Computers

It seems that disk images (or .dmg) seldomly loose their bindings to the DiskImageMounter.app. This kind of mess can happen when upgrading from Panther to Tiger.

Getting the bindings back is as simple as Option-i on an image and change the Open with setting. But what if you cannot see the DiskImageMounter application and is not in the list anymore?

I just ran a quick search, and the path is:

If you are bored, you should take a look in this folder. It seems to contain a bunch of useful things

UPDATED: If the Finder does not allow the Change All option, you might try to fix the disk permissions using the Disk Utility.

Posted by Olivier Hill in Mac at 12:27 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Do you remember Hal, the supra-computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey? Well, since 1967, Hal had a promotion. He is now running Gentoo Linux using a 2.6 kernel and beating uptimes.

427 days! I guess I could say this machine is stable enough. And still, it is a old box:

I should be upgrading the kernel, but why waste a reboot? ;)

Posted by Olivier Hill in Computers at 14:12 | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)

While installing a Mac today, I ran a System Update to fetch version 10.4.2. Being curious about what has changed in this version, I consulted Apple's release notes on the patch. Except from certain boring video updates and more firewire support, I came across this important improvement: "Active Directory Users can be given a local administrator rights."

Thank you Apple for making my life easier!!!

This is not even sarcastic. Have you ever administered a network of computer geeks? They do want full access to their machines, while I do want to keep my network secure. Well, this is the perfect solution for me.

Before 10.4.2, I could give them local admin rights via Active Directory by creating a special group with no power except on the local machine (when binding it to AD). But I felt this was a hack and did not like it.

The new solution is much simpler and much more intuitive in Apple's terms. The only thing you have to do while using a network user is to go in System Preferences -> Accounts and give the user admin rights.

Posted by Olivier Hill in Mac at 19:12 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Have you ever received spam that was coming from yourself or someone else from the same domain name? Well, I did. It seems to be a new trend that spam or viruses are coming from someone with almost the same email address you use.

But why is that? The answer is simple: whitelisting. When you filter spam coming to your inbox, it can be a common practice to whitelist your email address or the domain of your organisation so that it is never non-intentionally considered spam. This is good while working with Bayesian filters and the like.

So what is the solution to this common problem? Well, it is quite simple and it is called SPF, or Sender Policy Framework. Basically, what a sysadmin does is publishing a SPF record about which server should send mail for his domain.

Posted by Olivier Hill in Internet at 22:11 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)