Fazal Majid's low-intensity blog

After years of Outlook and Palm synchronization, when I fully switched over to the Mac, I moved my contacts database over to Mac OS X’s Address Book (painfully due to Outlook’s roach motel tendencies, but that’s another story). For the most part I am satisfied, its data model is far more powerful than Outlook’s, and most Mac apps feature excellent Address Book integration. I can call someone using Skype just by right-clicking on a phone number, for instance.

I just noticed, however, that my scripted Address Book backups were pushing the bounds of the reasonable: over 60MB zipped. For a mere 357 contacts, that seems a tad excessive. Upon further inspection, I realized my Address Book directory ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook was pushing 152MB, the bulk of it in the Images subdirectory.

It turns out there are two causes for this problem:

1. When you drag and drop an image for a contact, then crop it, Address Book keeps the full-size image around, presumably in case you want to change the crop later. In most cases this is unnecessary and wastes space.
2. Address Book does not seem to remove the images for a contact when you delete it. Worse, those images get carried over into manual backups and thus backing up, blowing away your Address Book directory and restoring from backup will not get rid of the cruft.

I wrote the short shell script below to back up the AB directory, extract the list of contacts and delete any image that fits in the two categories above. This took me down to a much more reasonable 11MB. You can download the zipped script here.

Disclaimer: I tried my best to make this as generic as possible, but I cannot be held responsible if running this script causes you to lose data, so I would advise you to perform your own backup prior to running it.

#!/bin/sh
backup=$HOME/ab_clean_backup.$$
in_ab=$backup/in_ab
all=$backup/all
datadir="$HOME/Library/Application Support/AddressBook"
db=`echo "$datadir"/*.abcddb`

exit_ab() {
  echo killing AddressBook
  ps -u `whoami` | grep "Address Book" | grep /Applications | awk '{print $2}'|xargs -n 1 kill -9
}

backup_ab() {
  echo "Backing up address book directory $datadir to backup $backup"
  rm -rf  $backup > /dev/null 2>&1
  mkdir $backup
  ditto "$datadir" "$backup"
}

remove_old() {
  echo extract list of contacts in AB from SQLite
  sqlite3 "$db" "select zuniqueid from zabcdrecord"|cut -d: -f 1|sort > $in_ab

  cd "$datadir"
  cd Images

  # comment out the next two lines if you want to keep full-size originals
  echo removing full-scale images
  rm -f *.jpeg

  echo finding all the images
  ls -1|grep -v '\.jpeg$'|sort > $all

  echo removing images with no associated AB record
  comm -13 $in_ab $all | xargs rm
}

exit_ab
backup_ab
remove_old

Some people use laptops as their primary computing environment. I am not one of them. Desktop replacement laptops like the MacBook Pro are heavy, and truly portable ones like my MacBook Air are too limited. Even the desktop replacement ones have limited expandability, slow drives, poor screens, lousy keyboards. My workhorse for the last 5 years was a dual 2GHz PowerMac G5. I am surprised I kept it so long, but I guess that says something about the durability of Macs and how you are not required to go on the hadware upgrade treadmill with each release of the OS. To paraphrase Borges, each increasingly bloated version of Windows makes you regret the previous one. I am also surprised at how much residual value the G5 has kept on eBay.

That said, the G5 was showing its age. Stitching panoramas made from 22MP Canon 5DmkII frames in AutoPano Pro is glacially slow, for instance. I was not willing to switch to the Mac Pro until today because the archaic shared bus on previous Intel chips is a severe bottleneck on multi-processor and multicore performance, unlike the switched interconnect used by PowerPC G5 and AMD Opteron processors, both of which claim descent from the DEC Alpha, the greatest CPU architecture ever designed. The new Xeon 3500 and 5500 Mac Pros use Intel’s new Nehalem microarchitecture, which finally does away with the shared bus in favor of a switched interconnect called QuickPath and on-chip memory controllers (i.e. Intel cribbed AMD’s Opteron innovations).

I splurged on the top of the line Mac Pro, with eight 2.93GHz cores, each capable of running two threads simultaneously, and 8GB of RAM. The standard hard drive options were completely lackluster, so I replaced the measly 660GB boot drive with an enterprise-class Intel X25-E SSD. Unfortunately, at 32GB it is just enough to host the OS and applications, so I complemented it with a quiet, power-efficient yet fast 1TB Samsung SpinPoint F1 drive (there is a WD 2TB drive, but it is a slow 5400rpm, and the 1.5TB Seagate drive has well-publicized reliability problems, even if Seagate did the honorable thing unlike IBM with its defective Deathstars).

I originally planned on using the build-to-order ATI Radeon HD 4870 video card upgrade, but found out the hard way it is incompatible with my HP LP3065 monitor (more below) and had to downgrade back to the nVidia GeForce GT 120. It would have been nice to use BootCamp for games and retire my gaming PC, but I guess that will have to wait. The GT120 is faster than the 8800GTS in the Windows box, in any case.

In no particular order, here are my first impressions:

• The “cheese grater” case is the same size as the G5, but feels lighter.
• The DVD-burner drive tray feels incredibly flimsy.
• Boot times are ridiculously fast. Once you’ve experienced SSDs as I originally did with the MacBook Air, there is no going back to spinning rust.
• I have plenty of Firewire 800 to 400 cables for my FW400 devices (Epson R1800, Nikon Super Coolscan 9000ED, Canon HV20 camcorder) so I will probably not miss the old ports and probably not even need a hub (Firewire 800 hubs are very hard to get).
• The inside of the case is a dream to work with. The drive brackets are easy to swap, the PCIe slots have a spring-loaded retention bar that hooks under the back of the card, and the L brackets are held with thumbscrews, making swapping the cards trivial, with no risk of getting a marginal connection from a poorly seated card.
• The drive mounting brackets have rubber grommets to dampen vibrations, a nice touch. There also seems to be some sort of contact sensor in the rear, purpose unknown.
• There are only two PCIe power connectors, so you can only plug in a single ATI 4870 card even though there are two PCIe x16 slots. The GT 120 does not require PCIe power connectors so you would have to expand capacity with one of these. Considering the GT 120 is barely more expensive than the Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter cable, it makes more sense to get the extra video card if you have two monitors.
• The entire CPU and RAM assembly sits on a daughterboard that can be slid out. This will make upgrading RAM (when the modules stop being back-ordered at Crucial) a breeze.
• Built-in Bluetooth means no more flaky USB dongles.
• No extras. The G5 included OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, Quickbooks, Comic Life and a bunch of other apps like Art Director’s Toolkit. No such frills on the Mac Pro even though it is significantly more expensive even in its base configuration.
• The optical out is now 96kHz 24-bit capable, unlike the G5 that was limited to 44kHz 16-bit Red Book audio. I have some lossless 192kHz studio master recordings from Linn Records, so I will have to get a USB DAC to get full use out of them. I am not sure why Apple cheaped out on the audio circuitry in a professional workstation that is going to be heavily used by musicians.
• The G5 was one of the first desktop machines to have a gigabit Ethernet port. Apple didn’t seize the opportunity to lead with 10G Ethernet.
• The annoying Mini DisplayPort is just as proprietary as ADC, but without the redeeming usability benefits of using a single cable for power, video and USB. DisplayPort makes sense for professional use with high-end monitors like the HP Dreamcolor LP2480zx that can actually use 10-bit DACs for ultra-accurate color workflows. There is no mini to regular DisplayPort adapter, unfortunately. Well, the thinness of the cable is a redeeming feature. Apple has always paid attention to using premium ultra-flexible cables everywhere from the power cord to Firewire.
• Transferring over 800GB of data from the old Mac is utterly tedious, even over Firewire 800 using Target Disk mode on the G5…
• As could be expected, the Mac Pro wipes the floor with the G5, as measured by Xbench. A more interesting comparison is with the MacBook Air, which also uses a SSD, albeit a slowish one.

Note (2009-03-17):

The BTO upgrade ATI Radeon HD 4870 video card I initially ordered won’t recognize my HP LP3065 30″ monitor, at least not on the Dual-link DVI port, which essentially renders it useless for me.

Update (2009-03-18):

I went to the Hillsdale Apple Store. The tech was very helpful, but we managed to verify that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 card works fine on an Apple 30″ Cinema Display (via Dual-link DVI) and on a 24″ Cinema LED display (via mini-DisplayPort). The problem is clearly an incompatibility between the ATI Radeon HD 4870 and the HP LP3065.

I am not planning on switching monitors. The HP is probably the best you can get under $3000, and far superior in gamut, ergonomics (tilt/height adjustments) and connectivity (3 Dual-link DVI ports) to the current long-in-the-tooth Apple equivalent, for 2/3 the price. My only option is to downgrade the video card to a nVidia GeForce GT 120. I ordered one from the speedy and reliable folks at B&H and should get it tomorrow (Apple has it back-ordered for a week).

Update (2009-03-19):

I swapped the ATI 4870 for the nVidia GT120. The new card works with the monitor. Whew!

Update (2009-03-29):

I have just learned disturbing news about racial discrimination at B&H. For the reasons I give on RFF, I can no longer recommend shopping there.

I seem to be late to this party, but one of the security updates for Windows XP (.NET 3.5) silently installs a Firefox plugin that:

1. tells every web server you visit which version of the .NET framework you have, in my case

<tt>Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021910 Firefox/3.0.7 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)</tt>

2. allows websites to install software on your desktop using ClickOnce, a mechanism so abysmally stupid in its insecurity it gives ActiveX a run for its money.

The reason why Microsoft is doing this is to increase penetration of its also-ran Silverlight competitor to Flash for the 20-30% of Windows users who use Firefox instead of Internet Exploder. To make matters worse, the plugin uninstallation button is grayed out. A Microsoft staffer has published instructions on removing this on his blog.

This behavior is of course completely unacceptable. Perhaps Adobe will now join the line of Microsoft-bashers at the European Commission.

Update (2009-10-18):

Good news: Mozilla responded quickly to block this piece of malware. That should also disable Silverlight altogether. Two birds with one stone.

I decided to take action and wrote a letter (PDF) to EC Commissioner Neelie Kroes, apparently the only person in the world who has the cojones to confront Microsoft about its practices.

I never liked Research In Motion’s Blackberry phones. They have excellent support for Microsoft Exchange, but were abysmal for standards-based POP and IMAP. It used to be the only way to do so was to use their webmail client (for all I know, this is still the case). This completely defeats the purpose of a mobile email client. Hey RIM, the nineties called, they want their mobile email back… Even my old Nokia Series 40 dumbphones could do better. If this weren’t enough of a deal-breaker, the stunted web browser would seal its fate.

I was amused to see RIM’s recent marketing messages, like “The world’s first touch-screen Blackberry!” or “The first flip-phone BlackBerry!”. In other words: “our products are so calamitous we dare only compare them to our older models, not to any meaningful competitors”…

Then again, their core market is Windows/Exchange shops that will resonate with the Inferior But Marketable argument.

I attended the OpenSolaris Storage Summit in San Francisco. Unsurprisingly, SSDs dominated the proceedings. Sun is touting its hybrid storage pool approach, where SSDs are used to accelerate the ZFS Intent Log (ZIL), a journal, and the L2ARC read cache, to get most of the benefits of SSDs without having to store an entire dataset in expensive SSDs. The presentations on the page are worth having a look into.

Andrew Leventhal commented on how using disk-oriented APIs to access SSDs makes as little sense as using cassette tape adapters to connect an iPod to a car stereo. Sure, it works, sort of, as a short-term compatibility mode, but you are not using the potential of the device. Fusion IO makes SSDs that are connected to the PCIe bus directly and get 5x better performance than the best SATA drive, the Intel X25-E, but it uses proprietary drivers. In one of the video presentations distributed in the conference, Andy Bechtolsheim mentioned he thought a memory channel model is a better fit for the hardware, as the block-device model and all the legacy assumptions behind it is holding back databases from using the full power of SSDs.

A modest suggestion – there is such an API available already: memory-mapped files. In an ironic full circle, an abstraction meant to simulate random access memory on rotating media is actually the best fit to the actual device characteristics. There are also obvious benefits such as DMA.