One issue that has been persistent in OS X Lion, it a strange problem in spacing when filling out a PDF Form.  Basically the form will not space correctly to the next line and leaves a document with overlapping text.  The current work around has been to double space as you fill out the form.

Good news as the latest 10.7.4 developers update appears to fix this issue.  It looks like this update is slated for public release sometime in May.

Looking at Form that was filled using 10.7.3 version of Preview.

Looking at Same Form running Developers 10.7.4 version of Preview.

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After an unfortunate run in with a iMac less then 90 days old I discovered something that has me a bit concerned.  The Hard Drive,  inside of the iMac where I expected to see a Western Digital Caviar Black Drive, a solid drive with a 5 year warranty, was missing.  Instead I found a Seagate Barracuda 7200.12,  this 500 gig drive comes with a 2 year warranty.  Most Mac users don’t usually worry about such matters and instead trust that Apple will use good top quality components in their machine.  This has been my experience up until the last 10 iMacs that were purchased.  This last batch all have the Seagate Barracuda 720.12 which is a of less quality and has a shorter lifespan then Western Digital Caviar Black (5 year warranty).

Okay so how do I know that the Seagate Barracuda is not of the same quality of a Western Digital Caviar Black.  Well first off the warranty like I said earlier. (Click on Image to Zoom in).

(Barracuda 2 year warranty)

You can see that the Drive only has a 2 year warranty.  Now lets take a look at the 500 gig Caviar Black.

(Caviar Black 5 Year Warranty)

Another Batch of Late 2011 iMac models that are use the lab are Caviar Blue series drive.  Honestly this drive is better than a Seagate Barracuda but not by much and it also only has a 2 year warranty.  This is problematic because a consumer purchases a nice computer like an iMac for over 1,000$ with the idea of top quality in mind. Top quality and peace of mind that the machine will last 5 years.  Think back to all those Apple stories on how you knew someone who had a mac and it still works at 6-7 years.  Or think back to the old eMac eggshell machines that lasted 8 years +.  These workhorses built a reputation of Apple = High Quality.

If Apple makes a move to start shipping lower end components, especially something as critical as a hard drives into their products and continue to leave the price top dollar, this could spell trouble in the future.  What may happen is there will be a 2 year grace period where profits go crazy and all things are good, then machines start failing and people start get frustrating responses from the company, such as “Did you buy the extended service agreement?”.  Rather than own up and admit they put lower quality parts will instead pass the problem to the consumer.

Now there is another possibility, the flood in Thailand.  With Western Digital drives being manufactured here, and with a giant flood bringing production to a halt, perhaps Apple found itself in a position where it could not get enough top quality drives.  In this scenario perhaps they used whatever they could to keep shipping units and when better drives become available  moved back.  If you have just recently purchased an iMac take a look at the drive,  let me know/comment if they are shipping 5 year warrantied drives.  Lets hope that  quality continues to be the emphasis and that my experience is an anomaly.

(Caviar Black Price) 101$

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 Price  88$ – cheaper

Check out the review on the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500 gig.

http://ugc.seagate.com/7039/3f362fc661cce110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0a____/seagate-barracuda-7200-12-desktop-hard-drives-reviews/reviews.htm  (Look product has now been pulled)

Thanks to the power of Google’s Cache lets look at the reviews before the product was pulled. (Couple of screenshots of reviews on Seagates websites before they pulled it down.)

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The Flip Cam’s are nice easy to use video recorders but when working with Mac’s have had one major flaw.  Which is that their movies cannot be directly imported into iMovie.   It was first necessary to convert the video using Handbrake or another encoder like Miro(Good Converter for Mac / Free) which is very time consuming, especially with a hour or more of footage.  Good news that this is no longer the case,  all that is necessary is to first install the 3ivx Codec.  Looks like the flipcam uses a slightly modified version of the mpeg 4 codec which is not included with Mac’s by default.  With the Codec installed a lot of time can be saved and a lot of Mac simplicity and efficiency is restored.

To Fix:

1.  First install this package

Install 3ivx MPEG-4

2.  Now in iMovie go to FILE | IMPORT and then select the video files you want to import using the finder menu like this.

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Apple’s Keynote is an easy and intuitive program to make good presentations. One advantage it has over Powerpoint is that it embeds the video segments into the file itself, no need to send video files and store in same directory. With Keynotes music and movies come with the file making life much easier when one goes to present on a different computer. However there is one problem with this embedding, that is keynotes can become quite large in size and when sharing via the web or email this size can be a problem. Apple’s keynote has an easy method for reducing file size which is simply to hit File | Reduce File Size. This works pretty okay but may not get the size of the presentation down to where you can store it online or send via email.

(Apple Easy Method to Reduce File Size)

Using the following method I was able to take a 40 megs Keynote presentation and reduce it to around 30 megs.  Not bad but still not a friendly size for email or posting on the web.  To reduce this keynote presentation further will need to do a couple of tricks.

1.  First need the program Handbrake,  this program comes with lots of presets to be able to convert movies using the h264 codec.     You can grab a copy of Handbrake here.

2.  With Handbrake installed we need to get access at the Raw movie files embedded in the keynote.  Keynote files end in the extension .key,  this is really a fake extension keynotes as the files are really just a zipped folder.  So to get access at the data all you need to do is rename you project.key  as project.zip.

Now you can simply expand the zip archive and you will see a folder name of your project with all the files inside.  Here is a screenshot of a keynote called Module #4 Content Copy, which I renamed to a zip file then now opened as a folder.

Inside you will notice that there are a series of MOV files,  these can be highly compressed using Handbrake and then copied back in the folder.

3.  Using Handbrake highly compress the MOV files and then copy them back into the folder.  Here click on Source and open a MOV file from your Keynote folder.  Now Toggle the presets and choose NORMAL.  Make sure the codec is H264 and that the file extension is mp4 or m4v.  Click Start and wait for it to finish.  Now the new compressed movie will be drastically smaller but will have the wrong extension, simply rename the extension from mkv , m4v, or mp4 to .mov.  Repeat this process for all movies.

4.  Lastly copy the new movie files back to the folder and choose replace (make sure Keynote and Handbrake are closed when you do this).  With the new smaller files in place rename the entire folder to a keynote by adding a .key at the end.  Thats it.

Using this process my Keynote went from 40 megs to 14.5 megs,  much better compression than the simple Reduce File Size.

Here is a screenshot comparing Keynotes auto Reduce File Size versus my method.

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Click Here to Download Chromium for OS X 10.6 and 10.7 Mac Build 20.0.1100.0.0 (131961) – Mac Build for Geneseo District 228

I placed the Release build in a DMG file to give it an easy installer. (Can Click Image to Download Installer as well).

So Chromium is the best browser, in my opinion.  Let me just say I have been a major fan of Mozilla/Firefox for over a decade and it has only been really the last 12-15 months that I have fully come to appreciate how fast and far the Chormium project has evolved.  Mozilla/Firefox’s rapid release schedule has unfortunately turned out to be quite annoying and almost disastrous with new browsers being released every six weeks or so.  Usually this pace of release is a good thing but in Mozilla’s case it has been frustrating as some versions work well, others have no really new features (Firefox 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10?  all seemed the same, still buggy).

Chrome is google’s slightly modified release verision of the open source project Chromium (financed by Google).  The difference is minimal but for a school district there are a couple of slight advantages.  Chromium does not track as many user metrics, not does it seem to open quite the same number of UDP connections as Chrome.   In a filtered setting its nice to have a customized browser, that doesn’t track (as many) user metrics as this information is really just wasted traffic.  Chrome also adds in a PDF plugin as well as built in flash plugin where as Chromium leaves these out,  again this is okay and actually preferred since we already have flash and a PDF view installed on all Macs.  I will include this chromium build and future builds on our Lab images at the HS and MS, also changed the logo a bit to give it a Geneseo feel.

I compiled Chromium from source on an MacBook Air i5.  I compiled on 10.7 Lion but used set the build option to 10.6 for better compatibility.  To be able to compile on OS X Lion works but there are a few more steps then other Mac platforms.  I compiled the project in terminal with the following commands.

First get the source using SVN and then sync with gclient.  The source code is currently quite large and the download will be between 1.2 and 1.6 gigs.

Most of the directions of chromium’s site will work but I have added below the two that were necessary to get to build on OS X Lion.  I would also make sure you have XCode installed prior to compiling.

Chromium compile directions from their website.

Use the following command to set the build correctly for mac. I was only able to build setting Mac_sdk to 10.6.

GYP_GENERATORS=make GYP_DEFINES=mac_sdk=10.6 ./build/gyp_chromium

To finally initiate and build from the source I set the BUILDTYPE to release, and used the -j4 flag to use 3 cores (can use -j5 if you want to use all 4 cores of a i5 to speed up compiling time.)

make BUILDTYPE=Release chrome -j4

Compiling took well over one hour.

(Successful Build)

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We have some older Intel based white MacBooks that are 5+ years but work well as units in Mobile labs.  These machines run a 10.6.8 image and are still capable of meeting teacher/student needs.  A few of these units have started experiencing a problem which first manifests in a weak Wi-Fi signal.  Machines will sometimes still connect when within 10-15 feet of the airport, only to disconnect.  The problem gest worse with time until the Wi-Fi card simply fails to connect at all.

The older G4 iBooks had an easy to access panel underneath the keyboard to replace the card.  The white macbooks have a similar card but to access requires one to remove the entire bottom case and keyboard.  Not too difficult but just a lot of screws.  You need a mini philips (jewelers size 0?) and then just start unscrewing.  This model uses a wide variety of lengths so it is a good idea to keep them in piles or equal size as machine is taken apart.

Aiport Card (Early Intel Macbook)

Airport installed.

Nice to see heavily laptop machines able to keep working well 5+ years, new battery, hard drive, and occasional Wi-Fi Card seems to be all necessary maintenance to extend these machine to hopefully 7 years.  For a laptop in a lab environment I consider this a great lifespan.

Some very early White Macbook Intel models have slightly different airport card layout with 3 antenna cables,  may want to check you serial or take a quick peek inside before ordering a replacement part.

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Occasionally the Webspeed powered web side of Skyward will take a crash and users will be greeted with a message that simply says service not available.  Logging into the server itself you will see generic error messages relating to the wsisa.dll and some executable files attempt to use it.  Simply restarting IIS will fix this error and only takes a minute but the issue can still be annoying.   If you are running Server 2003 you may find that the wsisa.dll executable file is prone to memory leaks and after heavy usage or given enough time it will crash.   Without extensive debugging to find the exact source of the memory leak there is an easier fix which is simply to use. cgiip.exe instead of wsisa.dll.

You can do this by simply chaning the link

https://gcsdskyward.org:444/scripts/wsisa.dll/WService=wsEAplus/seplog01.w

to :

https://gcsdskyward.org:444/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=wsEAplus/seplog01.w

Notice that just past the word scripts I simply change wsisa.dll to cgiip.exe.  Both files can be used interchangeably and performance should be about the same, however I have found that cgiip.exe is more stable.  If you are running Server 2008 and IIS 7.0 (7.5) the wsisa.dll file has been improved  and this should not be a concern.  This fix seems to only apply for Server 2003 using IIS 6 and Webspeed.

If you are set on using wsisa.dll you can also set a scheduled task to reset the webserver once a day perhaps at 3Am, this should also keep skyward running and reset any memory leaks.  To do this create a batch file and place this command

iisreset /noforce.
Schedule a task to run this batch daily at a set time.  You could also do both switch to cgiip.exe and do schedule a daily reset which should keep the service running 99.9% of the time.

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By default Server 2008 does not use a NTP Time Server to sync its clock but relies only on the internal clock.  If this server also houses VM images through Hyper V these images will by default pull time info from the host.  To me I have always like to have clocks synced to a NTP time server which just gives peace of mind that all machines, VM’s, etc will have the correct time.  This prevents issues with clients accessing resources or logging in being denied due to Kerberos or other time sensitive security measures.

Personally I have find this strange that there is not a simple GUI button to check to to enable this, the fix though is easy enough.  My instructions below will cause Server 2008 to use the time.windows.com NTP server for time syncing.

To Set Server 2008 to use a NTP Time Server in 3 easy steps.

1.  Edit the Registry (regedit)

2.  Now change these three registry keys

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Config]
“AnnounceFlags”=dword:00000005    

(You are changing this from a 10 to a 5 )

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters]
“Type”=”NTP“

 (Again change the contents of this key to simply NTP)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpServer]
“Enabled”=dword:00000001

(This is by default a 0 you are changing to a 1).

3.  Last step open a command prompt with administrative access.

Net stop w32time
Net start w32time

I did find a windows support on this topic but it is a bit lengthly http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816042

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Yesterday I replaced three more Catalyst series switches at the Middle School.  This stack of switches originally had four switches, one 24 port and 3 48 port Catalyst 3500 XL and 3550 series switches.  I was able to replace these with 3 Catalyst 2960G’s, with one of the units stacked together acting as a single 96 port switch.  With this completed I now only have the switches at the Middle School server room left to swap out and configure.  For the most part the configurations are identical to the switches being replaced, although the trunk protocol must be switched from the proprietary Cisco ISL vlan protocol to dot1q as it is no longer supported by the 2960 Catalyst series.  Overall this is okay as the ISL vlan protocol is slower and less compatible so moving all switches to dot1q is preferred anyway.

The last set of a switches will be slightly more complicated to swap as one of the switches is configured to partially operate in a DMZ zone relaying information to our Firewall/filter.  Another switch houses all the VLAN data and I would like to switch this over to a different switch and basically switch roles of one switch making it the core and retiring an older 4908 switch.  I should be able to switch all switches this week and finish the last step of switching roles of the core  in June or late May as soon as school dimisses.

Overall moving to 1000mbps switches makes a big difference in network latency and overall speed is noticeably improved as the switch comes online.

 Old Switches 12 years old – Just retired.
 

New Switches Catalyst 2960G

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I decided to do a quick post on this topic because I cannot count how many PC’s I have improved performance by simply removing all products by Norton\Symantec.  Why is Norton so bad you wonder?  Here is the deal, in a nutshell Norton pays big money to vendors like HP, Acer, Dell etc to have their software preinstalled as a trial on new machines.  When people get these machines from somewhere like BestBuy, a online vendor, Wal-Mart,  you name it they just click next and start using the computer.  In 30 days or so scary messages appear about your machine being unprotected, and that you must renew your subscription as the trial has expired.  If you ignore these messages they will return with Red X’s and other indicators to scare the user into thinking they must comply and give money.  Okay so this is pretty much the definition of Ad-ware,  misleading messages, scare tactics, pre-installation all for a product that is sub-par.  For one it takes way too many system resources to run,  in way too intrusive as it pops up safety and scanning messages frequently.

Example of a Bad Norton Product. Norton Security Suite I rate it 1 out of 10.  

But wait I thought you need virus protection on a PC?  Yes you do,  you just do not need a commercial product that is a resource hog, slows down your machine and is overpriced.  For home use you really cannot beat Microsoft Security Essentials.  This product is free, works, does not take up much system resources and updates along side your system updates automatically.  Further this product is fully supported by Microsoft, yes you get a good virus and spyware software, you get full support, and it costs nothing as it comes included with your licensed copy of Windows and/or your new computer.

If you are perhaps a bit anti-Mircrosoft AVG also makes a good free virus scanner from home, although it does not integrate as well it still does a nice job of working.

Security Essentials is something Microsoft should have released years ago,  when you purchase a 200$ OS or a new computer, support and anti-virus should be part of the package.  The multi-billion dollar Anti-Virus industry has resorted to aggressive ad campaigns and pre-installation adware methods to keep business flowing.  This is a shame as a company with this amount of resources has turned to adware gimmicks rather then true innovation to keep profits coming in.  In a nutshell the product they are selling is inferior and will slow down your computer,  further a better and fully supported product is free.

A Good Free Virus Scanner (as it should be) Microsoft Security Essentials.

Okay should here is my advice if you bought a new PC.

1.  Cover your ears and head out of Best Buy without buying a single add-on,  they will pitch a lot of extra’s Geek Squad, etc, etc.  Other companies will do a similar song and dance.  You don’t need anything extra head home.

2.  Once you have your machine booted and are using windows immediately click on the Start Button, then Control Panel.  In Control Panel click on Programs, or directly on Uninstall a program.  In the list that pops up look for Trend Microsystems (also bad), Norton, Symantec.  And click on each program and choose Uninstall (Sometimes will say the word Change instead of Uninstall).

3.  Okay will the junk software removed, now visit Here and download and install Security Essentials.

Thats it you are done.

What if I already have a machine with a bad virus on it and need help removing it?  Again first use Security Essentials.  If virus persists download the free version of MalwareBytes (Can do so here).  If this doesn’t work go to Major Geeks and download the free program Combo Fix (do this last).

These do it yourself tips should be able to remove over 99% of all virus infections.

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