Bonjour suddenly M.I.A. (no network machines)

If you click on the Network icon in your left sidebar and do not see your other machines (if you have a local network), try restarting all the machines first. Next, disable and re-enable file sharing via System Prefs Sharing prefpane. This might get Bonjour back to snooping your network the way Apple intended.

Crashing Finder on Find

If you discover the Finder crashing when you type in the little search box in the upper right corner of any Finder dialog box, it likely means you need to rebuild your Launch Services database, which is separate for each user. In most cases, Spotlight still functions, but Finder finding doesn't.

Notice lines 2-5 in the crash report: Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001) Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x70586e60 Thread 0 Crashed: 0 ...ple.CoreServices.CarbonCore 0x90b99530 CSStoreGetUnit + 56 1 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x91936754 _LSBindingListGetEntryWithClass + 44 2 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x9193667c _UTTypeSearchConformsToTypesCore + 92 3 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x919365ec _UTTypeSearchConformsToTypes + 64 4 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x91936588 _UTTypeConformsTo + 56 5 com.apple.LaunchServices 0x9193ee80 UTTypeConformsTo + 228 6 com.apple.finder 0x002734fc dyld_stub_OpenADefaultComponent + 504460 7 com.apple.finder 0x001c9398 0x1000 + 1868696 8 com.apple.finder 0x001cab64 0x1000 + 1874788

DamagedFiles, Recovered files, and lost+found: huh?

It's really important to treat a DamagedFiles folder that shows up after a crash and disk repair with respect. Research what each file or folder is by using the symlink to go to its original. Replace those files from a backup and repair permissions! There has been data loss.

Macworld: News: Inside Mac OS X 10.4.2:

"Next, the new Disk Management repair code creates a folder named DamagedFiles at the root level of the disk in question, and creates a real Unix symbolic link (not a Mac OS alias of any kind) for each of the affected files, named with the original CNID and the file name. In our example, if your Safari Bookmarks file had the file ID 45892 and the picture that overlapped an extent with it had file ID 81834, the DamagedFiles folder would contain two symbolic links, one named "45892 Bookmarks.plist" and one named something like "81834 DSCN0001.JPG", depending on the image's original filename. As noted, only one of these files can even possibly contain correct data, and they may both be corrupted. Thanks to the symbolic links, you can easily find them, and determine which newly untangled files to keep and which to replace.

Utilities like DiskWarrior have long repaired overlapping extents with similar procedures, but it's great to have this built into the operating system, if for no other reason than that Mac OS X uses this code to verify and repair your file system during startup when the computer wasn't properly shut down. If you see a DamagedFiles directory show up on the root level of your hard drive, stop what you're doing and look at the files within it. See which of the files are damaged, and either replace them from backup or recreate them. Then run DiskWarrior if you have it, or boot into single-user mode and run fsck so it can verify there are no more problems with your disk. (You can boot from your Tiger installation disk and run Disk Utility, but since it doesn't contain the Mac OS X 10.4.2 version of this code, it won't do as well with overlapping extents, so we recommend single-user mode first.)"

More info can be found here as well.

Also keep in mind you might see orphaned files stuck in a folder at the root called "lost+found":

MacDevCenter.com -- Top Ten Mac OS X Tips for Unix Geeks: "lost+foundThis directory stores orphaned files discovered by fsck."

If you find a Recovered Files folder in your trash when starting up, Apple has the explanation here. Basically, OS X is cleaning up after applications that either crashed or did bad housekeeping:

Mac OS X 10.4 Help: A folder called Recovered Files appears in my Trash: "One or more Recovered Files folder may appear in your Trash after restarting your computer."

PMU problems? Hope not.

I've started seeing this message:

Jul 27 17:45:09 localhost kernel[0]: ApplePMU::PMU forced 

shutdown, cause = -122

I'd like to think it's a faux pas, but I think I'm reaching the physical and technical limits of what my old G4 can do. Tiger will be the last OS installment on this machine until I can replace it.

I've added a new video card (that powers 2 monitors), several hard drives, an firewire audio interface, a USB 2.0 card, and a processor upgrade. So I'm not surprised to see all these problems cropping up.

I'm also having a lot more kernel panics, freezes, and various application crashes. Not sure what to do next.

iPods have 4-year life, says Apple???

Macworld UK - iPods have 4-year life, says Apple: " 

Macworld Daily News Thursday - July 27, 2006 By Macworld staff

Though some iPods do develop faults, Apple builds them to last at least four years, the company claims. A Chicago Tribune report weighs up the cacophony of complaints regarding Apple's music players"

This is frustrating for me personally. I have two iPods, and this means one is nearing its life-expectancy. I know stuff can't last forever, but dang it...iPods and computers aren't cheap. They need to last longer than 4 years! My G4 (where I'm typing this) is still strong after 6 years now!

Update 7/29/06 - now, they're backtracking with claims of being misquoted, which I wouldn't put past the media:

MacNN | Apple clarifies: iPod lasts "for years" The report quoted Kerris as saying that Apple's iPod is designed to last "four years," but Kerris said she told the reporter that the iPod was designed to last "for years." 

AlphaBaby 1.51 - MacUpdate

AlphaBaby 1.51 - MacUpdate:

DESCRIPTION

AlphaBaby lets even infants and toddlers have fun playing with the computer. My kids love to play with the computer. Unfortunately, they also have the habit of renaming my hard drive to 'axlfkaj'. So, I wrote AlphaBaby so they could safely use the Mac without inflicting too much damage! Every time a key is pressed or the mouse is clicked, a letter or shape is drawn. Sounds can be played every time something is drawn.

Your own sounds and pictures can also be used. AlphaBaby helps kids to learn letters, plus provides a s"

This seems like a great idea for you Mac folks out there with a baby or toddler (like I have) who is dying to play with your computer!

iPods have 4-year life, says Apple???

Macworld UK - iPods have 4-year life, says Apple: "

Macworld Daily News

Thursday - July 27, 2006
By Macworld staff

Though some iPods do develop faults, Apple builds them to last at least four years, the company claims. A Chicago Tribune report weighs up the cacophony of complaints regarding Apple's music players"

This is frustrating for me personally. I have two iPods, and this means one is nearing its life-expectancy. I know stuff can't last forever, but dang it...iPods and computers aren't cheap. They need to last longer than 4 years! My G4 (where I'm typing this) is still strong after 6 years now!

Update 7/29/06 - now, they're backtracking with claims of being misquoted, which I wouldn't put past the media:

MacNN | Apple clarifies: iPod lasts "for years" The report quoted Kerris as saying that Apple's iPod is designed to last "four years," but Kerris said she told the reporter that the iPod was designed to last "for years."

Technorati Tags: ipod, apple, news, hardware

Missing login items (suddenly)

Weird thing today. Had a kernel panic while exploring my new Focusrite Saffire audio interface (I'm occasionally getting a digital pop out of the left channel). When I rebooted, none of my login items showed up.

Luckily I had a backup of the file:

 ~/Library/Preferences/loginwindow.plist

You are backing up daily, right? Anyway, restoring this file quickly restored my login items.

Poot, spark, sputter - ATI Rage 128 PCI

I was all excited when my new Focusrite Saffire firewire audio interface showed up. Until I realized that any significant movement on my second monitor (attached to an old ATI Rage 128 PCI card) caused popping, crackling, and resetting on the interface. Unacceptable. So, I bought (on eBay) a flashed PC version of the ATI Radeon 9200 to run both monitors. It’s a PCI card (for PC) that was professionally flashed to be an AGP Mac version, so it replaced my Rage 128 Pro AGP and the Rage 128 PCI (freeing up a slot for me too). It’s working great and no more pops and crap on my audio interface. Plus, I can see all the neat Quartz Extreme stuff I was missing; note: NO CORE IMAGE support though. The new problem: I couldn’t sleep my Mac anymore. But I remedied this by playing with the ATI Displays utility settings. I turned off a bunch of features that didn’t seem necessary (not sure which did the trick) and my computer would sleep again. Yeah! NOTE: Even though it sleeps again (I also reapplied all the latest ROM and software updates from ATI), occasionally it goes to sleep with a high-pitched whirling sound (I’m assuming this is the fan on the card). Doesn’t do this all the time, but what they hey...this is card is a hack.

Checking out widgets before you buy

Here’s a neat way to check out a widget before loading it on your system: hold down command-option at the load widget dialog and the default button changes to RUN. From Macworld!