Aszland

http://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/

Lost your OSX password for your user account?

1. Reboot.

2. Hold Apple+S while restarting.

3. The mac will come up in single user mode. Type this:

/sbin/mount -uw
/sbin/SystemStarter (I didn’t actually need this)
passwd [username]

You’ll be prompted to type the new password for that user.

4. Type “reboot”.

Now, if you’re thinking “OMG my password does nothing to prevent people accessing my files?” then you’re quite correct. You can also boot off an OSX install cd and break passwords similarly. So, you’re probably wanting to know how to protect yourself from that.

You’ll want “Open Firmware” which can be installed from your OSX installation CD at /Applications/Utilities/. It’s also graphically installable off the “Utilities” menu on the disk.

What it does:

• Blocks the ability to use the “C” key to start up from an optical disc.
• Blocks the ability to use the “N” key to start up from a NetBoot server.
• Blocks the ability to use the “T” key to start up in Target Disk Mode (on computers that offer this feature).
• Blocks the ability to use the “D” key to start up from the Diagnostic volume of the Install DVD.
• Blocks the ability to start up a system in Single-user mode by pressing the Command-S key combination during startup.
• Blocks a reset of Parameter RAM (PRAM) by pressing the Command-Option-P-R key combination during startup.
• Blocks the ability to start up in Verbose mode by pressing the Command-V key combination during startup.
• Blocks the ability to start up in Safe Boot mode by pressing the Shift key during startup.
• Requires the password to use the Startup Manager, accessed by pressing the Option key during startup (see below)

This doesn’t prevent anyone from yanking the drive and hooking it up in another computer, or accessing your data in a few other obscure ways.  For that, check under System Preferences and consider enabling File Vault.

Microsoft shows the world why DRM sucks bigtime.

MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.“

This comes from “esx3_partition_align.pdf (page 1 of 10)

Our testing validates the assumption that VMware VMFS partitions that align to 64KB track boundaries result in reduced latency and increased throughput on the EMC CLARiiON CX series of networked storage systems. Partition alignment on both physical machines and VMware VMFS partitions prevents performance I/O degradation due to track misalignment. Creating VMware VMFS partitions using VirtualCenter 2.0 or later results in a partition table aligned on the 64KB boundary as storage and operating system vendors recommend.

Throughput Increase: Min = 2% Average = 12% Max = 62%

I ran into a machine that had like 16 local area tunnel virtual adapters today.  Weird.  I tracked it to this:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/09/09/how-to-disable-tcpipv6-teredo-tunneling-in-vista/

Aircraft comparison

Aces High Trainer Corps

Setting Unix systems’ date:

# date mmddhhmmyy

[root@sasquatch]# date 0404105808
Fri Apr  4 10:58:00 EDT 2008

I strongly recommend the GUI version: HERE

Robust File and Folder Copy.
By default Robocopy will only copy a file if the source and destination have different time stamps or different file sizes.
Syntax

ROBOCOPY source_folder destination_folder [file(s)_to_copy] [options]

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Do you like bling?  Functional bling, I mean.

http://maximillianx.blogspot.com/2007/10/windows-diagnostic-tool-spotlight-on.html 

I’ve been playing with this gem for a while today.  It’s pure awesomesauce.