Just signed up with AT&T for caller-id. Plugged the phone line into the modem on back of the computer and installed Silica.

The first few times I called from another line, to test the connection, Silica operated as specified: Little window pops up on desktop showing name and number of caller. Then it got inconsistent, followed by non existent. What was the problem? There are rumors about Mac internal modems being not of the highest quality because hardly any one uses them anymore, but I did see it working, at first.

Going to Terminal, I used the screen command to view the modem session:

screen /dev/tty.modem

It replied “Resource busy. Sorry, could not find a PTY.”

Oops! I went back to Silica’s Settings, stopped the service, then re-entered the screen command in Terminal, and got the expected blank screen.

Calling from my other phone, I saw the modem detect the call:

RING

RING

So, it’s not a hardware problem. To be continued (I’ll figure it out)…

BTW: To quit (kill) the screen window manager, use Cntrl-a k.

This code will look for the differences between folders, replace the old files with the new files after moving the old ones into a separate folder, and display the activity. It’s stored in /Users/GG/bin/ and simply named backup:

#!/bin/sh
if [ $# -ne 2 ]; then
echo 1>&2 Error, Usage: $0 sourcePath destDir
exit 127
fi
theDate=`date '+%y%m%d%H%M%S'`
destPath="/Volumes/Motherlode/Backup"
theIncr="$destPath/$2-$theDate"
scriptOut="$destPath/progress.txt"
echo "------------------------------------------------------------" > "$scriptOut"

cat "$scriptOut"
exit 0

Run these lines in a BBEdit worksheet.

backup “/Users/GG/” “bin”
backup “/Users/GG/Documents/” “Save”
backup “/Users/GG/Documents/” “Databases”
backup “/Users/GG/Library/” “Application Support”
backup “/Users/GG/Library/” “Mail”
backup “/Volumes/Cornucopia/Library/” “WebServer”

Command-z to get rid of the progress reports.

I remember (wrote this script years ago) that there was something critical about one slash character in the rsync parameter list to get the behavior exactly right. Also, although the results for this user are fine, the script’s execution gives “Permission denied” error messages for directories belonging to others.

I’m starting to backup before updating system.

For saving Safari Bookmarks, there is a switch that can be turned on to display a Debug menu:

% defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

The Save folder in my Documents is part of my backup routine so that is where I export a copy of the bookmarks:

Safari > Debug > Export Bookmarks… -> Documents/Save/

Address Book makes it easier with a command in its File menu:

Address Book > File > Backup Database -> Documents/Save/

I wrote a little shell script to run in BBEdit. It creates a uniquely named text file containing the names of all/most of the files in my system library folder. It uses the ls command with the -AR option to recursively list subdirectories encountered. I call it CatSysLib.sh:

#!/bin/sh
cd /System/Library
theDate=`date '+%y%m%d%H%M%S'`
destPath="/Volumes/Cornucopia/Catalogs"
theCat="$destPath/$theDate.txt"
ls -AR > $theCat
exit 0

By comparing the new system with the old one that didn’t work, I discovered an odd extention: LexarFilterScheme.kext.

A Google search revealed that THIS was the cause of my DVD not playing commercial titles, to wit:

“One of our readers, has reported to us an incompatibility issue rather annoying between the Secure II software found in USB key from Lexar and MacOSX. Indeed, once the software is installed on the Mac, it becomes absolutely impossible to play any DVD (backup or movie DVD).”

I made sure not to reinstall that security software and used Disk Utility to reformat the flash memory of the Lexar JumpDrive.

Note: In the script above, the first line starts with a two character “shebang” which is a word formed from a corrupted combination of the number sign (hash) and the exclamation point (bang), kind of like the word “blog” is from web log.