This afternoon I finally got around to letting Software Update install the OS X Security Update 2009-001 for Tiger on my MacBook.
Being an idiot, I didn’t do a backup first. When the system restarted, it got to the grey screen with the Apple logo and the spinning gear, where it remained… for over half an hour.
At this point I gave up and switched over to my PowerMac, where an intensive Google session commenced. There appear to be a number of people encountering this or similar problems, but various suggested solutions didn’t work.
I was able to mount the MacBook on the PowerMac in target disk mode (which somebody on this Apple Support Discussions thread wrongly claims is impossible) and followed some of the steps listed at MacFixIt’s “Startup fails (particularly after a system or security update); solving” tutorial, specifically, deleting assorted cached OS files.
However, the MacBook still wouldn’t start, not even in Safe Mode.
So I then downloaded the standalone installer for the update from Apple. Despite being an Intel update, this ran on the PowerMac, and detected that the FireWire drive was a bootable Intel OS X installation. It installed successfully, and having ejected the MacBook drive, I restarted, holding down the Shift key to reboot in Safe Mode.
Bingo! The MacBook booted up. I restarted again, and it booted normally.
Panic over, and time to do a backup.
Hopefully this solution will prove helpful to anybody in the same situation.
At long last, I’ve got around to developing a new theme for the site. Given the gold-and-lead colour scheme, and the dire financial straits the World currently finds itself in, the name GiltEdge seemed fitting :-)
Read the rest of this article »
Given that I’m so prone to criticising Microsoft, I have to give them credit for moving so rapidly to provide a patch for the recently discovered vulnerability in Internet Explorer.
Read the rest of this article »
I’ve looked a bit more into the way ASP.NET handles HTTP errors, and frankly it now seems not just irritating, but downright bizarre.
Read the rest of this article »
A few moments ago I was following a link from Google to Raymond Chen’s excellent MSDN blog The Old New Thing. As has happened to me before, I ended up getting redirected to an ASP.NET error page at a totally different URL, telling me that the site was “unable to service my request.”
Read the rest of this article »
Well, that’s nice.
The Council’s electoral registration form came through the door today, so I visited the web site to indicate that everything’s the same.
Read the rest of this article »
On a forum I frequent, somebody recently posted a tale about some sysadmins having a problem with a server. Said server kept on restarting due to a signal from the UPS indicating that its power drain was excessive.
Read the rest of this article »
Update: Thierry Koblentz points out in the comments that either technique may be appropriate, depending on circumstances. I mention this in the last paragraph, but just to be clear, there should have been a “usually” or “often” or some such word in front of the “better” of the title. That, or a different title.
Update 2, December 2008: It is now accepted that it is better to use top: -9999px;, as using left: would cause a scroll bar on a page with right-to-left text.
A recurring question on various mailing lists such as the Web Standards Group discussion list is “How can I hide content but still have it accessible?” This is usually asked in the context of image replacement techniques, where one might for example wish to display a heading in a fancy typeface, but still have the content accessible to users of assistive technologies such as screen reading software.
Read the rest of this article »
Last Saturday I went to the WebDD conference at Microsoft Campus, Reading. Following my standard conference procedure, I checked in, obtained coffee, and fired up my MacBook.
Read the rest of this article »
