Dellanave » Apple

How to Setup Apple Qmaster and Compressor for Cluster Rendering

david — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:44:49 +0000

Setting up Apple Qmaster and Compressor to use as many machines as you have for rendering can save a ton of time when compressing video for the web. You’ll need to install Compressor on each machine, and then load up the Qmaster preference pane. Here are the settings. One absolutely crucial thing is the Cluster Storage path. If all the computers can’t access this, then the render files can’t get passed around and the cluster will fail miserably. It does NOT fail gracefully. Here are the 2 best solutions that I can come up with:

Use a shared NAS or SAN drive and set all of the paths to the exact same path. This would work well I think if you had extremely fast network attached storage.
Set them like I have, and make sure that all the nodes are running under the same username and the machines can access each other. I don’t specifically know that this is how it works, but I’m pretty sure it is.

Here are the settings:

On your main cluster controller machine:

Advanced tab:

Setup tab for worker node:

Advanced tab for worker nodes:

Also, set this in Compressor->Preferences:

Virgin Mobile Broadband on a Mac – FAIL

david — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:43:02 +0000

It doesn’t work.

Yes, the new Virgin Mobile Broadband in the United States using the Novatel MC760 USB EVDO dongle..doesn’t work.

Their web site says you have to activate on a PC but then you can use it on a Mac. This is false. Once installed on your Mac, the drivers DO NOT recognize the MC760 and therefore it is unusable.

What a massive total failure by Virgin Mobile.

Mac App I Can’t Live Without: info.xhead

david — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:15:20 +0000

I have 63 username/password entries in info.xhead. How is one supposed to remember 50+ logins to different sites? And those are only the ones I have to write down because for whatever reason they wouldn’t let me use my usual username/password combinations.

Anyway I couldn’t live without info.xhead.

To the smartasses: I win

david — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:11:31 +0000

I had a couple smartasses comment on my post about the craptastic MacBook Air, saying that I could use an USB EV-DO card. Except they suck. Well, here’s the answer to that:

Adding insult to injury: USB 3G modems won’t fit in the MacBook Air.

What’s up.

Had the credit card in hand..and then..

david — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:46:16 +0000

Apple released some pretty awesome stuff at MacWorld today. The MacBook Air is wicked. I want(ed) one. I had the credit card in hand. Thing is, not having an ExpressCard slot for an EVDO card is a total dealbreaker. WiFi just isn’t everywhere you want it to be, and even when it is often times its not free. I wish Apple would just put a Verizon or Sprint EV/DO chipset in the thing and say activate it if you want to. I’d be fine with that.

Too bad I really wanted one.

The Best Phone I’ve Ever Used….Except

david — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:41:26 +0000

I told myself I wasn’t going to do it. I told my friends I wasn’t going to do it. I kept convincing myself that I had a great plan with Sprint and as a customer for almost 10(!) years I was going to keep my wonderful Treo and not make the switch. So much for that, because I finally couldn’t take it any longer and I got the iPhone.

It is in fact the best phone device I’ve ever used. The thing looks beautiful, and its a pleasure to use. The little touches that Apple made (like the way things scroll) are phenomenal. Even though its the best phone I’ve had, there are a few things that are almost deal-breakers. I can’t say I’ll be going back to my Treo but sometimes I wonder if I should.

No Bcc: in the Mail program? What the hell Apple? I use Bcc often with “business” emails.
No appointments on the home screen. I really like to have a constant reminder of what appointments I might have in the next 24 hours. There’s really no excuse for not having an option to put these at the top of the screen below the time and signal info. It would take up maybe one row of buttons MAX.
EDGE sucks.
Did I mention EDGE sucks? For example: you can’t receive phone calls while the web browser is actively connected. Killing time watching Youtube videos? Better hope a phone call doesn’t come in, it’ll go to voicemail.

Literally these are the only major complaints I have about the iPhone, its THAT GOOD.

The million dollar problem is the lack of 3rd-party apps. To me a phone without a way to ssh is completely useless. If a server goes down, and I can’t fix it from my smartphone…what the hell good is it to me? I’m sure other people have similar needs from 3rd party apps. I know a lot of doctors use their Palms with medicine databases to look things up. As of Thursday the iPhone was hackable to install 3rd party applications. Not only has Apple wiped those apps off our phones with the 1.1.1 update but they’ve closed the door to installing them. Look Apple, we get it you have to protect your AT&T contract. We even get that you want to protect the phone itself from becoming so littered with trash that it doesn’t work well and people blame Apple. First of all there are plenty of ways for you to jail applications so they can’t take over the phone. If I can install shitty little Java games on my generic flip-phone, why can’t I install an application on my phone that runs OSX? But I think most importantly Apple, you need to realize that its the .001%‘ers that are actually going to hack our phones. You don’t have to worry about the masses doing it, because they simply won’t. Locking up the phones is bullshit, Apple.

Apple took a lot of heat over the iPhone price drop. I guess the volume of noise on the web was just too great for them not to acknowledge it and do something. I’m adding my 2c in the hopes that it adds to the volume level with the 3rd party application issue, and we can get Apple to change course.

Holy Crap I Found an Awesome OS X Feature

david — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 02:53:38 +0000

I got to thinking today that it would be neat if I could place a background image in my Terminal windows. See, I spend 99.9% of my time ssh’ed into other machines. I do all my development remotely on other boxes. It doesn’t really get confusing which box I’m on, but it can take a second to find a different machine, and a lot of times I end up popping a new Terminal and opening a new ssh.

Sure enough, Terminal.app has a background image feature. Thing is, I needed to find a way to automatically change the image based on what machine I ssh’ed into. I started digging around, and holy shit did I find an awesome feature. I had no clue that you can actually save entire Terminal sessions.

You go into Terminal->Window Settings. Make whatever changes you want. In my case I set the name and background image for a particular machine. Close that. File->Save. Select “Execute this command” and enter the ssh command for the host. Say “ssh -l david dellanave.com”. Save the file. Couple this with ssh public key authentication, and I can launch a new Terminal session with a handy background image that automatically connects and logs into the box I want. Hell yes.

And no, this isn’t my normal desktop, I setup one of my side monitors as an example. Too much sensitive stuff on the main display.

Sexworld Minneapolis

The Mac is Back (with a Vengeance)

david — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:57:40 +0000

I grew up on Macs. From the Mac Plus, to the SE, to an LCIII (in color!!!) then a Performa 6220CD, and a B&W G3 350. I was always a Mac guy, but some time around the B&W the world of Linux lured me over. For about 7 years the Mac was only a secondary machine, while all my attention was on Linux on a PC. I’m happy to say:

The Mac is Back. Along with a slight upgrade.

Before:

After:

Theres no ifs ands or buts. This thing SMOKES.