot-single-user fsck -fy approach. Hmm, Invalid node structure... Volume check failed. Do I try again, do I do it with the -r? Do I do fsck_hfs?
just repeated. This time got Invalid key length (4, 33872) failure, ending with EXITED WITH SIGNAL 8
tried 3rd time: same results as 2nd time.
tried 4th time: same results.
tried 'fsck -fry': got illegal option - r - maybe that r only applies when doing the fsck_hfs?
typed reboot, held Shift for [Safe Mode] as it came up. Hmm, had the Apple icon for a bit, then a progress indicator down below, then it suddenly shut down.
tried powering up, no buttons. Same outcome of icon, progress, then shut-down. Yech...
powered up in [Single User Mode]. Got scrolling text on black screen as usual. Tried fsck -fy again. Got Invalid key length again. Reboot led to power-up failure again. Tried just regular power-up, failed again.
some suggest [Disk Warrior]. [Disk Warrior] says it fixes that problem. That would cost $100 (yay, local Digital Society has it at that price). Hmm, can I download to JiHi's IMac and run it via [Fire Wire] target mode? Yes
Set up [Fire Wire] target mode, install/run [Disk Warrior]. The first time it shows an "unkinown" disk, and says it can't repair it. After quitting and retrying it won't even recognize the disk. Nor does [Disk Utility] after that. Lordy...
Reboot in [Single User Mode], which is does successfully. Do fsck -fy again. Get invalid node length msg. Try again, get invalid key length msg. Try a bunch more times, get one of those msgs each time. Try [Fire Wire]-target, [Disk Warrior] and [Disk Utility] see nothing again.
Jul1
took it to Digital Society
they called me back later
can't get direct access to drive, so will have to do [Data Recovery] for $250. Trying to get that done by end-tomorrow
shutting down during boot-up is not drive-related, it's [Logic Board]-related. Luckily the components replacement is all covered by [Apple Care], so that won't cost me anything. But they can't send it out until they finish the [Data Recovery] process.
I'm working with my ancient IMac for the moment...
Jul2
argh not done with [Data Recovery]. So it's going to sit in their closed shop for 3 days until someone looks at it Monday morning.
the IMac gets really slow after a bit of FireFox use. We'll see how much I can stand it - this might drive me to buy a NetBook.
- z2009-05-07- Mac Book Performance Problems
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We ate at [WD50] earlier this week. JiHi suggested a night out. "Just another nice restaurant" just wasn't doing it for me, so I figured going for a little more Spec Tacle might be interesting. (And might have gotten some Molecular Gastronomy inspiration from HOPE.) We even went for the [Tasting Menu] because they pitch it as being a more pure/complete expression of the chef's mojo. It was "interesting", but didn't blow my skirt up enough to make it worth going again. (Restaurant Review)
Did have an interesting [Cock Tail]: rye whiskey, beer, molasses, cinammon.
- z2008-08-01- Ate Wd50
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IRan had its Presidential election on Jun12. Incumbent [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] was declared the winner. But most (all?) voting was done by paper ballot, and the announcement was made only a few hours after the polls closed, so it looks very suspicious, gamed by [Supreme Leader] [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]. Challenger [Mir Hossein Mousavi] protested the results right away. Public protests started right away.
Censor Ship of both MSM and the Inter Net was used heavily. The Inter Net, of course, was harder to lock down, leaving CNN with the process of "reporting" what it was reading online. TwittEr seems to have been particularly important.
Jul19 update: [Supreme Leader] [Ali Khamenei] spoke about the previous protests during his scheduled television appearance. In it he has blamed the European nations for having influence over the people and the election. He has also reiterated that the election was not rigged and that the results were fair and true and he would not give in to "illegal pressures". "Street challenge is not acceptable" (reported by the BBC). He instructed the protesters to pursue their complaints through legal channels while questioning "How can 11 million votes be replaced or changed?"
Jun20: a Statist Ics hint at fraud.
Jun23: Iran's most powerful oversight council announced on Monday that the number of votes recorded in 50 cities exceeded the number of eligible voters there by three million... it insisted that the overall vote was valid. At the same time, security forces stepped up their threats to treat protesters as criminals seeking to destabilize the country... How did the government manage to count enough of the 40 million paper ballots to be able to announce results within two hours of the polls closing? How is it that Mr. Ahmadinejad's margin of victory remained constant throughout the ballot count? Why did the government order polls closed at 10 p.m. when they often stay open until midnight for presidential races? Why were some ballot boxes sealed before candidates' inspectors could validate they were empty? Why were votes counted centrally, by the Interior Ministry, instead of locally, as in the past? Why did some polling places lock their doors at 6 p.m. after running out of ballots?
Jun29: by now the general belief is that nothing will change for now. But "it took 10 years of revolt to dump the Shah Of Iran", so nothing is settled permanently. (Hrm. Note that [Ayatollah Khomeini] was in exile 1964-1978. A variety of anti-Shah/West ideaologies arose while he was away. Was the [OilBoom]-created [Inflat Ion] and Income Inequality really the cause? Real demonstrations started Oct'1977.)
- z2009-06-14- Iran Election Mess
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Notes on the history of Blow Back in the Middle East. IRan is what it is today, in part, because of long-term consequences of our intervention to oust Premier Mossedeq in 1952 and replace him with a puppet Shah Of Iran... What is not widely understood is that the Soviets invaded Afghani Stan preemptively to prevent the rise of religious extremism in its Central AsiA "republics." But that threat was fanned in part by US policies aimed at seducing the Soviet Union into a quagmire. The US fanned the fires of extremism by providing arms and advice in the late 1970s to Afghan [Islam Ist]-s based in Paki Stan. President Jimmy Carter approved this secret aid in July 1979, before the Soviets invaded. In an little-noticed French language interview with Le Nouvel Observateur (January 15-21, 1998, p. 76), [Zbigniew Brzezinski], Carter's National Security Advisor, bragged cynically that these policies had the effect of drawing the Russians into "the Afghan trap."... Among the unintended consequences of the Soviet "VietNam" so gleefully sought by the US was the rise of the TaliBan and Osama Bin Laden and the propagation of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Arab world Now we have poured gasoline on the fire we help to light 30 years ago by waging yet another preemptive war in Iraq.
- z2006-02-24- Middle East Blowback
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A problem started with my MacBook last week. When I open it up, even though I can faintly hear it running, the screen never comes up. Even if I close and re-open. No matter what keys I press. I finally have to hard-shut-down and re-boot with the power key. (The problem hasn't happened when it puts itself to sleep while left open.)
That first day the same thing happened a number of times. Then it didn't happen for a few days. Then it happened once yesterday. Then it happened just now.
That first day, I think I had been playing with getting [Tiger Launch] put into my startup items. After the hassles, I took it out (and upgraded it - though it hasn't been changed in years). Also, I think that the first time that day, when I re-launched FireFox (v3), it did an update-install: I often find FireFox's behavior hinky when it "wants" to upgrade.
I have no external hardware. I am always on WiFi. I haven't been doing anything with Blue Tooth (and the "wake up with Blue Tooth" option is turned off). I'm not moving the MacBook, it's just been sitting on the table. The machine is plugged in the whole time. I'm running MacOsX 10.5.5.
This thread mentions "istat pro" (I've never used it), and resetting the [Power Management] chip.
This page mentions so many things that it seems rather useless.
One workaround seems to be to enter command sudo pmset lidwake 0 so that you have to press a key to wake things up.
Some people turn on the "require password when waking up" preference, though others say this doesn't make the problem go away.
Some people think it was a recent System upgrade bug. But 10.5.6 doesn't seem to have eliminated the issue.
I just turned off File Sharing that was turned on in System Prefs.
Update: that didn't do any good. Just issued pmset command.
Update: that didn't do any good either! When I pressed a key after opening, I saw a flash of screen, then it went black. Nothing would bring it back.
Apr28 update: things seem a bit better. I've stopped leaving so many FireFox windows/tabs open. Don't know whether that's the key...
Jun25 update: this has been happening again the last few days.
The first couple times happened when I moved it from room to room right after closing, so maybe some spin-down issue.
But it happened today when the laptop hadn't been moved.
This batch of issues seemed to coincide with the Thunder Bird 2.0.0.22 upgrade. That auto-upgrade failed a couple times, and I finally manually downloaded the new version to install it.
Jun28: ran all outstanding MacOsX system updates.
- z2009-04-27- Macbook Screen Not Waking Up
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