Going wireless makes my Powerbook hot

Even when only having textedit running I noticed computer hot and fan running. Turning off wireless fixed this.
Not to say that it isn't a problem but you can go wired if you are getting annoyed by the heat.

Mac backup software reviews

I was needing to backup my computer and these are my quick notes on the different solutions

• Carbon copy cloner (donation-ware)- . It only works for people with administrator privilege. can't be canceled. folder selection method makes sense in terms of common actions but is non-intuitive. It doesn't remember your selections. Support is supposed to be very good.
• rsyncx- I could not install
• rsyncbackup- just a script
• synk (Full use for thirty days)- This has a nice looking interface. One useful feature is that it shows how many files were moved. One annoying part of the process was that adding folders to be copied had to be done one at a time.
  
• sync pro x (Full use for 7 days, $99)- The software seems nice. It would be useful if I needed to do syncing. Here's a useful review.
  
• superduper! (crippleware, $28)- This software had good reviews including on Macworld but not many downloads. It was recommended to me by a friend as doing the best job of preserving metadata. Unfortunately it's crippleware.
  
• The only method of copying it will let you do is to completely erase everything and then copy. Being made to delete my data is wrong.
  
• It's not possible to see how well it does at doing a differential backup especially in terms ofspeed.
  
• The available functionality is less then I'd get doing a drag using the finder.
• I emailled these concerns to the developer points to the developer. Here's his response: "A single folder is a single folder, and can be dragged and dropped. We're more useful when you have a more complicate situation..."

Mac security

Clamxav and Henwen
I looked into some mac software today. I downloaded Snort which monitors network traffic and Henwen which is a graphical interface to Snort. I also got Clamxav which is a virus checker. Clamxav takes a long time and has no pause button. I haven't detected anything so far.

Console
I tried to find a good log viewer for a while. I had forgotten about Console. I do think they could have named Console to have log in the title. Console is a bit short on features.

.hosts
I made some edits to my hosts file to block some time-wasting sites. There is evidently some synchronization problems with this. If you visit a site, block it in hosts file, close browser and reopen access will still be allowed. Clearing caches doesn't affect this. I guess this is not done by the browser but by some backend DNS service.

Common Criteria
I also installed the Common Criteria stuff from Apple. There isn't much documentation but it seems that all this does is install the Audit Log Viewer.


X-Statistics
Give some basic info from log files. I didn't find it useful.

Neooffice, Openoffice x11, and Abiword

I was annoyed by Neoffice's slowness so I took a quick look at the alternatives. Openoffice X11 had a very bad looking interface but even worse the font look jagged and distracting. It was faster.
Abiword has trouble with my document- letters are cutoff. There isn't much in the way of navigation besides a Table of Contents. I might be able to make it work if I saved as Rich Text. Very snappy performance.

Audio recording problems tonight

From the Behringer mixer there is a lot of hiss. If I have any of these above the middle I get it: Gain, level 1, and main mix. I have all the other inputs down.
These results occur whether or not the mic is on or even plugged in. It also does not matter whether I listen through headphone jack or main out.

I wasn't able to use Audacity's monitor function but then suddenly it started working. It may be that you have to start a new project or track.

It wasn't until I started recording that I had these systemuiserver problems.

Unable to record this evening

Recording and any other efforts are shot for the evening. When I tried to record today nothing was showing up. The monitors within the software were showing sound coming in so it was a software issue. I talked to Apple Support an experience which as usual made me never want to deal with Apple again.
I refused to accept the first guy's answer that it was a microphone problem- (Sound could be seen in monitor waveforms and heard in the headphone monitors!).
I talked to a second guy and we did a lot of reboots and cord changes but no preference or system changes and eventually it worked. So neither of knows anything more about what caused it.