Power

Apr 27 2009

What Is File System Journaling?

Brought to you by: James

Have you ever wondered, “What is File System Journaling”? Don’t worry, most of us have. File System Journaling was originally a feature only available to the server world. Finally, File System Journaling has made it to our favorite home computers.

Have you ever wondered why web servers seem to be in 100% working order after a crash/restart? File System Journaling is the answer. FSJ keeps a constant record of changes made to the volume after each startup. Should an unforeseen event occur, such as a power failure or kernel panic, FSJ will return your HFS+ volume to its last know “good” state.

FSJ keeps you up and running against most unforeseen accidents. The effect of restoring the drive to its last known “good” state is hardly noticeable (except for the fact that everything works perfectly). This effect also helps prevent drive errors by removing any partial data written at the time of the unexpected shutdown. The record that FSJ keeps also helps to progressively speed up start time, and uses very little disk space.

Are you in OSX 10.3 or higher? If you are, have you noticed that your drive does not need to be repaired after an unexpected shutdown? Have you noticed that your startup has been getting faster since you installed 10.3 or 10.4? Both of these are due to that fact that FSJ is enabled on 10.3′s and 10.4′s installation.

How do you enable FSJ in 10.3 or higher? All you have to do is restart from your 10.3 disk, open Disk Utility (under the ‘Installer’ menu), select your drive, and hit the ‘Enable Journaling” button. If you don’t have 10.3 or higher, just download and run Journalizer (note: FSJ requires 10.2.2 or later). If you have a new hard drive that you want to set up with FSJ active, just choose to format it was “HFS+ (Journaled)”.

Keep in mind, that if you’re a fan of using fsck, you’ll have to enter ‘/sbin/fsck -fy‘ instead. But trust me, you won’t find any errors. Have fun with FSJ!

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Apr 27 2009

AJAX Applications, Part 2

Two weeks ago we looked at some exciting new AJAX projects you can run from your own server. This week, we’re going to take a look at some other great examples of AJAX in free web services.

Writely

This one has to be my favorite of the bunch. Writely is an online word processor that supports Word and HTML documents. You can create docs from scratch, upload them or even email them into your Writely account. From there you can edit, share and collaborate on them and publish them to your blog.

writely AJAX Applications, Part 2

Writely has all the convenience and power of a wiki, without the obnoxious markup and with support for Word. The AJAX provides a fast writing and editing experience that makes it as slick as a desktop application.

Writely, like all good Web 2.0 apps is in beta, and someday, some kind of advanced features will cost money. But basic accounts are, and should stay, free.

NumSum

Now that you’ve all signed up for your Writely accounts, I’m sure you’re wondering if anyone has come up with something similar for Excel. Enter NumSum. This gorgeous implementation of AJAX grants you an online spreadsheet with live updating and sharing capabilities.

numsum AJAX Applications, Part 2

NumSum can not import or export Excel files – yet, but you’ll be surprised how easily you can cut and paste multiple cells right from Excel. NumSum also supports formulas.

TiddlyWiki

This is an interesting AJAX product. TiddlyWiki is a very popular, portable wiki. You can run the file from your desktop, add and remove items as well as edit existing ones and save your changes. All of this happens instantly, in slick AJAX. There are many adaptations including plugins and a hosted service called ServerSideWiki.

Kiko

Now, calendaring. Kiko is a sharable, dragable event calendar. Kiko has all the interactivity of a desktop calendar, with the added convenience of online access. Future plans for this tool include iCal import/export.

Meebo

Meebo is an AJAX powered multi-protocol chat client you run right from your browser. This instant messenger has an instant response, and lets you chat from any computer without downloading a thing.

There’s no doubt that AJAX will change the way we interact with the web. With s start like this, one can only imagine the possibilities.

Brian

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Sep 24 2008

Warp Spaces. Smack Spaces.

picture 20080924 201235 Warp Spaces. Smack Spaces.Here are a couple freeware goodies that will give you a variety of ways to control Spaces and alter the way you’re able to use it.

The first one was just updated today and it’s called SmackSpaces. It gives you a super power that was available to us under Mac OS X 10.4 when Virtua Desktops was installed; namely the ability to Smack our Sudden Motion Sensor equipped Mac and be whisked to the next Space. Unfortunately, it runs as an application taking up room on your Dock. SmackSpaces was developed by Martin H. Pedersen who is currently offering for free.

The second Space altering app is Warp. Warp is a Preference Pane makes it as simple as dragging your cursor, a window or a file to an edge of your screen that borders on an adjacent Space and you and that window or file will be effortlessly taken to that neighboring Space. Whoosh! Kent Sutherland is the man behind Warp and he is letting you have it for free but the PayPal “donate” button on the page is giving me the idea that he would appreciate some monetary support if you end up using Warp on a regular basis and would like to see its development continue.

Note:

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