I wrote about my experience with the PS3 YLOD on this post, after getting a fixed PS3 back from Sony I thought that would be the end of it, but apparently due to the DRM features Sony does not want you to share your downloaded content like games and videos.

So the PlayStation Store lets you buy, but not download content, especially videos, from the PS Network.

I rented a video last night and the transaction was processed. ie Sony got my money, but then it would not let me download the movie because there was another “Active” PS3 in my account.
According to Sony we need to deactivate the old PS3 before we can activate the new one. But my problem was that I no longer had the old PS3, it burned down and did not even boot up… So how can I deactivate it.

I called Sony, gave them all the information I had, service request number for the repair of the YLOD damaged box, serial number of the new one, and still it took me 40 minutes on the phone with them to clear out this mess.

After all was fixed on their end I now need to wait 2 days to see if the changes really happened and I can register my new PS3, and that my downloaded content is still going to be there…

Sony, if the PS3 is not active and cannot download content why do you let users buy the content in the first place?

So if you have a YLOD or other hardware problem and your PS3 needs to be repaired/replaced please keep all your receipts, serial numbers and service request numbers so you can prove that you are not trying to steal the couple of movies you bought or rent on the PlayStation Store.

This whole YLOD episode has been a nightmare.

If you need to manipulate .deb packages directly in your TeraStation you should download and install the dpkg Debian package.

I did this procedure on Mac OS but you should be able to replicate it on a Linux machine as well. If on Windows get a utility that can extract the files inside of a Debian (.deb) file and you should be ok.

1. Get the package dpkg for AMRel for Debian Lenny. The Mac in my case
2. Extract the files from dpkg_1.14.25_armel.deb

   dpkg-deb -x dpkg_1.14.25_armel.deb dpkg
   cd dpkg

3. Copy the extracted files to the TeraStation with scp. If you are on Windows use Putty.

   scp -r * root@:/

For this to work you should have SSH access to the TeraStation. Please read this post.

Now you can download (wget) and extract deb packages (dpkg-deb) directly in your TeraStation.
Good luck

After upgrading to Snow Leopard you will need to update your Mac Ports. Please download and install the new Snow Leopard version of Mac Ports open a Terminal window and change to the /opt/local/bin directory, then run the commands

./port -v selfupdate
./port -f uninstall p5-xml-parser
./port clean --all p5-xml-parser
./port install p5-xml-parser
./port -f uninstall libxml2
./port clean --all libxml2
./port install libxml2
./port upgrade outdated
./port -f -p clean --all all

If a particular package gives you trouble just remove it and install it again.

Hi I feel that this  a prety common request: Bind the Home/End keys to move to the beginning and end of lines respectively.

In Mac OS X (10.5 and 10.6) some applications use the Cmd-Rigt and Cmd-Left to perform these actions but, call me old fashioned, I like to use Home and End instead.

It is actually very easy to change the Cocoa Key bindings for any user under Mac OS. Just follow these steps:

1. Create a file called DefaultKeyBinding.dict in ~/Library/KeyBindings directory

   mkdir ~/Library/KeyBindings
   cd ~/Library/KeyBindings
   touch DefaultKeyBinding.dict

2. Edit your DefaultKeyBinding.dict file so it contains:

   {
   /* home */
   "\UF729"  = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";
   "$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:";
   
   /* Cmd-Left */
   "@\UF702"  = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";
   "$@\UF702" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:";
   
   /* Cmd-Right */
   "@\UF703"  = "moveToEndOfLine:";
   "$@\UF703" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";
   
   /* end */
   "\UF72B"  = "moveToEndOfLine:";
   "$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";
   
   /* page up/down */
   "\UF72C"  = "pageUp:";
   "\UF72D"  = "pageDown:";
   }

3. Restart the Cocoa Application.

This example works very well with TextMate.

In order to bind other keys you need to find their Scan code, and you can use the following modifiers
For more information please check this article

After having done the Snow Leopard upgrade from leopard 10.5.8 a week ago, I have to say I am disappointed!

A lot of my applications just crash, Xcode and Mac Ports had to be reinstalled, Apache and PHP reconfigured by hand, reinstall MySQL, among others.

I have yet to see any real performance improvements, for example the Terminal application is very slow (over 10s) to give me a prompt.

I did get some 10Gb back from my HDD but… I am considering doing a fresh install. Am I back on Windows?

very sad…

So you’re so hooked on Mafia Wars that you are considering adding total strangers as your friends so your Mafioso list can grow and make you stronger?

There were a couple of hacks around the web that used to work that would add a user to your Mafia without being your Facebook friend but, at least the ones I know don’t work anymore.

If you know one that does please leave a comment.

Fortunately Facebook’s privacy settings are pretty flexible and complete, so you can change your them on your Facebook account and disable updates to the Mafiosos you do not really know.

1. When adding a Mafioso Friend for the first time click the add button, but select add to list and create you Mafia list. I called it “Mafia”
   Type “Mafia” in the “Create New List” box and press Enter.
2. Now click “Settings” on the top right corner of your Facebook Menu bar, and select “Privacy Settings”

   
   Click “Profile”.

3. Select any of the options you would not like to share with your Mafia Wars friends and click “Customize”
   
4. Add the “Mafia” list created in step 1 to “Except These People” In the Customization pop-up.
   
   After you click Ok, you should get something like this
   
5. Repeat for all the other settings and do not forget to change the settings on the “Contact Information” tab as well or you will be sharing your cell phone with strangers… not a good prospect!
6. Click “Save Settings” on the bottom of the screen.

I have to say that my experience upgrading both my Macs to Snow Leopard has been mixed. It was easy as clicking the Install button on the iMac, it was a nightmare on the Macbook Air.

First I used the Remote CD installation process, started the Macbook Air, mounted the remote CD from the iMac and proceeded to run the “Install Mac OSX.app”. After agreeing to the license agreement the installation utility told me that the disk did not have enough free space. Despite the fact that the disk had 21Gb of free space!

After some digging I found out that PGP Whole Disk Encryption is not compatible with Snow Leopard, and PGP advised users to decrypt the disk before upgrading.

So I decrypted the disk and restarted the Installation process, only to find out a new error! Damn.

The install app now told me that the Machintosh HD, the only disk, in my Macbook Air, was not a bootable disk and could not install to it. I did some more web searching and some people reported the error to related to the partition format, not being GUID.

I checked with Disk Util and it was indeed GUID. So using Disk Util I added a new partition with 1Gb, using the free space, this procedure rewrote the new partition table to disk and after I was able to finally install Snow Leopard.
When Snow Leopard was installed I used Disk Util again to delete the 1Gb partition and recover the disk space.

If Disk Utility gives you disk verification errors, you need to repair those before resizing your partitions. If you repair the disk multiple times and it still gives you the same errors then you should run the Remote Install Mac OS X application on another Mac. If you only have a Windows as a second computer check this the “How to use Remote Disc” article on Apple’s support site.

Boot your MacBook Air directly into the Snow Leopard CD. Just start the Air and hold the option key until you see the list of disks you have to boot from. If the Remote Install Mac OS X application is running on your other computer the Snow Leopard will show up here.

Have you had Snow Leopard upgrade issues?

Started developing my first iPhone App, it is going to be a sort of a game/funny app.
Having some difficulty adapting to the programming model, but that is always the case when taking on a new language, and SDK.

The project is coming along nicely and I hope to have it ready in the next couple of weeks.

For a newbie like me the book Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK
was a huge help and save a lot of frustration with good examples and simple approach.

Hope they can help you as well.

Finally I got my iMac backing up to the TeraStation using Time Machine by following the instructions on this site.

The trick was creating the Sparse file by hand, after enabling the use of network volumes. I am using AppleTalk to mount the TeraStation share for the backups, and I setup a different share just for the backup files.

If the file “com.apple.timemachine.supported” does not get created automatically by Time Machine you’ll have to create it yourself.

Some sites discourage the use of SMB, all I can say is that the referenced procedure only worked for me with AFP. Maybe your mileage will vary.

Great job Newb @ MacTimes!
Thanks!

If you suspect your TeraStation HDDs are failing and need to recover before it is too late you should use xfs_repair. You’ll need to unmount the XFS volumes before you can use the repair tool

unmount /dev/md2

If you try to unmount the TeraStation’s data disk (/dev/md2) and you get a device busy check if you have the media server running and the unmount again.

umount /dev/md2
Device is Busy

Go to http://your_terastation_ip:8080/ and select disable.

umount /dev/md2

Now you can run XFS Repair

xfs_repair