WebCoder

Rescue Files from Dead Macs

Last month, my 3 year old Mac finally kicked the bucket. The Starting Mac OS X screen would appear and the progress bar would reach the end, but the computer would not go any further. 2 months before I had first become aware of the hard drive problem, and backed up all the important stuff onto CD-RWs, but of course after it died I thought of some more stuff I needed. So here’s a quick way of getting your files off.

Stuff You Need:

• Another computer (PC or Mac)
• A network that both computers can be connected to

Now, let’s get started!

1. First, make sure the computer is connected to your network.
2. Start it up, while holding Cmd+S.
3. You should reach a command line. Type the following (it will start an SSH server, which we will use to retrieve the files).

   /usr/sbin/sshd

4. One more step to get it ready: The computer is not fully started up yet, so the ethernet interface is not yet available (if you type ifconfig, the only interface listed is loopback). Type

   sh /etc/rc

5. It will now proceed with the startup process. Once you get an error line (mine was some disk read errors followed by “coreservicesd crashed”), you can now try to retrieve your files.
6. The SFTP  (SSH FTP) program used in this tutorial is FileZilla, although any such program will work. Download and launch it.
7. Choose Site Manager from the File menu.
8. Click New Site.
9. Settings:

   Host: your Mac’s IP address (check your router manual, for a Linksys router it is 192.168.1.1xx)

   Server type: SFTP

   Logon type: Normal

   User: your username

   Password: your password

10. Click Connect.
11. If all goes well, you can now access your files as on an FTP server.

Hope this helps!

Bypass Annoying Forum Post Viewing Restrictions (”Limited Guest Viewing” vBulletin Plugin)

Sometimes you may get a message like this while browsing a forum.

Hey there!

It appears that you’ve exceeded the maximum number of posts you can view, but wait, there’s a simple solution. To unlock the forum and continue viewing messages, all you need to do is sign up for a free account. The entire process takes just a few minutes so create your account now and view as many threads as you like!

Already a member? Login at the top of this page to stop seeing this message.

If you’re not likely to post, there’s no reason to register. There’s no reason either for forum admins to force members to register that aren’t going to post, so I don’t know why any sensible admin would do this (or anyone would make an extension to do this!). The solution is quite simple. All you have to do is block cookies from the site. In Firefox, go to Tools>Options>Privacy>Cookies>Exceptions, type in the domain name, and click Block. That’s it! If you have already exceeded the limit, delete your cookies from the domain. Enjoy restriction-free browing! Make sure you unblock the domain if you ever want to register.

I’m Worth $5,161.10

I googled my own site and this showed up. Not very accurate, because they say I get 10 times as many page views per day as I actually do, and I don’t even have any ands to make revenue on ($7.07 per day… I wish, but all the ad providers require you to be 18, which I’m not). Wikipedia is said to make $412,503 per day on ads, but they don’t have any ads, and are nonprofit. As I said this site does not provide very accurate results, but it might be worth checking out if you’re in need of an ego-booster.

Update: I clicked the “update the results” button on the site and it increased to $7,095. 0_0

Why I’m Not Buying Spore…

I first read about Spore in 2006. 2 years later, the game finally comes out. I go to Amazon to check the reviews on the day it comes out, planning to go to walmart and buy it that afternoon.

Here is a quote from the reviews page.

See those older 5-star reviews from 2006 (two years before the game was released)? Well, they had a reason to be excited. Spore was supposed to be a revolutionary experience, combining multiple genres while concentrating on evolution and genetics.

Fast forward two years and here we have the finished product, ready to be installed on our hard drives.

First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you’ll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That’s not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached, etc, etc (it has all happened before with another recent EA product, Mass Effect). EA, of course, is not obligated to grant you that extra activation or even provide that service. In a couple of years they might very well even shut down the general activation servers, because “it’s not financially feasible” to keep them running. What you will be left with is a nice, colorful $50 coaster. And you will be required to pay for another copy/license if you want to continue playing.

This basically means that you are actually RENTING the game, instead of owning it. The game WILL stop to function in the future. That’s inevitable, because even if EA keeps the activation servers going, there IS going to be a time when EA will simply cease to exist because of financial issues or federal laws (like most businesses eventually do).

Second, the game was dumbed down to oblivion. Evolution doesn’t even matter anymore. For example, you can add as many legs to a creature as you want, but the multi-legged creature won’t be any faster than a single-legged one with higher leg stats. This gameplay element makes “creating” your creatures entirely pointless (cosmetic only, because everything is based on stats), and brings you about the same amount of excitement as dressing up a plastic doll.

There are many more reviews in that style. Out of 2,413 reviews, 2,163 give the game 1 star, making the average 1.5 stars. I used to think that having to have the CD in the drive was bad (and I tricked most games that did that by making a disk image). This is much worse. I don’t want to pay $50 for a game that will stop working and make me whine on the phone after 3 upgrades to my computer (I plan on upgrading this one a lot) or when EA goes out of business and pulls the plug on the activation servers. Also, the internet at my house is unreliable, and when the internet is out I either work on programming or play games (don’t play games anymore, new PC is Windows, old was Mac, old games don’t work anymore) so I wouldn’t want it to require an internet connection every time I run it. I’m also not waiting to pay for expansion packs containing features that should have been there in the first place.

The DRM has also completely failed, the game was being pirated 5 days before its release. It is also quickly becoming the most pirated game of all time–gamers would rather get the illegal version than pay for a rental.

Sorry Maxis, but EA ruined your game.