This morning I got the error ‘unable to get status of backup volume’. I am not the only one with this error message. Unfortunately I did not find a solution right away. I did a repair with Disk Utility on the iMac, but no errors were found.

When I connected the harddisk right away to the iBook, I did not got the error and performed a backup as usual. I did get however another error (unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume) while finishing the backup. Still investigating. I might have found the solution. And indeed it resolved the issue. I just had a backup attempt that went wrong. That is the danger when doing a backup over the network to a harddisk connected to another computer, which is not always under my control.

So then I downloaded VueScan and the scanner worked right away. So I bought the application and am a happy camper now.

But I am truely fedup with these large companies, I had similar troubles with my Epson printer and my Umax scanner. Really annoying.

• Parallels Desktop - personally I have no need for windows and futhermore I am still on a PowerPC. However it might be something for my son in the future on his Intel-iMac. But then I have to buy Windows, what horror;
• BannerZest - Flash presentation software, might be interesting. However currently I just use Flickr;
• Sound Studio - for audio recording and editing. It sounds like a solid app, however I do not have a real need at the moment;
• Leap - another Spotlight interface, I have to see this;
• DVDRemaster pro - copying DVD’s sounds interesting, although I never wanted to do that;
• MenuCalendarClock - I am not a big iCal user;
• Hazel - an automatic housekeeper? For the few files that I create?
• StoryMill - multi-level writing sounds interesting. I am not a write, but could this approach be used for research as well?
• Art Text - I do make flyers from time to time, but usually I do not like fancy Text Art;
• Typinator - hmmm, do not really need that;

So all in all there are some interesting applicatiojns, there is however not a real need for me to get any one of these. So I will pass on this offer.

Spaces - it turns out that I became a big user of spaces. I try to divide my various work tasks into separate spaces. Works quite nice. I assigned the top left corner as the spaces invocation.

Timemachine - I set up my computer for timemachine. Seems to work pretty well. At least I am no longer worried about my backups. I even start to forget my backups to Amazon with JungleDisk. I was able to retrieve already several files. And I used to install from backup feature.

I think that is about what comes to mind and that does not seem much. I do not use Stacks. I do not use Quick Look, not all apss support it. I played with Screen Sharing, is fun, but no use at the moment.

And I do not think I noticed any other big changes yet. The system works, no crashes or other trouble.

The MacBook Air looks very nice. Wonder whether it is very fragile. It has everything that one could want. I hope that the Remote Disk facility will available for other computers as well.

Time capsule is a good idea, but I rather use my existing stuff to do this.

iPhone/iPod Touch updates are go, they continue developing it.

The movie rental/Apple TV announcement is a great evolutionary step. WOnder whether can use a Mac Mini as well to do this. We'll waint and see when it comes to Europe.

1password - this might be a good application, however I do not trust these kind of applications for my passwords. I like to keep control.

CoverSutra - just started playing with this one. For the moment I like the unintrusive pop-up when a new song starts.

Cha-Ching - I really should try this one out. I am still an Excel user for this kind of work. I wonder what this app would bring me.

iStopMotion - I do not really need this application. Maybe something for my son.

Awaken - I rather wake up my computer myself.

SpeedDownload - does this really work? No idea what this does.

AppZapper - this might be useful with all does applications that I try and throw away again.

TaskPaper - not useful for me.

CSSEdit - I am not really a website builder. I did need this app though from time to time.

SnapzProX2 - This is really useful. Long due.

Pixelmator - I do not have a good image editing app. I need it from time to tweek an image.

So all in all the usefulness is limited.

• Forklift - I need an app like this. With my upgrade to Leopard, I could no longer use Transmit, so I had to spend money anyway. So why not try this one?
• Rapidweaver - I already have a license, do not need one, I am a Sandvox user;
• Swift Publisher - not sure about this one. I use Pages normally;
• Marine Aquarium - could be nice on the new iMac;
• Xslimmer - I have a license. Not sure whether I will use it. I have a PPC and Intel machine that I want to keep synchronized. I might use it to get rid of some languages;
• Memory Miner - have to try this. Might be interesting;
• Yep - Once my scanner works, I think I will try the paperless office;
• SRS Wow - something for the new iMac;
• XMIND - does not seem to be very Mac like. Do not really need it;
• iStabilize - will certainly do more with video on the new iMac. So this might come in handy;
• PulpMotion - maybe something for my son;

Then I started TimeMachine on the iMac to get a good copy. In the mean time I did a clean install of Leopard on my iBook. And once that was done I did an upgrade from the TimeMachine backup. That went all very smooth. Only my iBook thinks that it is an iMac. The saved window positions assume a larger screen for instance. More troublesome is that the iBook assumes that it has a french keyboard, which it doesn't. Have not found yet how I can correct that system-wide.

I got a new machine at home with Leopard and it seems good to me. I do not have much experience with it though. I am starting to prepare an upgrade with my laptop. Unfortunately the Migration Assistant did not work for me, so I have to do everything by hand. For the applications I have to do that anyway, as I am moving from Tiger to Leopard, and from PowerPC to Intel. I threw away the Intel-forks.

So the upgrading is a slow process. Once I have all my files over, I will start with a clean slate and do a clean install. My system has now so much junk that a bit of cleaning can do no harm.

Ping value is OK. At the moment it is 200 msec to a server in Paris. However in the evening it can drop to 500 msec.

Throughput (down) is about 80% better. However last night it dropped to only 200 kbps, it is 20% of my initial value. I hope that this will improve. I will do regular speed testing for a while.

The Neufbox is nice, I had no trouble setting it up. The WiFi signal seems les strong than my previous device. Have it now connected to the Wii and the PS3. So looks good.

I tries to connect my external harddisk to the box. Unfortunately it was not well recognised. I guess this due to the formatting I used (MacOSX extended). Guess I should revert to something else again. I have to experiment what is supported. My USB-ket worked OK. I was able to connect via FTP and WebDav.

I was not able to get my printer (HP DeskJet 5940) going. I found a PPD-file on the net, but it did work. The Neufbox did see the printer. I am at a loss here.

And finally the telephone worked as well through the Neufbox. I could call out and receive calls.

In addition all offers force me into a (triple play) box. This is nice as well as my current WiFi solution seems broken. Now I am looking into the details of each offer.

Orange is out of the question as I still have to keep my France Telecom subscription. On their site I am not allowed to sign up for the 8 Mbps package, as I only can get 2 Mbps.

Tele2 has no valid offers in my region,

Darty is still a new player and has insufficient info on it's box. So I did not look any further.

Neuf Telecom stupid that they have a windows only music service. Looks like a good offer. Like the 3 LAN-ports on the box. And It has two USB-ports, for my printer and hard-disk. 45 Euro cancellation costs. Montly costs are at 35 Euro per month. The box also supports WebDAV, so very easy for my Mac. I am not sure whether my printer (HP 5940) is supported.

Club Internet has now become Neuf Telecom, although they still show their own offers. Seems like an interesting offer, but I guess it will merge into the Neuf portfolio.

Alice has a sign-up fee. They have a not very good reputation. There offer seems to be OK.

Free has a cancellation fee of 86 Euro, which diminishes with 3 Euro per month. I hate their website, very hard to figure out what I will get and how much it will cost. Enough reason to stop investigating.

It looks like Neuf Telecom has the best offer, but that is based on their box. In terms of functionality they are all the same. And the quality comparison is impossible to make, alas.

I decided to go for this solution and ordered it today.

I complained to the author about it, but it is a Flash-problem. Flash is doing all kind of things. That might be true, but I think that NNW should halt that process then, when I want to go to the next Item.

The only way now to halt the process, is to doubleclick the Item, opening a browser tab and then closing that window in order to go back to reader tab. Annoying.

I started looking for the Fonera error messages on the net. And then I found the problem. It seems that the change from Wanadoo to Orange, also involved a change in DNS servers. And the Wanadoo servers seem to be not as good as the Orange servers. So I added the Orange servers to the DNS list in my router. The Fonera picks these up, when it reboots. I couls access the websites again.

I still have a problem with the Fonera though. It loses its connection now and then. Whereas on the wireline I have no such problems.

But then I happened to change from from wireless to wire for some reason. And then the connections did work. So there is a problem with the wireless part. And I guess that would be the basestation then. I am using La Fonera. Strange that this is not working. Do they filter on domain? scary...

Guess I have to look at a new solution. Like to have a DSL modem/router/basestation/USB-server solution.

For me this deleted some 1.4 GB, which is not bad. This required me to buy the application though.

I think this a feature that should be part of the operating system and should include recovery services as well. It is all stuff that I really do not need and litters my harddrive.

By the way, I have the impression that the iBook is now snappier as well.

Then I however noticed that I could not reach the harddisk from other computers on the network. These are also Macs. It took me a while googling before I found the answer. It turns out that the disk should be formatted 'MacOS Extended' and not 'MS-DOS'.

And I had to Google a bit before I found the formatting guidelines. Did that and now it works like a charm.

I hooked the hard disk up to an old computer, which as only USB 1.1. Still have to test whether this is sufficient for my purposes. All the other computers can automount the harddisk. This is done through the startup items. Just drag the network disk into the startup panel.

Still have to work out how other users can access the harddisk as well. Have an idea to solve it.

I hardly used MacOSX the last few years, just for this app. So it is time to delete this system, at last,

I had expected an easy installation, this was however not the case. There was a problem with the drivers. The computer recognized the drivers well, but then it did not work. It might well be my fault as I deleted a lot of unused printer stuff. And the CD that came along was no help, it was broken. So to the Googleplex. I found an installer and downloaded a version. Upon installing however everything went wrong. My computer totally hanged. I had to restart a few times, but nothing seemed to help, so back to the Googleplex and now I downloaded a driver from the HP site. Why are these files so large by the way (120 MB), it is ridiculous. But now after the install everything work well.

I think it is a problem of the application that I am testing (Connoisseur) as it happened twice to me while exporting from this app. Unfortunately I was not able to reproduce the error.

So for me it will be an improvement of Leopard, one of those announced secret stuff. And then I think of a database as the underlying structure of the Operating System, which will be truly a large step. And that would have all kinds of interesting consequences for the applications.