Uh, oh: The iPad sees ExFAT as damaged media!

After Apple added SDXC and ExFAT compatibility to Mac OS X in 10.6.5, I got to wondering if they had added similar compatibility to the iPad in iOS 4.2.1. Although the hardware reader is probably not SDXC-capable, it wouldn’t have been too hard to add the ExFAT driver from Mac OS X to iOS. Then, the iPad could import from SD cards formatted as ExFAT and USB-connected cameras.

A Little Background on ExFAT and SDXC

For a more-thorough discussion, see An Introduction To exFAT and Introducing SDXC and exFAT in Apple Mac OS X.

As I’ve previously covered in detail, SDXC is the latest digital camera media format and ExFAT is the new filesystem it uses.

SDXC will replace the current SDHC format once cards get past 32 GB: There will be no 48 GB or 64 GB SDHC cards, only SDXC. But SDXC cards remain crazy expensive – this Patriot LX 64 GB SDXC card sells for almost $250! Worse, they aren’t anywhere near as fast as photographers would like, with current offerings poking along at under 20 MB/s just like the SDHC cards they’re supposed to blow away. In short, unless you really need greater-than-32-GB capacity on a single card, there’s no reason to switch yet. But prices will come down and speed will improve in the coming year, and SDXC will likely be common next year at this time.

ExFAT is the new better-than-FAT filesystem selected as the default on SDXC cards. Microsoft created it and added support in Windows 7, and Apple slipped it into some versions of Mac OS X 10.6.4 shipping with new iMacs and Mac Minis this summer. All Mac users get full ExFAT support in Mac OS X 10.6.5, released in November 2010. ExFAT isn’t limited to SDXC, though. Expect to see it on larger flash drives soon, and even portable hard disk drives may use ExFAT rather than NTFS at some point.

SDXC cards still rely on the outdated MBR partitioning scheme, so even though they’re theoretically capable of 64 zettabytes of capacity, real-world cards will top out at “just” 2 TB. SDXC readers and cameras (like my Sony NEX-5) are backwards-compatible, but SDHC hardware can’t access an SDXC card. But USB-connected SDXC readers and cameras should work fine with any computer that has an ExFAT driver.

Testing ExFAT on iPad

Although I don’t have an SDXC card for testing, one can build a reasonable facsimile by formatting an SDHC card with MBR and a single ExFAT partition. I repartitioned a 16 GB SanDisk Ultra II card using Disk Utility in Mac OS X and experimented with it on my iPad with the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit (MC531ZM/A) SD and USB readers, the NEX-5 camera, the internal SD reader in my late-2009 iMac, as well as an ExpressCard SD reader in my MacBook Pro. The iPad and both Macs were running the latest OS releases as of early December 2010.

The iPad Camera Connection Kit allows a user to import photos directly from SD or SDHC cards or to connect a camera or other device using USB

Although I haven’t written about it before, I find the iPad Camera Connection Kit useful but far from perfect. I enjoy being able to copy photos to the iPad for big-screen examination and sharing, but the simple import interface uses too-small thumbnails to select the right picture. And it’s way too easy to delete photos from the SD card rather than keep them there for the real (iPhoto, Photoshop, or Aperature) import.

The iPad is SDXC-capable in theory using USB at least. The Camera Connection Kit’s SD card reader is SDHC-compatible, but it’s unclear if it also supports the new SDXC cards. I’m guessing the answer is no, but the timing of its release makes it theoretically possible. The USB connector should allow any card compatible with the connected camera to work, however, including SDXC cards.

Regardless of the physical card format, the iPad must be able to read a connected card’s logical format. In the case of SDXC, this is ExFAT. The bad news is that the iPad (at least as of iOS 4.2.1) does not have an ExFAT driver. Any ExFAT media will appear corrupt to iOS when connected, whether directly accessed using the SD reader or connected using USB.

Insert an ExFAT card and the iPad will pop up the error shown at the top of this post, “Contents Unavailable: The connected storage media may be damaged”. The good news is that the iPad won’t trash the card. The bad news is that it refuses to read the contents.

How To Read SDXC or ExFAT On An iPad: PTP

But there’s another way to read images off a camera’s card. Rather than using the USB “mass storage” (also known as “bulk”) access method, we can access the contents using Picture Transport Protocol (PTP). This simple protocol allows a connected camera to present “objects” like digital images to a connected computer without allowing direct filesystem access.

In short, PTP allows the iPad to access ExFAT, and ought to allow it to interact with SDXC cards! Leaving the card in the camera allows the physical card to be accessed, and PTP allows the iPad to browse and transfer the images.

Here’s how to read an SDXC card on an iPad:

1. Leave the card in the camera
2. In the camera’s settings menu, select “PTP” rather than “Mass Storage” as the USB access method
3. Attach the iPad’s USB “dock dongle” to the camera using a USB cable
4. The iPad will access the images or movies on the card as usual

This same approach will allow computers that lack an ExFAT driver to access SDXC cards as well!

Stephen’s Stance

SDXC is fairly disappointing today, but that won’t likely stop it from wide usage. The performance isn’t there, the pricing is crazy, and not every device is compatible with Microsoft’s proprietary ExFAT filesystem. And what were they thinking when they specified MBR with its 2 TB capacity limit?

It’s not that surprising that Apple hasn’t (yet) added an ExFAT driver to the iPad. This is especially true if the current SD card reader can’t handle SDXC media. It’s nice to know that the iPad can use SDXC cards over USB with the PTP method described above.

Now that Mac OS X includes ExFAT support, I expect Apple to quietly add it to iOS in the future. I’ll keep testing it as releases appear and will report back here then it is added!

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Is The iPad Compatible With SDXC and ExFAT Cards?
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

LaCie has released a free driver that supports every current USB 3.0 host controller but will only talk to LaCie USB devices

Steve Jobs isn’t too keen on USB 3.0, apparently, but other vendors are stepping in to fill the void. CalDigit was first with a USB 3.o driver, but it was tied to the pricey PCI Express and ExpressCards they sell. Now LaCie is out with a free driver for just about any USB 3.0 card, but it’s locked to LaCie’s storage products. Let’s hope we get an unlocked driver soon!

Now You LaCie It

LaCie seems awfully proud to be bringing USB 3.0 to the Mac, and they expound about the virtues of this new bus. They claim on their USB 3.0 page that their 2big USB 3.0 drive could hit 220 MB/s in “burst transfer” using their cards and driver.

I’ve been testing USB 3.0 for the past week using a Seagate GoFlex drive and Keydex USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter. But I could only work with the combo in Windows, since Mac OS X lacked a driver for it. Pleased that LaCie released their driver to the world, I was anxious to try it out for myself.

I downloaded the tiny driver package and installed the “MacOS106″ package it included. I noted that the installer specifically claims that “this driver may work on USB 3.0 Host controllers base (sic) on the NEC 720200 chipset.” This is great news, since every current USB 3.0 host controller is based on this chipset!

There it is! USB 3.0 on Mac OS X!

I popped in my cheapie Keydex USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter and sure enough, an entry for “USB Super-Speed Bus” appeared in System Profiler. Now we’re cooking!

Now You Don’t

My next step was plugging in the Seagate GoFlex drive with its USB 3.0 cable. Although the ExpressCard slot lacks full USB 3.0 power, and I was using a 7200 rpm “GoFlex Pro” drive, mine had plenty of juice. The drive spun up, the lights came on, but nothing else happened.

After refreshing System Profiler and Disk Utility a few times, I jumped over to the Terminal to see if there were any error messages. Then I spotted the error message: “Super Speed device other than LaCie is not supported – Vendor ID[bc2]”

Dmesg tells the tale: LaCie's driver won't work with a Seagate drive

That’s right: This free driver wouldn’t allow me to connect a device from Vendor “bc2″. This is Seagate’s USB Vendor ID, so the driver is presumably locked to LaCie’s ID (which I believe is “59f” for whatever that’s worth). Although it supports any USB 3.0 adapter card, it will only allow LaCie storage devices to be connected.

LaCie includes an uninstaller and instructions on how completely to remove their driver. Almost like they knew we wouldn't want to keep it installed...

I looked through the driver and plist files and couldn’t see any obvious way to change the driver to work with non-LaCie storage. So I’ll uninstall it and wait for someone else to release a real open driver.

Note: The LaCie driver doesn’t interfere with the ability of Mac OS X to access USB 2.0 devices through the NEC chip’s backwards-compatibility. But this works fine without the driver installed, too!

Stephen’s Stance

I can’t really be mad at LaCie. They built this driver for their own products, not so folks (like me) with other companies’ hardware can use it. They have every right to lock it down, but the way they did it is foolish.

See, LaCie sells USB 3.0 controller cards, too. And these controllers will presumably only work with LaCie USB 3.0 storage as well! They’re likely to have some seriously angry customers on their hands once the promise of device interoperability is broken. Sooner or later they’ll have to open the driver up for other devices.

Despite this setback, I consider it a good sign that there are now two USB 3.0 driver sets available for Mac OS X. No matter what Steve Jobs thinks of USB 3.0, it is coming to the Mac and soon. CalDigit and LaCie didn’t write these drivers, they’re just repackaging them. I imagine other companies (Belkin? Iomega?) will soon introduce Mac OS X drivers of their own and someone, sometime will leave them unlocked. Then we’ll all be able to enjoy “super speed” on our Macs!

Disclosure: Seagate provided the GoFlex drive and USB 3.0 interface for testing at no charge. I purchased everything else mentioned.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | LaCie Releases USB 3.0 Driver For Mac OS X (But It Only Works With LaCie Drives)
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

1. Insert a blank DVD into your SuperDrive


Insert a blank DVD and select "Open Finder" as your "Action"

2. The Finder will pop up a window asking you to select an action. Choose “Open Finder” in the “Action” menu.
   1. If this window does not appear and some other application automatically starts, you will have to hold down the “Option” key on insert.
   2. If no other application launches when you insert a blank disc, you probably selected “Open Finder” as your default action and you can move on to the next step.


Select the "Untitled DVD" under "Places"

3. A Finder window will appear, with a new entry called “Untitled DVD” in the “Places” list. This is your workspace, and you will use it to create your DVD image.
   

   Drag and drop files or folders from other Finder windows

   1. Drag and drop files or folders here and an alias will be created
   2. You can create folders here as in any normal Finder location and can organize your files in them
   

   Watch the status bar to keep from over-filling the DVD

   3. Note the line at the bottom, which lets you know how much space is left for files
   4. If you are organizing aliases in folders, you must click on another “place” then back to the “Untitled DVD” item under “Places” to force a recalculation of capacity used/available
4. You can rename the disc by right- or option-clicking the Untitled DVD in Places and selecting “Get Info”. Give it a new name, but leave the “.fpbf” extension.


Click "burn" when you're ready to go

5. When you’re ready, click the “burn” icon under Places or select “Burn” under the “gear” menu.


Select the speed or rename your disc here

6. You can rename the disc or select burn speed in the next window. Click “Burn” again and wait while your disc is created!

Once you get used to the process, burning a DVD in Mac OS X is a painless and simple matter. But it’s not exactly self-explanatory!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How To Create a Data DVD Using Only the Mac OS X Finder
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Is "SuperSpeed" USB 3.0 coming to Apple computers? My sources say yes!

Apple is a funny company, happy to go their own way even as the rest of the industry piles on to the latest trend. Such is the case with storage, with Apple ditching floppy drives, optical drives, and even hard disks. On the expansion side, Apple was an early and aggressive proponent of USB but stubbornly ignored eSATA. Now that PC makers are turning to USB 3.0, many are wondering when Apple will follow suit. My sources tell me that “Super Speed” USB 3.0 is indeed coming to the Mac, and very soon!

The Limits of Expansion

USB has served Apple well, with the company abandoning their proprietary peripheral ports in favor of mostly-USB approach starting with the original iMac. Those needing faster I/O always had FireWire – although it is uncommon in the PC world, Mac users relish the high performance and daisy-chain ability of FireWire 800, found on most high-end Macs.

But increasingly-speedy peripherals post a problem for Mac users. Hard disk drives can now top 100 MB/s, and RAID units and SSDs are even faster. Iomega recently introduced a 300 MB/s portable SSD with USB 3.0, for example, but Mac users are left out in the cold, poking along at 1/10 the speed. Apple is phasing out ExpressCard ports on MacBooks and most desktop Macs lack any sort of expansion at all: Only the Mac Pro has PCI-Express slots. This forces I/O- or expansion-hungry Mac users to resort to extraordinary means to add expansion to their machines.

Apple desperately needs something faster than USB 2.0 or FireWire and more flexible and integrated than eSATA. They need USB 3.0! “SuperSpeed” USB 3.0 boasts fast 5 Gbps signaling for real-world performance about equal to SATA.

When Will USB 3.0 Arrive?

So when will Apple embrace USB 3.0? My sources say very soon! I’ve been pestering every vendor I know with that question, and one finally broke down and admitted that Apple contacted them about USB 3.0 compatibility testing. Considering that a new line of MacBooks is about to be introduced, along with a major new revision of Mac OS X, I think this points to an early-2011 release, as Intel brings USB 3.0 to their chipsets. The Fall 2010 Macs might not include USB 3.0 hardware, but it should arrive soon after the new year.

Update: Steve Jobs himself reportedly said Apple is waiting for Intel and others to support USB 3.0

On the software side, I’m told that OS X 10.7 “Lion” includes the necessary drivers to enable USB 3.0 on Macs with appropriate adapters. This will include future models (perhaps not including the MacBook Air, which arrives too soon), and could also be good news for existing MacBook Pros equipped with an ExpressCard slot and Mac Pros. Note that one company, CalDigit, already offers a USB 3.0 PCI-Express card for Mac Pros with OS X-compatible drivers, and there are a number of adapters available for Windows users.

Stephen’s Stance

USB 3.0 can’t come soon enough. I’m going to assume my sources are accurate, though I could end up with egg on my face. Although Apple is a bit late to the party, USB 3.0 is not yet a mainstream feature on the Windows side either. It’s nice to hear that they’re concerned about interoperability testing, too. Hopefully we’ll all be cruising along with 5 Gbps USB ports soon!

Update: To answer some questions I’ve gotten, I must first say that this is all hearsay. I have no direct evidence that Apple is including USB 3.0 drivers in OS X 10.7 or that future Macs will include USB 3.0 hardware. To protect them from Apple’s wrath, I won’t reveal the source of the hardware test information, but the Lion software driver info came from a separate source. I consider these two pieces of information enough to convince me that this is true, but folks have cause to be skeptical. Finally, I imagine that a USB 3.0 driver won’t merit mention in the Lion keynote, though USB 3.0 hardware might make a Jobs speech eventually.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Will OS X 10.7 “Lion” Bring USB 3.0 To The Mac?
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Have you seen this dialog box? Is it an error or a help?

But Apple recently rolled out a ”Time Capsule Backup Update”, and included it in Mac OS X 10.6.4, that is causing confusion and concern. In the name of improving “the reliability of your Time Capsule backup,” this update has the unfortunate side-effect of detecting errors in existing backup bundles and forcing users to start a new backup. It happened with two of my Macs so far, so I was keen to find out what’s going on.

Verifiably Bad

Time Machine may look simple, but it’s an incredibly complex piece of software. It uses multiple kernel-level features and builds a complete files-level copy of your data in a “bundle” that acts like a virtual drive. Rather than storing files multiple times (which would be space-inefficient) or hard-linking them (which is efficient for space but would take a long time), OS X adds directory-level hard links, a fairly new concept. So if no changes have been made in your /Applications directory, it just creates a single link to a previous copy. OS X also includes a new daemon to monitor changes on a directory basis, which is also fairly cool in a geeky sort of way.

This intricate but powerful system can lead to trouble, however. If a backup process is interrupted while it is working, the relationships between directories, files, and dates can become corrupted. This is especially common for network-mounted drives, explaining Apple’s reluctance to allow non-Apple NAS units to be backup targets. But even local direct-attached drives can sometimes become corrupted over months of operation.

As (poorly) explained in Apple’s Knowledge Base article HT4076, corruption can cause previous Time Machine backups to be unavailable. So Apple introduced a more-robust mechanism to check backup integrity and rolled it out in Software Update and as part of OS X 10.6.4. It scans old backups and, if errors are found, flags them read-only and starts a new backup bundle. See this Apple Support Discussion thread and this web site for more information.

What You Should Do

Let’s cut through the confusion caused by Apple’s typical lack of explanation.

Should you install this update? Yes! Corrupt backup images are bad, regardless of the cause, and you need to know whether yours is good or not. Installing the update might cause you to start a new backup bundle, but at least you’ll know your data is safe!

Should you click “Start New Backup”? Not yet! If you see the dialog above, your existing Time Machine backup is corrupt, and you might not be able to recover data from it. But you can save a copy of the corrupt bundle and, perhaps, extract some data from it if needed.

Ask yourself if Time Machine has saved data you might need before deciding what to do next:

1. If you are sure you won’t need anything backed up before today, click “Start New Backup” and let Time Machine do its thing.
2. Otherwise, click “Back Up Later” and save a copy before letting Time Machine start a new backup. Just look for a file called “computername.sparsebundle” (for network backups) or “Backups.backupdb” (for local ones) and create a copy with a different name. You can open sparsebundle files with DiskImageMounter and browse them like any other disk. More information is available here.

There you go. If you click “Start New Backup” when you see this dialog box, Time Machine will erase all of your old backup data and start a new bundle. It won’t be corrupt, but it will be empty.

Note that you can manually initiate a Time Machine backup integrity check by option-clicking the “Time Machine” icon in the menu bar and selecting “Verify Backups.”

Stephen’s Stance

Backups are good.

Corrupt backups are bad.

Time Machine encourages backups, and works pretty efficiently, so it’s good.

This update ensures that Time Machine’s backups aren’t corrupt, so it’s good.

‘Nuff said.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | “Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.”
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Keyboard Shortcut Limitations

One of the best aspects of Mac OS X is that many useful features are centralized and uniform across all applications. This includes keyboard shortcuts, which can be created modified for any application using the System Preferences panel. But there’s a frustrating limit to Mac Keyboard Shortcuts: You can only assign shortcuts to menu bar commands, not any other application actions. Therefore, it’s not obvious how to assign keyboard shortcuts to AppleScripts, application launching, and other non-menu activities.

This is pretty much the exact opposite of the limits of AppleScript programming. AppleScript and Automator make it easy to automate actions within applications but difficult to access the menu bar! But there is a loophole to both limits.

Automator Services

Use Automator to add your AppleScript as a universal Service

Recent versions of Automator circuitously address this limitation by allowing you to create Services. Since these appear in the menu bar (in the Application’s main menu), they can have keyboard shortcuts assigned to them. It just take a bit of cleverness to make them work correctly!

Since Automator can run arbitrary AppleScript commands as well, it’s possible to redo our Screen Sharing script as an Automator service and make it work across all Mac OS applications!

First, open Automator and create a new service. Choose the “Service” template, select “Utilities” from the Library, and double-click “Run AppleScript”. Replace the “(* Your script goes here *)” portion with your desired AppleScript commands.

Shortcuts Everywhere!

You can assign a keyboard shortcut to the menu item for a service created in Automator

Now comes the trick. Services are context-sensitive (cool!) but we’re creating one we want to always be available. Notice the menus for “Service receives selected text in any application” at the top of the Automator screen? This is where you set the context for that service. Since we want our “get” and “send” commands to be available regardless of the context, we’ll change the first box to “no input”. This tells Automator to always include this service in the menu.

Save the resulting service with a descriptive and unique name and we can move on to add the keyboard shortcut. Remember that name! Maybe even copy it to the clipboard!

Open the Keyboard Shortcuts pane in the Keyboard panel in System Preferences. Click the plus sign to add a new shortcut and enter the name of the service exactly as you typed above. Assign a key to activate it and you’re ready to go.

Now whenever you press that key, in any application or context, it will run your AppleScript command. You can use this to automate just about anything, from launching an application to locking the computer to initiating a background process.

If only Apple didn’t make it so obtuse!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How To Assign Keyboard Shortcuts To AppleScript and Automator Actions
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Update: If you want to do this using a keyboard shortcut instead of speech recognition, see my followup piece, How To Assign Keyboard Shortcuts To AppleScript and Automator Actions

Separate Clipboards

Each Mac maintains its own universal clipboard, and each application interacts with this in its own way. Most applications use similar commands (command-c, command-v, etc) and I use these many times an hour, moving text, addresses, pictures and the like between applications.

But this all breaks down when using two Macs at once. The clipboards are not shared across the network (though some third-party applications allow this), setting up a roadblock to productivity. Since I usually have a Screen Sharing session open, I usually use that application’s “Get Clipboard” and “Send Clipboard” function to move clips between Macs. But these are buried in the “Edit” menu of that one application, forcing me to switch to it, move the pointer to select “Edit”, move it again to select the correct item (“Get” or “Send”), reactivate the original application, and finally do what I want with the clip.

After performing this dance literally hundreds of times a day for months, I decided to try to automate it. First, I thought to bind a keyboard command shortcut to it in System Keyboard Preferences. But this failed miserably – keyboard shortcuts only work with the active application, and Screen Sharing sends all keystrokes through to the remote machine.

Then I thought of the Mac OS X Speech function. It allows an AppleScript script to be run from any application. If I could script Screen Sharing’s Edit menu, I’d have solved about 90% of my issues: I still couldn’t run the script from within a Screen Sharing session, but I could run it from anywhere else.

AppleScript and Screen Sharing

AppleScript is a clever scripting language, allowing most Mac OS X applications to be automated using readable commands. It reminds me somewhat of Microsoft Visual Basic, but is integrated with the operating system. Some applications allow extensive scripting, while others (like Skype) offer a simple command for API access. Then there are those like Screen Sharing that have no AppleScript documentation at all.

Mac OS X comes to the rescue here, allowing AppleScript access to all GUI functions in any application through the “Universal Access” Preferences pane, but these aren’t well-documented. I downloaded the trial version of UI Browser to discover the proper GUI string to access the “Send Clipboard” and “Edit Clipboard” functions in Screen Sharing. Amazingly, it works! I now have an AppleScript to trigger these commands.

But the script includes a statement activating Screen Sharing, so it leaves me there when I’m done rather than the application I was in to begin with. I located a method of determining the current running application (a surprisingly-complex one – where’s the simple command, Apple?) and added a statement reactivating it at the end. Voila! My script was complete!

I saved two scripts to Speech’s Speakable Items folder, one for “get” and another for “send”, and am now able to speak a command to copy items in and out of my remote computer’s clipboard. Excellent!

The Recipe

Here’s what you have to do to duplicate my success:

1. Select “Enable access for assistive devices” in the Universal Access pane of System Preferences
2. In the “Speech Recognition” section of the Speech pane of System Preferences, turn on “Speakable Items”
3. While you’re there, make sure “Global speakable items” is selected under “Commands”
4. Open AppleScript Editor and paste in the following script. Save it as “~/Library/Speech/Speakable Items/Screen get clip”

   set front_app to (path to frontmost application as Unicode text)
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ":"
   set front_app to front_app's text items
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""} --> restore delimiters to default value
   set item_num to (count of front_app) - 1
   set app_name to item item_num of front_app
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
   set app_name to app_name's text items
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""} --> restore delimiters to default value
   set MyApp to item 1 of app_name
   
   activate application "Screen Sharing"
   tell application "System Events"
   	tell application process "Screen Sharing"
   		click menu item "Get Clipboard" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Edit" of menu bar 1
   	end tell
   end tell
   
   activate application MyApp

5. Create another AppleScript containing the following content and save it as “~/Library/Speech/Speakable Items/Screen send clip”

   set front_app to (path to frontmost application as Unicode text)
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ":"
   set front_app to front_app's text items
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""} --> restore delimiters to default value
   set item_num to (count of front_app) - 1
   set app_name to item item_num of front_app
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
   set app_name to app_name's text items
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""} --> restore delimiters to default value
   set MyApp to item 1 of app_name
   
   activate application "Screen Sharing"
   tell application "System Events"
   	tell application process "Screen Sharing"
   		click menu item "Send Clipboard" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Edit" of menu bar 1
   	end tell
   end tell
   
   activate application MyApp

6. Enjoy!

This may give you ideas for other AppleScript items. I know it sparked my creativity! Here’s a bonus AppleScript to set my Skype status to “Do Not Disturb”:

tell application "Skype"
	send command "SET USERSTATUS DND" script name "Set Skype Status Do Not Disturb"
end tell

Since Skype has an AppleScript bridge (“send command”) to their API, there’s no need to mess with application switching! I wish more applications exposed their innards like this!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How To Automate “Get/Send Clipboard” in Mac OS X Screen Sharing
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

1. Open Terminal
2. As I mentioned in the article, No 64-Bit Snow Leopard Kernel For You!, only Macs with 64-bit EFI firmware will run Snow Leopard’s kernel in 64-bit mode out of the box. Check if your system is compatible by typing the following command

   ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

3. If it says “EFI64″, your system is capable of easily booting into 64-bit Snow Leopard. Otherwise, you need to go looking for a more-complicated method.
4. You can test this capability by rebooting and holding down the “6″ and “4″ keys through the grey Apple screen. Check System Profiler (in the “Software” section) to see if you’re running a 64-bit kernel.
5. Now let’s set the kernel configuration files to boot in 64-bit mode by default. Type the following command from Terminal (you’ll need to enter your password when prompted):

   sudo defaults write \

   /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot \

   'Kernel Flags' 'arch=x86_64'

6. Finally, let’s set the NVRAM to boot in 64-bit mode as well. Type this command:

   sudo nvram boot-args="arch=x86_64"

7. Now you’re set. Your system will always boot in 64-bit mode. To get it to run 32-bit, just hold “3″ and “2″ through the Apple screen on reboot.

That’s it! You’ve now got a 64-bit Mac!

My iMac now boots in 64-bit mode by default!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How To Boot Snow Leopard in 64-Bit Mode
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Here’s how to enable Safari 5 extension support:

1. Install and launch Safari 5
2. Click the “Safari” menu and select “Preferences…”
3. Select the “Advanced” tab
4. Click the checkbox next to “Show Develop menu in menu bar”
5. A new menu now appears with the puzzlingly non-specific name, “Develop”
6. Click the new “Develop” menu and select “Enable Extensions”
7. You can now add extensions: Just double-click the “.safariextz” files you download
8. There’s also a new preferences tab called “Extensions”

And that’s it. It’s oddly obscure. I guess Apple doesn’t really want “the normals” adding extensions to Safari.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How To: Enable Extensions in Safari 5 for Mac OS X
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

How Big?

Hard disk drive capacity limits are familiar to PC enthusiasts. I remember worrying about the 504 MB barrier but pushing through with a BIOS update. The first greater than 2 GB disk I used required updates to both the BIOS and filesystem. Then there was the 32 GB limit imposed by Windows 95. Each of these limits was caused by two factors: Underestimation of the amount of storage capacity available to future PCs and technical “bitness” limitations.

The evolution of PC hard disk drive interfaces is well documented, and I commented on it in some depth when covering Western Digital’s 4K “Advanced Format” drives. In that piece, I mentioned that most PCs today use the “future-proof” 48-bit LBA addressing method, allowing a maximum of 128 PB of capacity. This wasn’t the whole story, however. Many operating systems still cannot use the full 48-bit address space, and we must also consider partitioning schemes and filesystems.

See also Drobo, XP Users: Beware of 4K “Advanced Format” Drives! and Drobo Adding 4K Drive Support – What About Everyone Else?

When 48 Bits is 32 Bits

LBA now allows 48 bits of block address space, and this should allow modern PCs to address a full 128 PB of capacity. This number is easy to calculate: 48 bits of address space allows us to count to 281,474,976,710,656 in (unsigned) integers. Multiply this by 512 bytes and we get 140,737,488,355,328 KB of storage capacity. Funny base-10 to base-2 disk math translates this to 128 PB of capacity.

But using 48 bits of address space requires a CPU and operating system that can work with 48 bit numbers, and many computer systems remain limited to 32 bits thanks to hardware, software, or both. These systems shrink the address space to 4,294,967,296 times 512 or 2,147,483,648 KB of capacity. This works out to 2048 GB or 2.15 TB in base-10 disk capacity speak.

The 2.1 TB Ceiling

This 2.1 TB number became institutionalized in both software and hardware over the last decade. The old-standby MBR partition method was never extended beyond this number, with manufacturers hoping for a wholesale transition to GUID partition table (GPT) format. GPT was bundled with Intel’s EFI as a replacement for legacy PC BIOS, but few PC manufacturers adopted it. Indeed, Apple is the only company to have standardized on EFI/GPT for all of their home computer systems.

Since so few PCs could ever surpass this capacity limit, many peripherals were designed with it in mind. Hard drive controllers and RAID cards may not be able to handle 3 TB drives, either. Although NTFS can expand very, very large (256 TB or more), most Windows PCs still use MBR and BIOS so they remain limited to 2 TB.

What happens if we put a 3 TB disk in a system that can only handle 32 bit LBA addresses, uses MBR, or has a limited piece of hardware? The disk might show up much smaller than expected (with addresses truncated), it might behave oddly (with truncated addresses “wrapping around”), or it might fail to work at all. Simply put, one should not use a hard disk drive larger than 2 TB in any system without checking with the various component manufacturers and operating system vendor first.

Making It Work

Western Digital attacked this problem by increasing the sector size to a more-modern 4 KB in their “Advanced Format” drives. These began appearing in December 2009 and are somewhat supported in modern computers and external disk units. Seagate does not appear to be adopting 4K and is instead pushing forward past the 32 bit address mark with their forthcoming 3 TB hard disk drives. It remains to be seen which course other drive manufacturers will choose.

Generally speaking, you should be in fairly good shape if your computer meets these tests:

1. Intel-powered Apple Macintosh computers (from 2006 onward) with OS X 10.4 “Tiger” or better should be fine
2. Non-Apple PCs require a fairly recent operating system – Windows Server 2003 or 2008, Windows Vista, Windows 7 or better
3. Non-Apple PCs must also have one of the following:
   1. A regular MBR boot disk and the big new drive mounted as a non-boot drive with GUID Partition Table (GPT)
   2. EFI or UEFI firmware rather than legacy BIOS (e.g. some HP, IBM, and MSI systems)
4. Most recent OSes will support these large disks in non-booting external drive units connected with USB 2.0, USB 3.0, FireWire, or eSATA

In other words, current PCs will never boot from these new giant drives, but most other uses should be fine as long as a modern OS is used.

We should also consider external storage systems, from the smaller Drobo, Iomega, or Synology units to the largest enterprise storage arrays from companies like EMC, HDS, HP, NetApp, and IBM. We expect that many of these systems already support the full 48-bit LBA address space, but manufacturers will certainly want to qualify these new drives before officially blessing them. We recommend holding off on trying these large drives in external storage systems until the manufacturers have officially added them to their compatibility lists.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Taming Monster Disk Drives: 3 TB and Beyond!
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.