I recently had a 20" iMac (Mid-2007 Aluminum) die during a thunder storm. It was six months out of warranty, and an Apple Genius quoted my $953 to repair. Obviously buying a new MAC is more cost effective than fixing this one, so I purchased a new MAC Mini. But what should I do with the dead one? After an hour of tear-down, me and the boys at work found a few entertaining uses...

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

Project Summary:

• Teardown the iMac (guide)
• Completely remove ALL internal components
• Place a solid sheet of white construction paper under glass screen
• Reassemble chasis
• Have fun drawing

Thats it! Now its time for you to show everyone what YOU can do with a dead iMac.

P.S. Apple, please revise the iMac to include an external video input. Heck why not add USB-KVM functionality. Think of it as a docking station for your MacBook. I bet most of us would gladly pay for it... just saying.

For all those people who did a clean install of Snow Leopard and do not want to restore any data from Time Machine, you may find manually recover your iPhone Apps & data a huge time saver over re-downloading everything. Well you are in luck, as the solution is fairly simple.



App Recovery

1. Navigate to your last Time Machine Backup on your external drive.
2. Locate you home directory under the users folder from the root.
3. Apps are stored in ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications. Just drag them into the iTunes window, with Applications selected from the sidebar. On the next iPhone sync, iTunes copied them onto the iPhone.

1. Disable automatic syncing in the iTunes preferences under Devices.
2. Replace ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/abc123 with an older version from Time Machine. Note that abc123 is a very long alphanumeric key identifying to your iPhone -- make sure you get the right one, in case you sync with several phones or iPods.
3. Plug in the iPhone.
4. iTunes is going to want to erase and sync your iPhone, it sounds terrifying but do it. It may also complain about replacing user account info... this is okay too.
   
5. Control-click (in the iTunes sidebar) on the iPhone and choose Restore from Backup. At the end of the process, your iPhone will automatically restart.

As of Fedora 6 rt-3.6.3 has been available as an RPM. The Fedora RPM has since been rebuilt for Rhel5 using the rt-3.6.6 source code. This document serves as a guide to the basic install and setup of a new (virgin) instance of RT.


Prerequisites

This document assumes you have basic system admin experience and root access to the server you are installing on. In addition you require...

• Redhat Enterprise 5 or 5.1 base install


• yum configured to provide all 'base' packages available on the installation media.

[rhel51-rt3]
name=RT 3.6.6 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1
baseurl=file:///path/to/your/extracted/files
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

Dependencies Resolved

====================================================================================
Package                   Arch       Version          Repository        Size
====================================================================================
Installing:
rt3                       noarch     3.6.6-1.el5      rhel51-rt3        1.4 M
Installing for dependencies:
MySQL-zrm                 noarch     1.2.1-1          rhel51-mysql      136 k
apr                       i386       1.2.7-11         rhel51-base       123 k
apr-util                  i386       1.2.7-6          rhel51-base        76 k
git-core                  i386       1.5.3.6-1.el5    rhel51-EPEL       4.2 M
httpd                     i386       2.2.3-11.el5     rhel51-base       1.1 M
mod_perl                  i386       2.0.2-6.3.el5    rhel51-base       4.0 M
mysql                     i386       5.0.54-1.el5     rhel51-mysql      6.4 M
perl-Apache-DBI           noarch     1.06-1.el5.rf    rhel51-rt3         49 k
perl-Apache-Session       noarch     1.81-2.fc6       rhel51-rt3        104 k
perl-Archive-Tar          noarch     1.34-1.fc8       rhel51-rt3         54 k
perl-BSD-Resource         i386       1.28-3.fc8       rhel51-rt3         34 k
perl-CSS-Squish           noarch     0.07-1.el5.rf    rhel51-rt3         14 k

perl-Cache-Cache          noarch     1.05-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         89 k
perl-Cache-Simple-TimedExpiry   noarch     0.27-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3        7.7 k
perl-Calendar-Simple      noarch     1.17-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         12 k
perl-Class-Container      noarch     0.12-5.fc7       rhel51-rt3         37 k
perl-Class-Data-Inheritable  noarch     0.06-2.fc8       rhel51-rt3        8.8 k
perl-Class-MethodMaker    i386       2.08-4.fc6       rhel51-rt3        564 k
perl-Class-ReturnValue    noarch     0.55-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         10 k
perl-Clone                i386       0.27-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         14 k
perl-Convert-BinHex       noarch     1.119-5.el5      rhel51-EPEL        47 k
perl-DBD-MySQL            i386       4.005-2.fc8.1    rhel51-rt3        143 k
perl-DBD-Pg               i386       1.49-1.fc6       rhel51-base       114 k
perl-DBI                  i386       1.58-2.fc8       rhel51-rt3        715 k
perl-DBIx-DBSchema        noarch     0.35-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         70 k
perl-DBIx-SearchBuilder    noarch     1.51-1.el5.rf    rhel51-rt3        110 k
perl-Devel-StackTrace     noarch     1.15-2.fc8       rhel51-rt3         23 k
perl-Digest-HMAC          noarch     1.01-16          rhel51-rt3         21 k
perl-Digest-SHA1          i386       2.11-4.fc8       rhel51-rt3         51 k
perl-Exception-Class      noarch     1.23-3.fc7       rhel51-rt3         33 k
perl-FCGI                 i386       0.67-1.2.el5.rf  rhel51-rt3         85 k
perl-Font-AFM             noarch     1.19-4.fc6       rhel51-rt3         18 k
perl-GD                   i386       2.35-2.fc6       rhel51-rt3        198 k
perl-GDGraph              noarch     1:1.44-1.fc6     rhel51-rt3        133 k
perl-GDTextUtil           noarch     0.86-8.fc6       rhel51-rt3         75 k
perl-Git                  i386       1.5.3.6-1.el5    rhel51-EPEL        21 k
perl-GnuPG-Interface      noarch     0.33-8.fc6       rhel51-rt3         79 k
perl-HTML-Format          noarch     2.04-6.el5       rhel51-EPEL        40 k
perl-HTML-Mason           noarch     1:1.37-1.fc8     rhel51-rt3        481 k
perl-HTML-Scrubber        noarch     0.08-4.fc6       rhel51-rt3         22 k
perl-HTML-Tree            noarch     1:3.23-2.el5     rhel51-EPEL       207 k
perl-HTTP-Server-Simple    noarch     0.27-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         24 k
perl-HTTP-Server-Simple-Mason   noarch     0.09-5.fc6       rhel51-rt3         12 k
perl-Hook-LexWrap         noarch     0.20-4.fc6       rhel51-rt3         13 k
perl-IO-Socket-INET6      noarch     2.51-2.fc6       rhel51-base        13 k
perl-IO-Socket-SSL        noarch     1.02-1.fc7       rhel51-rt3         50 k
perl-IO-Zlib              noarch     1.07-1           rhel51-rt3         16 k
perl-IO-stringy           noarch     2.110-5.el5      rhel51-EPEL        70 k
perl-IPC-ShareLite        i386       0.09-9.fc7       rhel51-rt3         27 k
perl-Locale-Maketext-Fuzzy   noarch     0.10-1.el5       rhel51-EPEL        15 k
perl-Locale-Maketext-Lexicon   noarch     0.62-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         87 k
perl-Log-Dispatch         noarch     2.20-1.el5       rhel51-EPEL        77 k
perl-MIME-Lite            noarch     3.01-5.fc6       rhel51-rt3         72 k
perl-MIME-tools           noarch     5.420-3.el5      rhel51-EPEL       285 k
perl-Mail-GnuPG           noarch     0.08-5.fc6       rhel51-rt3         15 k
perl-Mail-Sender          noarch     0.8.13-2.fc6     rhel51-rt3         52 k
perl-Mail-Sendmail        noarch     0.79-9.fc6       rhel51-rt3         27 k
perl-MailTools            noarch     1.77-1.el5       rhel51-EPEL        90 k
perl-Module-Refresh       noarch     0.13-1.el5.rf    rhel51-rt3         11 k
perl-Module-Versions-Report   noarch     1.03-1.el5.rf    rhel51-rt3         10 k
perl-Net-DNS              i386       0.61-1.fc8       rhel51-rt3        235 k
perl-Net-IP               noarch     1.25-4.fc8       rhel51-rt3         32 k
perl-Net-SSLeay           i386       1.30-5.fc8.1     rhel51-rt3        196 k
perl-Params-Validate      i386       0.88-3.fc8       rhel51-rt3         72 k
perl-Regexp-Common        noarch     2.120-5.fc6      rhel51-rt3        181 k
perl-Socket6              i386       0.19-4.fc8.1     rhel51-rt3         22 k
perl-TeX-Hyphen           noarch     0.140-5.fc6      rhel51-rt3         34 k
perl-TermReadKey          i386       2.21-4           rhel51-rt3         31 k
perl-Text-Autoformat      noarch     1.13-5.fc7       rhel51-rt3         30 k
perl-Text-Quoted          noarch     2.02-3.fc6       rhel51-rt3         11 k
perl-Text-Reform          noarch     1.11-7.fc7       rhel51-rt3         35 k
perl-Text-Template        noarch     1.44-4.fc6       rhel51-rt3         61 k
perl-Text-WikiFormat      noarch     0.78-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         35 k
perl-Text-Wrapper         noarch     1.01-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3        9.6 k
perl-Time-modules         noarch     2003.1126-4.fc8  rhel51-rt3         36 k
perl-TimeDate             noarch     1:1.16-5.el5     rhel51-base        32 k
perl-Tree-Simple          noarch     1.17-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         40 k
perl-UNIVERSAL-require    noarch     0.11-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3        8.5 k
perl-Want                 i386       0.15-1.fc6       rhel51-rt3         29 k
perl-XML-Parser           i386       2.35-1.el5.rf    rhel51-rt3        314 k
perl-XML-Simple           noarch     2.14-4.fc6       rhel51-base        68 k
postgresql-libs           i386       8.1.9-1.el5      rhel51-base       196 k
spamassassin              i386       3.1.9-1.el5      rhel51-base       921 k


Transaction Summary
=====================================================================================
Install     84 Package(s)
Update       0 Package(s)
Remove       0 Package(s)

bindir:               /usr/sbin
sysconfdir:           /etc/rt3
htmldir:              /usr/share/rt3/html
logfiledir:           /var/log/rt3
masonstatedir:        /var/cache/rt3/mason_data
sessionstatedir:      /var/cache/rt3/session_data
customdir:            /usr/local/rt3/
custometcdir:         /usr/local/rt3/etc
customhtmldir:        /usr/local/rt3/html
customlexdir:         /usr/local/rt3/po
customlibdir:         /usr/local/rt3/lib

Set($WebExternalAuth , '1');
Set($WebFallbackToInternalAuth , '1');
Set($OldestTransactionsFirst, 0);
Set($MyTicketsLength, 25);
Set($MyRequestsLength, 25);
Set($WebBaseURL , "http://rt.example.com");
Set($WebPath , "");
Set($WebImagesURL , $WebPath . "/NoAuth/images");
Set($rtname, 'example.com');
Set($DatabaseHost   , 'db.example.com');
Set($DatabaseRTHost , 'localhost');
Set($DatabaseUser, 'dbuser');
Set($DatabasePassword , 'dbpassword');
Set($DevelMode, '0');
Set($ShowTransactionImages, 0);
Set($SuppressInlineTextFiles, true);

I have a hard time remembering this stuff, I'm spoiled by GUI tools. For anyone who needs it I posted some mysql cli stuff here. Nothing new or earth shattering, just notes for the lazy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'some_pass' WITH GRANT OPTION;

GRANT SELECT ON database.* TO 'user'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password'

SET PASSWORD FOR 'username'@'%' = OLD_PASSWORD('password');

mysqldump -u USER -pPASSWORD DATABASE > filename.sql

mysqldump --user="user" --password="pass" --opt --compact --quick --verbose --host="server.fqdn" --databases MyFavDB --result-file=/root/outfile.sql

mysqldump --opt --extended-insert --single-transaction --create-options --default-character-set=utf8 --user="root" --password="*****" --host="server.fqdn" --databases dbname > "/data/backup.sql"

mysql dbname < filename.sql

sed (Stream EDitor) refers to a Unix utility for parsing text files and the programming language it uses to apply textual transformations to a sequential stream of data. It reads input files line by line, applying the operation which has been specified via the command line (or a sed script), and then outputs the line. Getting started with sed can be a real pain if you are unfamiliar with perl for regular expressions. Here are a several sed 'one liners' that I use all the time for test file manipulation. More can be found here.

I recently found it necessary to list all installed Perl modules on one of my linux servers. I wouldn't have thought that it would be as big a deal as it turned out to be. After two hours or so of testing 20 or so methods Google found for me… I settled on the following.

From the command line:

perl -MFile::Find=find -MFile::Spec::Functions -Tlwe 'find { wanted => sub { print canonpath $_ if /.pmz/ }, no_chdir => 1 }, @INC'


Backups are important... I can't say it enough. For us Apple users, Time Machine is surprisingly effective. But what makes it really useful is the hidden ability to backup over to a network share. This is something that should be enabled by default... but then who would buy an Apple Time Capsule *gasp*

Open a terminal and run:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Then you can use a Samba or AppleShare (even Netatalk) server share as a time machine backup location. This works perfectly, as Time Machine creates a disk image with an HFS+ filesystem on which to perform backups, and mounts that.

I found this out a while ago when looking for info on reading .DMG files on Windows or Linux boxes. Long story short, its a very painful process and not worth the time. Then I found this tip. It creates ISO images from DMG images, so they can be burned elsewhere.

To convert the file to an ISO image, type the following command at your terminal window:

hdiutil convert /path/to/filename.dmg -format UDTO -o /path/to/savefile.iso


Replace /path/to/filename.dmg with the path and name of the existing .DMG file, and replace /path/to/savefile.iso with the desired path and name for the converted image.

This then creates an ISO image burnable in Nero on Windows, or pretty much anything on Windows that will burn ISOs and same with Linux. Conversion can be slow, but it works.

As a Mac user of less than a year I can sympathize with how painful a switch can be. Many of the keyboard shortcuts I lived by under the tyrannical reign of my PC are none existent under Mac OS. But there is hope. With the help of this list of 240 Mac OSX keyboard shortcuts and 7 months of practice, I can once again say... my Keyboard KungFu is strong.

General Shortcuts

Exposé, Space, Dashboard and the System

Issue: Freeze

Full Keyboard Access

Finder

Search: Spotlight

Utility: Print Screen

Application: Dock

Preference: Universal Access

Boot: Start Up

Browser: Safari

Music: iTunes

Terminal

Mail: Hello from Cupertino

Front Row

Address Book

Image Editor: Adobe Photoshop