psyche

Interesting to see people, like myself, lit up with the glow of arrogance. The School will fence Eton, the sabre team of which is apparently several orders more powerful than ours, soon. I can only hope that people will learn how to pull through!

Pax

It’s really time for me to refocus; I sort of lost the thread somewhere along the line and people are sliding past me in terms of ability and interest. This can be remedied.

Many a time and oft I have wondered if I should give up - I have wondered this in every field, and every time I have thought no!. To this, my competitors either laugh in contempt or curse as I, the arrogant, persistent and unintelligent obstacle, prepare myself for the perpetually recurring “one last go”.

Tell me when you’ve had enough.

Pax

I’m looking forward to the officialisation of the XHTML 2.0 standard (yay for all elements being potential links - this is a major codebloat destroyer!) as well as actually having time to revamp Psyche and learn CSS properly as opposed to muddling through as I am now. Also, it’ll be nice to do computing as a subject. I must learn Python. I am confused.

Anyway, at the moment I have Yellow Dog running on the iBook - it had no important data on it so I had no problem smashing the hell out of (= partitioning) the disk and installed as normal. I soon discovered the joy of dependencies. My goodness. Such horror.

It’s occured to me that some people don’t enjoy being sad. I don’t enjoy it - it doesn’t make me joyful - that’d be rather paradoxical - but I’m sure the rain isn’t so bad.

The awesome Sibelius Technical Support team have cleared all the failed G7 registration and now it works properly. I’m upgrading to Kontakt edition as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Psyche 2.0 is being built slowly - not from scratch, but sort of like this: (the technique has a name) I look at each old page, assess the functionality, choose which functionality is unnecessary or more trouble than it’s worth, and code a new version with stuff I want to omit, well, omitted - without ever looking directly at the source code. So I’m basically saying “anything I can’t see isn’t going to be on my page”. Obviously for compliance I’ll add “alt” attributes and perhaps some JavaScript functions - if they’ll contribute to the efficiency or functionality of the site. No more gratuitous scripting - Elliot’s terrible computer reminded me that not everyone even has JS (or in his case, not everyone has a version of IE7 that’s not totally fucking screwed).

Expect Psyche Public Beta soon.

Pax

P.S. Making widgets is fun

Thanks to Howard Oakley, survivologist™ (is that a word?) - who, incidentally, helped me set up the awesome AirPort network that has irradiated and served our household for years now, and Firewire Target Disk mode, I succeeded. I am considerably lazy and it’d take ages to post exactly what I did but basically I connected the PowerBook (corrupt HD), in target disk mode, and the external HD (with .fullBackup as well as expanded backup) to the iBook, whence I copied over Apps/System etc.. The Home Folder, missing from the expanded backup as previously stated, I extracted from the mounted .sparseImage, and put in its rightful place on the PB HD. I tried to boot the PowerBook from disk; this failed so I booted from CD, reinstalled, it booted, I ran Software Update etc. and now everything works. The only minor annoyance is that G7 prompts me to register despite the fact it’s registered (obviously some corrupt file somewhere, although Alias SketchBook Pro, Uplink etc. stayed registered) - however if I say “register later”, it proceeds normally, saying I’m registered as before! Annoying but one of the better outcomes.

Linux, meh. For another time.

AS choices. Right. Mrs Holmes, art teacher and careers advisor, told me not to overfocus on sciency stuff. However, I plan to, and to counterbalance this with diverse work experience and other stuff that will go on my UCAS form.

At the moment I plan to do 4.5 AS levels:

Physics
Maths
Further Maths (=0.5)
Chemistry
Computing

Broadening… it’s broad enough. Physics is my primary interest and is totally backed up by all the others. Maths opens up phat avenues of statistics, economics, computing (this is not an error); all sorts of crap. Chemistry, as Mrs Holmes put it, is the “Rolls-Royce of sciences”. I’m assuming this means that it’s both of great import and generates many opportunities. And computing? Mr Barker explained that Computing isn’t actually required to do a university course in Computing (lol) - in fact they probably won’t care - it’s more about maths, which makes sense. However, in all this “judge stuff the same way the university will”, it’s easy to forget that by doing Computing I will learn about computers which is something I actually want to do. Mrs Holmes asked me to read up on courses and universities over the weekend, which is what I shall do.

Pax

Here’s what I’ve posted on the MacRumors forum:

I backed up my hard drive with Backup 3 and put the file on an external HD. I formatted the original hard drive.

Now I want to restore my files. When I open the .fullBackup file in Backup, it shows me the “Macintosh HD” thing with a checkbox and all the subdirectories and enclosed files with checkboxes, as expected - however, my home folder is missing. Upon seeing this I drilled into the .fullBackup file, found the .sparseImage, mounted it and found my home folder was there, although presumably some data about it would only be loaded if Backup opened the file, as there were odd errors like things being icon- and extension-less…

How can I restore my HD from the backup? All the files are there but for some reason my home folder is excluded from the backup interface.
Also, I can’t manually copy the files after expanding the backup as some are in use by OS X or running apps etc. whenever my computer’s on, and I can’t copy my home folder stuff from the mounted .sparseImage as there are weird errors as previously described.

Is there a solution involving, say, booting in target disk mode and doing some copying from another computer, logging in as root or ANYTHING?!

Help appreciated.

For future reference, how should I back up my HD in a way that all of my stuff (including my bloody home folder!) is retained?

I’ve partitioned my HD back into one piece and am now focusing on recovering files. I’ll worry about Linux later - it hasn’t beaten me yet. If only I’d thought this through and copied my stuff to another computer as an actual user account instead of a (faulty) backup file that is difficult to use to repair my HD anyway!

Pax

Ah, so continues my troubled installation of Yellow Dog Linux, which has in fact blossomed into an epic with significance far greater than that of a simple (*cough*) installation, but in fact carries that of an introspective into the hard drive of my soul. I am writing this, logged in as root (I know, I know, never log in as root), using Apple’s Backup 3 to explode the backup of my HD from before this into a folder on my external HD. I backed it up so I could partition the drive and did so. This morning I installed Mac OS X onto one of the partitions and booted up from the Yellow Dog LiveCD, having again failed to create this ominous-sounding “bootstrap partition” that the installer begs me for. Thus, it failed.

So, I returned to glorious Mac OS X and set about recovering my files. I failed. First I tried the shortcut of viewing the contents of the .fullBackup file and finding the .sparseImage file - a disk image - and mounted it. I dragged and dropped the files I wanted - apps, music etc. - to their relevant locations. As I tried to reorder my Dock - in the hope that I would now sculpt a system identical to before but with this extra 14GB partition for me to Yellow Dog up once I had learned more about the installation process - I found that Sibelius G7 had no icon (it’d reverted to the sort of blank document look). Horrified, I renamed it from “G7″ to “G7.app”. Its icon reappeared. I launched it and it worked, startup music and all. It then said it wasn’t registered - bollocks! Somehow, whatever obscure file (I think it’s genuinely obscure, not some text file in Application Support which declares boldy “U HAV REGISTRD G7″) I needed had been left behind or lost or something. Then I found that none of the apps I’d copied from the .sparseImage were working.

I logged in as root, made a dummy account, deleted the “farhan” account, left the dummy account and resolved to strive for my previous aim - return to original setup albeit with this partition - and am thus exploding the backup properly while holding the belief that perhaps the Backup app reads some data from the .fullBackup file that will make all my files bloody work. Then I expect I’ll have to log in in Single-User Mode and copy across all the stuff without using Mac OS X at all - since I imagine I will have to modify the “System” folder (*gulp*) and that won’t work while OS X is running. Alternatively, and easier-ly, I could boot this comp up in Target disk mode or whatever so it acts as a Firewire disk and do all the copy-tasks from my iBook. Once my old system is restored, I’ll clean it up (delete Classic [lol], run an Archive and Install of Tiger so as to repair messed up system files etc.) and learn properly how to install Yellow Dog and, hopefully, do it.

These obstacles are great and many.

Pax

P.S. About root. This is nice. There’s a strange but nice feeling being here, with nothing in my Home folder but Desktop and Library, and the power to corrupt my computer at will… hmm.

P.P.S. I love UNIX

EDIT: Ok ok new plan. My proto-plan was to install Linux on the external drive. However, I thought this’d be impossible for some reason and left it. However, while actually reading the documentation, I’ve found the hallowed “install firewire” command. My goodness! Must try it. Still expanding that Macintosh HD backup file…

EDIT: Nope, nope. Perhaps I’ll just do it on my computer… http://131.204.27.45/ydl-howto/ looks pretty damn complicated. However, the “install-firewire” command looks simple. Hmm. Perhaps I’ll try it once I recover from this badly-planned mess. Yes, it was my fault. Lol.

EDIT: Ok reversion. The reason it didn’t work initially is that I actually made two discrete partitions (”Mac OS X” and “Linux”) when in fact I was meant to designate the “Linux” section as free space. Then the installer takes care of the Bootstrap, Swap and… other… partitions. So, with my entire HD in its original format - albeit in a folder on my external HD - I’m once again installing OS X, having set the partitions correctly this time… I must get this done!

EDIT: You know that 75% of the stuff I downloaded which I thought was unnecessary? Right. The three .isos I chucked were in fact necessary. Bollocks. Also, having botched the installation (not having the disks required to complete it) I must now repartition and then reinstall OS X (this is now the third time). I can get this done and I will.

So, Macworld. Well, I got home at 17:00-ish, booted up, headed over to www.MacRumorsLive.com and watched in a strange throwback to text-based web as the thing unfolded. The iPhone, which is called that despite patent-related speculation etc., looks pretty good - it’s polished as a product (the tilt and ear sensor, oh my goodness) and looks like it will sell like Hell. It runs some sort of mini Mac OS X, I think. That’s awesome, seriously. Apple TV looks pretty good too - I haven’t researched it properly yet but it seems promising. To be honest I was hoping for some sort of Leopard announcement, especially with Vista looming. It’d better be good. Seriously. I’m worried. That said, with the iPhone Apple have proved that they can still make a really awesome product. Probably imperfect, but so loaded in terms of features that people really want that it captures your consumerist soul. I think Leopard will be good. I hope they fix the f…. um, fix the Finder.

My personal life seems boring in comparison (lolz just kidding I know it’s the most exciting thing ever!!11one). I took Psyche offline - it began to suffer after I started what was admittedly a foolhardy and audacious project to change the Science page into a JavaScript-fest of buttons and hidden content. It failed, mainly on account of the way Firefox interprets the tag, I think. Something to do with “inline content”. Anyway, it’s on hiatus. When I get time I will actually work on it - I really want to do it justice as a project.

I’m trying to bolster my computing versatility - I’m almost certainly going to do Computing for A-level - and so I’m installing Linux. Yes. I downloaded Azureus (expecting a nostalgic throwback to when Napster was legal - my God - but instead receiving a pleasantly Aqua package of awesomeness) and downloaded a bunch of Yellow Dog Linux torrents. Turns out 75% of them were unnecessary (lol) so I burned the .iso to a CD with Disk Utility and then realised I had to partition my 80GB internal hard drive. Thus, I am currently backing up all my Mac OS X files (the whole HD) onto my external HP HD (advertised as 250GB, has about ~230GB usable) and am planning to have OS X and YD on the internal and keep most non-app files on the external, as well as backups.

Wish me luck.

Pax

I just changed Psyche a lot. A lot. I did things like the purging of all buttons and increasing the manageability of Science. Unfortunately, with just Sociology activated, it doesn’t render correctly - one of the images crosses the page border (at least in Safari) so I’m going to check other browsers out and see what’s up…

Update: That damn align=”left” img attribute is what did it. Anyway, I’ve heeded Fred’s words and checked out Shiira, and holy crap it’s good.

Pax