Meine pinboard.in-Links vom 8. Oktober bis zum 22. Oktober:

• Apple Store Refurb Tracker – provides different feeds enabling you to track apparition of new products on the Apple Store Refurb pages.
• Pinky – is a free portable web server.
• PieCrust – is a static website generator and lightweight CMS that’s all managed with text files. No complex setup, databases, or administrative panels.
• num-utils – are a set of programs for dealing with numbers from the Unix command line. Much like the other Unix command line utilities like grep, awk, sort, cut, etc. these utilities work on data from both standard in and data from files.
• Bashish – is a theme enviroment for text terminals. It can change colors, font, transparency and background image on a per-application basis. Additionally Bashish supports prompt changing on common shells such as bash, zsh and tcsh.
• Fake – is a new browser for Mac OS X that makes web automation simple. Fake allows you to drag discrete browser Actions into a graphical Workflow that can be run again and again without human interaction.
• Avatar Harmony – Synchronize your profile pics between Facebook, Twitter and Gravatar.
• git-dude – is a simple git desktop notifier. It monitors git repositories in current directory for new commits/branches/tags and shows desktop notification if anything new arrived.
• Private Eye – is a free network monitor for Mac OS X Lion
• bcat – pipe to browser utility

Meine pinboard.in-Links vom 3. August bis zum 16. August:

• checksum – is a blisteringly fast, no-nonsense file hashing application for Windows that generates and verifies SHA1 and MD5 hashes
• Web Developer Extension – adds various web developer tools to a browser. The extension is available for Firefox and Chrome, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
• renameutils – are a set of programs designed to make renaming of files faster and less cumbersome.
• Lion DiskMaker – is a small application programmed with AppleScript that you can use with Mac OS X 10.6 or 10.7 to burn a DVD or build a bootable USB key from Mac OS X Lion’s Installation programm.
• ipswDownloader – Simple app for downloading firmware for Apple iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch.
• LiveReload – monitors changes in the file system. As soon as you save a file, it is preprocessed as needed, and the browser is refreshed.
• LESS.app – extends CSS with variables, nested rules, operators and more. If you're still building websites without it, you're an idiot. This app makes it dead simple to use {Less} by automatically compiling *.less files into standard CSS.
• Project Hamster – is time tracking for individuals. It helps you to keep track on how much time you have spent during the day on activities you choose to track.
• ControlPlane – Using a number of configurable evidence sources, rules and actions you can reconfigure your Mac based on what you are doing, where you are at or the time of day.  Set the office printer as your default printer while at work or start a set of apps once you’re home.
• pow – is a zero-config Rack server for Mac OS X

Meine pinboard.in-Links vom 15. Januar bis zum 3. Februar:

• janus – This is a basic distribution of vim plugins and tools intended to be run on top of the latest MacVIM snapshot.
• reptyr – is a utility for taking an existing running program and attaching it to a new terminal. Started a long-running process over ssh, but have to leave and don't want to interrupt it? Just start a screen, use reptyr to grab it, and then kill the ssh session and head on home.
• txt2re – headache relief for programmers :: regular expression generator
• atMonitor – is the most advanced monitoring tool for Mac OS X that displays system activity in real-time
• urlscan – is a small program that is designed to integrate with the "mutt" mailreader to allow you to easily launch a Web browser for URLs contained in email messages.
• Screens – Very good looking universal VNC Client for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
• Coloration – is editor/IDE color scheme converter. Right now it allows you to convert your favourite Textmate color scheme (in XML plist format) to Vim, JEdit and KDevelop/Kate/Kwrite color scheme.
• nvALT – Notational Velocity fork with widescreen, collapsible notes panel, MultiMarkdown/Markdown/Textile rendering and preview
• rush – is a replacement for the unix shell (bash, zsh, etc) which uses pure Ruby syntax
• Wiki on a Stick – (in short WoaS) is a wiki that lives in one self-modifying XHTML file. It's perfect to be used at home or at office, on your laptop or USB pen drive.

Meine pinboard.in-Links vom 23. Dezember bis zum 1. Januar:

• Guide to using Screen and Irssi –
• logstalgia – is a website traffic visualization that replays or streams Apache web-server access logs as a pong-like battle between the web server and an never ending torrent of requests.
• gource – is a software version control visualization tool.
• The git pickaxe: finding changes was never easier – Wouldn't it be great if you could find all the changes to a line in your entire history? Sort of like git blame, but only for revisions that match some string.This is where git's pickaxe functionality comes in.
• ClipX – is a tiny clipboard history manager for windows. It is sweet, it is free, use it.
• Git sync via USB –
• Vmail – is a Vim interface to Gmail
• pit – is a command-line project manager that integrates with Git
• Cram – is a functional testing framework for command line applications based on Mercurial's unified test format.

Meine delicious.com-Links vom 1. Juni bis zum 29. Juni:

• The Upside of Downtime (Velocity 2010) – Great presentation about why Downtime sucks and how to appreciate this fact.
• One Thing Well – My Linux Setup – Pretty awesome minimal linux setup including some great software hints…
• sneakernet – is designed as a 99% offline campus filesharing network to distribute gigabyte-sized files to a network of upwards of several thousand users who all live within a square mile or so.
• Gitbox – is a Mac OS X graphical interface for Git version control system. In a single window you see branches, history and working directory status.
• Splunk – indexes data from any application, server or network device. It crawls logs, metrics, and other data from applications, servers and network devices and indexes it in a searchable repository from which it can generate graphs, reports and alerts.
• Git Reference – This is meant to be a quick reference for learning and remembering the most important and commonly used Git commands. The commands are organized into sections of the type of operation you may be trying to do, and will preset the common options and commands needed to accomplish these common tasks.
• Q10 – is a simple but powerful text editor designed and built with writers in mind. Windows only.
• mcollective – is a framework to build server orchestration or parallel job execution systems.
• damnvid – is a cross-platform application to download and convert videos from your hard drive or from dozens of video sharing websites like YouTube, Dailymotion, Veoh, Metacafe, etc. Basically, it's a video downloader and converter that sucks less.
• Objective-C Tutorial – Ein Tutorial zu Objective-C, XCode und Cocoa

Meine delicious.com-Links vom 4. März bis zum 23. März:

• collectd – is a daemon which collects system performance statistics periodically and provides mechanisms to store the values in a variety of ways, for example in RRD files.
• CSVed – is an easy and powerful CSV file editor, you can manipulate any CSV file, separated with any separator.
• Simple Desktops – is a collection of desktop wallpapers curated by Tom Watson designed to make your computer beautiful without distraction.
• Continuous Integration – is a software development practice where members of a team integrate their work frequently, usually each person integrates at least daily – leading to multiple integrations per day. Each integration is verified by an automated build (including test) to detect integration errors as quickly as possible. Many teams find that this approach leads to significantly reduced integration problems and allows a team to develop cohesive software more rapidly. This article is a quick overview of Continuous Integration summarizing the technique and its current usage.
• Ultimate solution to weird UTF character encoding problem – Due to different formats of storing characters in the database, sometimes you may encounter problem with strange characters (like —) appearing in your WordPress posts. This can especially happen when moving the site to a different server, a process during which your database needs to be exported and imported.
• Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation – Business literature is packed with advice about worker motivation—but sometimes managers are the problem, not the inspiration. Here are seven practices to fire up the troops. From Harvard Management Update.
• smitten kitchen Recipe Index – Fearless cooking from a tiny kitchen in New York City with delicious photos…
• Uniform – masks your standard form controls with custom themed controls. It works in sync with your real form elements to ensure accessibility and compatibility.
• vi Complete Key Binding List – This is not intended as a tutorial. It is a reference on what every vi key binding does, followed by some useful vi tricks and tips. An expert will probably know most of these already, but an intermediate vi user will find valuable information, and even an expert may learn a thing or two.
• Ephemera – will comfortably synchronize your ebook reader with Instapaper.com via USB. It works with the Amazon Kindle, Sony readers and pretty much any device capable of reading HTML, Mobipocket or EPUB files.

Meine delicious.com-Links vom 27. Oktober bis zum 4. November:

• qlcolorcode – A Quick Look plugin for source code with syntax highlighting
• Checkfilenames – a little perl script to find file names that are longer than a certain number of characters. Very handy…
• Wissenswerkstatt | Ist die Wikipedia zitierfähig? » Der Umgang mit wissenschaftlichen Quellen –
• corkscrew – Corkscrew is a tool for tunneling SSH through HTTP proxies.
• WinMerge – is an Open Source (GPL) visual text file differencing and merging tool for Windows. It is highly useful for determining what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions.
• Small Basic – is a project that's aimed at bringing "fun" back to programming. By providing a small and easy to learn programming language in a friendly and inviting development environment, Small Basic makes programming a breeze. Ideal for kids and adults alike, Small Basic helps beginners take the first step into the wonderful world of programming.
• Helvetica and Alternatives to Helvetica –
• SQLite Tutorial – This article explores the power and simplicity of sqlite3, starting with common commands and triggers.
• JuicePhone – is a Mac application that extracts your iTunes iPhone/iPod touch backups and puts the extracted backup into a chosen folder, which represents the device’s home folder.
• Google SketchUp – Mit Google SketchUp können Sie 3D-Modelle erstellen, ändern und mit anderen gemeinsam verwenden. Und das Programm ist einfacher zu erlernen, als andere 3D Modellierprogramme
• Communote – Hosted Twitter-Clone, targeted at professional users… Maybe worth a look…
• Introducing Prologue – Turning WordPress into some kind of internal Twitter with comments. Interesting…
• MacRuby – is a version of Ruby 1.9, ported to run directly on top of Mac OS X core technologies such as the Objective-C common runtime and garbage collector, and the CoreFoundation framework.
• macam – is a driver for USB webcams on Mac OS X. It allows hundreds of USB webcams to be used by many Mac OS X video-aware applications.
• How to make a presentation with Latex – Using the Beamer package for presentations
• seam-carving-gui – A GUI for Content Aware Image Resizing (Retargeting, Seam Carving). Binaries available for OS X and Windows.
• Kuchen 2.0 oder "5 Minuten Schoko-Kuchen" –
• ISS Now – Utterly amazing live tracking of the ISS in orbit…

Ich hatte da so ein nerviges Problem mit meinen Time Machine Backups. Die Time Machine auf meinem MacBook ist so eingestellt, dass sie Backups von der internen MacBook Platte und einer externen Platte (OneTouch) auf einer dritte Platte (MyBook) erstellt.

Beide Platten sind über einen USB-Hub mit dem MacBook verbunden.

Das Backup hat nun sehr, sehr lange gedauert. Allerdings nur dann, wenn die OneTouch-Platte im Spiel war. Das Backup von der internen Platte auf die MyBook-Platte war eine Sache von Sekunden bis Minuten¹.

Also habe ich mal nachgemessen² welche Platte unter welchen Vorrausetzungen wie schnell ist. Herausgekommen ist folgende Tabelle:

(Die Geschwindigkeiten sind in MB/Sekunde angegeben | Die interne Platte ist über S-ATA angebunden | Alle Werte sind auf volle MB gerundet)

Was zeigt uns das nun?

Zunächst einmal die klare Überlegenheit von FireWire 400 gegen USB 2 unter Mac OS X. Die USB-Performance unter OS X ist gegen die Windows Implementation immer noch grottig langsam. Was in den Zeiten des MacBook Air mit nur einem USB-Port doch sehr ärgerlich ist.

Ausserdem nimmt die Performance der Platten immer weiter ab, je mehr Geräte am USB-Hub stecken. Das ist offensichtlich der USB-Architektur geschuldet die im Gegensatz zu Firewire immer direkt mit dem Host³ sprechen muss um zu kommunizieren. Bei Firewire ist diese übergeordnete Instanz nicht notwendig und sogar Peer to Peer möglich.

Ich habe das Problem jetzt so gelöst, dass die MyBook-Platte per Firewire am MacBook hängt und der ganze Rest per USB-Hub. Das klappt sehr gut und liegt vermutlich vor allem an der deutlich verbesserten Schreibgeschwindigkeit der MyBook-Platte.

Vielleicht sollte ich in der Zukunft auch noch einmal einen anderen USB-Hub verwenden, eventuell war der das schwache Glied in der filigranen USB-Kette…

1. je nachdem wie viel sich geändert hat [↩]
2. mit dem Aja Kona System Test [↩]
3. also Computer [↩]

Meine del.icio.us-Links vom 28. Februar:

• PlayVideoTS – opens the VIDEO_TS folder of ripped DVDs using the Apple DVD Player
• Changes – Diff on Speed. Mac OS X only Shareware, $39.95.
• Using autofs for GPG keys on a USB stick –
• MindNode – is a free and very easy to use mindmapping application
• ccollect – (pseudo) incremental backup with different exclude lists using hardlinks and rsync
• Yep – iPhoto like Software targeting PDFs.
• DiscRotate – is a Daemon and PreferencePane that will control the speed of your optical drives. It is written in Cocoa (Obj-C 2.0) for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
• twill – is a simple language that allows users to browse the Web from a command-line interface. With twill, you can navigate through Web sites that use forms, cookies, and most standard Web features.

Schonmal mag sich Mac OS X nur sehr ungern von einer CD/DVD oder einer externen Platte trennen. Leider teilt es einem nicht mit welches Programm da noch dabei ist irgend etwas mit dem Volume zu treiben. Um dem Begehr ein wenig mehr Nachdruck zu verleihen¹ gebe man doch mal folgendes ins Terminal ein:

Für optische Medien:

diskutil eject /Volumes/MeinVolume

Für Festplatten/USB-Sticks:

diskutil unmount force /Volume/MeinVolume

Dann geht das schon…

1. und ohne mit lsof und kill rum zu fummeln [↩]