Apple Time Machine backups to Ubuntu network drive

Apple's Time Machine is an awesome utility but gets frustrating when you have to use an external drive. An easier was to do these back ups is using a network drive. Fortunately, the netatalk package installed on an Ubuntu server can provide the functionality you want.

I am using Ubuntu 9.10 on my server. As a note, this is actually a MythBuntu server but functionality should be the same on any other Ubuntu 9.10 server/workstation.

First, as of this writing, the netatalk 2.0.5 packages are not available in karmic's repositories so let's add a debian repository by adding the following to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid main

Now let's install the netatalk package:
sudo apt-get install netatalk

Create a directory for time machine backups:
mkdir /home/user/timemachine

Now we need to edit the /etc/netatalk/AppleVolumes.default file and add the following line:
/home/user/timemachine timemachine options:tm

And restart netatalk:
sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk restart

Now on your mac, open finder, select the Go menu and "Connect to Server". Fill in your server's ip address prefixed by afp:// (for example, afp://192.168.1.100) and you should be prompted for a volume to mount. Select "timemachine", of course. Once that volume is mounted, go to time machine preferences and select that disk and you're all set. If you don't see your network drive as an option then open up terminal and issue the following command:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

As a note, you may want to now go and remove the extra line from your /etc/apt/sources.list file so that future apt-get commands don't rely on debian's repository and not it's own

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OSX is refusing to eject a CD

I had an ordeal tonight..... I needed to burn an ISO to a blank CD so I put a, what I assumed was blank, CD in my MacBook and Toast informed me that it was not writable. What was it? Some Windows CD, I guess. The problem was my machine refused to eject it. I clicked the eject button multiple times (both on the keyboard and in finder) and it just wouldn't do anything. I figured if I did a reboot of the machine I could eject it when it came back up -- wrong. Whatever was going on on this CD was confusing the hell out of OSX. After the reboot finder never loaded for me and half of my typical start up applications got stuck during boot up. I happened to have Disk Utility in my dock so I tried to open that and, again, no luck.

First thing to try (did not work for me):

• Put the computer into sleep mode
  
• Press the eject button on the keyboard

Second thing to try (this worked for me):

• Power down your mac
  
• Hold the mouse button (or trackpad button) down
  
• While holding the button press the power button
  
• After 30-120 seconds your mac should eject the CD
  
• Let got of the mouse button and the machine should boot the OS

I will now list the three biggest wishes I have for Mac computers and despite how small and petty they seem they make a night and day difference to me (Please, Steve Jobs, take note):

1. CD-Rom eject button and/or emergency pin hole
   
2. Hard drive activity light
   
3. Network (NIC) lights for activity and link

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Rapidly flashing light on MacBook

There seems to be a huge lack of information on this so I wanted to share it here. If all of a sudden your MacBook or MacBook Pro refuses to start and all you get is the rapid flashing sleep light then the problem is most likely related to the RAM. The MacBook tends to have RAM that is tough to install and, in mnay cases, you have to push the RAM into the slots MUCH harder than you would expect. Since this is the case it is also highly likely that the RAM wasn't 100% installed at the factory and simply the normal moving of the laptop can losen it enough to create this issue.

This isn't really a HOW-TO but just a bit of information for if your MacBook suddenly gives you the rapidly flashing light :)

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