Chronosync Permission Problems

Recently I helped a customer to overcome their chronosync permission problems.  Going into the usual Disk Utility and repairing permissions did not solve the problem - apparently because in OSX Lion this utility does not repair permissions for anything in your home folder.  So the trick to solving permissions problems with Chronosync when using Lion is done like so:

In Lion, there is an additional Repair Permissions application utility hidden away. This tool is located inside boot Repair Utilities. Here’s how to access it.

1. Restart Lion and hold down the Command and R keys.
2. You will boot into the Repair Utilities screen. On top, in the Menu Bar click the Utilities item then select Terminal.
3. In the Terminal window, type resetpassword and hit Return.
4. The Password reset utility launches, but you’re not going to reset the password. Instead, click on the icon for your Mac’s hard drive at the top. From the drop-down below it, select the user account where you are having issues.
5. At the bottom of the window, you’ll see an area labeled ‘Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs’. Click the Reset button there.

The reset process takes a couple of minutes. When it’s done, quit the programs you’ve opened and restart your Mac. Notice that ‘Spotlight’ starts re-indexing immediately.

This should be done for all user accounts and on all Macs that are involved in the synchronisation.  If there is still an issue following the permission repair then have a look at the file(s) concerned.  In my case there was still a corrupt file on one of the computers that I could delete.  I knew it was corrupt as one computer said its size was 40kb and the other computer said 0kb, so I deleted the 0kb one.

Instructions courtesy of http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/15/repair-user-permissions-in-mac-os-x-lion/

If you would like help with this or any other fix for your Mac, then please contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116.

Paste a table into Blogspot / Blogger

Attempting a new approach of inserting a table into Blogger, I decided to try using a Macro in Excel to generate the HTML code.  As usual, someone else had beaten me to it and provided some ready to use code: http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/excel/xl2html.htm

To quickly get up to speed and have you table pasted into Blogger in under 5 minutes and in just over 10 steps by following these steps below:

1. Copy all the text from this page: http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/excel/code/xl2htmlx.txt
2. In Excel press Alt + F11 to bring up the macro editor
3. Select Insert > Module
4. Paste the text from 1. into the right hand window (if it is not displayed already, double-click "Module 1" in the left-hand pane.
5. I had to delete the first 8 lines to get the code to compile so I recommend you do the same.
6. Save the file - when the dialog box warns you about the file-type (in 2010) then select no and then go on to save the file.
7. Return to your Excel table - create the table if you haven't already
8. Highlight the table that you want to paste into Blogger
9. Press Alt + F8 to show the available macros, select XL2HTML and then press Run.
10. Save the txt file when prompted, but more importantly a webpage will pop up displaying the table, now highlight the table here and copy it.
11. Go to Blogger and in "Compose" view, paste the table.

In the future you can use the excel workbook again and again for creating HTML tables, you can jump right in at step 7.

If you would like help with any of the steps above, then do contact us at The PC Support Group on 0845 2233116

Using Word 2010 and Blogspot

For my last post I needed to insert a table into Blogspot.  This must be common enough, yet the only way I could find to do it was by typing out the html manually.  If I'd had an HTML editor to hand then no doubt I could have used that, and I'm sure there are other tricks too.  What I discovered was the Blogpost option in Word 2010, so I started investigating.  I was sadly disappointed.

This post provided some hope: http://astralsnotes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/publishing-word-doc-to-bloggercom-with.html
This one also pointed to a possible solution: http://caflib.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/publishing-to-blogger-from-word-2007.html

This Technet post here seems to back up my findings that Google and Microsoft are not talking to each other as far as blog posts are concerned.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/word/thread/426b0f98-68f3-4a8a-9d88-a05fab1b6616

So to solve my original problem of inserting a table in Blogspot, I turned to Excel to solve the problem.  See my next post for more info.

Real-world Storage Media Transfer Rates

Something that I did today was compare real-world transfer rates between different types of storage media using different interfaces.  Now I recognize that there are many variables which will make a difference to these results, but this is no fancy setup and I believe these results are achievable by everyone using similar equipment.

HP Pro 3130 small form factor with 8Gb RAM running Windows 7 Pro x64
Startech USB 3.0 PCIe Card (PEXUSB3S2)
LG N1A1 NAS
Kingston Datatraveller Elite 3.0 16Gb
Zyxel Gigabit switch (GS-105B)
Zyxel Fast-ethernet switch (ES-108A)

Tests were performed using Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.1 x64

Results

	Read (Mb/s)	Write (Mb/s)
Sata 300 HDD	83.11	89.53
Sata 300 SSD	136.7	35.26
USB 3.0	80.62	35.7
USB 2.0	21	5
Fast-ethernet	8	11
Gigabit ethernet	42.5	38.75

Conclusion

From these results we can conclude that USB 3 represents a very real 4 times increase in speed.  Using gigabit ethernet to access network devices increases speed by 5 times.  But, a cheap SSD may not improve speed in the way that you were hoping.

I now have a Wireless N router so I may shortly compare Wireless N to Wireless G for datatransfer so stay tuned.

If you are looking for speed improvements with you network and don't know where to start then as always contact The PC Support Group on 0845 2233116

Create a mail archive in Mac Mail for OSX Lion

Today I was frustrated when I was helping a customer to set up a mail archive in the mail app for OSX Lion.  This customer often exceeds their mail quota and then needs to find emails to delete.  As any Windows or Unix user knows, when you exceed your mail quota you can instead set up an archive.

Believe it or not there is an archive feature built in to Mail on Lion, however if doesn't actually archive, as I understand the term.  What it does is create a new folder called "Archive" and places the emails there.  Useful... if you can't handle drag and drop!  This obviously doesn't solve the mail quota problem I mentioned early, for that you need to move messages off the mail server and onto the local hard-drive (make sure you have a back up if you're going to do this).

If you require assistance with any of the steps below then please feel free to contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116

So to create a true archive in Mac Mail, you need to follow the guidance given here:
http://www.usc.edu/its/email/applemail/local.html

And should that page disappear at some point here it is again:

1. While in Apple Mail, select the Mailbox menu. Click New Mailbox. The following window will appear:

2. Under Location, select On My Mac.

3. Under Name, type in a name with which to identify the local folder, for example, local inbox or archive. Click OK.
4. You will see the local folders you created in the Mailboxes panel on the left-hand side of the window. If you do not see the Mailboxes panel, go to the View menu and select Show Mailboxes.

5. To move messages to the new folder simply drag and drop them, they will then move from the mail server to the local computer and thereby solve the quota problem.