Published on
5th July 2008 in
Blog.
Tags: macs.
Some time ago I was given a a PowerMac G4 Quicksilver that needed a new PSU. Instead of getting a new one I made an adapter that used the damaged original PSU to supply the 25v needed and a regular ATX PSU to do the rest of the work.
Now I have a newer PowerMac G4 Mirrored Drive Door that also has a damaged PSU. I plugged it in when I got home and the fuse blow up. I’m hoping that the fuse is the only thing that needs replacing as this computer is would be the best mac that I have.
It would also seem that either the PSU or logic board has gone in my PowerMac G4 Sawtooth so that would need fixing at some point or it might be given away for recycling. In other mac news I need a new logic board for my PowerBook G4 because my FW400 port has gone and that is needed for the scanner. Even if I can’t get the software to work it would be a good idea to fix the laptop before my warranty runs out. Also my PowerMac G3 B&W is running fine with no faults that I know of. Cos one of them has to be fine…
Published on
8th May 2008 in
News.
I have been working on a new website for my uncle and aunty. They breed cats and dogs so they use the website do display information about their animals and what kitties and pups they have for sale. Their current website was made in 2005 and the last back end update was in 2006. Since then I have learnt so much more about websites and my code has become much more refined. The new site that is still in development features a small amount of CSS3 and an easy to update layout with all the pages being stored in a sub directory. I am also working on a method to have the English and French site rolled into one where PHP works out if it should serve the end user English or French content.
Published on
23rd March 2008 in
News.
Hey all. Mac users will know that a lot of new apples come with both i383 and ppc executable. If you’d like to save space you can strip one of them from the program. Here is how I did it to Safari 3.1:
First you open up Terminal.app under Utilities in the Applications directory.
Last login: Sun Mar 23 22:04:19 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
$ cd /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/
$ ls
Safari
$ file Safari
Safari: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
Safari (for architecture i386): Mach-O executable i386
Safari (for architecture ppc): Mach-O executable ppc
$ lipo -remove i386 Safari -output Safari
$ file Safari
Safari: Mach-O universal binary with 1 architecture
Safari (for architecture ppc): Mach-O executable ppc
For Intel users:
$ lipo -remove ppc Safari -output Safari
Explained:
The first two commands move you into the Safari.app binary and show you the contents of the folder. The file command shows you that the binary is a fat binary, IE it contains two arches.
Now lipo is the key to all of this. This is a command line tool that creates or operates on a universal files.
The binary you want to edit is located in Contents/MacOS inside the .app file. It is normally the only file in there.
Notes:
Backup the .app file before you begin just incase you make a mistake.
In firefox it’s called firefox-bin.
Tab-complete is your friend Continue reading ‘Mac binary stripping guide’
Published on
21st February 2008 in
Blog.
Last week I decided to start working on my Sunblade 100 that I got back in November. It has been sitting on my stack for about the last two months without even being turned on once. The main reason for this was the lack of networking and my knowledge of Sun’s Solaris OS. After hearing that some people had Ubuntu server running on these machines I decided to download and try it. I now have Ubuntu 7.10 installed with networking and a Linux environment that I’m used to. After disabling the built in speaker because it frustrated me to the point of smashing some keys off of my keyboard with it’s beeping when using the console. Now only thing that annoys me now is the loud hard drive but as I use it via SSH I don’t have to been in the same room as it.
Published on
12th February 2008 in
Blog.
In case you’re not familiar with the term “blacklist” I will elaborate. There are three colours representing different kind of list; White, Black and Red. White is a free pass with no questions asked, Black doesn’t let you in the club and Red puts you in a headlock until the cops arrive and take you away.
My blacklist is very small at the moment only consisting of one email address and one IP address. I have some anti-spam measures in place but they don’t stop everyone getting through so I look for a patten from the IP and email address marked as spam. Any that turn up a lot go on the blacklist and are never heard from again….hopefully.
Published on
1st February 2008 in
Blog.
I managed to get Cosmo version 9 online at midnight but there was a problem with IE6. Thankfully it was only IE6 and it was fixed within half an hour after I woken up and had breakfast. The site is controlled by one single PHP page that calls in the content and updates the blog each month automatically. It has in place functions that make the site more secure such as checking that the page trying to be loaded is a real page and not an off site link or an incorrect date.
The server that hosts all my websites is now running my own home brewed Linux OS called Blue Square Linux. The server has also had an extra 500GB fitted via a RAID SATA controller. It was a little bit of a problem at first because the kernel was custom compiled a long time ago without support for SATA.
Cosmo v9 – www.cosmo1847.co.uk
Blue Square Linux – www.bluesquarelinux.co.uk
Published on
11th January 2008 in
News.
Something I have been thinking of doing for a while was to upgrade the server’s hard drive storage. At the moment it has a 200GB hard drive that is about 80% full. As I have a linux shop and the server is sometimes used as a backup for other computers on the network I have decided to by a 500GB hard drive. To make the new upgrades to the server future proof so that when the time comes to upgrade to a new server I will be able to use some of the parts from the old, I have bought a SATA hard drive. Due to the server not having any SATA ports on the motherboard, or for that matter most other I/O ports, I have bought an Adaptec SATA RAID card to go in the server. This will allow me to add 2 SATA hard drives to the server and these should preform just as fast, if not faster than the current IDE hard drive.
This will mean that at some point, probably next week, the server will be down while I upgrade the kernel and install the new SATA controller and hard drive.