Splash of Style...Macs, Photography, Design, and other Passions

Automountd Trying to Connect to Backups.backupdb

August 9, 2008 by debbie T | Computers • Internet • Mac Corner • Mac Software

I just bought a new 1TB external hard drive yesterday, and my Chronosync backups were still working last night to sync all my files from various hard drives to backups on the new drive.

This morning I noticed a Little Snitch (gotta love this app!) requesting to allow “Automountd” to connect to “Backups.backupdb”

I recognized Backups.backupdb as the location of Leopard’s Time Machine backup, but I was unsure why automountd wanted to connect to the Internet; besides Time Machine is not configured to auto backup. I always click the Time Machine icon in my menu bar for manual backups AND the drive I do use for backups was definitely attached to my Mac overnight.

So I googled “automountd” and found this article. http://installingcats.com/2008/06/01/automountd-backups-backupd/

He received the very same message from Little Snitch. In the article he explains in plain English what is going on. Even though the first time I read it, I was a bit muddled, but when I read it again, I think I understand the answer to the problem, but I still don’t know why automountd was trying to connect in the first place, especially since Time Machine is not set to auto backup.

In the article, another article was referenced. That might contain the answers to automountd, but seriously, I don’t have the time right now to read it. So, I will list the article for future reading reference: http://rajeev.name/blog/2007/11/22/autofs-goodness-in-apples-leopard-105-part-i/

I ended up denying access (until quit) in Little Snitch, and there appears to be no impact on Time Machine’s backup ability. I manually started the backup and it did take a very long time to start the tiny backup (a few mb) but when it was finished, the files looked okay.

I will keep an eye on it.

Macbook Pro LCD Calibration

July 2, 2008 by debbie T | Computers • Digital Photography • Mac Software

whoo-hoo. I calibrated my Macbook Pro display for the first time! I was nervous (not sure why, it wasn’t like it was going to blow it up if I made an error).

The colors look very nice. My eyes feel like they need adjusting, and I have a tiny slight headache, so I turned my brightness down for now. I hope I get used to it.

UPDATE: no, the colors were not very nice. In fact, the calibration led to a head ache for a couple of days until I took a look at my original calibration settings. Wow, there was a strong pink hue to the calibration from Eye-One. Read about it in my updated article.

Anyway, I purchased an “Eye-One Display LT” calibrator from x-rite. You can find them on Amazon as sold by Adorama. I have purchased from Adorama twice now, and they are very good.

The instructions that came w/ the product are a bit scarce, but if you take your time, it isn’t very difficult to accomplish the process. I guess the deal is you need to calibrate regularly, like once a week. The software will supposedly remind me.

The reason I chose the Eye-One LT is because the price was inexpensive @ $140. Yes, there were other calibrators that were less expensive, like the Spyder 2 Express, but for a little more money, I could get a “semi-pro” level tool.

Plus, the reviews for the Eye-One Display LT were very good.

The x-rite website is packed with lots of information; I am going to have to sit down and read over all their tutorials and articles soon.

Untrained Applestore Salespeople

June 29, 2008 by debbie T | Mac Corner • Mac Software • iPhoto • iTunes

We went into the Applestore in Salem, NH this afternoon to possibly purchase a new iPod Touch for my husband.

When we walked in the store, I asked the greeter if someone could help us with iPod Touch questions. She sent us over to what she thought was the iPod area, and I found a Touch. My husband had been previously been playing around with one, but I thought it might be nice to have someone officially show us around before we purchased.

The first salesperson (male) came over and he seemed knowledgeable enough, until I asked him about syncing photos, bookmarks, address book, etc. He didn’t know the answers, so he brought over another salesperson (female), and she started to push the new Mobile Me (dot Mac) service, telling me that I needed to use that to sync anything. I told her I have never been a fan of dot Mac, and that I was surprised that it couldn’t be done through iTunes.

She wasn’t too sure of the answer, so she went off to find someone that might know.

Another older gentleman came over. I assumed (wrongly) that he would perhaps have an answer about syncing. nope, more Mobile Me sales pitches. In fact, he took me over to a nearby iMac, and started to browse the apple.com website so he could show me more about Mobile Me. Again, I told the that I didn’t want to use dot mac or Mobile Me.

I spoke to no less than 4 sales people, and no one could tell me answers to simple questions, like syncing photos, address book, and iCal. Would you believe that no one actually knew the sales return policy either!!! That had to be figured out by asking another sales person as well.

I should have just went over to a Mac myself, and searched for the syncing answers on google (which is what I did when I got home). Truth is, you do NOT need Mobile Me or Dot Mac to sync your iPod. You can do it all through iTunes, which is what I originally thought, but no one in the store could confirm it.

Seems the Applestores have a lot of new sales staff, probably in anticipation of the iPhone release on July 11). But you would think they would go through a little bit of training. It’s almost like they were told if anyone asks about the iPhone or iPod Touch, just play stupid and push the Mobile Me sales crap.

I was really discouraged and disappointed. I expected more knowledge from the sales staff. The Applestores have always seemed to be a step above the Best Buys and Walmarts, in that they know their products. If we were an uninformed customer, we might have possibly been talked into purchasing a Mobile Me account, when it wasn’t even necessary! Very disheartening!

We left the store w/out an iTouch. My husband isn’t sure he wants one anymore. I told him that he should wait until July 11, just in case something (like a price drop) happens. Who knows, I have been eyeing an iPod Touch for awhile. I might get one after July 11!

Creating an Encrypted Backup to External Drive

April 26, 2008 by debbie T | Digital Photography • Mac Software

Note: This tutorial is for Mac OS X - I am using Leopard, but older versions of OS X would still work fine.

My photo files were getting out of hand. I had no problem backing up to my external hard drives, but I needed a better off site backup solution. I was using Amazon S3 for my original files, but there was so much meta data in iPhoto that I didn’t want to lose, like keywords, plus all the modified versions as well.

I regularly burned my photo files onto DVDs for storage at my parents’ home, but that was becoming time consuming and inefficient.

So, what to do? I decided to purchase another external hard drive to store at my husband’s office. But security was an issue. What if the drive was stolen? I needed to add a level of security to the drive in case it ended up in the wrong hands.

I searched online, and figured out that I could create an encrypted disk image (.dmg) file that could be saved on the external hard drive. I could use my syncing software Chronosync to regularly back up all my files.

First, set up the disk image on the external hard drive using Disk Utility

Choose File>New>Blank Disk Image

New-disk-img

  1. Type a “save as” name. This will be the name of the file.
  2. Browse to the location of your external hard drive. Don’t worry, because this is just like any other file, it can be copied or moved to a new location later.
  3. Volume name: is the name of the mounted volume. I just left the default, but you can choose a more appropriate name.
  4. Volume size: choose “custom” and type a slightly lower size quantity of your external hard drive. Make sure you choose “gb” from the pull down menu. For example, if your drive is 500gb, you might want to set a volume size of 460gb. If you don’t want all your files to be encrypted, then choose a smaller size. It is very flexible.
  5. Volume format: I chose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
  6. Choose either 128 or 256 for encryption. I chose 256
  7. The partition is where I got a bit confused. I chose Single Partition, but there could be other choices that are more appropriate. This is a new setting in Leopard, and all the Disk Image tutorials I found were older.
  8. Lastly, choose “Sparse Disk Image” - this is something very cool that I just learned. It allows your disk image to be more flexible in size. For example, if you set your volume size for 30gb, and the files saved to the volume are only 10gb, the size of the disk image will be 10gb. It grows as you add files.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It has come to my attention that there could be problems using such a large sized file if a hard drive sector becomes corrupt. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I did find another program that might be a better solution.

TrueCrypt is an open source app for Mac, Linux, and Windows. It looks very intriguing. But for now, I will use my solution, and hope for the best.

More articles found online:

Firefox Tabs Not Working in Mac OS X

April 7, 2008 by debbie T | Mac Software

I thought I blogged this earlier, because I have had problems with this every time I reinstall Mac OS X, or buy a new Mac.

In Firefox, there is a problem tabbing, especially through form fields in Mac OS X.

It is a very easy fix. In System Preferences>Keyboard & Mouse Preferences>Keyboard Shortcuts. Choose the the setting “All Controls”

fixing firefox tabs in firefox

Can’t get any easier than that! And now you will have much better tabbing control when using Firefox in Mac OS X.

Mac Leopard & Bad Ram?

April 6, 2008 by debbie T | Mac Software

Okay, one more update on my Macbook Pro and my upgrade to Leopard.

I received my new (reburbished) battery covered under my 1st year warranty and it seems to be working very well, until I switched to battery power last night.

The same issue with my screen freezing completely happened again. So, this lead me to believe that my problems were not necessarily all related to a bad battery (although my older battery capacity was very low for being less than a year old)

So, back to bad ram problem.

Today, I switched out the 2gb OWC suspicious ram stick with one of my original Apple 1gb ram sticks. I have been working on the Mac all day, and all problems seem to be gone!!! YAHOO!

Leopard appears to be running so much smoother (less spinning beach balls, which were constant before), and when I worked with battery power, nothing freezed!

Applications are launching like the speed of light! HURRAY! Now, this is how I imagined Leopard to run. With 3gb of ram, it is running like the wind. I am looking forward to getting the full 4gb back.

So, it’s obviously bad ram!!! Strange thing is I have been running ram tests, and nothing ever shows. Yes, is common for ram problems not to show up in tests, so I am assuming this pertains to me. I will call OWC on Monday to get a replacement. I have no doubt that they will help me. Their customer service is excellent!

Textpander Works in Leopard

March 27, 2008 by debbie T | Mac Software

Good news! - Textpander will work with Leopard!

For those that have older (freeware) copies of Textpander from Peter Maurer, you can definitely install on Leopard.

I definitely don’t mind paying for shareware, but since the app was purchased by Smile On My Mac and renamed to TextExpander, I just can’t justify paying $30 for it.

It is certainly one of my favorites; I just wish it was a little less expensive, because I would surely upgrade to TextExpander. But in the meantime, I will just use the freebie version.

Leopard Time Machine Slows Down My Productivity

March 27, 2008 by debbie T | Mac Software

UPDATE: all my Leopard woes have been fixed! I removed the suspected problematic 2gb ram stick I purchased from OWC, and it is working like gangbusters now!

I have been using Leopard’s Time Machine for a couple of weeks, and it seems to work very well, until I realized that it was slowing down my productivity.

For instance, today while saving several pdf files of specific web pages, the external hard drive (set as my Time Machine backup drive) starts up as soon as the save dialog box appears. While the drive is starting, I can’t navigate to where the file should be saved, which slows me down considerably.

This happens a lot, the external (Time Machine) drive will just start up on its own (it isn’t backing up at the time), and cause a slow down on my system. It brings everything to a halt, and stops me from working.

For now, I disabled auto Time Machine backups, and will backup manually (using Time Machine as well as Chronosync). I don’t know why Apple doesn’t allow more customization of Time Machine. I would like to schedule a once or twice daily backup. I don’t see the need for hourly backups. I realize some people need this option, but I wish some options could be disabled. Maybe in a future update.

And I don’t if this is related or not, but occasionally, out of the blue, my DVD drive will make a noise like it is ejecting a disk. It has happened a few times in the last week.

In general, my whole Leopard system just doesn’t seem right lately; I don’t know if it’s really Leopard or bad ram, or maybe everything is normal, I am asking too much! LOL

Firefox is Acting Wacky

Besides Leopard, Firefox has been wacky as well. Very slow and web pages are not displaying properly. The new Adobe Express web site doesn’t allow me to join or log in using Firefox, but other users are having no issues. I am running the latest and (possibly not so greatest) version of 2.0.0.13 - It just updated yesterday.

EDIT March 29, 2008: Twice now (today and yesterday) while in Firefox, my workspace completely froze. My mouse and keyboard didn’t work. The workspace just froze. The first time, I was writing a blog entry, and I copied and pasted a line of text. The second time, I was in a Flickr friend’s photo stream, and was scrolling. Both times I was in battery mode. I had to hit the shut off button to shut down the system, and then reboot.

I am not sure what is going on~

Battery is Acting Crappy

My MacBook Pro battery has been crappy lately as well. According to Coconut Battery, I am at 42% capacity. My MacBook Pro is less than a year old, and my battery is already under half. Also, while running on battery power, it will shut down the system once it gets under 10%. I used to be able to use the MBP under 1% power. Don’t know what happened, but I will have to contact Applecare soon. I hope I can get a replacement.

Wacom Tablet Isn’t Active at Restart

When I restart my MBP, or re-log into a user account, my Wacom Graphire Tablet isn’t immediately active. At the log in screen, it takes a good minute or so before I can use the pen/tablet. And when logged into my account, it waits until everything has launched before it becomes active. If I unplug the USB cable, it will work immediately after I plug it back in.

I think this problem appeared after one of the Leopard updates. I know it is a software issue, because when I boot into my Tiger boot drive, the Wacom tablet works fine.

Do I Have To Re-install /she whines

I guess I am just venting. I know I am probably going to have to reinstall Leopard, and I really don’t want to.

I suppose it is the only way I will be able to test the OWC ram again (both 2gb ram sticks in my MBP are from OWC) - and if I do reinstall, I think I wait on some of the Leopard software updates.

I will update any new findings.

Running Windows XP With Leopard Bootcamp

March 17, 2008 by debbie T | Mac Software

I decided it was time to install Windows XP on my Mac. Ugh, yeah, I know, not something I wanted to do, but something I needed to do.

I keep a Windows XP desktop in my home office so I can run MS Money, and check web designs in Windows browsers. Problem is, I spend most of my time in our family room downstairs, and away from my office. So, my financial postings become behind because I don’t want to use the desktop upstairs.

So, I picked up a copy of Windows XP from NewEgg.com and installed it (last Saturday afternoon).

Oh I had forgotten how clunky Windows installer is. And the interface is just so ugly. But that is beside the point. I got the settings the way I like ‘em, and I installed MS Money.

Now I am disappointed because I realized that Apple neglected to create drivers to allow tap click on the track pad. sigh. How annoying.

Looks like I am not alone in this complaint, and the craziest thing is that trackpad tap click WAS included in a prior Bootcamp beta; Parallels and VMWare have enabled it, so why can’t Apple?

So now, because I use my MacBook Pro’s touch pad when I am downstairs in the family room, it is way more annoying to run Windows XP than it should be. Upstairs in the office, I use my Wacom tablet, so it doesn’t matter, but darn it! I want to be able to use the same helpful hardware functions in Windows just as I do in Mac OS X.

But other than that, Windows is Windows. I am not planning on running Anti-virus or spyware because I will not be connected to the Internet very often, and when I do it will be using Ethernet, not wireless access. I was planning on installing a couple of card games, but now I am not sure. Being forced to use the button instead of the trackpad to click is really annoying.

I really don’t want to consider a virtual Windows environment since I really don’t need to use that many Windows programs, so for now, I will hope that Apple fixes this issue. Although I doubt it, since Mac users have been complaining (and requesting) this function since last October.

iCal Alarms Not Working in Leopard

March 16, 2008 by debbie T | Mac Software

I noticed that my iCal alarms were not reliably working after upgrading to Leopard. Sometimes when iCal was open, the alarms would work, and then sometimes they wouldn’t.

Also when deleting multiple events, only one event would delete, not all selected. Very frustrating since I have an alarm set for every morning as a reminder for my medication. So, that means I can’t delete the old events in a batch. I have to delete them one by one.

I found what I think is a solution for the first problem. I googled, and found two discussions. It appears this is a common problem.

First, back up your database (File>Back Up iCal. Save the file somewhere save on your hard drive or an external hard drive. You should be doing this regularly anyway.

Then export each of your calendars. Choose each calendar (from the left column on the workspace) then click File>Export. Export each of your calendars. I keep a folder just for calendars near the database file.

Uninstall and delete all iCal files from your Mac, I used AppZapper to find and remove the files, but you can manually search for each file. Once the files have been deleted, make sure the trash bin is emptied.

AppZapper deletes iCal

Now grab your Leopard install DVD. Click the folder for “Optional Installs” then launch the “Optional Installs.mpkg file. You should find iCal in the Applications.

Leopard optional installs

Once iCal has been reinstalled, launch iCal.

Trash each of the calendars in the left column in the workspace.

To re-import each calender, click File>Import; Navigate to where you exported your calendars earlier. Import each one. If iCal asks to choose a destination calendar, make sure to choose “New Calender” or your events will be added to a previous calendar. iCal also might warn you that there could be unsafe alarms included in your events, but if they are all your alarms, then they are safe.

iCal-import

Hopefully, this will fix the problem, but I will know tomorrow if the alarms are working properly. The issue with deleting multiple events is still bothersome, but I will try to find a solution to that later.

EDIT: My daily alarm is still not working. I have tried deleting it, then adding a new alarm. It will work the first day, and then stop after. Very frustrating. As a whole, Leopard seems to have a lot of bugs. I am a little disappointed.