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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cult of Mac, Leopard

Linux creator disses Leopard file system

During the latest Linux conference in Melbourne, Australia, Linus Torvalds was quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald saying that the Leopard file system was "complete and utter crap." As you may know, Torvalds is the parent of the Linux kernel. He said that he still prefers Leopard to Windows Vista; However, he went on to say that both companies are using their operating systems to propel more software and hardware sales.

We'll refrain from commenting on various drawbacks of Linux distributions when compared to Mac OS X, but if you're curious about the challenges and pleasures found when moving to Linux, have a look at the Flipping the Linux Switch series produced by our colleagues at Download Squad.

[via MacNN]

Filed under: Troubleshooting, Leopard

Things that make Time Machine cranky



Hey there, Austin Powers, are you having trouble getting your Time Machine to be-have? Two Apple tech notes spotted by Macfixit.com point up a pair of issues that may prevent your backup mojo from working.

First, if Time Machine backs up about 10 gigabytes and then stalls out, you probably need to reformat your target drive with either GUID or APM partitioning (depending on whether you're backing up an Intel or a PPC machine; no word on what to do if you plan to back up a mixed environment to the same drive). Second, if your backup files don't show up in the Space: 1999 interface, chances are you've got non-alphanumeric characters in your computer name, and you'll have to change that before TM will work properly. If you've upgraded your computer, you need to give the new machine the same name as the old one.

It's not yet clear why the machine name is crucial to proper TM functionality -- perhaps the path names need to be "UNIX legal" to work with TM's linking scheme? In any case, try these two tips if your Time Machine is trapped in feudal Japan.

[via Macfixit]

Filed under: Leopard

Leopard Spotlight: Preparing for Time Machine



One of the most visible new features in Leopard is Apple's integrated backup tool, Time Machine. Taking backups -- a chore that few people do and even fewer do correctly -- and making them one-click simple is bound to improve the lives of millions of Mac users who, despite being practically perfect in every way, sometimes delete files they don't mean to delete. (I know, painful but true.)

There is a lot of excitement about Time Machine, but also some confusion; reader Matteo wrote in from Switzerland to ask that we cover some basics for setting up Time Machine. Your wish; our command. Most of our answers are gleaned from Apple's feature page for TM, a worthwhile read.

Continue readingLeopard Spotlight: Preparing for Time Machine

Filed under: OS, Software, Apple, Leopard, Developer

ZFS in Leopard?

The French site Mac4Ever appears to have found evidence (in the newest developer release) that Leopard will include the ZFS file system to supplement HFS+. What is ZFS you ask, and why should you care? Well ZFS is a pretty darn cool next generation file system created by Sun that includes a variety of cool new features for protecting your data (if any file system features can properly be called "cool"). John Siracusa over at arstechnica has written about ZFS several times, rather excitedly. I'll let him explain what the excitement is about:

"ZFS does away with the old restrictions on volume size and scope, while also addressing data integrity and performance issues, all from a purely software perspective. (Like one slide says, "ZFS loves cheap disks!")

The end game is a world where storage-even personal storage-actually behaves like the magically intelligent, infinitely expandable cloud that we'd all like to think it is, and less like those temperamental little cylinders (to use some diagram-speak, if I may). It's daring, free-thinking stuff."


If this is true and ZFS is in fact shipping with Leopard, it may go a long way towards explaining how Time Machine will work in the final release, despite the fact that in the original developer release Time Machine did not use ZFS. It would be yet another example of Apple being out on the edge and leading the mainstream PC industry (linux hackers don't count) forward.

[Via Digg through OSNews]

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Productivity

MacDrive 6 - read/write Mac-formatted drives and discs on Windows

If, for one reason or another, you just can't get around having to work on a PC either at school, in the office or elsewhere, MacDrive for Windows 98 - XP might alleviate some of those daily headaches you've been having. Recently updated to version 6, MacDrive enables Windows to open, read from, write to and even format Mac OS-formatted discs and drives (HFS/HFS ). While this includes hard drives, CDs, DVDs, floppies (uh, what's a flop-y?), Zip, Jaz, SyQuest and more, CD and DVD burning is only available for Win 2K, 2K3 and XP.

The beauty of MacDrive, or so Mediafour's website boasts, is that working with HFS/HFS drives is completely seamless once the software is installed - no learning curve, no extra steps. While I (fortunately) don't have a Windows machine to test this, Mediafour offers a free trial (form link). MacDrive costs $50, and Mediafour offers a 30-day "Love it or Return it" money-back guarantee.

Tip of the Day

To get an instant map to any address, just go to your Address Book and right click on the address field of any one of your contacts and select "Map Of." The address will then be revealed in Google Maps on Safari. You can do the same if a data detector determines there is an address in an e-mail in Mail.


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