WPtouch is the best solution for WordPress blogs. It’s as simple as a plugin installation, and it is very decently polished.

It renders in “mobile” mode only for iPhone/iPod/Android clients. It has an option for those clients to still view the site in “normal” mode. It uses JQuery for various AJAX and visual effects. It just works and looks good while doing it, and I’ve recently installed it on this blog as well.

My wife’s Mac Mini was exhibiting odd behavior, namely, sporadic loss of sound. The internal speaker would suddenly become unavailable to the operating system. Furthermore, the speakers did have a slight hum when they were plugged into the Mac Mini. I had opened the Mac Mini up a couple times to upgrade the RAM, so I figured I must have inadvertently pulled the audio line. A few months later, the Mac Mini just outright refused to start up. I’d push the power button, I could hear it power on, but there was no startup chime and no boot-up. I figured the Mac had finally died, but I naturally wasn’t going to give up on it without an autopsy.

If you’ve ever looked at a tutorial on opening the Mac Mini, you know it isn’t the worst thing ever, but it definitely is more complicated than opening, say, a Mac Pro, or really any tower computer. One of the challenges is separating the top chassis, since it is connected with a few cables. One of these is a ribbon in the back, and this ribbon is what was giving me trouble. Take a look at the photo below.

As you can see, the connector was actually in the open position, so the ribbon was sitting loosely in the connector, sporadically losing its connection and wreaking havoc on the system. The ribbon must have eventually pulled away enough so that the computer couldn’t start up at all.

Here’s the ribbon properly inserted and the connector closed shut:

The Mac started fine after that, and it hasn’t had any startup or sound problems since.

I recently reinstalled the OS on one of my Macs, and I’ve got backup scripts on my CentOS Linux box that use rsync to back up some pertinent data, so I had to reestablish the SSH key between the machines and had a hard time remembering how to do it. So this time I’m documenting what I had to re-learn.

First of all, there’s a great post over at nixCraft that basically explains how to do it. But allow me to explain more thoroughly, ahem, dumbed down to my level. 

The key is remembering which machine is filling which role when you’re reading the instructions. I’ll call them the “Acting” machine–the one who is taking action and performing a command, let’s say an rsync command–and the “Target” machine–the one who is being acted upon. In my case, the Linux server is the acting machine performing the rsync command, and my Mac is the target.

The process is simple. On the “Target” machine, generate a key, and then give that key to the “Acting” machine, which effectively gives it “permission” to login without the need to supply username/password credentials.

So, from the “Target” machine, in this case, my Mac, type the following command:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

This will generate a couple files that serve as a key for accessing the Mac. The ssh-keygen command may ask you where to store the key and what password to use. Just hit enter to use the default path and a blank password.

Next, still from the “Target” machine (my Mac), type:

ssh MyUsername@ActingServer ”mkdir .ssh”
scp .ssh/id_rsa.pub MyUsername@ActingServer:.ssh/authorized_keys2

In the code above, MyUsername@ActingServer would be the username and address (for instance, perhaps the IP address) of the “Acting” machine, in my case, the Linux server. In the first line, you’re just creating the .ssh directory if it doesn’t exist. In the second line, you’re copying the key you generated from the “Target” machine to the “Acting” machine, or from the Mac to the Linux server.  Note that the scp command will ask for the password to the MyUsername account because it is connecting to that server to send it the key.

Voile. As if by magic, the “Acting” machine should now be able to SSH into the “Target” machine without a password prompt. Correspondingly, you should be able to perform rsync and other SSH commands without a password prompt. Please note, however, that this is only a one-way key. We only gave my Linux server permission to access my Mac.

What if I want my Mac to similarly login to the server without a password prompt? In that case, the Mac and the server have effectively switched roles; the Mac is now the “Acting” machine and the server is the “Target” machine, so we just have to repeat the process from the other direction. Generate a key from the server and send it to the Mac. At that point, both machines will be able to access each other without a password prompt. 

What if I have multiple “Targets” that the “Acting” machine will connect to? For instance, perhaps I have multiple Macs, and the Linux server is running scripts on all of them. When you’re sending the key to the “Acting” server with the scp command, use a different name for each key file, don’t overwrite the same file each time! So in the example code above, we’re sending the key as “authorized_keys2″. When repeating this process for multiple targets, send the keys as “authorized_keys3″, and so forth.

Hopefully this will clear up some confusion regarding this process.

You can view the MacRumors WWDC 2008 Spoiler Free news page if you want to do the same.

Yes, a new piece of Apple II hardware will be coming our way very shortly. The cat’s almost out of the bag! The good ol’ days of the Apple //e and Apple IIgs are what really make me nostalgic. I even purchased an Apple IIgs recently on eBay and I’m just saving it in the box with plans to break it out when I get around to finishing my new attic office space.

For clues on the odd antics of the 16 Sector site, check the commentary at A2Central.com in their post, “More 16 Sector riddles“.

p.s. A big “hear! hear!” goes out for that post in regard to the return of the great Carrington Vanston of 1MHz fame!

Many developers were frustrated–and many web developers had our curiosities pleasantly piqued–when Apple initially announced that “software” would be available for the iPhone in the form of Ajax web applications. Naturally, many of the disappointed folks were irritated because the web platform is something that they’re entirely unfamiliar with, probably having backgrounds in Objective C or something similar; probably a minority were disappointed because their target application legitimately could not be powered by HTML and Ajax.

That said, it is indeed a very thought-provoking concept: Using web technology as your application environment. As most web developers will attest to, there honestly isn’t that much that a typical application does that cannot be accomplished with web technology. With the advent of Ajax frameworks, applications built with web technology can have very similar responsiveness and dynamics of a “classic” application. Especially when you remove the burden of cross-browser compatibility, in the iPhone’s case.

But with the iPhone/iPod Touch scenario, it is irritating that the application has to reside in Safari and has to be loaded off the web. It almost feels as if Apple was trying to push something that wasn’t…quite…ready. Something like AIR!

AIR accomplishes everything that Apple was suggesting for the iPhone environment, but for the desktop. Use web technology, but write a “compiled”, stand-alone application that really doesn’t even have to use the web. Use HTML. Use Ajax. Use Flex and Flash. Have a nice encapsulated application on your desktop. Especially when you throw the Flash technology into the platform, it is now a very capable environment for a large variety of applications, without being constrained to the browser. Wouldn’t it be great if that same cross-platform environment, AIR, worked on the iPhone as well?

Oops, Flash technology isn’t currently supported by the iPhone. That is actually another source of contention. And the AIR environment does lose some of its punch without Flash and Flex, even though its HTML/Ajax implementation can do a very decent job with most typical applications.

Steve Jobs has made it clear that he likes the idea of web technology powering iPhone apps. Now, consider some of the facts. Apple announces the iPhone SDK will be released in February, and then fails to deliver. Meanwhile, Flash still isn’t found on the iPhone, and Adobe “invents the wheel” by getting web technology to drive native apps through its work with AIR. Is there a common theme with these events? Perhaps something like: Are Apple and Adobe working together to get the much-needed Flash technology onto the iPhone and, subsequently, releasing an SDK that uses AIR technology, with hooks into the iPhone system just like AIR currently has hooks into the Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X desktop operating systems?

It wouldn’t be the first time Apple has had to wait for its partners, or take the heat for them. For instance, Apple has clearly been taking a lot of heat for many factors of the iPhone that are clearly not in Apple’s interest, but in AT&T’s.

And this scenario would fit the circumstances around Adobe’s development of AIR. Adobe has been working on AIR since well before the iPhone was released, but AIR wasn’t officially released until February 25, 2008. Even if Apple and Adobe were working closely together, there just hasn’t been enough time for AIR to get released and hooks to be developed to provide iPhone-specific functionality in AIR. Adobe has understandably concerned itself with its own business first. With that done, attention can turn to Apple to support them in concluding their own business.

Of course, this prediction is a reflection of my own desires as much as it fits the circumstances. As a developer that uses Adobe technology including Flex and AIR, and an Apple enthusiast for more than 20 years, I would love to see things happen this way. Undoubtedly we will have a clearer idea of Apple’s iPhone development roadmap after this Thursday.

As if the thought of an “iPhone AIR” isn’t confusing enough.

I opened up the Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder, set it to view “All Processes”, and noticed that a process named “PrintJobMgr” was using a lot of processor time and took up over 600MB.

As it turns out, this has been discussed on Apple’s forums. It seems to be happening to people when there is a print job that never was printed, and thus is continually waiting in the print queue. I’m not sure how, but this is exactly what happened on my iMac, and deleting the print job in the queue fixed the problem.

I’m hoping Apple fixes that one soon.

It worked great. Instructions were very clear and the process was mildly simple.

My OCD felt much better having a nice, clean, system. After reinstalling the iLife apps from my System Restore discs, there were some updates available, so I started the system update process. Halfway through, my system took a hard freeze and I couldn’t do anything. I even connected via SSH from another machine and tried to kill potential suspects that might have been causing the freeze. Nothing. I tried to reboot from the command line. Nothing.

With no other recourse, I did the unthinkable: I held down the power button. Not a terribly big deal, right?

Upon rebooting, I was welcomed with the registration window that appears the first time you boot up a new Mac. “Weird, but that’s fine,” I thought. I filled it out. Upon finishing, the window disappeared and reappeared, asking me to fill it out all over again. And again. And again.

I’m completely locked out of my computer because I can’t get past that registration window, and don’t know what to do without reinstalling the OS again.

Here’s one cranky Leopard user. At least, I wish I could use it.

UPDATE: This issue is confirmed on Apple’s support page. I discovered this from Ars Technica’s Infinite Loop blog (ironic, isn’t it?) in the iMac 1.2.1 Update article.

Spaz gets more time in the Twitter limelight, and Ed talked up the benefits of AIR. Good job, Ed! I haven’t had a chance to read the whole interview yet, but look forward to reading it soon.

“Just a second, let me double-check that we haven’t received another shipment,” says the Apple salesman. “It looks like we have one 16GB model left. Are you interested?”

“Give it to me!”

Sold. Woohoo!

The iPod is functional currently, but the most worrisome symptom is this very peculiar screen it displayed when trying to sync a few days ago:

I didn’t know what this screen meant, but after a search on Apple’s website, I discovered it is called a Disk Scan Icon. It means that something bad was happening with the hard drive, so the iPod went into a diagnostic mode. The progress bar never moved after 15 minutes, though, so I’m assuming the diagnostics crashed. After a reset, the iPod rebooted normally and worked fine after that.

Before this happened, a few weeks earlier, the iPod started crashing every time it would start a sync. Just a hard freeze. After some fiddling, I figured out that it would work if I plugged it directly into the cable instead of the dock. Once I got it running, I did an iPod restore through iTunes (which wipes out all songs and restores the iPod to its factory condition). Everything has worked fine since then, until the ominous screen above.

Maybe my iPod will die right on time for the release of a multitouch iPod.

It autopopulates the return address by looking up your “Me” record in the OS X address book. You may then fill in the destination address by searching for a contact or by manually typing in an address. Very well thought out.

The widget did a great job at getting over typical problem areas, like printer and paper size. Overall, this widget is definitely Ambrosia calibre. And it’s free!

Alex King is someone I respect and occasionally read, and he recently canceled his iPhone plan in line with TUAW’s instructions so that he could use his iPhone as the world’s coolest widescreen iPod and internet device–apparently the syncing and WiFi capability continue to function just fine with the phone components disabled.

My first reaction was how awesome that was. And more power to Alex for having the gumption to try it and for buying himself the coolest iPod ever. In the end, though, you’re paying $599 + $49 for first month of service = $650 minimum for an 8GB video iPod. The cool factor may be here now, even if the high price tag doesn’t deter you, but it may feel a bit more foolish when the heat and excitement of the iPhone cools and Apple brilliantly times the release of a 60GB widescreen multitouch iPod 3 months out from now, for a comparable $400-$600 price range because it lacks the complexity, price and hassle of the phone components. The price, the timeframe, the mere existence of said iPod are all pure fabrications to indulge my point (although “sources” do claim these things). It could happen. And it would make business sense.
Yes, there may be some phoneless iPhone owners grumbling in October.

Well, now I have been feeling like I’d rather have an iMac because the price/performance ratio just doesn’t seem worth it anymore, even for a power user. With huge iMac screen sizes and affordable external RAID devices for fast hard drive access, my last motivating reasons for a Mac Pro have died. But the iMacs have been hanging around without a redesign for abnormally long as well.

And now you say they might finally get a redesign, and what’s more, it might happen in the summer and I don’t even have to wait until MacWorld in January?

Why do I continue to let the rumor sites play with my emotions? I am very excited.

Yes, these are all expectations–properly or improperly nurtured by the rumor sites–that didn’t come to fruition. But Steve’s reality distortion field can combat such disappointments to a degree. Yet, even when Steve said how great certain features were, he was met by silence except for the sound of crickets in the distance. The field has been disrupted, but how?

The Joy of Tech has the scientific answer! That’s great.

I’ll be watching the recording myself on my AppleTV when Apple puts it on iTunes, which is usually just a matter of hours after the keynote. It’s going to be my entertainment for the evening.

If you decide to do the same, a spoiler-free notification of when the video stream becomes available is here: MacRumors Spoiler-Free WWDC 2007 Notification.

Waiting to watch the keynote yourself is kinda like standing in line for Star Wars or going to UPS to pick up your Mac because you don’t want to wait that one last day for them to deliver it to your house. It may seem silly, but it’s a serious thing.

Half-way through the article, I started realizing that it really may not be. Well, where’s the beef? What does a poweruser care about?

Processing power. Yes, the Mac Pro’s Xeon is better than the Intel Core 2 Duo. Now, forget about the 8-core Mac Pro. Unless money is immaterial to you, its ridiculous price tag makes the Mac Pro irrelevant for a consumer purchase discussion. That said, the Mac Pro has 4 cores, whereas the iMac has 2 cores. Nevertheless, a 2.66GHz Mac Pro’s overall benchmark of 299 competes with 2.16GHz iMac getting an overall benchmark of 245 and a 2.33GHz iMac at 259.

That seems significant, doesn’t it? Maybe. The zip archive benchmark took 2:01 on the Mac Pro, 2:15 and 2:22 on the iMacs; an MP3 encoding took 0:48 on the Mac Pro, 0:56 and 1:03 on the iMacs; the game ran at 91FPS on the Mac Pro, 74FPS and 83FPS on the iMacs. Those are certainly real differences. But be realistic. The zip took all 3 Macs two minutes. The encoding took all 3 Macs about a minute. We’re obsessing over seconds. And both computers played the game at over 60FPS. Many would argue that the magical 60FPS mark is all that really matters.

Disagree? Well, bear with me until we get to pricing.

Graphics Card. The Mac Pro comes standard with the Nvidia GeForce 7300GT 256MB. This is the same card in the high-end 24-inch iMac (albeit 128MB), and the mid-range iMacs have the decent ATI Radeon X1600. If you’re BIG into gaming, I suppose this would matter a bit. If you are a casual gamer or don’t do the amazing absolute latest and greatest games (I raise my hand on both counts), then the iMacs are absolutely adequate. But if it does matter to you, both cards let you upgrade to their 256MB equivalents.

Memory. Both Macs come with 1GB standard. The iMac maxes at 3GB. I’m sorry, that is more than adequate for a home consumer, even a poweruser. A home consumer buying a machine that can do 16GB of RAM but only using 1GB-3GB is like buying a mansion and never using 75% of the rooms. Furthermore, the Mac Pro RAM is more costly. Upgrading to 2GB costs $299 on a Mac Pro but only $175 on the iMac.

Storage. I used to think this was a big point. The Mac Pro’s four internal SATA bays, with drive mirroring, means fast fast FAST! I was discussing this with a person I work with, and he mentioned that he was mirroring some external drives for the same purpose. Okay. So a couple external drives take a bit of desk space, but so does a huge Mac Pro tower.

Misc. Time for each opponent to pull out his unique powerup. Mac Pros have PCI Express slots. But most home users never use them. Both come with a standard keyboard and mouse, but the iMac comes with Wi-fi and Bluetooth as a standard option whereas the Mac Pro tacks on another $79 for those features.

So, let’s do the cage match. In one corner, we have the 2.66GHz Mac Pro (bench 299), with 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, Wi-fi/Bluetooth, and a 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. In the other corner, a 24-inch 2.16GHz iMac (bench 245), with 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, Wi-fi/Bluetooth. To be fair, we’ll upgrade the graphics card to 256MB ($125) to match the Mac Pro.

What’s the final “score”? The 24-inch 2.16GHz iMac weighs in at $2,299. The 2.66GHz Mac Pro with 23-inch display weighs in at a whopping $3,776. How valuable are those few extra seconds for MP3 encoding now? Are they worth $1,477 dollars?

Do you feel like I skewed the numbers a bit in favor of my point? Well, there is some wiggle room. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

In favor of the Mac Pro:

1. I could save a few hundred dollars on a non-Apple monitor, to save some money on the Mac Pro. But to be fair, pick a high-quality model. Perhaps the Dell 24″ LCD. Pricegrabber is currently showing $585 which shaves $315 from the Mac Pro price.
2. You can upgrade the iMac to 2.33GHz for an additional $250. This brings the iMac and Mac Pro to a slightly closer speed comparison.

It is only fair to note a discrepancy in the iMac arrangement:

1. Very likely, you may not care about the 256MB upgrade for the iMac’s video card. Axe it. That saves us $125.
2. You could argue that getting a smaller LCD would significantly lower the price of the Mac Pro. But the same is true for the iMac: Going from 24-inch to 20-inch drops the iMac price $500 dollars! This probably gives the iMac a slight advantage, because you won’t find a quality 20-inch monitor for the Mac Pro for that much less. But the iMac is going to be generous and just consider the smaller-monitor argument disqualified.

My favorable Mac Pro adjustments closed the gap by $565, but the iMac savings opened it by $125 again. That makes the Mac Pro expense sit at $1,037 ahead of the iMac.

Again: Are a few extra seconds of encoding or zipping, or a few extra FPS, worth $1,000? Bear in mind that both of these configurations would produce super-fast, deluxe systems bearing 24-inch monitors. You are paying a thousand bucks for the capability of extensive future expansion. Expansion that you likely will not need within the life of your Mac, especially if you apply the $1,000 toward replacing your iMac with a newer model sooner than you would be able to replace your Mac Pro.

The obvious skewing factor is if you already have a great, large LCD. However, even if you have a display currently but would like to upgrade to a nicer one, the iMac seems to be a real powerhouse that could double as a fine time to make that display upgrade for an incredibly competitive price/performance ratio in comparison to the hefty Mac Pro.

This brings me to my point, though. Despite the fact that I’ve owned 2 of the 3 iMac designs, I have an aversion against the existing iMac design: The Jay Leno chin! What is UP with that big chin, which is only accentuated by the way the monitor swivels up and down??

Hark! AppleInsider says: Apple’s next-generation iMacs to add a touch of grace! The iMac has always been somewhat of a feature canvas for Apple’s artistic prowess in its design. Apple dominates in the laptop market for its excellent design that features beauty as well as usability and efficiency. But desktop machines are much easier to work with because size isn’t emphasized as heavily. With every revision of the iMac, even the Jay Leno design, Apple has progressively put its superior portable design expertise to use, resulting in sleek and beautiful desktop designs.

The Jay Leno iMac didn’t appeal to me. But now as I prepare to replace my primary Mac, the prospect of a new and exciting iMac design has reenergized my interest in the iMac. And according to AppleInsider, I might get my wish as early as WWDC.