Mailserver Crash

Fiddling with my (Windows) mail server ended up in a 'serious' crash. The result was one week of mail down the drain :(. Even though I still had all my mail offline in my Mail.app, there was no way (at least not that I could find) to import it again in the IMAP folders. I still have those mails in a backup of my Mac book Pro, so I could find the info with SpotLight. If anyone has any ideas to import them back into the IMAP folders, please drop the ideas in the comments. That was a Fridays night well spent :(

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Parallels Preps Major Update

According to AppleInsider, Parallels is preparing a humongous update on its virtualization software 'Parallels for Mac. Here are a couple of the new features:

• Drag and drop of files between the Virtual Machine and the Apple desktop.
• Seamless scaling of the virtual desktop.
• Bootcamp support, which enables the user to boot the Windows OS on the Mac in Parallels without the need for a reboot.

Apart from the Bootcamp feature all these things will also be incorporated in the upcoming VMWare release for the Mac. And since VMWare is the biggest name in the virtualization market, I hope that Parallels can cope with the competition. Especially, since the VMWare Virtual Machines can (or will) be used on both platforms. So all the VM's created on Windows (or Linux) can be used on the Mac. On the other hand, Parallels will provide a migration tool for migrating VMWare virtual machines to Parallels. Time will tell.

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Hamachi v1.0.1.1

Hamachi is a great tool of connecting to your server / PC at home while you are on the road (or at work). The program allows you to create a Virtual Network between (configurable) clients without the need of opening ports in your DLS/Cable modem or router [screenshots]. I use Hamachi at home where I can access my servers as if it were on the same network. After a long beta period, they finally released an official final 1.0.1.1 version of this tool (available for Windows, OSX). If you need some tool for administrating servers on a 'shielded' network, this is the tool to use. Another practical use is for remote assistance for family or friends. Just have them install Hamachi, and when ever they are in need of any assistance, they launch their Hamachi client and you can access their PC for troubleshooting.

How Hamachi Works

Hamachi is a UDP-based virtual private networking system. Its peers utilize the help of a third node called a mediation server to locate each other and to bootstrap the connection between them. The connection itself is direct and once it is established no traffic flows through our servers. Hamachi is not just truly peer-to-peer; it is verifiably secure peer-to-peer. Believe it or not, but we are able to successfully mediate p2p connections in roughly 95% of all cases we have dealt with so far. This includes peers residing behind various firewalls or broadband routers (aka NAT devices). It is high-tech and it is really cool :)

Don't worry about other people getting in, because the Hamachi client needs to run, you need to know the name of the created network, AND you need to know the password created for that network.

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Internet Explorer 7 annoyances

I noticed today that Internet Explorer v7 showed up as a critical download (according to Microsoft). Since I like to experiment (I know... it's wrong), I decided to give it a try. What can happen? I use Firefox as the default browser. I played with IE7 in Vista RC2, and seemed (!!!!!) to work fine. After installing it, I might have lost all my bookmarks, or perhaps I didn't have any to start with in IE6 :) . Anyway, that's something to remember when I upgrade IE on my laptop from work. Here are some annoyances I ran into:

• Clearview Lame ass anti-aliasing. I thought I had some sort of eye-disorder. (can eventually be switched of in the advanced options, and it needs a restart of the browser).
• Anti-phising More pop-ups asking stupid questions... Somehow it wanted to check my own website against a phishing list.... disabled it immediately.
• Flickr bagde Can't get it to work in IE7. Not even if I remove all security restrictions. So if you don't see any pictures in my flickr badge, it means you're using a fucked-up browser. Solved: I needed to install the Flash player component AGAIN especially for IE7 (/me wonders why IE7 doesn't mention that it doesn't have the necessary components to view the page correctly)
• Menu bar Is disabled by default, and if you enable it, it's not at the top of your window (???)
• ....

Strangely enough, WordPress seems to work fine, since I'm using IE7 to write this post. (correction: when I wanted to submit this post, there was an error on page according to IE7....) Well, back to good-old Firefox 2.0, and leave all the IE7 annoyances behind me :D. Conclusion: Microsoft created a great (visual) copy of Firefox. Too bad that they had the urge to add bugs and annoyances to it. I can hardly wait for Vista and the new Office suite :)

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iSync / .Mac alternative

Since the combination of iSync (for synching stuff on your Mac) and .Mac is expensive, and the performance is poor (slow network, limited space), I was looking for an alternative. A while ago (during my PowerBook days) I found a webpage describing a modification of the Apache webserver on FreeBSD Linux. This combo made it possible to simulate the .Mac servers. Therefore, making it possible to 'run' .Mac on your own Linux server. The main drawback is that I don't have the knowledge, or resources to run a proper linux server. So that was a 'no-go'. After that disappointment I didn't bother to look any further. I didn't use any syncing stuff and just made regular backups, untill I listened to a PodCast from the MacObserver. They mentioned the problem again, and it made me start looking for an answer again. I ran into a program called SyncUpX, which supports syncing to WebDav (which uses iSync as well), and lots of other media (network, local disks, etc.). The fun part of this was that I ran a bit later into an advert for SyncUpX on MacObserver.com. So it seems that they had the answer right under their noses :)

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CrossOver

The reasons for not switching to the Mac platform completely are gaming for my regular PC, and some typical Windows software that I use on my server. I use NewsLeecher on my server to download linux distro's and other stuff ;) from the Internet. There is no (Mac) application that comes even near it in terms of usability etc. The last couple of days I heard, and read some good reviews about CrossOver. This application emulates (or whatever you call it) a Windows environment for that single application. So no virtual machines etc, where you need to install windows first, and then the application in that Windows OS. When installing the application in (or with) CrossOver it looks like the Windows application is actually running on OSX. So it was time for an experiment.... I needed to check if NewsLeecher would run in CrossOver (note: NewsLeecher has not been tested according to the compatibility database on their website). The installation process of newsleecher was quite simple. You get all the same screens etc. After the installation I tried to launch NewsLeecher, and the application crashed with an error stating that "gdiplus.dll" was corrupt or missing. After adding this DLL (copied it from a Windows machine), NewsLeecher started :), BUT crashed a bit later on a OLE error :(. Next thing was to copy all OLE related DLL's from my Windows\system32 directory to my Mac. After this the application actually ran (it started with a warning). I could add newsservers, and subscribe to newsgroups. The only downside was that SuperSearch wouldn't work, and downloading news articles crashed the application :(. Eventhough NewsLeecher wouldn't run without crashing, the CrossOver application itself is wonderful. It supports most of the normal Microsoft applications like Office etc., and lot's of other apps. I guess it's just a matter of time before (almost) every application for Windows can run on a (Intel) Mac. This also means that I need to save me some money to buy me a new server (Mac Mini) first, and after that a new workstation (iMac 24", or a Mac Pro).

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