They say that a big part of creating a backup system is testing its ability to recover your files if there’s a failure. Well, Business 2.0 learned a valuable lesson when they lost their magazine’s latest issue and found their backup system wasn’t up to the task of recovering it. Luckily, the lawyers had a copy of every article (presumably to approve every use of the term “nappy”) and saved the day.

I’ll refrain from any lawyer jokes.

I recently came upon an excellent and detailed account of how to recover a damaged sparse disk image.

I use encrypted sparse images all the time to securely store files. Sparse images have the advantage of automatically resizing as you add more files, so that you don’t have to devote a huge amount of disk space for the image until it’s really needed.

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for these images to become corrupt if the resizing process is cancelled before it’s completed (for example if if the Finder crashes while the image is resizing). As sparse images are also used for Filevault-protected Macs, this could potentially lead to a catastrophic loss of data.

So this technique, while somewhat involved, is a welcome addition to my disk repair arsenal.

I tried 1-800-GOOG-411 for the first time today and was blown away with the results. It’s directory assistance powered by Google’s local/maps search. I got the info I wanted faster and easier than I would from T-Mobile, and the cost was nearly infinitely lower.

In this world of ubiquitous search, I’m amazed that T-Mobile, Qwest and their ilk can still get away with charging more than a quarter for this service, let alone $1.50. Way to go, Google!

I was so pleased by it, that I decided to do some more searches and try to find my friends’ small businesses, but I couldn’t find them. Same goes for the company that cleans my house and for my favorite masseuse.

Why?

Well, they don’t rank very high in a local search. Either they don’t have an address on their site, or the address isn’t on the first page or otherwise placed for good Google ranking. (Yet another reason to not have a splash page without a sitemap to point Google to the right place!)

Businesses really need to get their act together if they expect folks to find them online. Google (and Yahoo et. al.) are quickly replacing the yellow and white pages. It’s not just local businesses, either – people will search for your business or your office online and in Google Maps even if you’re international.

I’ve talked to some small business owners who don’t post an address because they work from home and don’t want folks showing up, or because they want to look more international and bigger. Well, you don’t see Microsoft or P&G hiding their corporate address just because they want to look like a big time company, do you?

Update: One of my small-biz-owning friends noted that his business address is right there on his web page. So’s my other friend’s business address, actually (all three of them). Turns out it helps to register your business with Google in order to get it to show up reliably in local searches.

I recently helped a friend with a dead Dell recover his files with the help of Knoppix, a Linux distro that boots right off a CD. I shared this success story with some friends of mine, one of whom wittily commented:

> thank you linux… thank you for booting our dead windows computers so we can reinstall windows. You’re a really great… friend.

> I know.. i know.. don’t feel sad.. we’ll always be friends.. I just.. don’t like you that way. Ya know?

> Linux is the nerd who did your homework for you in high school while you were dating the quarterback.

So true…

Hicks Design posted a really bitchin’ CSS file to customize Google Reader so that it’s less ugly and Google-ish looking. Works with Firefox, Safari, OmniWeb and Opera.

Check it out at hicksdesign

[Appleinsider reports that Leopard won’t ship until October.]((http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/04/12/apple_delays_leopard_release_until_october.html) The reason? The iPhone stole the time of too many developers.

Those of us who were concerned that Apple might be devoting more time to iPods that Macs appear to have some further justification for these concerns…

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a Google Reader fanatic. Nothing else handles RSS as smoothly as it does.

The one gigantic failing of Google Reader is that you cannot receive password-protected feeds that request user authentication. I think that sucks. A lot.

So I created a Yahoo Pipe to work around this failing.

Just go to the appropriate pipe and run it. It will prompt you for the feed’s URL, your username and your password. Enter all that information, and you’ll get your own private URL you can use in Google Reader (or any other http:auth-challenged RSS reader).

Warning! Feeds accessed in this way are open to everybody, so if you’re using NewsGator or Bloglines or some other service that shares your feeds with the world, be sure to set the feed un-shared. Otherwise you might get your private access summarily cut off when it’s determined that your personal password is effectively being broadcast to the world. Also, your Yahoo Pipes URL will contain your login and password, so even if you’re okay with giving the world access to premium content, you may not be so pleased about sharing your password with the same unwashed masses. You have been warned. Caveat RSS reader.

I tend to use Markdown syntax for most of my document creation needs. Then I use TextMate’s built-in Markdown support to convert to a Word document, RTF, PDF, etc… as necessary.

The one problem I have is that a lot of the so-called MultiMarkdown commands in TextMate leave me opening a file in my /tmp folder. If I forget to do a Save As… my document is lost forever. No good!

Here’s how you fix it…

I’ve added the following command to all the relevant MultiMarkdown commands:

/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a T "$DST.doc"

(Adjust as necessary changing .doc to .rtf or whatever you need, same for the $DST file path variable if that’s different in a custom command)

This uses the SetFile command (free with Apple’s developer tools) to change the converted document into a stationary pad. When you open up a stationary pad, it will create a new, untitled, document, which will prompt you to save to a location the first time you hit save.

Here’s my custom Markdown bundle to convert to a Word document:

# first figure out a name for the result
NAME="${TM_FILENAME:-untitled}"
BASENAME="${NAME%.*}"
DST="/tmp/$BASENAME"
`MultiMarkdown.pl|SmartyPants.pl >"$DST.html"`
# textutil is included with Tiger
require_cmd textutil
textutil -convert doc -extension doc "$DST.html"
`# set the file as stationary so it opens as a new doc` `/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a T "$DST.doc"`
# Open it up in Word
open -a "Microsoft Word" "$DST.doc"

[b]Special Bonus Tip:[/b] If you choose “Auto Format” from Word’s Format menu, it will nicely convert the headers into styled headers so that you can keep your document formatted with style sheets, and will also clean up lists in the same fashion! Efficient!

A while ago, I set up a Squidoo lens to let folks vote on which software for the Mac was best. To my great surprise, it was really popular, and quickly shot up into the top 50 Squidoo lenses, and was nominated as a Lens of the Day by Squidoo.

Well, it’s popularity has diminished slightly, but now the lens is in the running for the Squidoo Lens of the Year!

How cool would it be if a lens promoting the very BEST stuff for the Mac was awarded this prestigious title?

If you want to push for that, go vote on the lens of the year and give your vote to “The Top MacOS X Software. Period.” and let’s see what happens. (It’s hanging out around #30-40 out of nearly 200 lenses as I write this.)

Note that I make NO money and get NOTHING if it’s nominated. Any ad revenue the lens gets goes straight to charity. I just think it’s a great opportunity to show off some of the awesome software that we enjoy using every day. So go vote already!

From the MacOS X 10.4.9 release notes:

Includes iChat support for USB Video Class webcams.

In other words, you don’t need an official Apple camera in order to use iChat AV. It’s about time.