Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard - Mac Forums

Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard - Mac Forums:

"I am sure many of you heard that Snow Leopard was supposed to have native read/write for NTFS partitions. Apple supported NTFS R/W in older SL builds but I guess decided to not to go with it for some reason, however support is still present.
For this, you need to modify your /etc/fstab file to mount NTFS partitions for read and write.

First, uninstall NTFS-3G/Paragon if installed.
Open Terminal.app (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
Type 'diskutil info /Volumes/volume_name' and copy the Volume UUID (bunch of numbers).
Backup /etc/fstab if you have it, shouldn't be there in a default install.
Type 'sudo nano /etc/fstab'.
Type in 'UUID=paste_the_uuid_here none ntfs rw' or 'LABEL=volume_name none ntfs rw' (if you don't have UUID for the disk).
Repeat for other NTFS partitions.
Save the file (ctrl-x then y) and restart your system.

After reboot, NTFS partitions should natively have read and write support. This works in both 32 and 64-bit kernels. Support is quite good and fast, it even recognizes file attributes such as hidden files."


This worked for me.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Groklaw - Microsoft Patents Sudo?!!

 

Lordy, lordy, lordy. They have no shame. It appears that Microsoft has just patented sudo, a personalized version of it.

Here it is, patent number7617530. Thanks, USPTO, for giving Microsoft, which is already a monopoly, a monopoly on something that's been in use since 1980 and wasn't invented by Microsoft. Here's Wikipedia's description of sudo, which you can meaningfully compare to Microsoft's description of its "invention".

Groklaw - Microsoft Patents Sudo?!!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

KS2009: How Google uses Linux [LWN.net]

 

There may be no single organization which runs more Linux systems than Google. But the kernel development community knows little about how Google uses Linux and what sort of problems are encountered there. Google's Mike Waychison traveled to Tokyo to help shed some light on this situation; the result was an interesting view on what it takes to run Linux in this extremely demanding setting.

KS2009: How Google uses Linux [LWN.net]

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

If you're looking for the win7 usb download tool, as I was earlier today…

Microsoft has pulled an update tool for Windows 7 from the Microsoft Store site after a report indicating that the tool incorporated open-source code in a way that violated the GNU General Public License.

Did Microsoft Windows 7 download tool violate the GPL? | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Schneier on Security: Is Antivirus Dead?

 

Bottom line: antivirus software is neither necessary nor sufficient for security, but it's still a good idea. It's not a panacea that magically makes you safe, nor is it is obsolete in the face of current threats. As countermeasures go, it's cheap, it's easy, and it's effective. I haven't dumped my antivirus program, and I have no intention of doing so anytime soon.

Schneier on Security: Is Antivirus Dead?

Speaking of anti-virus, I've been using Microsoft Security Essentials since its release about a month or so ago, and its been working great so far.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Speaking UNIX: Peering into pipes

 

Pipe Viewer is one of those little-known gems that once you find it, you can't recall how you lived without it. You may find some applications of pv in your daily command-line use, but you are likely to find oodles of uses for it in your automation scripts. Rather than stare at a blinking cursor waiting patiently for some indication that all is well, you can now insert a probe to give you real-time feedback. Pipe Viewer adds a heartbeat to the soul of the machine.

Speaking UNIX: Peering into pipes

Mozilla and hypocrisy

Right, but what about the experiences that Mozilla chooses to default for users like switching to  Yahoo and making that the default upon ...