Dear Lazyweb,

I suspect the answer to this is also "Apple horked it in a recent security update", but I still desire to know how to fix it. Lately, when I'm doing rsync+ssh backups of various machines, ssh craps out partway through. Ssh is running on MacOS 10.4 PPC (OpenSSH 4.7p1) with the latest updates, and is aimed at at various Linuxen that haven't been upgraded since, say, 2005 (OpenSSH 4.3). It dies like so:

rsync [...]
building file list ... done
...dozens of files get transferred successfully...
Disconnecting: Bad packet length 787964.

It's dying after transferring a bunch of data, not during connection setup. Both side are most assuredly speaking SSH2.

Googling this error message only results in very old threads where people say, "Oh, that's because you're using SSH2! You should use SSH1 instead." This answer is clearly bullshit. What's the real fix?

Dear Lazyweb, lately (this month-ish) I'm seeing that "A script in this movie is causing Adobe Flash Player 9 to run slowly" dialog all the time. Safari will go all hypnowheel for 5-10 seconds, and then that dialog appears, giving me the options of "break the web page" or "go back to the hypnowheel for another ten seconds, then everything's fine." Who broke what? No scratch that, just tell me how to fix it.

Dear Lazyweb,

I have an Illustrator file. I wish to have the outline therein manufactured into a flat plastic object. Say, 1mm thick. It's basically a comb for holding some small components at a fairly precise spacing, say, ±0.2mm tolerance. (Nevermind what it's for.)

I believe that here in the future, there should be some web service where I upload my .ai file, and then my object arrives in the mail. However, the only one I know of is Ponoko. Which sounds like exactly what I want... except that they're in New Zealand, a fact which they only cop to after you've gotten almost all the way through checkout and only then discover that their shipping rates are insane (like, I think you can put payload into orbit for less.)

It seems like most people who have cutters and fabricators are from the last century, and want to spend a bunch of time talking about it and holding my hand and writing me a personalized quote for the work and asking me about my feelings or whatever. Screw that. I just want the Kinko's of fabbing. Where is it?

Since the PearLyrics guy gave up, every now and then I look for a new iTunes plugin that downloads and displays lyrics. There are surprisingly few. But I recently came across GimmeSomeTune, which, despite the terrible name, seems reasonable. But I think it gets lyrics only from lyricwiki.org, which means it doesn't have a very big set to choose from. Still, the UI is mostly reasonable, and it has a menubar iTunes controller built in too (I had been using ByteController for that.)

So, apparently since the last DST change, my DirecTivo is confused about what time it is: it thinks it's an hour earlier than it really is. Fortunately, the program data is also off by an hour, so it's still mostly* recording the right things, but having the clock be wrong is annoying.

It's a hacked Philips 7000/17 S2 box (apparently running 4.0.1b-02-2-240), so I can't apply DirecTV's software update. Any idea how to fix this? There is no zoneinfo directory on the Tivo file system, so I don't know where its DST rules live. The clock is correct w.r.t. GMT, it just doesn't know what the new DST rules are.

I don't understand why this didn't happen last year. I think I would have noticed.

* It stopped recording The Daily Show at the proper time because I use a "manual" recording for that one (to stop getting a dozen copies of it a day when Comedy Central botches the metadata, which is often).

Dear Lazyweb, here is a wiring diagram, obtained at great personal dissatisfaction.

See, I wanted to use my beloved Shure i2c headphones as a headset with my computer. Here in this modern world, you'd think that shit would be standardized by now, but no. It turns out that the Shure model I have, with the microphone and 2.5mm plug, is not a "cell phone" model, but actually a "Treo" model.

So, when I went and bought a USB dingus and an adapter cable to go with it, I found that the adapter cable was wired wrong (only one channel and no mic.) Apparently the Treo wiring plan is... creative? (This also explains why the retro handset doesn't work right with the Treo: it's wired in the same "wrong" way as the above cable.)

So, I made my own cable. Which was approximately 500% harder than it should have been because, bizarrely, it turns out that 4-conductor 2.5mm jacks are near-unobtanium -- and 4-conductor 2.5mm jacks in cable rather than board-mount form factor are complete unobtainium. (Radio Schlock has 3.5mm 3-conductor male cable plugs, so at least the other side is easy to get.)

So, to do this, you need to buy one of the rare board-mount sockets (Digikey CP1-42515RS-ND) and swaddle it in electrical tape.

The money shot:

(G=ground, L=left, R=right, M=microphone)

Hey kids! It's been a while since I've posted questions about stupid Linux crap! That's because I've been ignoring Linux for a very, very long time.

Well, I decided (for a number of individually not very good reasons that, in my head, seemed to add up) to try and upgrade the OS on the DNA Lounge kiosks.

( Dear Lazyweb... --More--(13%)  )

Hey, I remembered that I still have an SGI O2 sitting on the shelf in my laundry room! Unfortunately, what I don't remember is the root password, and I think the only sane way to reset it is with an Irix install CD. Do any of you have one that you can snail-mail to me?

Also, if you happen to have the dingus that lets you plug a normal SVGA monitor into an SGI Indy, I could give that a good home too.

Update: Nevermind, rukzise found a crack that got me back in.

Dear Lazyweb,

I want to actually run some of these old copies of Netscape that I have. I have an Intel iMac running MacOS 10.5.1. What is the easiest way to do that, without spending money? Presumably the answer involves running an emulator, of which there are many. I've tried a couple and not gotten far. (I don't have a preference on whether I run the Mac, Windows, or Linux binaries. Whichever is easiest.)

Facts please, not theories.

Make your Dock be flush against the corner of the desktop, instead of centered vertically or horizontally. This means your icons will stay put, regardless of how many windows are open:

defaults write com.apple.dock pinning -string start ;
killall Dock

Turn off menubar transparency on 10.5:

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer EnvironmentVariables -dict CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE 1

and then reboot (logging out isn't enough).

Dear Lazyweb,

TivoTool stopped working on 10.5, and mail to the author bounces. It's looking for this "CamelBones" library that no longer exists. I installed some newer version of it, but that didn't work either. What are my alternatives for getting video off my Tivo without an analog phase? (If you're going to point me at some forum page on tivocommunity or dealdatabase, please try harder: I can never figure out how to download shit from there.)

Update: So, here's one semi-horrible way:

To get the show ID number:
/Library/Application\ Support/TivoTool/vstream-client tivo://hostname/llist

To download that show as an MPEG2 file:
/Library/Application\ Support/TivoTool/vstream-client tivo://hostname/number -o tmp.ty
/Library/Application\ Support/TivoTool/vsplit -m tmp.ty filename unused

Dear Lazyweb, I seek software that does the following:

• I give it an ordered list of MP3 files.
• When a user loads some URL in (e.g.) iTunes, those files are streamed out, one after another, with appropriate metadata (extracted from underlying ID3 tags) sent just as each file starts.
• When the user connects, it starts playing at the beginning of file #1 for each user. (As opposed to multicast-style, where all users get whatever's-on-right-now at the same time.)
• The underlying individual files themselves should not be accessible.

I don't think I can make Icecast2 do this, nor Apache::MP3. But maybe I'm wrong.

Failing that, can someone explain to me what asynchronous streaming metadata format iTunes actually understands, and what headers/protocol it requires? It doesn't appear to do the "icy-metaint" thing; does that mean it does the UDP thing? I don't see headers being exchanged for either; and yet, it seems to update metadata somehow. Please don't make me run a packet sniffer. I hate that.

Update: Nevermind, I wrote my own.

Dear Lazyweb,

I seek armchair legal advice and/or precedents.

(This is probably stupid since odds are that I know more about the issues I'm asking about than you do, but hell, it's worth a shot.)

See, something I've been wanting to do for a while is some kind of "song of the day" thing, where I pick one of the songs I'm currently loving and post it: "here, you should all listen to this."

But, I'm having a hard time convincing myself that doing so would be legal, even though (wearing my DNA Lounge hat) I do pay the license fees to ASCAP, etc. for both our public performances and webcasts.

Plan B, which I'm fairly certain is legal, would be to program a "radio station" instead that streamed a set of songs on shuffle (which is exactly the mechanism I use for DNA Lounge Radio). But, that isn't really the same thing, and also sounds like a lot more work. So I'd rather not do it that way. (By "a lot more work" I don't mean technically, I mean more effort in playing song-gardener.)

Plan C would be to do a periodic "mix tape", meaning, 90 minutes of music in one chunk. I think I could manage that pace, since it comes out to around 2 songs a day if I do it weekly.

I'm pretty sure that streaming such a thing would be legal. But would podcasting it?

Who can tell.

Podcasting means that everyone who tuned in would be downloading one big MP3 file with 20+ songs in it. Is that covered by my licenses? I have no idea. Some radio stations do it. Are they breaking the law? Are things different for them because they happen to own transmitters as well?

I suspect that there are a lot of podcasts like that out there (just some guy posting songs that he likes this week, regardless of whether they are signed or not) but I don't actually know of any. When I look at podcast directories I find a lot of talk radio, a lot of unsigned-bands podcasts, and a few "real" radio stations. Am I wrong in assuming that what I'm describing is a commonly-done thing?

Some people try to solve the license problem by only posting non-RIAA music, or by only posting songs by unsigned bands who have given their explicit permission. I don't find that the signedness of a band has much bearing on whether I enjoy them. If I have to constantly have a conversation with myself that goes "I love this song! Oh, but I can't post this one," then I'll just give up and not do it at all. So, no, I'm not interested in doing it that way.

That's also why I'm not interested in solutions like "link to the song on last.fm" -- they won't have half the songs I'm interested in. Likewise, any solution where I have to jump through per-song legal hoops is no good.

I've read this: "Creative Commons Podcasting Legal Guide", which is... complete chaos, not to mention 50 pages long. Maybe it says that my licenses cover what I'm talking about, but I can't tell. And this: "Collegiate Broadcasters, Inc. Podcasting Legal Issues" which seems to claim that no podcast is ever legal without explicit permission from each copyright holder. And this 2+ year old article: "Hopes for legal music podcasts rise" (yeah right, I'm still holding my breath.)

(Oh, also please don't suggest "why don't you just ask your lawyer", because if you're suggesting that, you've never actually spoken to a lawyer. The lawyer's answer will be, "doing X might put you at risk. If you want to be safe, don't.")

Note: I am not asking for technical solutions here. I've been webcasting for seven years, I know how to do it.

Update: So far, nobody has answered my question of, "are there are a bunch of podcasts out there that do what I described in Plan C?"

Dear Lazyweb, what's the easiest, cheapest way to put a video input on a Mac?

What I care about:

• RCA jack on one end;
• Firewire cable on the other;
• Recognized as a video input by Quicktime Pro, iMovie, etc.

What I don't care about even a little bit:

• video output;
• TV tuner;
• HDTV tuner;
• Hardware MPEG encoding;
• Bundled DVR software;
• Any other kitchen sinkery.

I've used a "Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge" in the past with success, but those are A) discontinued, and B) more complicated than I need anyway.

What's your favorite lunchtime sushi place downtown? Say, east of 5th Street?

Dear Lazyweb, and also a certain you-know-who-you-are who should certainly know better by now,

I am here to tell you about backups. It's very simple.

Option 1: Learn not to care about your data. Don't save any old email, use a film camera, and only listen to physical CDs and not MP3s. If you have no posessions, you have nothing to lose.

Option 2 goes like this:

• You have a computer. It came with a hard drive in it. Go buy two more drives of the same size or larger. If the drive in your computer is SATA2, get SATA2. If it's a 2.5" laptop drive, get two of those. Brand doesn't matter, but physical measurements and connectors should match.

• Get external enclosures for both of them. The enclosures are under $30.

• Put one of these drives in its enclosure on your desk. Name it something clever like "Backup". If you are using a Mac, the command you use to back up is this:

  sudo rsync -vaxE --delete --ignore-errors / /Volumes/Backup/

  If you're using Linux, it's something a lot like that. If you're using Windows, go fuck yourself.

• If you have a desktop computer, have this happen every morning at 5AM by creating a temporary text file containing this line:

  0 5 * * * rsync -vaxE --delete --ignore-errors / /Volumes/Backup/

  and then doing sudo crontab -u root that-file

  If you have a laptop, do that before you go to bed. Really. Every night when you plug your laptop in to charge.

• If you're on a Mac, that backup drive will be bootable. That means that when (WHEN) your internal drive scorches itself, you can just take your backup drive and put it in your computer and go. This is nice.

• When (WHEN) your backup drive goes bad, which you will notice because your last backup failed, replace it immediately. This is your number one priority. Don't wait until the weekend when you have time, do it now, before you so much as touch your computer again. Do it before goddamned breakfast. The universe tends toward maximum irony. Don't push it.

• That third drive? Do a backup onto it the same way, then take that to your office and lock it in a desk. Every few months, bring it home, do a backup, and immediately take it away again. This is your "my house burned down" backup.

"OMG, three drives is so expensive! That sounds like a hassle!" Shut up. I know things. You will listen to me. Do it anyway.

Update: Mac users: for the backup drive to be bootable, you need to do two things:

• When you partition the drive, use GUID, not Apple Partition Map;
• Get Info on the drive and un-check "Ignore ownership on this drive" under "Ownership and permissions."

Dear Lazyweb, how do I turn on verbose boot permanently on an Intel iMac? (No, I don't want to hold down Cmd-V every time.)

On PPC Macs, the incantation was nvram boot-args="-v" but the Intel Macs don't have the same NVRAM variables.

Update: Hey, what do you know, it's the same command on Intel Macs, even though "boot-args" isn't there by default.

Dear Lazyweb, think twice before upgrading to Missing Sync 6.0.1.

I upgraded from 5.1.2 to 6.0.1 primarily because I wanted the new "SMS Log" app that archives the SMSes on your phone in a readable, searchable way.

However, they also replaced the "MemoPad" application with a new "Notes" application. Unfortunately, the new one is ( full of bugs. )

So, don't buy that upgrade. But if you do, it's possible to continue using the "MemoPad" application from version 5 with the rest of version 6: ( Like so. )

Ok, but now you might find that the "Photos" conduit doesn't work any more. ( So then... )

There, wasn't that simple?

Let that be a lesson to you: never upgrade.

Dear Lazyweb, here are two unrelated questions:

1. What's a command-line MacOS way to extract iTunes metadata from a MOV file (e.g., "Title", "Artist", "Year")? The Perl modules MP4::Info and Audio::M4P::QuickTime and AtomicParsley will extract such metadata from MP4 files, but none of them work on the QuickTime container.
   Update: 'mdls' seems to be the simplest answer to this for MOV files (but not MP4 files, for which MP4::Info works ok.)

2. I put an extension on the cable of my cellphone booster, because a better spot for the antenna was a bit farther away than the 100' piece of coax that it came with. However, this seems to have made matters worse instead of better. In my experience in the past, all coax is more-or-less created equal, but maybe that's not the case when it comes to the frequencies involved here. What kind of cable should I be using for this?
   Update: I replaced it with a single run of RG-6/U quad shield ("Belden 7916A"), and it works a lot better. So either I had a crappy cable in there, or connecting two cables together was a bad idea.

Public service announcement:

About six months ago, I posted asking how to cut down on the paper spam I get (most especially the smirking goateed realtors). Several people recommended GreenDimes, and I signed up. You give them your info and $15, and they periodically re-unsubscribe you from various lists. And they plant some trees.

It seems to have been working very well!

Pretty much the only spam that hasn't stopped is AT&T ("Your World Delivered. To the NSA.")