Nothing funny about feldspar

Recently my MacBook speakers decided to stop working properly. I had been using headphones in a café, and when I unplugged them I no longer had sound from my speakers and I couldn’t use the volume/mute buttons on the keyboard. This is a known (and seemingly common) problem, which can sometimes be fixed by jiggling the input port with the headphone jack (or a toothpick). I had fixed it once this way, and avoided using my headphones as much as possible, but sometimes….

Anyway, the sound output system crapped out again, where no amount of jiggling on my part would set it right. After a week without sound I took it into the local Apple store to see if they had some sort of magic tool to jiggle that port.

“Nope. We have to replace the logic board. It’ll be 3 to 5 days.” Crap. Ok, I know if I call AppleCare they’ll send a box and it’ll be gone 3-5 days, so I may as well just leave it. I’d backed up just in case, so I wasn’t at risk of losing any data.

Six(!) days later I finally get the call that my computer is ready. I was impatient and called on Day 4, so they must’ve sent me to the bottom of the queue. When I picked it up, I asked the “concierge” (read that as “the person who points things out to you”) if there would be any problems with Time Machine or other stuff because of the change in MAC address. She said I shouldn’t have *any* Mac problems, bless her heart.

In case you didn’t see where this was going, she was wrong.

In OS X terms, a new logic board = a new computer. Therefore iTunes thinks you’re using a new computer and you must authorize it for iPod Touch applications, music, movies, etc., whatever you get from the iTunes Store. If you failed to deauthorize the computer before you took it in (as I did) you will use up one of your five auths. There is no way to deauthorize just one computer without being at that computer — you have to use up all of your authorizations and then kill them all at once to start over again (limited to once per year, so if you’ve had a bad computer year, you are sunk). The iTunes thing is annoying, but it’s of small issue compared to Time Machine.

With a new logic board (but all of the same old other hardware) Time Machine thinks it’s got a new machine to backup, and instead of using the old image it starts a new one from scratch. Depending on the size of your backup drive, and the number of other users, this could be a serious loss of drive space, let alone your inability to use the fun Time Machine screen to get to your old files. Assuming you haven’t changed the name of your computer, you’ll still have access to the files, but in the much more mundane way of mounting the sparsebundle and then looking for the file you want.

With some hints at macosxhints.com (and a few typo fixes), I managed to get Time Machine working with my original backup, so I can still fly back to April and see what I was working on…

Here’s (roughly) how to do it:

Note your old and new MAC addresses (AKA Ethernet IDs). You can get the new one from your Network Settings (System Preferenes > Network > (click the Advanced button) > Ethernet — It’s called “Ethernet ID”). The old one is part of the “sparsebundle” that is currently on your backup drive, between the underscore and the dot.

Turn off Time Machine, and mount the drive where your backups are stored.

In the commands below, you’ll have to replace the OLD and NEW MAC addresses and Time Machine file names, as well as your computer’s name and your backup drive’s name.

(Line 2 gets the NEW MAC address, including colons, lines 5 and 6 use the new then the old ones run together without colons.)

Open up Terminal and run each command one at a time. I found it easiest to copy the lines to a text file, replace all of the parameters to my particulars, and then copy/paste each line into Terminal.

Example:

OLD Time Machine file: MacName_00f9e8d7c6b5 OLD MAC address: 00:f9:e8:d7:c6:b5 Smushed: 001a2b3c4f56
NEW Time Machine file: MacName_001a2b3c4f56 NEW MAC address: 00:1a:2b:3c:4f:56 Smushed: 00f9e8d7c6b5
Computer Name: MacName
Backup Drive Name: BackupVolumeName

sudo fsaclctl -p /Volumes/Backup\ of\ MacName -d
sudo xattr -w com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress 00:1a:2b:3c:4f:56 /Volumes/Backup\ of\ MacName/Backups.backupdb/MacName
sudo fsaclctl -p /Volumes/Backup\ of\ MacName -e
cd /Volumes/BackupVolumeName
sudo mv .00f9e8d7c6b5 .001a2b3c4f56
sudo mv MacName_00f9e8d7c6b5.sparsebundle MacName_001a2b3c4f56.sparsebundle

I won’t even begin to pretend I know what’s going on. Suffice it to say that it seems to have worked for me. I hope it can help someone else, otherwise, I’ll at least have this online so I can find it next time.

p.s. Adobe CS2 (Photoshop, in particular) needed to be reactivated, too.

p.p.s. The logic board they gave me didn’t have the firmware update from April. Shame.

You can tell it’s Autumn around here by the increased frequency of “butter” appearing on the grocery list.

By the re-appearance of dirty socks on the floor.

By the stacks of books next to the chair. Oh wait, that’s year-round.

By the unfoldedness of the various afghans and throws on chairs and couches.

By the smell of cinnamon.

What are your signs of autumn?

Today’s NPR Sunday Puzzle

Next Week’s Challenge

From Ed Pegg Jr. of mathpuzzle.com: Rearrange the 11 letters of “interaction” to make two closely related words. What words are they?

I was hoping this would be a math puzzle, not another anagram. I cheated and used the Internet Anagram Server. Even so, here’s a hint: the words are related, but are not synonyms.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hello,

You have not responded to my previous letter sent two weeks ago by regular mail in which I expressed my grave concerns about an investment of a member of your family.

As you already know, I am the Information Analyst at the SNS Bank of Netherlands and presently in London, the United Kingdom on official assignments. I am contacting you via email because you have not responded to my previous letter and I do hope you will give this matter a priority attention it truly deserved.

I would respectfully request that you treat the contents of this mail as privileged and proprietary and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this correspondence because am contacting you independently of our investigation and no one is informed of this communication. Hence, I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you and mutually beneficial if pursued to its conclusion with the necessary speed and determination.

The bank is at the verge to closing an investment account of high value belonging apparently to your family member who reportedly died intestate five years ago leaving behind an estate/capital with interest of a substantial amount of money in a now bonded account at the SNS Bank of Netherlands and till date nobody has come forward or put application for the claim. In line with our internal processes for account holders who have passed away, we officially instituted our own investigations in good faith to determine who should have right to claim the estate. This investigation has for the past months been unfruitful. Hence, my official capacity dictates that I am the only party to supervise the investigation and just recently, it occurred to me that you and I could work on this matter and share the proceeds equally being that you both share the same last name which put you in the right position to be the only suitable apparent heir of the estate though you may not be biological
ly related to him.

However, to maintain some level of security/confidentiality, I have intentionally left out some privileged information and urge you to contact me today and let’s discuss the modalities/logistics of realizing this goal.

In compliance with the standard requirements and to double-check with my record and ensure that you are indeed the addressee of this mail, I need you to reconfirming your details which include but not limited to your contact information, your full names (no initial please) and your age range, (Date of Birth) as prove of maturity to handle a project of this magnitude. I will provide you with all the privileged information/legal documents relating to the deceased customer and his bonded investment account when I receive your information and double-checked same satisfactorily. I will also guide you through the entire process of the transaction and ensure that the deal is consummated without the breach of the laws.

I am aware of the consequences of this proposal and humbly request that you discard this mail if you find no interest in this project. I ask that you should not be vindictive if you are not interested in taking this further. Please notify me and delete this message and forget I ever contacted you. Do not ruin my career by contacting the management of my bank simply because you are not interested in my proposal. You may not know this but people like me who have made tidy sums out of comparable situations run the whole private banking sector in the banking industry. I am not a criminal and neither will you be one by working with me on this deal. This may be hard for you to understand, but the dynamics of my industry dictates that I make this move. Opportunities like this seldom come and therefore I am committed to realizing this goal in spite of all odds. I need your courage and commitment to actualize this transaction and together we can make it happen.

I do expect your prompt response. Or feel free to call me anytime on this number: +44 - 70 430 20619 while I am still here in London and let’s examine the possibility of a lasting business relationship.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,
Ewald de Bever (Mr),
Oracle Database Analyst,
SNS Bank of Netherlands.

Ok, so RealNetworks is in a lawsuit with the MPAA over its RealDVD software. It seems as though they shot the first salvo. I wish them luck.