Simply create an event titled Sprint 3 meeting from 2 to 4 pm and it will create the event Sprint 3 meeting and assign it the right information. I thought this was awesome and wondered how Apple came up with this feature and why they took the time to focus on this. Then, I saw the iOS 5 keynote and met Siri. Now it all makes sense and I am eager to hire my virtual personal assistant.

Steve Jobs was a visionary. The respect he got from the tech industry is well deserved.

If you expend the labels in your sidebar, you will notice the unread emails all belong to the default imap GMail labels :

I’ve finally found how to fix this. Simply log in your GMail account and go to your Mail Settings. Click on the Labels tab and uncheck all the “Show in Inbox” boxes for all the GMail “System Labels” except Inbox (which is grayed out anyway)

Back in Mail.app, right click on your account in the list in the left pane and click on Syncronize account. It will update the labels counts and everything will “look better”.

1. Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups.
2. Make sure your user is selected on the left and go to the Login Items tab
3. Go to the Finder and press Cmd+K and connect to your network drive. Make sure to save the password to your keychain.
   
4. A Finder window opens showing the content of your network drive. Press Cmd + up arrow key to go up a level
5. Drag and Drop your network volume in the Login Items window
   
6. Check the box Hide left to your Volume in the list so the window won’t open at every boot up
7. Close the System Preferences, you’re all set

• how do you teach a child two languages (hoping the child won’t mix them up)
• do you have to declare/pay taxes in your country of origin ?
• which address do you give your bank counselor when opening your account ?
• how do you transfer money from your bank in country A to your bank in country B ?

Anyway, one of the problems expats might have is accessing websites who have an IP-based location check (ie bank account management site, checkout, etc).

Eventually, if the problem is recurrent, you can solve it permanently using a router and a VPN which will give you an IP based in the country of your choice. I tested this setup myself and hre’s what I learnt.

What you will need

1. Get an account with a VPN provider such as strongVPN. I tested the Lite Open package (monthly fee).
   If you only have one computer, the strongVPN account is all you need. Download the software they provide and you can have a foreign IP at will. If you have more than one machine or various devices you want to use with a foreign IP, read on…
2. Buy a DD-WRT compatible router. Since strongVPN offers detailed tutorials for the Linksys ones, I tested one of them, the E3000.
3. Download the quick config from your strongVPN customer area (it is a zip file)

Setup your network

If you already have a router (you probably do as most Internet boxes do create one for you), you will now have two. Basically, you will have two subnets. Depending on which network you use, you will or not have a foreign IP.

Here’s how it looks :

To achieve this, plug a network cable between your new router and your computer. Access your router configuration page, usually at http://192.168.1.1. Login using admin as a login and admin as a password. In the main section, change your router IP to something like 192.168.2.1 / 255.255.255.0 and enter 192.168.1.254 (or whatever your other router IP is) as the gateway. Setup the DHCP to assign addresses like 192.168.2.2 to 192.168.2.50 for example.

If you so desire, enable the wifi of your new router.

Restart your new router. Connect your old router to the new one using a LAN port (not the WAN port) on both ends. Now, if you connect your computer to the old router, your IP will be like 192.168.1.X and you must be able to access the Internet. If you connect your computer to the new router, your IP will be like 192.168.2.X and you should still be able to access the Internet.

If you got this step right, you can go ahead and flash your router firmware.

Configure your router to use the VPN

First, we must modify the router’s firmware to run DD-WRT. This is an open source firmware that aims to make router administration easy (and consistent) while enabling as many features as possible for each device.

If you did get a router listed for easy setup on strong VPN website, I advise you to download your firmware file from there.

If your device is not listed there, get your firmware file from DD-WRT database.

If you did get the Linksys E3000, here are the two files you will need :

1. dd-wrt.v24-16785_NEWD-2_K2.6_std_usb_nas-e3000.bin
2. dd-wrt.v24-17201_NEWD-2_K2.6_big-nv60k.bin

Now, it’s time to flash the firmware. Login to your router administration page. Go to administration > upgrade firmware. Select the first file (the upgrade file) and click on start upgrade. Your router will reboot. Return to the same page, select the second file and click on start upgrade again. This time, after reboot, your administration page will look different as you are now running DD-WRT.

Login to your router administration using root as login and admin as password. In the Setup > Basic Setup section, enter the following for DNS servers :

1. 216.131.95.20
2. 216.131.94.5

Reboot your router and make sure that you can still connect to the Internet using this new router.

Now, it’s time to setup the router to use the VPN access. Go to Commands and enter the content of the quick config file (downloaded earlier) in the textarea. Click on Save Custom Script. The page reloads, type sh /tmp/custom.sh in the textarea and click on run commands. The page reloads again. Clear the textarea and click on Save Custom Script again. Reboot the router. Now, your router should use the VPN access. If you are using this router, whatsmyip.org should tell you that your IP appears to be in the country you selected when opening your VPN account. Instructions with screenshots can be found on strongVPN website.

Note: If your IP is still the same (your usual IP), you need to contact strongVPN support and ask them to make sure your VPN account is able to work with this setup. If it isn’t, they will adjust it in a matter of seconds.

Test

Connect, either using a network cable or Wifi, your computer to the new router. Go to a website to get to know your IP such as whatsmyip.org and you should now see that your external IP is the one of your VPN provider (in the country of your choice). Hopefully, now, you can use your online banking site or whatever other site which was blocking you for being abroad.

Support

 If you’re having a problem, you could leave a comment on this blog but actually, your best bet is to check the DD-WRT forums. If you did go with strongVPN, you’re in luck, their support is awesome. They have what they call “Live Help” which means some of their support staff can anser you via online chat or even using Skype. Simply head over the Live Help page and find a DD-WRT guru. You will be given his Skype name and be told when he comes on duty. They are super nice and extremely helpful. You can also visit their forums hoping that someone runs the same hardware you bought.

It works, now what ?

 Okay, so, besides using your connection to access your country of origin banking website and such, this is also a workaround to use country based restricted websites or applications such as Netflix, Hulu or Pandora. I have actually had the opportunity to test this setup and Netflix so, if that’s what you’re doing…

Netflix : two extra tips

1. If it stops working on an AppleTV 2, hard reboot (unplug / replug from power source) the device
2. If it doesn’t work on iPad, edit your network settings and use Google DNS servers (IP 8.8.8.8)

I upgraded to Lion and everything went fine. Just a minor – known – issue with MySQL server as installed by the Zend Server Community Edition.

I already wrote about solving the mysql error which prevents the server from starting. Researching this again, I found more information about it. Whether running on OS X or any other OS, it appears that these PID errors are permission related.

The two errors I get are :

1. ERROR – MySQL PID file could not be found
2. ERROR – Manager of pid-file quit without updating file

First, when upgrading to Lion, it appears that the zend user is deleted. As a result, all the files owner by zend are now owned by nobody. The only way I found to recreate the user was to reinstall Zend Server Community Edition without removing the current installation. All my data remained untouched… Apache configuration, PHP configuration and mySQL data stayed so that was not a problem. On the other hand, that did not fix the permission issues. The correct ownerships and permissions are not restored by the installation process. Eventually, I got the server to restart with the following permissions in place.

Here are the permissions for the files in /usr/local/zend/mysql :

drwxrwxr-x  49 root  wheel  1666 Jul 22 11:19 bin
drwxrwxr-x  62 zend  wheel  2108 Jul 31 10:12 data
drwxr-x—   6 root  wheel   204 Mar  8 16:28 data.dist
drwxrwxr-x  24 root  wheel   816 Jul 22 11:20 lib
drwxrwxr-x   3 root  wheel   102 Jul 22 11:19 scripts
drwxrwxr-x  13 root  wheel   442 Jul 22 11:19 share
drwxrwxr-x   3 zend  wheel   102 Jul 31 10:12 tmp

Basically, the folders data and tmp must belong to zend, the others, to root.

So, reinstalling the server, following my own instructions regarding permissions, fixed the Zend Server Community MySQL server for Mac OS X Lion. No other upgrade problem to report. Awesome job by the OS X Team.

The location of the data can be set in the my.cnf file BUT, don’t be alarmed, this file doesn’t exist on OS X by default. The server works without it and the file is for you to create if you need to change the server’s default behavior…

Steps :

1. Download and install mysql for OS X
2. Install the preference pane. Start your server to make sure it works. Stop it again as we need to alter the configuration.
3. Move your data folder where you wish to have it i.e.

   1	mv /usr/local/mysql/data /home/<user>/Applications/mysql/data

4. Copy the file my-small.cnf in /etc and name it my.cnf

   1	sudo cp /usr/local/mysql/support-files/my-small.cnf /etc/my.cnf

5. Edit this configuration file

   1	sudo vi /etc/my.cnf

6. Change the data path : datadir=/home/<user>/…./data
   Note: if you use innodb, change the innodb data location directive as well
7. Launch your mysql server again, it should start normally, if not, review the steps above as something must have gone wrong

Some of the movies I wanted to have on the iPad came from DVD (no Blu-Ray player for me at this point) and one video was a mkv file. So the first step was to import these files in a format that would suit iTunes.

For the DVDs, I used Handbrake.

Here is the procedure :

• Download and install Handbrake.
• Launch Handbrake
• Insert your DVD
• Click on Source (top left button) and select your DVD > VIDEO_TS folder.

  

• Handbrake will read the DVD and determine the chapters to rip in order to import only the movie (no special feeatures, no menus, etc)
• If you don’t see the presets drawer on the right, click on “Toggle presets” in order to see them
• I selected and used the Apple TV2 preset myself for my rips though I read the iPhone 4 preset would have worked, too
• I then adjusted these settings somewhat following the recommendations at the end of this forum post
  - In the main window, adjust the framerate (FPS) to 25 (if your DVD is PAL/region2)
  - click on Picture Settings (top toolbar) and change the anamorphic to strict 

  
  - click on Filters (the tab at the top) and adjust
  - detelecine to default
  - decomb to deinterlace (push the cursor to the right)
  - deinterlace to slow
  - denoise to medium

  

• You can then click on Preview to see what your movie will look like
• Finally, in the main window, you can modify the destination file path
• When everything is set, click on Start

The encoding process takes about 1.5 times the movie length for me here…

Of course, if you know better presets for Handbrake to work specifically for a given device (especially the iPad2) feel free to share them in the comments. Your help is welcome.

For the MKV file conversion to MP4 I used the trial version of Video Converter for Mac

• Download and install the product
• Drag and drop the video(s) you need to convert
• Once again, select the preset that suits you best (it can be iPad or Apple TV)
• Adjust the framesize (if your source is HD and you have an iPad2, you might want to increase the output framesize)
• Click on Convert

You can find more information on how to use Video Converter in the editor’s website documentation.

That process was very time consuming on my computer… much more than the rips from my original DVD though I must add that the resulting video, on the iPad2, is wonderful. The HD source made all the difference in the world compared to the DVD sourced material. NO, I WILL NOT BUY ALL MY DVDs AGAIN AS BLU-RAY DISCS but I’m sure some of them would benefit from the upgrade…

MP4 to iTunes to iPad

Both Handrake and Video Converter for Mac created for us some mp4 files. These files must be added to the iTunes Library.

I also feel the need to tag them. I need the director name, the release date and the cover – at least… I found the artwork in very high res at getvideoartwork. As for the tagging, a very detailed article at iLounge.com covers the subject of video management within iTunes.

Once your movies are ready, simply sync all your movies (or a selection on them) with your device (which could be an iPad or iPhone)

That’s it, book a long flight for your next holidays and enjoy your movies

At the same time, we are constantly on the lookout for solutions to enjoy our music collection (and movies collection) across devices, wherever we are.

A lot of recent events indicate that we are not alone in this quest and that it will only get better and better in time.

Recently, of course, Apple introduced the Remote App for iPhone/iPad, AirPlay followed by iTunes Match… In the Unix World, a lot of things already exist as well : Pulse to stream audio across devices and projects like Music Player Daemon (which is nothing but new). Media Center are also making the news frequently (Windows Media Center, Boxee, Plex) and commercial solutions (Music streamingm VoD) like Spotify, Netflix and Hulu are slowly forcing DVD and Blu-Ray Discs pricing down.

Dematerialized solutions are the way of the future but several problem remain :

• how to organize one’s library (how to merge dematerialized bought content and ripped content from CDs and in our case even vinyls that we already had)
• how to make this content accessible across devices (especially in a multi-platform environment)
• how to stream this content on various speakers in the same house
• how to remotely control what we play in each room
• finally, can we somehow enjoy our content even on the move
• (I don’t even mention syncing across devices, the size of our collection makes that totally impossible, the content has to stay in one place)
• (other issues include the ever needed backup management)

We are currently waiting to test some of these solutions (we do not have an AirPlay receiver for example though that will soon arrive).

For now, I’ll focus on one part of our solution : Music Player Daemon.

Music Player Daemon (definition) is a server side music player. It allows to queue and play music files (in various formats) accessible to it via the file system. MPD can be controlled remotely using a wide range of clients (desktop, mobile or web based).

An example ? We have several computers in the house. One of them is the “Media Center”. It has the Music Hard Drive hooked to it and is (mostly) always on. Because it is the “Media Center” it is the computer that has the good sound system attached (whether that means a 5.1 speaker set or a connection to a Home Amplifier System, whatever). Basically, this is the computer that should play music. Why would you listen to a song using your laptop speakers when you can play the same song on your great expensive speaker set ?

So what you do, if you are in your house and connected to your home network, is remotely control what song your “Media Center” computer should play. Using a MPD client, you can browse your Music Library (and your playlists) and just play any of them on your great sound system. The good news is that you can do this using Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad and even AppleTV.

Of course, this only answers some of the problems mentioned above (there will more than likely be several more articles on related subjects in this blog in the future). MPD does not offer a solution to the online streaming (at least not directly) not does it solve the problem of playing music acrosse the house on various speaker sets (it only plays on the machine it is installed on). But that’s already a first step to our goal : an ubiquitous access to our Music and Movies Collections.

Some Technical Notes

Setting up the server

Debian

Mac OS X

Configure mpd by editing /etc/mpd.conf or /opt/local/etc/mpd.conf and set the path to your logs, music library, etc.

Start the server (either manually with mpd) or automatically with an /etc/init.d type script

More information

The MPD Community Wiki (new to me) reveals that the project has been pretty active lately which is excellent news.

• MPD Install procedures
• MPD on OS X
• Configuring MPD
• Installing and using MPD on AppleTV

MPD Clients

Now that I’ve described how to setup your MPD server, you will need a client to play your music from anywhere. I switched to Mac OS X about a year ago and this is now my primary system. We also run some Windows machine. I use Debian as well but most of the time, that’s only as a server (ie no graphical interface there)

Windows:

QMPDClient: our favorite client on Windows is QMPDClient. The client suit us best because it didn’t choke on the size of our collection and it handles both file system and tag views.

QMPDClient has been extended with another project QMPDClient-ne which should also run on Windows though I haven’t tested it on this platform.

Linux:

MPD being a project that came from the Linux world, most clients are aiming for this platform.

Currently, I have tested:

QMPDclient (so that Derrick and I can run the same software on both systems)
QMPDClient also has a package available via apt/aptitude for Debian.

QMPDclient-ne in order to see what enhancements have been added like the possibility to pull up lyrics.

QtMPC, another Qt4 based client.

Mac OS X:

Theremin is the most famous Mac OS MPD client as it is written in Cocoa and therefore has the Mac aqua style. Another plus, it has a growl connector.

About a year ago, I had tested Kea2 which was in an alpha stage. It seems to have disappeared.

iPhone / iPad

I’ve tested MPoD for iPhone and will probably try MPaD for iPad soon.

Where to go from there ?

There is a lot more to do on this Music system of ours. We are still looking for a great Music Client (iTunes doesn’t cut it for us at all, our collection is too big for the sorting and management offered) but we want to enjoy solutions like AirPlay. We also hope to see more AirPlay (or similar) received come out in order, one day, to have speakers in every room and a way to play music where we want. Stay tuned…

The problem :

The problem is famous : how to keep multiple computers in sync in order to have access to our data no matter where we are, no matter which computer we are using. It isn’t the first time I wonder about how to improve this aspect of my computer setup and I must say that Dropbox, Evernote, Google Calendar, GMail and a lot of other “cloud” solutions as they are called have helped tremendously over the years. Still, this week iMac incident once again brought the problem to the surface.

A little background :

My primary computer is an iMac based at home. I work as a software engineer so I also have a work computer. At the moment, this is a brand new MacBookPro. I also own a three year old MacBook which I use when we are away from home (unload photos, check emails, simple things like that).

When my iMac broke down earlier this week, I wasn’t without a computer. I had two more. Still, I felt left out because my various emails accounts were not setup on either MacBooks (my work computer doesn’t carry any of my personal data), my iCal wasn’t setup on any of these machines to track my appointments. My on-going projects on the iMac (personal development, Lightroom work, etc) was also stuck on the iMac’s hard drive.

A possible solution, making my Mac User portable :

The problem is known and a lot of people have solved it many different ways.

Apple tries to answer it with MobileMe, Microsoft created LiveMesh, etc. The problem is different for each of us as we all have a different setup. Some might decide to simply sync (using rsync for example) two computers to be exact replicas of each others. With today’s bandwidth, this is a solution just as valid as any other.Of course, the problem also depends on your setup : do you have several personal computers ? Do they all run the same OS ? Are they on the same network, etc ?

My situation has the following characteristics

• I am the only person using these three computers (boyfriend is allergic to Mac somehow, he might launch Opera to check his emails on the MacBook when we’re away from home but that is an effort for him)
• All three machines are running Mac OS X Snow Leopard
• I usually do not use two of these computers at the same time. I work on the MacBook Pro in the daytime, turn it down in the evening and use iMac for personal stuff. If we’re going away, I’ll update the MacBook (load music and stuff on it) and pack it while I’ll switch off the iMac.

Because of my situation, it seems to me that I can carry my Mac User around without taking too much risks in terms of file conflicts.

Testing

While I had my iMac repaired, I went and shopped for a 1TB 2.5 external hard drive. I ended up with a Western Digital Element SE (80 euros).

Here’s the idea :

Using Carbon Copy Cloner, I will periodically sync my iMac’s Home Folder on the Western Digital Element. That simply means that my main Mac user will be available on this external drive with all my personal data (Music, Photos) and profile (Mail.app configuration, iCal configuration, etc).

On the MacBookPro, I renamed my user from samo (which I had used across all computers) to samowork. Then, I created another user called samo whose Home Folder is the Western Digital Element. I logged in with that user, fired Mail. It works, all my personal emails were there and the work emails were left out. So, from now on, if my iMac gets sick again, I can use another computer as a temporary replacement. Better yet, that will not leave any trace on that other computer (it’s all kept on the external drive).

On the MacBook, same procedure. I renamed my user to samobook and created another samo user whose Home Folder is the Western Digital. Now, when we are on the move, I don’t only have a Mac with me (which is cool) but I have MY Mac with all my stuff and that’s WAY COOL.

Also, the Western Digital Element also acts as an extra backup of my personal data (in addition to the Time Machine backup I make weekly)

I just completed this setup (doing a manual copy for now, not a CCC backup) of my Home folder and didn’t encounter a problem yet.

What’s left to do ?

• Automating the sync (with CCC) or rsync and a cron
• Making sure that, when running my profile on a different computer, I can sync my iPhone and not loose my media or apps (see also my article about having 1 phone and multiple macs)

Going all the way ?

I suppose, to go all the way, I should use the Western Digital drive as my Home Folder on the iMac as well. No need to sync anymore but that would mean always having that drive hooked up and not using it as a backup anymore. Also, if there is ever a conflict somewhere, I’d rather just be able to consider the iMac the master Home folder and the rest as a slave. For now, I’ll experiment that way.

What you need to know :

• If you wish to use your main account on the other computers (in my case, on the laptops), I would recommend pluging the external drive BEFORE logging in your account. I do not know what would happen if I was to login and my Home Folder wasn’t found.
• You SHOULD only use your main account on what computer at a time. If I am using my account on a MacBook, I’d better sync the WD back with the iMac before using my iMac (to avoid conflicts between files)
• Changing account’s shortnames and home folder is possible (and seems to be very well handled by OS X). Still there are dangerous operations. Check out the following pages of the Apple support site before proceeding
  How to change the shortname or home folder name
  How to move the home folder
• This setup doesn’t not synchronize the installed Applications. Now I can see my photos on the work MacBookPro but I would need to install my Lightroom there to work on them (which I probably won’t do) but I could easily edit a personal project on my work computer since Textmate is installed across all my machines (and setup exactly the same way every where thanks to DropBox)

Anyway, I thought the idea was worth sharing as it might really answer the problem for me for now (still wondering how MobileMe will evolve).

Procedure :

Source machine :

Here is how to setup the backup from the imac’s home folder to the WD external drive using CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner)

1. Download and install Carbon Copy Cloner, launch the software
2. On the left, select your Macintosh HD and browse to Users > <yourUser> (ie samo)
   
3. On the right, select your external hard drive (I formatted the volume and named it samo)
4. Click on Save Task button
5. In the following screen, name your task and schedule it
   
6. To run and test it immediately, press Run
   
7. This will take a while…
8. Check the content of your external hard drive, you should find all the files you have in your Home Folder
9. Note that, next time, the backup will take a lot less time as only modified/added files will be transfered (CCC uses rsync which backups incrementally)

Some my prefer to use rsync manually and be more in control of their backup.

Here’s a working code sample to get your started :

Sync the whole samo Home Folder (dry-run mode + verbose move, will only list what rsync would have done)

Actually launch the command

Delete the files that are on the external HD if there aren’t on the source computer anymore

Do not delete the files on the external HD, do not touch the ones that were modified on the external HD

A lot more options and information about using rsync can be found in posts such as 15 rsync command examples.

Target machines :

Here is the procedure I followed on the two laptops to move my current user “samo” and create the main one (with its exterrnal data).

1. Go to System Preferences and go to the Accounts section
2. Create a new administrator user (ie login admin, password admin). We will delete it when we’re done, it’s just a user I create in case something goes wrong I can always log back with him as Administrator and solve the problem
3. OPTIONAL: if you already have an user on this computer named like your main user, you need to edit its name and Home Folder name…
   Launch Terminal.
   Navigate to /Users (cd /Users)
   Rename your user’s Home Folder (ie mv samo samobook)
   Back in the Accounts management, click on the lock to allow changes (if necessary)
   Right click on your user’s name in the list on the left and enter the Advanced Options
   Change your user’s shortname (ie from samo to samobook)
   Change your user’s home directory (ie from /Users/samo to /Users/samobook)
   Restart or Logout and Log back in to make sure your user still works…
4. Return to the System Preferences > Accounts section and create yet a new user. Enter the account name of your main user (ie samo)
5. Right click this new user in the list on the left, edit the home directory and select the Home Folder you copied on an external drive
6. At this point, you can delete the temporary admin user (created at step 2), then logout and back in as your main user to see if everything worked for you

Last but not Least

Once your Mac user is following you everywhere, you can sync your iPhone/iPad (including the media ie apps, music, etc) from any of your computers without loosing data on your device.
Note: you still need to authorize each of the computers you use for purchased items so this trick won’t enable you to bypass the 5 computer limitation.

I hope this setup will work for me and hopefully help other multi-mac users out there…

I quickly identified two things :

1. hangs would occur when launching apps or triggering the launcher (spotlight, Alfred) which meant “hard drive access”
2. with the help of the Activity Monitor I could tell that the hangings were echoed by flatlines on the hard disk activity.

My hard disk was going out with all my data. Or maybe my whole computer was dying (of course, warranty had expired 3 months ago).

Next actions :

1. insert my time capsule drive in the USB dock and made sure I would have a current backup
2. managed (see below) to talk to a Genius from the Apple Store and had my diagnose confirmed : the hard disk was probably causing the problem

Side note : the Apple Store Geniuses are not to answer the phone. How did I get to talk to one ? My mother was shopping that day and spotted an Apple Store. That is one of the things that makes her think of me and call. She called saying “I’m at the Apple Store, did you need anything?” She implied something about the iPad2 my whole family knows I’d like to get but I just said “Yeah, fix my iMac”… Then I asked her to see if she could find a “Genius”. It was a week day, 11am. They were not too busy and one reluctantly agreed to take my mother’s iPhone and talk to me. He wouldn’t really garanty anything over the phone but he felt, like me, the hard drive was to be checked. He asked me to bring the computer to the Store. Little did he know I live 1000km away from my parents and am unlikely to bring my iMac to his store.

Now this was turning into a geek’s nightmare. My iMac was going out fast. The hangs got more frequent and lasted longer. Mail.app would crash more than anything else. No more emails, no more calendars, no more address book (well, on the iPhone right?) I could have changed the HD right away but somehow, I suddenly realized I didn’t even know how to open the iMac… A quick glance around youTube taught me that opening the iMac requires suction cups (whatever that may be) and looks like a pretty dangerous (for the iMac) operation.

I have built PC before but somehow, I didn’t feel like driving to the hardware store, ask for the French translation of suction cups and open the beast. I went back to my work (on the work MacBookPro) and left it at that.

Next steps (two days later). I took an apointment with the Apple Store Genius for the week end but still wanted to make sure the drive was at fault. I ran Disk Utility. It found errors. So I inserted the Snow Leopard Disk, pressed ‘C’ during bootup and launched the Disk Utility from there. I repaired the disk and that went well. Rebooted, the problem remained.

Another attempt, the Apple Hardware Check accessible by booting with the OS CD in and pressing ‘D’ during bootup. It found no errors.

Now, a quick Google search taught me that : replacing the drive at the Apple Store would cost 200 euros and take a week. That is another FULL WEEK without emails, calendars, todo list, music collection, lightroom, you know… no computer

So, at this point, I cancelled the appointment with the Genius and went another route.The week end came and I took the iMac to a unofficial Apple Genius who claimed he knew how to change the drive and open the machine. I picked a 2TB 7200 rpm drive to replace the original 1Tb Seagate. This is where it’s going to get fun later : the hard drive model has changed…

Repair went well, I reinstalled Snow Leopard, it worked good, no hanging. TimeMachine backups are absolutely awesome. In 4 hours, I had all my data back, all my settings, all my applications reinstalled. TimeMachine has to be the thing PC lacks the most.

BUT, after a few minutes of “normal” use, a problem surfaced. The iMac was now noisy (another thing Macs do better than my home built PCs is running quietly). The fan was going nuts in there for no apparent reason. I installed the iStats widget on the dashboard (highly recommended) and realized that, even though the HDD temperature was read at 40 C, the HDD fan was spinning at 5400rpm. Insane !

Reading here and there, I realized this was due to the hard drive change. Either the temperature sensor has been messed with or damaged or, simply, the new hard drive is incompatible and the fan just doesn’t know what to do so it just spins at max speed. The first thing to do in that case is to reset the SMC. That didn’t do it for me though. I read about several fan control apps (most notably smcFanControl which seems to be famous) but none allowed to reduce the fan speed, they could only set the minimal fan speed or increase it. Finally, I found HDD Fan Control by Ben Surtees. Installed it and instantly, the HDD fan went back down to 1600 rpm and the iMac was silent again. What a relief!

What a week, I’m glad to have the iMac back. Many many thanks to TimeMachine and Ben Surtees for saving the week end.

Oh by the way, if you didn’t do it already, take a minute in this three day week end to setup your time machine backup. Hardware doesn’t last forever.