Posted on March 31, 2008
Filed Under Mac, Tech | 1 Comment
I don’t get this. I’ve had this on servers, on desktops, now I have it on my Mac: a process froze, didn’t do a thing and just ignored the hell out of me. So what do you do? Kill it!
In Mac OSX, there’s a little interface which allows you to choose an application and force it to quit. Works every time. So far. But how do you solve the frozen-process problem with a fullscreen application that won’t let you switch to another application, like Front Row?
Tonight, my Mac froze on Front Row. I was comfortably sitting in bed, ready to watch an episode of a tv show on DVD, when Front Row just froze up. Silent. Nothing. No response. So I got out of bed, walked to my Linux PC and logged into my Mac using SSH. And I looked up the logs. And there it was:
Mar 31 22:41:46 Yoda2 diskarbitrationd[43]: Front Row [4394]:40707 not responding.
Non-responsive. That’s fine, I thought, I’ll just kill it, get back into bed and start over. But Front Row didn’t let itself be killed:
breuls@Yoda2: ~ $ ps aux | grep Front
breuls 4435 0.3 0.0 590472 84 s005 R+ 10:43PM 0:00.00 grep Front
breuls 4394 0.2 3.8 430184 78816 ?? U 10:39PM 0:11.11 /System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app/Contents/MacOS/Front Row
breuls@Yoda2: ~ $ kill 4394
breuls@Yoda2: ~ $ ps aux | grep Front
breuls 4394 0.0 0.0 0 0 ?? E 10:39PM 0:00.00 (Front Row)
breuls 4440 0.0 0.0 590472 204 s005 R+ 10:44PM 0:00.00 grep Front
That’s right. Didn’t listen to the kill command. Now, I know about the several options to kill. I tried several, including the -9 switch. Didn’t work. Front Row ignored me, all the way through my giving up and pressing the reset button.
I hate that. That’s not supposed to happen. Kill -9 is supposed to be the last way out of trouble. It-should-work. But it didn’t. Why am I not in control of my own laptop? Why is there an afterlife to kill -9?
Posted on February 17, 2008
Filed Under Mac, Non-tech | Leave a Comment
Well, no, I’m not a snob, but I’m getting close, according to this list:
Mac owners are more likely:
1. to be perfectionists
2. to use notebooks
3. to use teeth whitening products
4. to drive station wagons
5. to pay for downloaded music
6. to go to Starbucks
7. care about “green” products and the environment
8. to own a hybrid car
9. and last but not least … to buy 5 pairs of sneakers in a year
I’m a Mac owner. In fact, I recently replaced my MacBook Pro with.. well, a MacBook Pro. You know, “it was time” for a new one. So I should have a look at the list:
1. Perfectionist: a bit. Sometimes. When time allows, I want what I do to be done well. And that borders on perfect. So yeah, check this box.
2. Duh.
3. Apart from tooth paste: no.
4. I don’t have a car. Hell, I don’t even have a driver’s license.
5. Yup. Sometimes I grab an album from Usenet, but most of the time I get my music through iTunes.
6. Whenever I’m near a Starbucks, which is at least a few days a year (there’s no Starbucks in my city), I’ll get me a Caramel Macchiato. Yummie!
7. Green-ish. Maybe a bit. I have some CFL bulbs in my lamps, and I turn down the heating when I open the window, and I separate used paper from the regular waste, but apart from that.. nah, not more than others.
8. I don’t have a car, so no.
9. I don’t own five pairs of sneakers, but I do wear Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. Exclusively. And in the last year I bought three pairs. And yeah, within a few months I will probably have bought another pair. So let’s check this box.
So, that’s about five out of nine. Does that make me a snob? I’ll leave others to be the judge of that.
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