I just got word from a commenter that RTMPDump 2.4 is out (thanks!). Since the release of Xcode 4 I have been unable to compile the RTMPDump binaries using the supplied Makefile. Actually, the binaries are all there but I always get a signal fault when the rtmpdump binary tries to establish a connection to a target server. I had to resort to plan B which was to import the RTMPDump sources into Xcode and to create a proper console application project. Read more »

While in Windows 7 the Radeon 6870′s GPU fan is almost inaudible under idle conditions, the fan is clearly audible in OS X Lion. In OS X the GPU fan is permanently changing its speed which creates quite some bothersome noise. If you can’t live with that noise, here’s a tip for the not-so-faint-of-heart about how to modify the fan control curve of your Radeon graphics card. This involves flashing your graphics card’s BIOS using an optimized temperature/fan-speed map. Ain’t that cool? :-) Read more »

If you’re about to build a new OS X 10.7 Hackintosh or to replace the graphics card in your current Hackintosh rig, you may want to consider the AMD Radeon HD 6870. Power-wise it’s a mid-range graphics card which comes with an affordable price tag. The big advantage of the Radeon 6870 is that it fully supports Quartz Extreme and Core Image (QE/CI) in OS X Lion out of the box, no additional kernel extension like ATY_y.kext needed. All you have to do is to set graphics enabler to YES in Chameleon’s com.apple.Boot.plist. If you don’t need a high-performance gamer graphics card, this is the one to go for!

AMD Radeon HD 6870 Series:
  Chipset Model:	AMD Radeon HD 6870 Series
  Type:	GPU
  Bus:	PCIe
  PCIe Lane Width:	x16
  VRAM (Total):	1024 MB
  Vendor:	ATI (0x1002)
  Device ID:	0x6738
  Revision ID:	0x0000

I’m currently running an AdWords campaign for my new project wheniskeynote.com. Since that web site is strictly non-commercial and won’t ever generate any revenues I have to bear the costs for the ad myself. It’s more like a test to learn how Google AdWords works and how it could be useful to me in future projects.

The CPC (cost-per-click) for the keywords I use (permutations of something like “next apple keynote”) is around 50 cents, which is pretty high considering that my ad is the only ad ever showing up in searches (I’m not using the content network btw.) using these keywords. Google’s answer to this particular situation is rather cryptic and not really comprehensible for an AdWords client. Fortunately, the CPC for my campaign is still far off from keywords like “auto insurance price quotes”, “consolidate graduate student loans” which sell for a whopping $50 per click on average!

Interestingly, one of my keyword combinations which was already running successfully for a few days suddenly showed a 20% CPC increase. My ad wasn’t even shown in searches anymore for that combination because the CPC now was higher than my maximum default bid. The reason why I suspect a CPC manipulation is that there’s no other bidder for this combination. If I increase the CPC to the requested bid level, my ad is showing up again but still the only one showing up. Needless to say that I won’t be bullied into bidding for artificially increased CPC. Someone at Google should redesign this revenue-generating algorithm in a way that isn’t THAT obvious :-)

While many NAS-vendors like QNAP updated their products to ensure compatibility with AFP-shares in OS X Lion 10.7, things look different when it comes to Time Machine support. Most NAS-vendors still use an older version of Netatalk which supports AFP-shares in Lion (at least when using the DHX2 authentication module) but not the new Time Machine features introduced in AFP 3.3 like “Replay Cache”.

In order to ensure compatibility with OS X Lion’s Time Machine, NAS-vendors will have to use the latest Netatalk v2.2. Users trying to connect to a NAS-based Time Machine volume using an older Netatalk version are greeted with this error message:

The network backup disk does not support the required AFP features

Now, here’s the catch: the current Netatalk maintainer NetAFP.com decided to make this important release closed source, only releasing it to customers who are paying for commercial support (looks like you’re lucky if you own a Netgear or Drobo NAS!). With this move the maintainer deliberately grossly violates the GPL license which Netatalk is based upon in order to blackmail NAS-vendors into paying for commercial support. Make sure to check out Matthew Keller’s insightful response to NetAFP’s new closed source strategy. While both sides have their points I agree with Matthew that violating the GPL in order to earn money doesn’t sound like a solid business model.

Since NAS-vendors who advertise Time Machine compatibility in their products are in a locked-in situation, they only have two choices:

1. Fork the last available Netatalk version and continue the development on their own (or better: form an alliance between NAS-vendors to advance development of Netatalk)
2. Pay the current maintainer for commercial support and in turn get access to GPL-based software

I just hope things get sorted out quickly so we can all continue to use Time Machine backups using our Linux-based NAS’ with OS X Lion.