Have you ever downloaded a file using Safari and ended up with an extension like .dmg.bz2, only to find that no amount of double clicking will actually get you to a mountable disk image? Here's the down and dirty:
Safari has a habit of guessing at what you're downloading and appending an extension for you, at least when the server doesn't explicitly declare it. In this case, it's looking at the compression method being used inside of the disk image, finding bzip2 and appending that extension. But the disk image isn't actually archived, so this throws everything off. When the OS sees the bz2 extension (or any extension after the .dmg), it assumes it's a compressed archive and unzips it. The resulting file is broken.
The answer? If you run into this problem, just click the file once to rename it and remove the trailing extension after .dmg. The disk image should mount on a double click. An aging post at Unsanity also divulges the server-side solution for preventing the problem entirely.
I probably wipe my Macs once or twice a year, sometimes after a particularly grueling semester of work and screwing around with loads of 3rd party haxies and utilities in the name of TUAW. Each time I go through this hand-washing process, I make sure my continuous backup (thanks to Econ Technologies' ChronoSync) is as up-to-date as possible, and then I wipe the machine clean, installing a fresh copy of Mac OS X. I've always seen the option to 'Archive and Install,' but I never bothered to learn about the process, as I was always worried about how to retrieve files at a later date if I took that path. Maybe this 'clean slate' is a holdover from my Windows days, but I've always felt 'safer' starting with a fresh hard drive (but a guy can change).
I haven't tested
this yet, but Make a Delivery sounds like a handy
little Automator action that will create a .dmg file from the Finder items you have selected, then attach that .dmg to
an email. One quirky thing, however, is that you have to move a resource folder into your Applications directory; it
isn't just an action that you can use or turn into a right-click Finder plugin.
BackityMac is a
really handy, really simple to use backup and restore utility that allows you to chose from a number of different
application support directories to backup into a good ol' fashioned read-only disk image. The list of library and
support folders includes:
| # | Blogger | Posts | Cmts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cory Bohon | 79 | 4 |
| 2 | Robert Palmer | 55 | 43 |
| 3 | Dave Caolo | 55 | 0 |
| 4 | Scott McNulty | 49 | 2 |
| 5 | Steven Sande | 45 | 20 |
| 6 | Mat Lu | 38 | 11 |
| 7 | Erica Sadun | 35 | 2 |
| 8 | Mike Schramm | 22 | 1 |
| 9 | Giles Turnbull | 16 | 0 |
| 10 | Brett Terpstra | 15 | 1 |
| 11 | Christina Warren | 13 | 24 |
| 12 | Michael Rose | 9 | 14 |
| 13 | Chris Ullrich | 3 | 0 |
| 14 | Joshua Ellis | 2 | 3 |
| 15 | Kent Pribbernow | 1 | 0 |
| 16 | Jason Clarke | 1 | 0 |
Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:
