OS X

The Mighty Mouse

No, it's not a Disney creation or Pixar either. Steve Jobs' other company has announced the new Mighty Mouse. I'll have to go in and take a look at one to see if it will be appealing. For several years I've been a die-hard trackball user and don't know if this gem will sway me or not.

Identification of the problem

James Goodlet has identified the cause of the evil exited, signaled to death by 6 errors in Mac OS X Server. Really, it is a problem with the Cyrus IMAP server. Goodlet explains as well why the problem occurs when checking email with Mail.app and Entourage but not with Thunderbird. The short version is that the Cyrus IMAP server's reconstruct command rebuilds the message index with INTERNALDATE having a length of 0. This condition is illegal. Mail.app and Entourage request the INTERNALDATE attribute but Thunderbird and WebMail do not.

The long and short is this is a problem that has to be fixed on Mac OS X Server. It is not a client problem (there are other problems with Mail.app).

Mail.app 2 problems and OS X Server

There are still plenty of bugs floating around with Apple's Mail program and OS X Server. The discussion boards at Apple are full of people having problems. The main problems seem to be:

  • IMAP caching in Mail.app 2 is inconsistent
  • Searching "Entire Messages" stops working in Mail.app 2
  • Mail.app 2 and Entourage cause "exited, signaled to death by 6" errors on Cyrus IMAP on OS X Server 10.3.9 (and possibly 10.4).
  • It will be very nice when these problems get fixed. It is tough to tell from Apple's discussion boards if they are really following these issues or not.

Cyrus Imap server on OS X Server

A very frustrating day today. Mid-morning my email disappeared. Gone. Several thousands of messages vanished. After a day filled with false starts and several (unnecessary) rebuilds of Cyrus, it turns out to be a problem with the IMAP server on Mac OS X Server 10.3.9. Possibly earlier versions as well. The result is that when a user logs in using Mail or Entourage the Cyrus process is killed with the message "exited, signaled to death by 6".

Several sites, including the Apple discussion boards, suggest a problem with the LDAP implementation of 10.3.9. So far no dice. More tomorrow and webmail in the mean time.

Oops!

Is a new Apple cloning deal afoot? It seems unlikely but Sony is using an Apple PowerBook running Macintosh OS to advertise it's latest Viao. We've seen Sony appearing on the Apple stage of late at NAB and Mac World, but it seemed at that time like the partnership was more about Sony's video cameras.

If you can't beat 'em join 'em.

Giving a Mac mini a try

O'Reilly has an article for curious try-ers of the . The story, which details a try-er instead of a switcher, shows how Todd Ogasawara found his experience of trying a Mac mini.

He added several features that drive the cost up significantly and aren't necessary. Unfortunately he compounds this by suggesting a Windows PC is cheaper, or you get more for your money. However, there were several extras that he added to the mini that weren't taken into consideration. (By the way how many Windows users use .Mac?)

However, he has not found what I consider the greatest feature of OS X. Safari. Safari has inline spell checking. As someone who composes on the web all the time this feature alone is worth significant note. It makes it possible to have the all-to-familiar red lines wiggling about under the words I write, here or elsewhere, and keeps the spelling more likely to be correct. With Tiger's addition of "Look Up in Dictionary" providing instant access to the New Oxford American Dictionary to every word typed watch out!! Oh, and there is something called "Dashboard" coming too, but those are all features to be added later this week.

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