Mac seems to have reached a tipping point

Would the year 2008 be the year of where the Macs take over the world?? :)

I exaggerate but judging from the rumours coming out of the grapevine, it seems many people have been switching to the Mac, and I include big MNCs. Rumours are flying that IBM is now switching people to the Mac (they have a small group of 100 beta testers), and the most recent one is Salesforce.com switching 4000 people to the Mac.

Recently I have also become the unofficial helpdesk for Macs for my friends. More and more people asking me stuff.

The transition would be slow though I believe. There are still many things that can only be done on the Windows PC, and this is coming from a person who program on both Mac and Windows. The tipping point has been reached however, and the question is more of when will it happen. Good luck to the both of them.

Upgrading to Leopard using a new harddisk

Updated 1 May 2008: Added a link to my post for transferring of bootcamp partition

Just last week, I have upgraded to Leopard on my MacBook using a new harddisk. It just consists of 3 major steps:

1. Replacing the harddisk
2. Installing Leopard and porting of applications between the old harddisk and the new harddisk
3. Updating Leopard
   

Replacing the harddisk
Removing of the harddisk is not really a simple affair though. You would need to prepare 2 things. A screw driver, and allen key.

The screw driver is used to unscrew the 3 screws you see when you remove the MacBook battery. Upon un-screwing the 3 screws, pull out the L bracket and you will be able to see the harddisk on the left hand side.

The allen key is used to unscrew the old harddisk from the "protective covering", and replacing it with the new harddisk. Take note of how to re-insert the harddisk back into the "hole". You might short-circuit your harddisk.

I would suggest to convert your previous harddisk into a removable harddisk. This will be used for porting of your settings to Leopard.

Refer to this youtube video that I've found if you want a visual representation:


Installing Leopard

1. Boot-up your MacBook and hold down the option key. You will see the boot-up menu.
2. Insert your Leopard DVD. You should see the DVD appear in the boot-up menu. Click on the DVD picture
3. Follow the instructions on the DVD.
4. When you reach the section where it is detecting which harddisk to install to, go to the Disk Utility option. This is located at the menu right on top. Format your harddisk using the default settings. Only after formating the harddisk, can you then install Leopard.

It's pretty straightforward. Note that it takes about 20mins to verify your Leopard DVD.

Porting of applications
Upon first boot, it will ask you if you wish to transfer settings. Plug in your removable drive containing your old Tiger settings and follow the instructions for transferring of settings. Time taken varies, depending on the size of your old Tiger installation. Note that System Preferences settings are not ported over.

One thing that I'm truly amazed in is the ease of porting the applications between Tiger and Leopard. That's one thing that Windows can never beat Apple. Transfer of applications is just with a click of the button. All my settings including emails, network, location of dock, etc are all transferred seamlessly!

The only application that could not work was GIMP. Anyway, there's a Leopard version for GIMP. Seems like its more of a GIMP issue than a Leopard issue.

If you have X11 installed, re-install the Leopard Xcode and your X11 applications should work. My Dia works after I re-installed Xcode. The X11 in Xcode resolved quite a few problems for X11 Forwarding. Now I do not get the display anomaly I was getting under Tiger.

Updating Leopard
People might find weird that I dedicated a section to updating Leopard. Reason is because I wasted half a day on it! I thought it was just a simple case of activating the Apple Update and let it do its magic. Boy was I wrong.

Please install the Mac OS X 10.5.2 Combo Update by downloading it from Apple website here. If you use the Apple Update, you will hang at the section where its configuring installation. So far I've seen it happen on a MacBook and a Mac mini.

After installing the Mac OS X 10.5.2 Combo Update from Apple website, you can proceed with using the standard Apple Update.

All in all, I took less than 2 hours (minus the frustrations I had with the apple update) to upgrade Leopard and restore my Mac to its original state, with all my applications including X11.

The other major frustrations I had was with porting of BootCamp partition. That one I will reserve for another article. Refer to this post for the steps. It took me 2 days to figure out how to restore the BootCamp partition without re-installing every single application within it.

Have fun with Leopard... I find Spaces very useful.

It's about accountability!!!

Recently I've been reading news and online rantings on the MAS Selemat case and on how MHA is handling it. I feel that most of the news out there missed out one particularly important point in this whole saga.

It's not about resignation.
It's all about accountability.

Indirectly, its linked to the high pay that our ministers are getting. With high pay, comes big responsibilities.

MHA is big, with many ministries under its jurisdiction. So what?? That's precisely the reason why they are getting the high pay. Since its under their jurisdiction, its their responsibility to ensure that they know what is going on, especially in areas of high security.

Now that there's a lapse of security, and many of the flaws are those that can be seen with a simple check. So that begs the question on what is this supervisory role that MHA is doing. Did they send their own people down to do an area survey regularly to ensure that procedures are being followed?

So it really tickles me that since MHA knows nothing about it, the heads should not be punished over it. The funny part is that its precisely this reason, that they should be punished appropriately! Where's the accountability?

For example, if I'm leading a team of developers on a project, and I did not supervise their tasks and ensure that the project schedule is followed, it's also my fault that the project did not proceed smoothly. Having started from the bottom rung, I understand that when you're performing your stated duties, very often you have no time, and no energy to care about anything else. Especially with Singapore's reputation of being efficient, we're tasked to multi-task among many other things. Therefore, its up to the people up there to supervise and ensure that the schedule or procedures are being followed.

By pushing the blame to the lower rungs, and saying the management is not at fault speaks of the in-experience of the management of handling the ground operations. They do not know what it is like handling the operations on the ground! Being in the management level doesn't mean its only making decisions, delegating jobs and tasks to the subordinates. It's more than that, much more.

The government should send a strong message that with the high pay, comes bigger responsibilities and if things go wrong, some form of accountability must be enforced. Its not all about listening to the good stuff!!

Or else why do they think they are getting the high pay??

Family Day Out

Seems like there is going to be an official Family Day Out. According to what I understand, it will be on every 4th Saturday in May, starting from this year (2008). It will also be known as the National Family Celebrations day I think.

For this year, there will be 15,000 free tickets to be given out for rides on the Singapore Flyer/DuckTour/RhinoTour/HippoTour. There are also special packages for Singapore Zoo, Night Safari and Jurong Bird Park.

Conditions? Of course... This is Singapore.

1. 2 adults
2. at least 1 child below 13 years old, or elderly above 55 years old

More information at National Family Celebrations website.

My only problem. Its on a Saturday! Thats the day where I have the most stuff to do, rushing for practices and meet-ups here and there. :( Why can't they make it on a Sunday or something? Or declare Friday a holiday...

Inflation is up 6.7%

These are the Singapore inflation rates for 2008:
January: 6.6%
February: 6.5%
March: 6.7%

Inflation is highest since 1982. Clothing & Footwear, and Recreation & Others lead the charge while the rest held mostly steady. However, this is for March. Now its almost May. Expect April's inflation to hit maybe even 7%. Food prices are rising drastically. Even tuckshops in schools are raising their prices soon. Another will be transport prices. The price of oil is going ballistic now.

I do not even seen an end to these rising of prices. The worst part is due to the weakening of the global economy, our salaries will not even rise to match inflation. The tipping point has been reached and we're in for a free-fall. Like a trapezium, there might be moments where the economy seems to be bounding up but its actually slowing down. If momentum is not "injected in" through innovation and new technologies (not giving away money), what happened in 1929 will be re-played again.

I wonder what is it like living in the era of great depression. I might not wait long for that to happen.

Singapore online comparison of insurance quotes

Realised that Singapore has its own online website that compares insurance quotes among some insurers. It is operated by PhillipCapital and the web address is at http://www.insupermart.com/. It currently provides online quotes for Travel, Motor, Home, Term, Personal Accident and Health insurance.

Currently it only has AIA, NTUC and Tenet on-board. Hopefully it would have more on-board in the future. It would be quite useful for those who wants to compare the insurance quotes themselves. Nevertheless, every insurance product is structured differently, meant for different purposes. Therefore, a straight comparison of the quotes might not reveal to you any difference. I would still say this could be something that could be noted, but still refer to an IFA for an explanation on the differences between the products.

Discontinue quoting from Slice of Life

Recently Slice Of Life has taken to sending images of their newsletter. They have also added in a copyright notice at the bottom. As such, I take it that its hinting that I should not quote from it, even though I did mention before that Slice Of Life is actually from 938 Live (Mediacorp), helmed by Eugene Loh.

I would no longer be quoting from it for my Self-Improvement section, but I would start writing my own if I have the time. :)

Akihabara

Akihabara I would say is a geek's heaven. People who loves IT electronics and game consoles like PSP would love this place. In Singaporean terms, its an area that combines Funan and Sim Lim Square together into one place. This is one of the places we visited in Hokkaido for my Hokkaido 8day tour. Surprised? Actually its not part of the tour. We forfeited the DisneyLand tour because we're not suckers for theme parks. :)

We took a train from Maihama station at Tokyo DisneyLand. Taking the train though requires you have to have super eyesight, and knowledge of the Japanese language. Before reaching each station, it will actually announce the train station name in Japanese. However, they added a whole lot of words in-between so if you are not listening to the announcements carefully, you would have missed the train station name. That is also presuming you know the name of the train station in Japanese. The train station name is printed on the pillars though so if you lost track, just pop your head out and look for the pillars. It would have the station's name on it, in both Japanese and English. One pillar will have the Japanese station name, the other will be in English.

We changed trains to Akihabara station at the big Tokyo interchange. I learned one thing in Tokyo though. If you're a shopaholic, and do not want to "waste time" eating, you could always grab a bite in the train station itself. There are many shops selling food within the station itself, and they are priced relatively okay.

Tokyo station is very big. If you need to change trains in Tokyo, rule of thumb is that you have to take note of which railway line you'll need to switch to. There's a color code to it. After that, just look out for the line's color code in the train station, and "follow the arrow". The station is very big so its easy to get lost. More so if you do not know the Japanese language. If I remember correctly, the line to Akihabara station is the Yamanote line. I might be wrong as I cannot remember that well. :p Below is a quick picture of the internal of Tokyo station:



Upon reaching the platform itself, look out for the pillars near the escalators. The pillars would have information on which train is going which direction. This is important because you do not want to go the opposite direction. Below is the picture of Akihabara station on the outside:



Akihabara is famous for 3 things.

1. IT gadgets like cameras, laptops
2. Cosplay during the weekends. There's a manga cafe in the vicinity
3. It's featured in the movie, L. :)
   

I'm not joking for point 3. The area where L bought the robot for the little boy is at Akihabara. The picture below shows one of the many streets within Akihabara:



In Akihabara, the "Funan" area is actually all the bigger shops lined up near the main road. There are some duty free shops there so if you wish to get cameras, PSP or nintendo, go for the duty free shops. You'll get 5% off (sales tax).

The Sim Lim Square shops are the ones behind the bigger shops. They are mostly found in the streets behind the bigger shops. However after looking at some of the items there, I think you can get it cheaper in Singapore. A Transcend 8GB flash drive there costs about SGD70. Over here, a 8GB flash drive costs less the SGD50 I believe (IT fair). Not sure about the other accessories.

However, I find that the Japanese-made electronics are cheap. That means cameras, video-cams, and IT gadgets like playstation, PSP by Japanese companies like Sony, Ricoh, etc. I could get a Sony video-cam for about SGD1600 over at Akihabara (minus tax). Nintendo DS Lite costs about SGD215 with the adapter (Japan uses a different voltage from Singapore). You can get a cheaper adapter at Sim Lim Square so you can actually get a DS Lite for under SGD200. The adapters there look cool though. :)

I think we basically spent about 6-7hours walking around the area. It also has a few big shopping malls, selling mainly electronics stuff. No worries about food there because there are quite a few shops there selling food. There's also Yoshinoya. :)

There is also a manga cafe in one of the buildings. Did not go in though, but I believe that cafe was featured in the movie, L. :) Akihabara supposedly to be quite popular among cosplayers in Tokyo. However, you'll need to go there in the weekends I believe. Not sure about that. Just something I've heard. Didn't see any cosplayers there, but we were there on a weekday.

All in all, it was a fun day and I would like to go back there again. :) Below is the night scene of Akihabara:

Managing Change

I quote from the Slice of Life:

So when in a stressful situation, try focusing on and slowing down your breathing. Imagine the progress of each breath as drawing one side of a square and make each line last four seconds. Inhale, 2, 3, 4, and exhale, 2, 3, 4... and repeat. You'll find yourself becoming calmer. Other people swear by meditation, yoga, journaling, walking or listening to soothing music.

And when potentially faced with a stressful change, try to get a clearer picture of it. The more you understand something, the less frightening it usually becomes. This is how, over time, we become familiar with initially-strange surroundings as well.

And finally, ask yourself "What's the worst that can happen, really?" You'll find that most of the time, the consequences aren't that bad. They're not something you can't live down. Besides, with change comes other possibilities that will actually be pleasant or beneficial for you. Try focusing on those.

Knowledge is power. If you do not know, try to find out. Who knows... Maybe you'll become an expert in that field.

Windows XP SP3 out by 28 Apr 2008

Updated 22 Apr 2008: Date of release of the SP3 for download is 29 Apr 2008 (Source - MS)
Updated 7 May 2008: Location of SP3 download at Microsoft

According to leaked sources here, Windows XP SP3 will be released on 21 Apr 2008 to manufacturers and volume license customers, and 28 Apr 2008 29 Apr 2008 to the rest. From 10 Jun 2008, the service pack will be forced upon the user through the automatic update.

The wait has finally ended. I just hope the increase in speed is real. However, even without the service pack 3, XP Professional still beats Vista, in terms of speed and usability.

This leaked news have not been confirmed by Microsoft though. The only thing Microsoft can confirm is that SP3 will be released in the 1H08. Microsoft XP SP3 is finally released at Microsoft Techcenter.

Self-tuning Electric Guitar

Cool man... It just tunes by itself. Wonders of embedded technology. I don't think it will work on a classical guitar though, where the wood and structure of the guitar is quite important. Looks like I'll just stick with my clip-on tuner. :p

Manage your thoughts

I quote from the Slice of Life:

So today, let's talk about how we can stop passively entertaining these thoughts, crystallize them, take action to resolve them and say "bye bye" to them forever.

Your first tool is your attention. Sure, most of us know how to focus our attention on something when required, like when pouring the boiling hot contents of a kettle into the small opening of a pot. Tangible tasks are easy enough. But what about when it comes to non-material things, like the unresolved worries in your mind. Do you know which ones to focus on and how to do it?

Most of us don't even bother with trying. As long as these concerns are not in our face threatening to tear our life apart, we're quite content to let them squat around noiselessly most of the time in our heads.

Well, take that first step - stop for a minute, and focus actively on your thoughts - concentrate. Despite what some people might tell you, you are not your thoughts. You are one having thoughts. These thoughts are not you and cannot control you. When you concentrate actively on your thoughts, you're separating them from you, assessing whether they're worth holding on to (in which case you'd want to take actions to resolve them), or whether you should let them go.

One good way to catch your thoughts is to use words to give them some form and shape. Verbalise your thoughts, better still if you can record them; or write them down. Think of it as exorcising phantoms. As ghosts, they can weave through the hallways of your minds undetected and in disregard of physical laws. But once you transform them into material incarnations, you can arrest them in any given place and time and destroy them if need be. If you're not the violent type, you can simply tell them "Thanks for sharing but I do not want you in my life anymore. Please leave, thank you very much!"

I think the problem is that sometimes, the conclusion of focusing on the thoughts require a certain action to be taken. And taking this step is not easy. The first step out in defending your actions is also important. If you lose this battle, bad thoughts would have a firmer foothold in your mind because you lack the willpower to banish them. This would cause un-necessary stress for yourself.

Its hard to do but like what some always say, "When there is a will, there is a way".

Why is there a food problem

Judging from the recent emphasis on the high food inflation in the world, I could only deduced one fact from this... The governments of the world are too money-faced!

Why? Food is the basis on why all of us work Using the name of "economic growth", many countries are not abandoning research into agriculture and focus more on "hotter" themes because they "earn more". They have the mentality that if I do not have it, I'll import it from some other countries. I'll not even bother trying. They take the easy way out! Now what happens if all the countries in the world think like that? Result is the situation we have today.

I realised in the world today, many easily losing sight of the initial goal or objective. For example, in many projects I see, it always come with a project scope, objective and schedule. Later on, somehow it will evolved into a big monster, and the original scope and objective is totally lost. Later they will say that things move fast, things are always changing etc. Is it really so? Or has the project stakeholders lost sight of the original objective of the project, and do not know that all the latest themes that they are chasing actually moves them away from the original objective?

Back into perspective, I feel the governments now are too money-faced, chasing after the hottest themes, and not realising that there is a "circle of life". The objective of this "circle" is survival. To survive, we need food. The main objective is to feed the people. A "circle" of activity is thus formed, which revolves around the original objective. Now, arable land has become infertile, pollution has gone up, world is getting hotter. All in the name of what?? Money?? What is money used for? To feed ourselves. Money is worthless if we cannot feed ourselves!

Very soon, the world governments will find out that as a result of their actions, the world's arable land will be significantly reduced, water will be covering more than 2/3 of the world, and all those hot themes that they are chasing will be worthless because it does not fit into the "circle", which is survival. Food!

Refresh your Mac Desktop

I've always been encountering weird problems like saving a file in my desktop and the desktop not reflecting the change. The weird part is if I use my finder to look at the desktop folder, the same thing happens! The only way I can access the file is to use the Terminal application to move the file to another folder.

Anyway, I have finally found out how to refresh/reset the Mac desktop so that it'll reflect the items saved on the desktop. Just do the following:

1. Click on the Apple icon on the top left-hand corner and click on Force Quit
2. Click on the Finder application and click on Relaunch.
   

That's all to it. You can do this even though you have other applications open. It will not affect your other applications. At least it did not affect mine. :)

Hope this helps...

Beware of your "encouragement"

I quote from the Slice of Life:

We also may compare the negative qualities of one person with another, especially with our kids or our subordinates. For example, we might say to our child "Our neighbour Mrs Choo's son always does so much better in school than you. And he's always so polite and obedient." We hope of course that by saying something to that effect, we will motivate our child to improve his performance, but very often, this kind of language just crushes his heart. He grows up feeling inferior and that he does not make his parents feel proud.

Some parents might think that instilling fear in their children will inspire them to work harder. But experiences arising from discouragement and condemnation will usually have a negative impact on the recipient. We should always encourage, never belittle.

So give your words more deliberation before you speak. They can build or harm relationships, and empower men or crush them.

I totally agree with this. I always do not like to compare myself with any other person. I'm myself, and I'm unique. What one person is doing doesn't necessarily mean that I must follow, no matter how "good" it is. In fact, I'm a very good example of a person who gets bad grades if I have tuition, and good grades when I do not have. :)

Low self-esteem will be a much bigger problem. Inspiring this kind of fear will most probably lead them down this path. Encourage in a different way... Think before you speak.

SMRT did not win big in Metro Awards 2008

Open the papers and I saw SMRT winning some Metro Award. One big advertisement. For one moment, I thought something went wrong. HK is definitely many times better than SMRT. Did a quick search and it revealed something else.

SMRT only won the Best Passenger Experience award, which is just one of the many awards given in Metro Awards 2008. The best metro award went to Copenhagen Metro, and the best metro asia pacific went to MTR Corporation Limited (Hong Kong). Copenhagen Metro also won the best Europe Metro. These are the awards that are important.

I do not know about Copenhagen but I do know Hong Kong MTR is good. I believe SMRT will now know how far behind they are in their so-called "first class" transport system. It really amazes me why they did not go Hong Kong to see what others are doing.

Anyway, it seems like SMRT finally decided to do something about it. This came about after they won the so-called award:

• Lunchtime wait at the central city stations like Raffles Place, Bugis, and Orchard will be cut from 7minutes to 3.5minutes
• Waiting times just before and after morning and evening peak hours will be cut to under 5minutes
• Screens will be installed in the train to give passengers better information about their ride, similar to those found on the MTR (finally. Took them long enough)

Anyway, now is all talk. Action speaks louder... For those who are interested in the list of winners, click here.

Beware of self-fulfilling prophecy

I quote from the Slice of Life:

Have you heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy? When we form negative perceptions of ourselves (or others, for that matter), we communicate these perceptions to ourselves through various cues or signals. These can be words, or actions, like sighing, walking with a hunch, or a weak handshake. You will sub-consciously respond to these cues by adjusting your behaviour to match them and the result is that the original perception translates into reality. Other people will also adjust their behaviour or attitude towards you according to the cues you send them. For example, if you're always sighing, you may convey the impression that you're pessimistic, passive, and that you have many problems. Consequently, people may avoid you or you may be passed over for a promotion because you appear incompetent.

Check your talk! Do you often say things like "I can't", "I'm not that good", "I'm scared", and so on? Do you frequently put yourself down in front of others? If you have a low opinion of yourself, you'll attract friends and lovers who echo your ideas, take advantage of you, belittle you and hurt you.

Remember, the subconscious mind will act on an inaccurate concept as if it were true. If you've accepted an idea that you can't lose weight, stop smoking, make money, succeed, can't paint or anything else, then your subconscious will make sure that the belief gets justified. It'll attract situations that will verify your beliefs.

Always look on the bright side of life. da da, da da da da da da.

Forgiveness

I quote from the Slice of Life:

Forgiving someone who has done you an injustice is difficult; it even feels illogical, because we feel that we are letting the wrongdoer off the hook. But forgiving does not equate letting someone off the hook. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you are condoning bad behaviour. Forgiveness is not about the other person. It's about you.

You forgive people not for their sake, but for your own sake. You forgive because that's the only way you can set yourself free. When you forgive, you're letting go of anger, of hurt, helplessness or shame. Like love, when forgiveness is given unconditionally, it's incredibly empowering for the giver. When you set conditions on forgiveness, you give power to your tormentors. You make it easier for them to hurt you again.

I want to break free... I want to break free... :)

Windows XP cut-off on June 30 2008

The date June 30 2008, has been cast in stone for Windows XP. For those who wish to get a computer with Windows XP, you'll have till then. Free support from Microsoft for Windows XP will be until April 2009, extended support (security fixes, and others) will be until 2014.

However, since last year June, it has been next to impossible in Singapore to get any computer with Windows XP installed. The retailers may do a free downgrade for you, but you do not have the recovery or master CD for Windows XP. That means if something happens to your computer (which is very likely), you can only recover it to Vista, not XP.

Till now, there's only one place in Singapore where I can still find Windows XP installed on a computer and comes with the CD. That's Dell. You can refer to my post here on the Dell Inspiron 1520 that I am currently using. Dell seems to be slowly phasing it out though, so if you're holding off the purchase and you want only Windows XP (like me), then its wise not to hold off any further.

For me, I do not think I'll ever switch to Vista. I was really laughing when I heard that some people have to disable Aero so that their games will not lag. My next computer should be a Mac, but that should be at least 5 years from now.

Fernando Sor Grand Solo

William Kanengiser's Grand Solo... The temptation... However, I do not think I can fit learning this into my schedule. Sometimes I really envy the students, where they have so much time. :(

Inertia inhibits growth

I quote from the Slice of Life:

An object at rest tends to stay at rest. That's the law of inertia. Objects "tend to keep on doing what they're doing." And like objects, we human beings have the tendency to rest on our laurels, to rely on past victories. The more we remain in our comfort zone, the lazier and more self-indulgent we get. While others move ahead and create more and more excellence for themselves, we grow fat and myopic. Before we know it, we've become obsolete.

This inertia can creep up on you in your personal as well as professional life. It also afflicts organizations. What you need to do is create a habit of continually raising your own standards of excellence. These steps will make it easier to stand out, be noticed, and have greater levels of success and satisfaction.

Inertia or not, depends on whether one has the time to do it. One should always pick their "battles" and raise the standard when appropriate. It would not be ideal to raise the standard when the project is already in the "fire-fighting" mode.

Shutdown or Reboot the Mac using command line

I'm not sure if its only me, but I sometimes have trouble shutting down, or rebooting my Mac. I have all the latest patches, but yet I still sometimes encounter situations where after I hit the shutdown option, it just hang there. I could even launch applications after I have shutdown. Luckily, there is a way to shutdown/reboot the Mac from the command line.

To do that, do the following:

1. Launch the application Terminal. You can find it in the Applications folder, or Spotlight
2. Type sudo shutdown -h now to shutdown, or sudo shutdown -r now to reboot
3. Enter the password of the current user account that you have login.
   

That's all to it. Hope it helps...

Ejecting mount drives manually in Mac OSX

Updated 5 April 2008: < > disappeared so its replaced by | |
Updated 31 May 2008: Added the force command, and link it to Leopard post

I'm not sure if its only me, but I frequently have trouble dismounting mount drives in the Mac, be it a thumbdrive, server directory, or even a DMG package. The frustration of clicking on the eject arrow and nothing happening is irritating. I have finally found out how to eject the drive manually from the command line in the Mac OSX.

To do that, do the following:

1. Launch the application Terminal. You can find it in the Applications folder, or Spotlight
2. Type ls /Volumes/. You should see the mount drive name in this directory.
   
3. To eject the drive, type hdiutil eject /Volumes/|mount drive name| (e.g. hdiutil eject /Volumes/Thumbdrive)
   

That's all to it. It can save you from rebooting your Mac. :D

For those who wish to force eject the mount drive, add a -force behind the command in step 3.

Kill processes using command prompt

Updated 5 April 2008: Replaced < > with | |

In Windows XP, you can always use the graphical task manager to kill the process used by the application. However, sometimes doing by the command prompt is a much quicker way, provided you know which processes you wish to kill.

Identify the process first by typing tasklist in the command prompt to list all the tasks, process ID (PID) and the memory used by the process.

To kill the process, just type tskill |PID| in the command prompt (e.g. tskill 1234).

That's it... This is the usual way I use to quickly exit a program that I know has hung. :)

Copy & Paste in XP Command Prompt

I feel that this is more for advanced users/developers who sometimes need to copy and paste commands into the Windows XP command prompt or vice versa. By default in Windows XP, the mouse option for copying and pasting is off.

To enable the mouse option in the command prompt for copy and paste, do the following:

1. Goto Start > Run
2. Type cmd
   
3. Click on the small C:\ icon on the top left hand corner of the command prompt window and click on Properties
4. Under the section Edit Options, ensure that both QuickEdit Mode and Insert Mode options are checked.
5. Click on OK
6. Select "Save properties for future windows with same title" so that in future, all your command prompts activated using Step 1 will have this option enabled.
7. Click on OK

That's it... Now, whenever you need to copy anything in the command prompt, just left-click, drag, and right-click. To paste, just right-click.