Late night, deep slumber. The phone rings—never a good sign. “Hello?” “Hi...can you help? My computer’s dead!”
A relative calling from a thousand miles away, in a panic.
“What’s the problem?” “Well, it won’t boot. All I get is this message on my screen...”
Disk boot failure - Insert system disk and press EnterOuch. None of our remote control tools are going to help with this one. We need someone there to look at it! Skip forward a week. An experienced tech guy has been on-site, working on the computer all day. It’s still not fixed. He calls for help. His report: After seven hours, he’s found that none of the usual issues for that message seem to apply:
- The hard disk is actually fine. No problem.
- Windows is properly installed. In fact, he wiped out everything on the disk and reinstalled Windows, but it still is not working properly.
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Tags: Inspired Debugging, System boot, Windows
ICTA loves to discover and promote Spirit-Led Technology – and we have an interesting new example for you at this gift-giving time of year! A friend of ICTA has helped develop and promote a fun, exciting and Bible-centered high tech way to offset a bit of our secular culture’s lock on kid’s attention spans – currently estimated as 42 hours a week of secular TV or video games.
ICTA has been given permission to offer you early access to Bible Islands, a safe, online learning game adventure experience for kids 4-99.
ICTA’s Christmas gift to you: you and your family can all PLAY FREE in Bible Islands with a two-week family FREE Trial Subscription good through January 2nd (it becomes a one-week trial after that.) Then if you opt to become a member of Bible Islands, using the ICTA link provides access to discounted 6 or 12-month family membership packages. The makers of Bible Islands will also donate a significant portion of your family membership to ICTA ministry projects. So check this out, tell us what you think…and pass along to others who may be interested.
More details below the fold…
The Mac is well known as an easy, reliable computer.
It only took me five minutes to discover that Mac marketing hype has its limits.
Administrating a Mac server requires the ability to look at a variety of configuration files, particularly when doing anything beyond the bare basics.
So, one of my first goals was to make it easy to see the “hidden” files on the computer.
It’s easy on Windows. Just open up Tools->Options and change a checkbox or two.
How about on the mac?
Nope, there’s no option for this. It’s not in the user guide. Nowhere. I guess they just assume people don’t need to see hidden files.
So, I searched Google… and found a good set of instructions. Here’s what it takes:
1. Open Automator (in your Applications folder) and choose Service from the list of templates provided and click the Choose button.
2 In the left hand column under Library, select Utilities.
3. In the second column, drag “Run Shell Script” to the right hand pane.
4. At the top of the right hand pane where you dragged the Run Shell Script action, click on the right-hand popup menu and change “any application” to “Finder”. This sets the service so it only appears and can be activated by the keyboard shortcut when Finder is the active application.
5. Then click on the popup menu next to “Service receives” and choose “no input”. It’s important you do this step after step 4 because if you do the reverse, Finder won’t be available as an option in the right hand menu.
6. Copy and paste the following text into the empty text area of the Run Shell Script action:
7.
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit' SHOWHIDDEN=`defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles` if [ $SHOWHIDDEN -eq 1 ]; then defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool FALSE else defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool TRUE fi osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to activate'Completed Automator action, ready to save (click to enlarge)
8. Choose File–>Save, and give the new service a meaningful name like “Toggle Hidden Files” that will appear in the Services menu. Once you’ve done that, you can go to the Services menu (located in the current application menu, next to the Apple menu) and your newly created service should appear there. You can even run it, it’s already functional, just lacking a keyboard shortcut.9. Open System Preferences–>Keyboard–>Keyboard Shortcuts and select Services in the left column.
10. Setting the keyboard shortcut (click to enlarge)
11. Scroll down to the bottom and under the General category, you should see your newly created service listed there. Select it, then Double-click close to the right side of the selected line to reveal a field where you can enter a custom keyboard shortcut. Enter “Shift+Command+.” (might as well keep it consistent with the shortcut used in open/save dialog boxes), and then quit System Preferences.
The good news: follow those instructions carefully, and you will now be able to view or hide the hidden files. (By pressing Shift, Command and “+” together.)
Update (March 7, 2011): A friend has discovered an easier solution, albeit still non-standard. The built-in Dashboard app supports several thousand user-supplied “widget” mini-apps. One of those apps is the Hidden Files widget. With that widget installed (and the Dashboard icon dragged to your icon bar), toggling hidden file visibility is as simple as firing up the Dashboard, clicking on the Widget, and re-hiding the Dashboard.
While setting up a new netbook, the Quick Start Guide instructs:
It is strongly recommended that you create recovery DVDs/media before using your computer for the first time.
(further explanation of why this is such a Good Idea…)
For complete detailed information on how to create recovery DVDs/media, see the “Creating Recovery DVDs/media” section in the electronic User’s Guide preinstalled on your computer.
Hmmm… the instructions are in the computer, but I need to read them before I turn it on.
Maybe I need to lay hands on the computer… like with a hammer?
I’ve certainly learned something from this exercise.
Stay calm…
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