R. J. Grigaitis

I’ve been running Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard for 10 days, and I’m really looking forward to OS X 10.6.2. I’ve noticed a couple of bug fixes since OS X 10.5  and there have been a few nice user interface changes; however, the bugs that have been introduced in this ‘upgrade’ are very disappointing, and, I’m sure, very embarrassing for Apple. As well, I had to do a lot of work to get everything working the way I like it once again.

Summary:

• All ‘VirtualHost’ entries get deleted in httpd-vhosts.conf. I believe this is because Apache was automatically upgraded, and the original conf files got overwritten.
• Automatic upgrade to PHP 5.3, which has deprecated some functions. If you use them, you now get a warning. This is a good thing, but it meant a little code rewriting.
• No longer have to copy mysql.sock from /tmp/ to /var/mysql/ to get MySQL to work.
• QuickTime Player 10.0 is nice, but has no Preferences, so you can’t set it to automatically play movies when opened. Have to use Terminal command or script (watch video below). Download and use the following scripts:
  • QuickTimeAutoOn.sh
  • QuickTimeAutoOff.sh
• Dictionary opens a new window for every word it looks up. Cannot change this inPreferences. Have to use Terminal command or script (watch video below). Download and use the following scripts:
  • DictOneWindow.sh
  • DictMultiWindow.sh
• iCal and Address Book don’t sync with old 30GB iPod. Must perform manual work around (watch video below). [FIXED]
• Sometimes iTune locks up entire computer while downloading. Have to do a cold boot. This is a very major BUG.
• Various application unexpectedly close for no apparent reason (Flow is the only one that used to do this, but it’s been fixed a number of months ago).
• ‘Stop Speaking’ now works.
• Can now print Address Book to Adobe Acrobat virtual printer.
• Things look a little cooler, but nothing really major. The computer may run faster, but I haven’t really noticed.
• 1Password 3 is really cool. Beta is really stable; more so than Snow Leopard.
• Plea to Mozilla: Have Firefox use Mac OS system Dictionary.

I spent $35 CAD for the Snow Leopard upgrade, $23 for the 1Password upgrade (worth it), and $45 for the Parallels upgrade (4.0) followed by another $58 Parallels upgrade (5.0) (It runs Windows a lot faster, and there’s a lot of really cool features, but the $45 for version 4.0 was a waste of money).  Other than the great 1Password improvements, I got a few minor bug fixes, very few improvement that affect me, difficulty configuring stuff, and some major bugs. I hope the next upgrade comes soon, and it better be free.

My verdict: this Snow Leopard is wounded.

Sync iCal and Address Book with old iPod and iTunes 9 [This has been FIXED]

Automatically play movies in QuickTime Player 10.0

• QuickTimeAutoOn.sh
• QuickTimeAutoOff.sh

Keep only one window open in Dictionary

• DictOneWindow.sh
• DictMultiWindow.sh

Suddenly, everything clicks. And swipes. And scrolls. And exposes you to more electromagnetic pollution.

Introducing Magic Mouse. The world’s first Multi-Touch mouse.
Now included with every new iMac. And only available as wireless.

It looks really cool, and I’d like to try it, but I’m not about to expose my body to anymore electromagnetic pollution than I have to, and you should be as concerned as I am about the dangers of electromagnetic pollution. Voice your concern to Apple. If we get them to put a cord on this mouse, maybe we can get them to put a dirty electricity filter on their computers.

You can make your voice heard here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/

This is what I said:

Subject: Please put a cord on the Magic Mouse

I would really like to try your Magic Mouse, but I do not want to expose my body to the electromagnetic pollution that it emits. Electromagnetic pollution is a real danger to the human body. Most people don’t notice the effects of electromagnetic pollution until they develop electrohypersensitivity and become sick.

Please give consumers the option of a safer Magic Mouse by putting a cord on it.

Go to this webpage for more information about electromagnetic pollution:
http://eha-ab.ca/electrical/

This is what I said in a separate e-mail:

Subject: Please put a dirty electricity filter on your computers

I am very happy with my iMac; however, I would like to have the option of purchasing my next computer with an integrated dirty electricity filter. Dirty electricity is a form of electromagnetic pollution. Electromagnetic pollution is a real danger to the human body. Most people don’t notice the effects of electromagnetic pollution until they develop electrohypersensitivity and become sick.

A dirty electricity filter integrated into a computer will cost consumers only 10% what it costs to buy one separately. I would gladly pay an extra $12 to $20 on my next computer purchase to protect my body from harmful effects of electromagnetic pollution.

Please give consumers the option of purchasing your computers with an integrated dirty electricity filter.

Go to this webpage for more information about electromagnetic pollution:
http://eha-ab.ca/electrical/

Remember the last few years leading up to the year 2000? Everyone was talking and worrying about the Y2K bug. I was quite confident back then, and still firmly believe today (although I haven’t looked for actual proof), that a lot of computer programmers made a lot of money by not doing much of anything. I doubt that there were more than a small number of Y2K bugs, and that they were very easily fixed or had negligible impact on business .

I was so confident of this that in 1997 I set the year on my computer at work to 2000. All of the software produced by the company I was working for handled it just fine. In fact, every piece of software on that computer handled it just fine except for one. It’s been 12 years now, so I can’t remember what that one piece of software was, but I do remember that it worked just fine except for displaying the wrong year. I also remember that this one bug would have no impact on my productivity or the productivity of the company I was working for.

Why am I bringing this up? Because there really is a bug that will actually make a large impact on productivity around the world and there is no easy fix for it. This bug will become a major problem on January 19th, 2038 at 3:14:07 Greenwich Means Time (or for you ISO geeks, 2038-01-09T03:14:07+00:00). That’s when the Unix timestamp runs out of seconds.

Now no one seems to be talking about it because very few people know much about computers, let alone what the Unix timestamp is. First of all, Unix and Unix-like operating systems (such as the many versions of Linux) are the main back bone of the Internet. Windows and Mac web servers will not save the day because most of them also use the Unix timestamp, so the Y2K32 bug will effect almost the entire World Wide Web.

The Unix timestamp is the number of seconds before and after the date January 1st, 1970. On January 19th, 2038 at 3:14:07 we run out of seconds.

This may seem like an odd date and time, but it makes perfect sense if you understand computers. Computers don’t count like humans. Computers only know 1 and 0; like a switch, “on” and “off” (actually, that’s all computers are, a bunch of switches). These 1s and 0s (or switches) are called bits. Eight bits are called a byte. If a number in a computer is only one byte in size, it has a range from 0 to 255, or if it is signed (can be negative), -128 to 127.

Here is an example of how a computer counts from 0 to 10 inside a byte:

0 : 00000000
1 : 00000001
2 : 00000010
3 : 00000011
4 : 00000100
5 : 00000101
6 : 00000110
7 : 00000111
8 : 00001000
9 : 00001001
10 :  00001010

Do you get the idea?

If we keep going to 255 we get 11111111. If we add 1 to 255 we go right back to 00000000 because we run out of space in the byte, which has only eight bits (or digits). Likewise, if we subtract 1 from 0 we get 255, or 11111111.

If this byte is signed (can be negative), the computer interprets the first bit as a negative sign. Thus, 255 becomes -1.

Here’s some signed examples

-128 : 10000000
-127 : 10000001
-2 : 11111110
-1 : 11111111
0 : 00000000
1 : 00000001
2 : 00000010
126 : 01111110
127 : 01111111

Now that you know how to count like a computer, lets take a look at the Unix timestamp. The Unix timestamp is not just one byte but four bytes. That means that it’s made up of 32 bits.

Here’s what a 32 bit signed number looks like (I put in some spaces so it’s easier for humans to look at):

-2147483648: 1000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
-2147483647: 1000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001
-2 : 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1110
-1 : 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111
0 : 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
1 : 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001
2: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010
2147483646 : 0111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1110
2147483647 : 0111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111

This means that 2,147,483,647 seconds after midnight of January 1st,1970 is 7 seconds after 3:14 am on January 19th, 2038. One more second wraps us around to 2,147,483,648 seconds before midnight of January 1st,1970, which is 52 seconds after 8:45 pm on December 13, 1901.

As I said, there is no simple solution to this problem. The timestamp can be made unsigned (always a positive number), which would be good until the year 2106, but this would be incompatible with current systems.  Many newer systems use a 64 bit timestamp, which is good until the year 4,292,277,026,596. However, this doesn’t solve  the problem of hundreds of millions of 32 bit systems; many of which are embedded systems that can’t be upgraded. Some file formats also use a 32 bit timestamp. Most people want to keep their data longer than the next 29 years, so this is a major concern.

That’s right. It will be less than 29 years before this all happens. I’ll be almost 69, so as long as I print everything I want to live longer than I do, I should be safe. I think I’ll get rid of my computer when I’m 68 and only read books.