I’m very happy with my Mac, no doubt about it, but like in any computer system things can go wrong. In this case something was wrong with my primary filesystem (root filesystem). Whenever I rebooted (and you don’t have to do that often with a Mac) I got ‘recovered files’ in my trashcan. These were typical small files (like 8k) so this led me to believe that diskblocks were not properly allocated to files. Although I make backups regularly (Time-Machine works great) I don’t want to run my system with an inconsistent filesystem.

Fortunately OS X comes with a tool called ‘Disk Utility’. I started the Disk Utility and did a ‘verify disk’. The check fails when inspecting the catalog file. This may be due to the fact the filesystem is currently mounted since the corrupt filesystem is the root filesystem. I better boot OS X from DVD and retry the disk check. Booting from the OS X install DVD starts the installer that has a menu entry ‘Utilities’ where you can find the ‘Disk Utility’.

Update: you always find the best information after you’re done: hfsdebug.

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Er zijn altijd mensen die, als ze iets nieuws hebben, willen weten hoe het in elkaar zit. Dus ook met de nieuwe MacBook’s van Apple. In deze prachtige reportage wordt de hele laptop uit elkaar geschroefd. Let vooral eens op dat über-sexy moederbord, custom engineering for the world!

Eerlijk gezegd viel de introductie van de nieuwe MacBook’s me een beetje tegen. Natuurlijk zijn de beeldschermen een stuk verbeterd maar daar blijft het eigenlijk wel bij. Wat dat betreft is er geen enkele reden om je oude MacBook Pro weg te doen en een nieuwe te halen. Voor mensen met een 17″ MBP valt er sowieso niets te upgraden. De 17″ heeft geen opvolger en het ‘oude’ model blijft gewoon in de verkoop.

I like most of the Mac commercials although the last batch isn’t that great. However I still like this one. It makes me smile everytime I watch it. “I’m pleased to say that I’m error-free for nearly a week”.

I wasn’t going to blog about this when it first made headlines but now there is a nice continuation so here’s the story. Some lunatic developer, Armin Heinrich — who calls himself an artist — has created an application for the Apple iPhone that does absolutely nothing. The application is called “I am rich” and sells for $999.99 on the iPhone App Store. The idea of the application is that you buy it to show off how rich you are. You will get an application that does nothing but it shows an icon on the application menu. That is where you show off how rich you are.

An application for snobs. I really don’t like the idea behind it and I thought nobody would be dumb enough to actually buy it. But here’s the funny part. One dude claims he bought the application by accident. He clicked on the application, has 1 click checkout enabled and is now the proud owner of an application that does nothing for $999.99.

I don’t think the application says “I am rich”… I think it says “I am stupid”… It has now been removed from App Store.

Oeh er is een nieuwe update voor Apple’s Mac OS X besturingssyteem. De update brengt je OS naar versie 10.5.4. Voornamelijk security updates en een aantal feature enhancements en bug fixes. So is iCal grondig aangepakt op gebied van meeting-requests, cancellations en delegations. Het is goed dat ze de release notes erbij doen want de gemiddelde gebruiker merkt weinig verschil: je gaat van een rock-solid OS naar een rock-solid OS…

There is some nice documentation released for all people who want to ‘harden’ their Mac OS X installation. Apple released its own document to make Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) more secure. You can find the guide from Apple here. A few days earlier the center for internet security released its own guide. It contains detailed instructions for implementing the steps necessary for CIS Level-I & 2 security on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). The guide from CIS can be downloaded through here (crappy registration required).

I used to think that I was a liberal guy. Let people enjoy their freedom as long as they don’t invade other peoples freedom, that kind of stuff. Same goes for freedom of speech and press. I even wrote a post (dutch) against the Dutch government who plan to ban the game “Manhunt 2″ in the Netherlands. But now there is a game that is so terrible that it must be forbidden. It’s not the violence. I can handle violence in video games. It’s not about drinking and driving. It’s not the explicit language, I can handle bad mouthing. It’s not the nudity. I even demand nudity in games. Heck, I played Ms. PacMan for years hoping she would do a strip act at level 99.

No no no, none of that. It’s the insult and stigmata against a certain part of the world population. Poking fun at one’s religion is not funny and should be outlawed. I hope all consoles will freeze. What game I’m talking about? “Grand Theft Auto IV”. Here are some shocking screenshots from the game. Those who are not lightly insulted can see the screenshots below. Remember: the screenshots are from the game and they are not funny. NOT FUNNY!

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