Mac OS X Lion and legacy SMB

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mount_smbfs: server connection failed: Unknown error: -5996

For anyone else experiencing problems connecting to older Windows networking shares (using SMB/CIFS protocols) from OS X Lion hosts, here is why and what to do about it.

For many years Mac OS X included the Open Source Samba client, but from OS X 10.7 onwards this was replaced by Apple’s own Windows networking software. In making this change Apple also chose to disable support for the older SMB 1.0 protocol, which some file sharing devices still depend on.

If you cannot connect your Mac to a network storage device, then try this command which temporarily resurrects support for the older SMB 1.0 protocol:

sudo sysctl -w net.smb.fs.kern_deprecatePreXPServers=0

Note that this is a transient kernel fix which will revert back when you reboot your Mac.

Unfortunately I’ve heard that this option no longer works in OS X Mountain Lion (10.8), so if you can’t update your legacy storage device to support SMB 2.0 then you had better not upgrade!

(Apple support article HT4697 also describes this issue)

Twitter journalism

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I’ve ranted previously about shoddy BBC journalism, more recently I’ve seen more examples of what I term Twitter journalism. The worst protagonist for cultivating this drivel is Daily Mail Online, but that’s their raison d’être and absurd sensationalism is what you expect when you visit their site.

It’s sad to see the scourge of Twitter journalism now creeping insidiously into BBC News. There’s no better example than this article on BBC News: HD signal ‘lost’ during Wimbledon

That looks interesting I thought, surely as lead broadcaster the BBC would be the most dependable news organisation to go to for the low-down.

How wrong could I be! Never have I seen such a moronic and baseless article, totally devoid of facts or informative content.

It starts well enough:

Viewers watching Andy Murray and David Ferrer’s Wimbledon quarter final clash missed vital seconds of the match as BBC One HD went off the air.

So what was the cause?

“It was down on Sky [and] Freeview,” said one viewer on Twitter. “Sky had a very basic fault message on a black background. Freeview was just black.”

You’ve just told us that. We don’t need it reiterating by a random faceless quote.

But the match was still available on the BBC’s standard definition channel. Dozens of people complained about the loss of picture on social media sites.

Yes yes, I understand that people were rightly upset about the break in transmission. So what actually happened?

“Who’s stolen BBC HD?” asked Neil Sculley on Twitter.

“When will the HD return?” added Richard M. “It’s been about 20 mins and no announcement.”

No factual news content here, just a few questions scraped up from Twitter. I’m still none the wiser.

Some viewers reported that when the picture did return, it was a standard definition picture, not HD.

But, by 18:00, normal service appeared to have been restored.

“Appeared”? In case you hadn’t noticed, you work for the BBC. Wasn’t there someone in the internal directory you could ask?

“Panic over, HD resumed on BBC,” said Jamie Grace.

“Murray is now even uglier and angrier than normal.”

So the official confirmation of service being resumed was another comment on Twitter?

It’s no wonder the author of this ‘article’ hasn’t dared put their name to it.

Shame on you BBC.

Gmail window in Safari

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I like to have a separate Safari browser window for Gmail sessions, without the Safari toolbar or bookmarks bar.

It’s a bit of a pain to set this up each time the browser is reset, so here’s a handy tip for creating a bookmarklet which opens Gmail in an uncluttered window of its own:

javascript:window.open("http://gmail.com/","gmail","titlebar=0");

Save this bookmarklet to the first position in your personal bookmarks bar and you can also access it using the shortcut key Command+1.

EvoCam vs SecuritySpy

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The options for network camera recording software are a bit limited on Mac OS. The two most popular products in this space are Evological’s EvoCam and Bensoftware’s SecuritySpy.

So which is best?

On price alone you might be tempted by EvoCam as it costs just $30 (under £20) for an unlimited number of cameras, while SecuritySpy will set you back £30 for a single camera license and a whopping £500 for unlimited camera support.

I’ve had an opportunity to evaluate both products and have come to the conclusion that you really do get what you pay for.

EvoCam does the job well enough and has a more polished user interface, but it also suffers from a major problem that lets it down badly, almost to the point of being unusable. For reasons unknown it ties up the processor for even a simple one camera recording setup.

Activity Monitor output taken for identical recording sessions is below:

In these examples (from a Mac Mini 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM), EvoCam consumes 85% CPU and 90MB real memory, while in comparison SecuritySpy consumes a meagre 6% CPU and 21MB real memory. That’s quite a difference and it’s very noticeable when you try to use the same host machine for other work.

So if you have the luxury of a dedicated powerful server for your camera recording then EvoCam is probably the most cost effective option, but if you want something that works reliably and doesn’t take over your machine then SecuritySpy is well worth the extra investment.

GSecure: Encrypt your Google Drive

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Google Drive has finally launched, but privacy campaigners have already reviewed Google’s Privacy Policy and raised questions about the legal ownership of files you store on ‘your’ G Drive.

But what Google can’t see they can’t use right? :-)

Using EncFS and some tools you can create a totally secure encrypted filesystem on top of the standard Google Drive in under 5 minutes.

Mac OS instructions only below.

First download and install Fuse4X and a version of EncFS which uses the Fuse4X APIs. Thanks to Simone Lehmann for providing an EncFS Mac installer at http://www.lisanet.de/?p=128 (also mirrored here).

To create a new encrypted volume (stored locally at first to prevent the EncFS key from being synchronised with Google Drive):

encfs ~/Desktop/_Encrypted ~/Documents/_GSecure

Answer ‘yes’ when prompted to create the new folders and choose ‘p’ for pre-configured paranoia mode (256-bit AES encryption). Enter a secure EncFS password when prompted and you’re done.

Now the filesystem has been created we can deal with securing the key.

umount ~/Documents/_GSecure
mkdir ~/.keys
mv ~/Desktop/_Encrypted/.encfs6.xml ~/.keys/gsecure.xml

The commands above move your key from the EncFS filesystem into a hidden folder in your (local) home directory

Now move the entire ~/Desktop/_Encrypted folder (minus your key) into your Google Drive:

mv ~/Desktop/_Encrypted ~/Google\ Drive/

Finally download my GSecure application and copy it to your Applications folder.

The first time you run GSecure it will prompt you for your EncFS password which it stores in your local login keychain. The password must match the secure password you set in a previous step.

To mount or unmount the encrypted filesystem simply run the GSecure app. For convenience copy it to your Mac OS Dock for quick access.

Hapless Harry

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In the ten game spell since Fabio Capello quit as England football manager, Spurs have won just 2 games, drawn 3 and lost 5. We were also thrashed in the North London derby and humiliated in a 5-1 FA Cup semi-final defeat at Wembley against Chelsea.

That current league form ranks Spurs in 16th place, a point behind Blackburn and Bolton who coincidentally are the next two teams we face.

Table courtesy of weekendfootball.co.uk

On that form it’s going to be a real challenge to make 5th place, let alone 4th.

What does England manager-elect Redknapp have to say in his defence?

After losing 2-1 to Norwich:

“Well all credit to them. I thought they deserved it, they worked very hard today and made it difficult for us. They played excellent. We were disappointing. I changed the system, I played 4-4-2 today, we played with four forwards and I really felt we were too open. We’ve got five big games to go, we’ve got to really look to win all five games.”

You might think that as manager he was actually responsible for the formation and tactics and could perhaps make changes if it wasn’t working?

After losing 1-0 to QPR:

“There’s four games left, we’ve got to win the last four games now. I think you’re gonna need 12 points now, you’re going to have to pick up 12 points from the last four games. It’s going to be tight, it’s all to play for. Four games to go, we need four wins.”

“We need to win x games”. That seems to be a recurring quote from Harry.

You don’t need to be a master tactician or even a mathematician to work that one out.

Fortunately The FA are all set to come to the rescue and pay to ‘release’ Harry before he suffers the ignominy of a sacking. So it’s ’Harry for England’ and COME ON YOU SPURS!