JK Buzz 3/4/2010



	IT CHALLENGES Sick of being nickel and dimed? Frustrated with IT support? Confused about IT recommendations? Outsourced vs. In-house IT Support Worried about downtime? Losing sleep over your data and network security? Sick of wasting time on IT issues? Concerned about Green IT? SERVICES Managed IT Services Network Management Response Center Support Backup and Disaster Recovery Security Management IT Planning and Design Hosted Exchange and PDA Services Co-Location and Server Hosting Free IT Risk Review WHO WE SERVE Small Business Education Techcare and K-12 Education Products & Professional Services Education Vendors Education Support Plans Education Testimonials Creative Legal Health Care Architecture & Engineering Accounting & Financial Services Non-Profit NEWSROOM Techcare in the News Press Releases White Papers BLOGS Techcare Tips The JK Buzz K-12 Edublog ABOUT US Company Profile Why Techcare Testimonials Meet Our Team Community Involvement Our Partners Events Careers HOME

HOME > BLOGS > The JK Buzz >

The JK Buzz 3.4.2010, in this edition...

Mac OS X: Snow Leopard SMB resource fork changes, Fix for high processor usage when working with audio, Tip for moving open folders, iTunes window resizing, Print Therapy update

Macintosh Miscellaneous: New MacBook Pro repair extension program, Possible Speed boost for MacBook Pros, Downloading Apple Server Diagnostics if lost

Creative Applications: Guide locking confusion with InDesign, Tracking down location of missing QuarkXPress fonts

Mac OS X

Snow Leopard SMB resource fork change

Understanding how Mac OS X handles resource forks when saving to mounted SMB server volumes has gotten much more complex due to a change Apple has made with Snow Leopard.

With Leopard/Tiger/Panther, when you saved a file that had a resource fork to a mounted SMB server volume, the resource fork would be saved to an AppleDouble file (dot underscore file, ._filename). This legacy method has been tried and true, however resulted in extra clutter on the server. Windows users mounting the same SMB server volume would also see these AppleDouble files, thus leading to possible confusion.

With Snow Leopard, when saving to a SMB server volume hosted by a Mac OS X server, resource forks are still saved in an AppleDouble file just like the always have.

However... with Snow Leopard, when saving to a SMB server volume hosted by a Windows server, resource forks are now saved in NTFS streams. This method is cleaner, utilizing the extended attributes (xattr) feature when mounting the SMB volume, and no longer requires the separate AppleDouble files.

The problem this change introduces is if you have a mix of older and newer Macs saving files to a SMB server volume hosted by a Windows server. Because Snow Leopard saves resource forks differently that Leopard/Tiger/Panther, all sorts of issues can occur. The two formats are not backward/forward compatible, so working with files containing resource forks can result in possible file corruption and Finder errors -36 when opening/saving/copying files.

The workaround for mixed Mac environments like this is to set Snow Leopard NOT to use NTFS streams when saving to a SMB server volume hosted by a Window server. This can be accomplished on a Snow Leopard Mac-by-Mac basis by editing the /etc/nsmb.conf file (which may need to be created if it doesn’t exist). Adding these lines to the file, followed by reboot, will make Snow Leopard behave like Leopard/Tiger/Panther in this regard:

[default]
streams=no

NOTE: ExtremeZ-IP has always saved resource forks in NTFS streams no matter the version of Mac OS X, so if you’re using ExtremeZ-IP on a Windows server to share a SMB volume, you are immune from this possible problem.

NOTE: The reason Snow Leopard still saves AppleDouble resource fork files to SMB server volumes hosted by Mac OS X servers is because all versions of Mac OS X server use Samba, and Samba doesn’t support NTFS streams.

Fix for high processor activity when working with audio

If you have an early 2009 Mac Pro running Mac OS X 10.6.2, and are experiencing extraordinarily high processor utilization when working with audio (playing or recording music), be sure to apply Apple’s recent Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0. This update installs a new AudioAUCC kernel extension, which reduces CPU usage when processing audio. It has also been rumored that this updated can be applied to other Mac models that are experiencing similar issues.

Tip for moving open folders

When you open a folder in the Finder by double-clicking in it, the folder’s name is displayed at the top to the left of a little folder icon. A trick I just learned is that you can click and drag this little folder icon to another folder, allowing you to easily move the folder you have opened (without having to close the folder first).

iTunes window resizing

The green window resizing button (top left) in iTunes behaves differently than the Finder. In the Finder this green button resizes the window to fit the display, but in iTunes this green button toggles mini-player view. If for some reason you get iTunes in a state where part of the iTunes window is off the screen, holding down the Option key while clicking the green button in iTunes will resize the window like the Finder.

Print Therapy update

The Snow Leopard edition of Print Therapy has been released by Fixamac Software. This new version 7 is for Mac OS X 10.6.x only, and provides the same helpful printing system troubleshooting features as previous releases of Print Therapy.

Macintosh Miscellaneous

New MacBook Pro repair extension program

Due to an unusually high number of hard drive failures with 13” MacBooks purchased between May 2006 and December 2007, Apple is offering a MacBook Repair Extension Program. Through this program, Apple will replace failed drives for free if the MacBook is out of warranty (or reimburse you if your drive has already failed and you paid Apple to replace it). This offer is good for 3 years from date of purchase, and expires 8/15/2010. More details: http://www.apple.com/support/macbook/hd/repairextension/

Possible speed boost for MacBook Pros

Some 15” and all 17” unibody MacBook Pros come with two graphics processors, a NVIDIA 9400 and 9600. For 15” unibody MacBook Pros, this is an option you got when ordering anything faster than the low end model.

The NVIDIA 9400 graphic processor uses system RAM and rquires less battery power, and the NVIDIA 9600 graphic processor uses integrated RAM which requires more battery power. All 17” unibody MacBook Pros have 512MB RAM integrated into their NVIDIA 9600 graphic processor, supported 15” unibody MacBook Pros have either 256MB or 512MB depending on the configuration.

By default, Apple ships these MacBook Pros with the NVIDIA 9600 graphic processor disabled, which means applications like Photoshop, games, and virtual machines will likely cause the NVIDIA 9400 graphic processor consume a lot of system memory (the process named kernel_task will be using more RAM). This could slow the MacBook Pro down significantly.

To enable the NVIDIA 9600 graphic processor, open the Energy Saver system preference pane, click on the “Power Adapter” tab, and find the option for “Graphics” near the upper left. Changing this to “Higher performance” will activate the NVIDIA 9600 graphic processor, thus utilizing the extra 256MB-512MB integrated RAM and freeing up system memory.

Download Apple Server Diagnostics if lost

Since 2008, Apple has been installing Apple Server Diagnostics 3x106 on Xserves and Mac mini servers on a hidden partition of the boot drive, accessible if you hold down the N key during the boot sequence. This is similar to the Apple Hardware Test that is installed on a hidden partition of the boot drive on Mac workstations. With both, if you reformat the boot drive, these hidden partitions are lost. Cursorily it would appear Apple is offering a download for the Apple Server Diagnostics 3x106 if you’ve lost them, available at: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL948

Creative Applications

Guide locking confusion with InDesign

Guides in InDesign can be locked in two ways, preventing you from clicking to move them. The first is through Guides->Grids and Guides->Lock Guides. The second is through the Layer Options (Layers panel menu->Layer Options). If you lock the guides using Layer Options, the Lock Guides will not be checked under Guides->Grids and Guides, which can be confusing.

Tracking down location of missing QuarkXPress fonts

If you open a QuarkXPress document, and it says fonts are missing, however you can’t find where these missing fonts are used in the document... look at the style sheets applied to the document. If missing fonts are used by a style sheet, even if that style sheet isn’t applied to any text, they will still be reported as missing when opening the document.