Charles on… anything that comes along

(Warning: serious Apple geekiness ahead. Don’t bother unless you’re an Apple user whose machine is taking forever to log in.)

I wrote earlier about some problems I was having with my Finder not doing what it should (ie starting up when I logged in, no matter which user I tried to be).

Although the Finder would eventually start, it took about 3 and a half minutes to get going - which is a long time when it should be almost instant.

Turns out lots of other people have been having the same problem - and it’s something to do with an Apple update. The move to 10.3.7 has changed the way the Finder does DNS lookups on logging in; it seems to go off and look for the wider world.

This is fine if you’re connected to the Net, but not when you’re on a wireless net (say) with a dialup connection that isn’t active. Like I tend to be when I’m logging in.

If however you turn off your Airport before logging in (ie before logging out or restarting), or for Ethernet connections just pull the plug out, then the DNS lookup will give up at once and login will be a breeze. Equally, removing the DNS figures from Systems Preferences-> Network does it too. But then Postfix doesn’t work. Damn.

All this is noted in the Apple discussions board here (no login needed to browse).

The suggestion is that it’s looking for idisk.mac.com, which is daft given that not every user will have a mac.com account (not all mine do), and even those who do won’t want to log straight in; if you’re on dialup, iDisk is a pain.

This post also suggests that it might be about getting your base station to have the DNS numbers. (Looks at base station config… hmm, didn’t have any DNS numbers in there. Will have to try that.) And this one fingers something called com.apple.sidebarlists.plist. First, I’ll post this… then see how well it works.

Update: no, updating the DNS server details on the base station (which isn’t online) doesn’t do it; the Finder still hangs when logging in to a new user. Turn off the Airport, and it’s up in an instant.

Seems to be the consequence of a lazy assumption by Apple - the sort of thing I really hate - that everyone is online all the time. No, we’re not. I recall the same problem with an earlier OSX version (10.1?) where login took forever if you had a dialup wireless network that wasn’t online. Kind of rubbish that such an elementary, fixed-long-ago problem should resurface.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• From the fate of the world, to the fate of my corrupt Finder (25 January 2005; score: 69.94%)
• Siebel vs the ASCII character set: apparently it's no contest (18 May 2006; score: 35.46%)
• iPod arrives... and is a clunker^W^W ..maybe OK (20 October 2005; score: 33.55%)

The iPod shuffle is a great gizmo, but has one flaw. Oh yes it does.

It works like this. Flip the thing over and look at the back (see this picture) and you see that it has a three-position slider, for ‘off’, ’sequential order’, ‘random order’.

The thing is, it’s darn hard to move that switch between the top or bottom positions. If your fingers aren’t a little sticky, or your nails aren’t very sharp, then it’s hard to move that widget down or up. Harder, if you’ve moved it down to the “shuffle” position.

What it needs - for the second-generation shuffle, due who knows when - is a little gap at the top and bottom of that switch so you can move it more easily with less sharp nails, or the edge of a finger. Nothing more or less.

And that’s really all I can find that’s not just right with it.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• shuffle iPod at review Register The: or hate it you'll love either it (11 February 2005; score: 84.47%)
• Daring Fireball on the iPod Shuffle: why = and ; are "special" (28 February 2005; score: 80.7%)
• Oh, Mozilla, how *could* you? (9 July 2004; score: 64.75%)

Interesting snippet at The Guardian:

Universal, the major music company, has announced it will no longer allow its back catalogue to be used for CDs given away with newspapers and magazines. The U-turn follows a similar move by EMI last year, and is in response to further evidence that cover-mounted CDs seriously damage sales of record company compilations.

While new artists’ album sales have risen by 2% in the past year, compilation sales have plummeted by 10%, and now hold 19% of the total albums market, down from 24%. From the end of next month, Universal will restrict the use of cover-mounted CDs to promoting new artists only. “We had an existing supply agreement [with publications] which we decided not to renew,” said a Universal spokesperson.

Brian Berg, the company’s managing director, is more colourful. “There are so many of the bloody things and they’re doing more harm than good. We’re better off out of it,” he says.

It remains to be seen whether Sony - which has contractual agreements - will follow suit. Warner has long shied away from cover-mounts, which chairman Nick Phillips believes act as a form of “cannibalism” on record sales.

I have heard, informally, that Universal took a payment of £2 million from Mirror Group, in return giving it full access to the Universal back catalogue. (My source wasn’t clear on how much of the back catalogue, or for how long the contract ran.) Now, Universal has realised that doing that doesn’t really raise revenues, and completely kills off one of the major money-spinners record labels have - compilations of various artists’ work, where ancient tracks are dusted off for a “Best of..” or similar themed album. You can always find some suckers who’ll buy those.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Record labels! Want rivals to overtake iTunes? Remove the DRM (30 August 2005; score: 51.23%)
• No, Google *isn't* because of MyDoom [though I could be.. I *am* wrong..] (26 July 2004; score: 40.81%)
• Why shopping is moving online; and the music industry sues itself (1 July 2005; score: 38.56%)

My latest piece at The Independent looks at the unbounded growth of Skype, which I think is prime among the voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) services.

Links:

• Skype

ef=”http://www.rogerdarlington.co.uk/VoIP.html”>article on voice-over-internet protocol

Interesting too that AOL is going to offer it. As I said, this is a hot area. Skype though has got the [old] Napster effect pushing it along - word of mouth makes people take it up.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Second thoughts on eBay buying Skype: it's the start of the instant messaging war (14 September 2005; score: 82.56%)
• First thought on eBay buys Skype (12 September 2005; score: 80.06%)
• I'm scared of taps. Bath taps. Not for myself.. (22 February 2007; score: 46.82%)

Storming piece by Mike McCarthy, the Independent’s environment editor, in Monday’s issue of the paper, pointing out that the gap between the action that we’re taking to curb human-caused global warming and greenhouse gas emission is falling far behind the action we need to take. Our actions are on a bicycle and greenhouse emissions are in a car, and we’re pedalling uphill and into the wind.

Some of it makes for depressing reading, if you’re in the mood to be depressed. (Note it’s behind a paywall..)

this problem, potentially the gravest [that] human society has ever faced, is simply not going to be solved… We promise, but we simply cannot get a handle on [tackling climate change]. It is as if willing-minded countries and their politicians have been swept along by the war-rhetoric of fighting climate change (Tony Blair being the most egregious example), and been prepared to make the gestures, but have not really understood or been prepared to take on board the full implications. Societies everywhere seem just too wedded to dependence on carbon, especially in areas like motor transport and aviation. Programmes to cut emissions are everywhere failing.

Projects like Kyoto, wind power, wave power, solar power are just tinkering at the edges; they barely make the tiniest bite into emissions. What we really need, he points out, is a ‘Manhattan Project’ for our future energy needs: a really concentrated effort that recognises that time is not on our side, and that we need to find a solution, where the politicians simply hand over the task to the scientists and engineers and stay the hell out of it.

The first solution is obvious: fission power. Nuclear power stations make a huge contribution to our energy needs, and we know how to build them in huge numbers. Many scientists, especially those concerned about climate change, think we should focus on fission as a short-term response and phase out carbon-based forms of electricity generation as fast as possible. Yes, you can quote terrorist threats. But the threat of millions of people being displaced from their countries by rising sea levels will be a lot more inexorable than any theoretical risk from terrorists. I’m really not worried about Al-Q’aida, not nearly as much as I am about the longer-term effects of global warming and what sort of world it means we’re leaving to our children.

The second solution, which people are working on - but grossly underfunded, with insufficient political will - is fusion power. The ITER scheme is intended to create a fusion reactor, perhaps in France or in Japan, that will prove the concept. The trouble is that controlling fusion is tricky. Well, so was nuclear fission in the 1940s, but the American team managed it.

The trouble is that we have the old “frog in a saucepan” problem. Put a frog into hot water and it jumps out. Put it into lukewarm water and warm it gradually, and it lets itself be boiled alive.

I’m also reminded of Neil Postman book I read years ago called “Amusing Ourselves To Death”. It was a long polemic about how US TV had turned into absolute crap, not reporting real news and instead focussing on trivia that would attract attention, yet mean nothing.

That was published, as I recall, 30-odd years ago. It’s just as true now; but the infection has spread across the Atlantic too. It’s made even worse by mendacious idiots who wouldn’t know a scientific proof if it ran over their foot, but have a platform with huge leverage on government actions.

Sure, I’m guilty too of not doing enough, and of getting distracted by trivia. (Hell, look at the content of this blog.) Then again I don’t take many plane trips, don’t travel far by car, recycle where I can. But the point is that this is, to reiterate, just tinkering at the edges. We really need a concerted effort, throwing serious resources behind an attempt to solve the gap between clean energy supply and all energy demand. Fusion and fission are the only ones that have the slightest chance - unless something like zero-point energy turns out to be useful. So, two Manhattan Projects, in competition.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Business Week wakes up to global warming (6 August 2004; score: 104.86%)
• The Onion Infograph on global warming (19 November 2004; score: 91.06%)
• Ah, welcome onto my patch, Melanie: La Phillips finds nutso group opposing global warming (20 October 2004; score: 56.43%)