Problem with Mozy [July 15 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Mozy support finally replied to me on August 1st but there were two conflicting replies from Mozy support. One tells me to try the new version and the other the other instructed me to go into command line and execute the following:

$ cd /Library/Application Support/Mozy
$ sudo rm -f state.db

it is quite obvious the latter was taking the brut force approach to try to solve my long standing problems. It became apparent that “Karl” is the one who is correct, who asked me to try downloading the new version (0.6.2.0 (332))of Mozy for Mac.

I finally had a chance to reinstall Mozy today and now Mozy appears to be doing its thing. I had configured it to backup all my emails, System Preferences and Keychains. This had already cause it to reach the 2.2GB storage limit for a free account.

According to the Mozy Status window it still has another 4 hours to go. It had ran for about 10 minutes thus far, with a bitrate of approximately 80KB/s.

So what I’ve learned is that Mozy for Mac should be classified as an Alpha status software and not as beta.

One should send all technical enquiries relating to the Mozy for Mac to macsupport@mozy.com and not the regular support@mozy.com email address. You should always reply to the macsupport@mozy.com address even though emails from Mozy does not have that as their reply address.

During the backup, I quit most of the running applications, including Apple Mail, as I was asking it to backup all my emails. I wonder what would happen if I continue to use my Mac regularly and Mail keep downloading and deleting emails. Will these actions confuse Mozy backup?

More to report after the backup is complete.

BTW: some of you may notice in the comments of this article, there is a Mac user who had a great deal of problem retrieving the backup (approximately 30GB) from Mozy for a restore. Although, my backup strategy will not require me to have a large backup, but I do have emails dating back a far as 10 years ago in my Mail database. I would be interested in hearing more experience from Mac users who had tried to restore their Mozy backups.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 15 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Mozy support finally replied to me on August 1st but there were two conflicting replies from Mozy support. One tells me to try the new version and the other the other instructed me to go into command line and execute the following:

$ cd /Library/Application Support/Mozy
$ sudo rm -f state.db

it is quite obvious the latter was taking the brut force approach to try to solve my long standing problems. It became apparent that “Karl” is the one who is correct, who asked me to try downloading the new version (0.6.2.0 (332))of Mozy for Mac.

I finally had a chance to reinstall Mozy today and now Mozy appears to be doing its thing. I had configured it to backup all my emails, System Preferences and Keychains. This had already cause it to reach the 2.2GB storage limit for a free account.

According to the Mozy Status window it still has another 4 hours to go. It had ran for about 10 minutes thus far, with a bitrate of approximately 80KB/s.

So what I’ve learned is that Mozy for Mac should be classified as an Alpha status software and not as beta.

One should send all technical enquiries relating to the Mozy for Mac to macsupport@mozy.com and not the regular support@mozy.com email address. You should always reply to the macsupport@mozy.com address even though emails from Mozy does not have that as their reply address.

During the backup, I quit most of the running applications, including Apple Mail, as I was asking it to backup all my emails. I wonder what would happen if I continue to use my Mac regularly and Mail keep downloading and deleting emails. Will these actions confuse Mozy backup?

More to report after the backup is complete.

BTW: some of you may notice in the comments of this article, there is a Mac user who had a great deal of problem retrieving the backup (approximately 30GB) from Mozy for a restore. Although, my backup strategy will not require me to have a large backup, but I do have emails dating back a far as 10 years ago in my Mail database. I would be interested in hearing more experience from Mac users who had tried to restore their Mozy backups.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

The Nintendo Phenomenon

Nintendo LogoUnless you live in one of the undeveloped countries you will no doubt hear of the famous Nintendo trio: “Nintendo Wii“, “Nintendo DS” and “Nintendo Game Boy“.

When the Nintendo Game Boy came out in 1989 it easily became the most successful handheld game console. It appealed to both kids and adult alike. The latter mainly because there was no other alternative until 1990 when Sega released its weak competitive console.

Nintendo then released the Nintendo DS in 2004 to counter the competition from Sony with its PSP (Play Station Portable) game console. Nintendo quickly released a revised and much improved version called, “Nintendo DS Lite” in 2006. It is this latter version that took off is masses throughout Asia, mostly the adult players; both males and females.

In Hong Kong the Nintendo DS Lite phenomenon is quickly surpassed Sony PSP in just six months after its release, with Hong Kong electronic stores receiving large quantities of old Sony PSP as trade-ins for new Nintendo DS Lite consoles.

From my unscientific observation, most of the appeal appear to be females. One can see women playing the NDS Lite while walking on street, taking the MTR (subway), on the bus, in the tram, and in Starbucks. basically everywhere you can think of. At Starbucks one will see group plays (a group of players playing the NDS Lite over WiFi connection).

The Nintendo Wii or as Nintendo officially refers it as simply “Wii”, is no exception. With its launch in the North America, UK and Japan late 2006, it had not met the overwhelming demand on the console. Even after 9 months after the official launch it is still very difficult to purchase a Wii console in North America and UK.

The would be players in the rest of the world did not stand idle by their counter parts in North America, UK and Japan. Grey Market units become available in Australia, South Korea, Europe and Hong Kong. In Hong Kong the USA version cause less than the Japanese version by about HKD700.00 and both versions can come modified to allow them to play games from both regions. It is now almost a year after the official launch in North America and Wii are still flying off shelves here in Hong Kong.

In the mean time Sony and Microsoft both suffered massive loses in their respective division for the Sony Play Station and XBox consoles.

Nintendo took a very different approach compared to Sony, Microsoft and Sega, when its console the Nintendo Gamecube and its predecessor Nintendo 64 was arguably unsuccessful. It focused on the gaming experience and more importantly the game play rather than the graphics and realism of the scenes in the games like Sony and Microsoft.

With this approach Nintendo came up with ingenious approaches to game play, demonstrated by their Wii console and the titles that had been released. Similarly they have similarly unique gaming experience with their Nintendo DS Lite titles. Both of these consoles have player interacting with the console in ways that cannot be found on Sony’s PSP, Playstation or Microsoft’s XBox 360.

The phenomenon is further validated by the number of titles available for the Nintendo DS Lite and Wii compared to the Sony Playstation 3, Sony PSP and Microsoft XBox 360. Also the sustained resell value of both the Wii and Nintendo DS Lite consoles compared to the Sony Playstation 3, Sony PSP and XBox 360. The latter is dropping even much faster now that Microsoft has officially acknowledge defects in almost 50% of the consoles sold worldwide. As a result costing Microsoft 1 billion USD for extended warrantees for the consoles.

Will Nintendo enjoy this success forever. Of course not. Both Sony and Microsoft will not stand idle by watching Nintendo chips away their respective market shares. A sign that Sony is not standing still can been seen in its Little Big Planet project. But we have yet to see any innovations from Microsoft.

Movie Review: Ratatouille

Poster
My Rating: 5Stars

This evening I saw the pre-screening of the movie “Ratatouille” at Golden Harvest Multiplex, Mongkok.

Yes, many of you who knows me may ask,

Why am I going to see this movie in Mongkok of all places?

Well for one thing, it is a special preview prior to the actual Hong Kong release date of August 2, 2007, and the tickets were free; as I had won them from a “BC Magazine” contest. Speaking of the contest, that is another blog entry of mine.

This is the first movie after The Walt Disney Company’s purchase of Pixar Animation Studios in 2006, which now becomes part of the Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group.

It took 7 months, but I finally able to give a movie my 5 penguin rating. I am so glad that it was a Pixar movie. It is also the first movie this year that the audience applauded when the movie finished.

The animation in the movie was so accurate and realistic that each time a scene with rats swamping, it made the hairs on the back of my head stand on its end.

The story was also very original with the typical smart humor that Pixar is always famous for. The last movie with such great humor was “Finding Nemo“.

The actor that played “Remy” was Patton Oswalt, whom I’ve seen in the TV series “The Kings of Queens“. Fortunately, I did not know or remember that, since I did not like his character in the TV series. Here Remy’s sad cuteness is adorable and lovable by the entire audience young and old.

I will definitely purchase the movie for my digital library and may even go see it one more time. Since these tickets were free from the contest at BC Magazine (yet another article for my blog).

So far this year, if there was any movie you must see, this is definitely the one.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere

Yahoo Photos & Flickr

Flickr logoYesterday I received an email from Yahoo informing me that Yahoo Photos will be closing down and asked if I want to move my photos from there to Flickr or one of the other photo sharing sites.

Although, I did not have any photos in Yahoo Photos, I thought i still follow their instructions for transferring my Yahoo Photos account’s photos to my Flickr account.

Today, I received an email from Yahoo Photos that all my photos had been transferred to my Flickr account within their own photoset and set to “private” status. This so far is no big deal to me, as I did not have any photos in my Yahoo Photos account.

What was surprising was the last part of the email, where Yahoo Photos wrote, due to my continue support they have extended my Flickr Pro account three more months. I immediately signed onto my Flickr account, and was happy to confirm that its expiry date was indeed extended three months.

So for all you guys who have a Flickr Pro account and a Yahoo account, be sure not to ignore Yahoo Photos’ email to transfer your photo collection.

Yahoo Photos & Flickr

Flickr logoYesterday I received an email from Yahoo informing me that Yahoo Photos will be closing down and asked if I want to move my photos from there to Flickr or one of the other photo sharing sites.
Although, I did not have any photos in Yahoo Photos, I thought i still follow their instructions for transferring my Yahoo Photos account’s photos to my Flickr account.

Today, I received an email from Yahoo Photos that all my photos had been transferred to my Flickr account within their own photoset and set to “private” status. This so far is no big deal to me, as I did not have any photos in my Yahoo Photos account.

What was surprising was the last part of the email, where Yahoo Photos wrote, due to my continue support they have extended my Flickr Pro account three more months. I immediately signed onto my Flickr account, and was happy to confirm that its expiry date was indeed extended three months.

So for all you guys who have a Flickr Pro account and a Yahoo account, be sure not to ignore Yahoo Photos’ email to transfer your photo collection.

Problem with Mozy [July 6 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Mozy support replies to me asking me to send them the log file. They first tells me to go to “C:”, which was silly as that was terminologies for a Windows OS computer.

I had to send them an email reminding them that I was using Mac OS X. So now they tells me that the Mozy log file can be found within the Mac OS X file system

/var/log/mozy.log

So I quickly found the file and sent it to them.

A few hours later they tell me that i am encountering error “ConnectionError0?. Which I was not surprise, as that was what I told them in my original bug report back in July 1.

In the same email, they tells me that “ConnectionError0? means that Mozy is having problems accessing port 443 and asked me to open this port within my Mac OS X Firewall.

So, I replied back to Mozy technical support, asking why does Mozy need to access port 443 and asked whether port 443 is the default port of HTTPS access. Plus none of my other programs have problems accessing ports 443.

Up until now they [Mozy Technical Support] still have not given me any explanations as to why Mozy needs me to open port 443 in my Mac OS X Firewall.

I am guessing that Mozy is setting up a HTTPS server on my Mac to allow Mozy’s own server to retrieve data from my Mac OS X system. Is this a good idea? As I am not a network expert so I cannot tell.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 6 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Mozy support replies to me asking me to send them the log file. They first tells me to go to “C:”, which was silly as that was terminologies for a Windows OS computer.

I had to send them an email reminding them that I was using Mac OS X. So now they tells me that the Mozy log file can be found within the Mac OS X file system

/var/log/mozy.log

So I quickly found the file and sent it to them.

A few hours later they tell me that i am encountering error “ConnectionError0?. Which I was not surprise, as that was what I told them in my original bug report back in July 1.

In the same email, they tells me that “ConnectionError0? means that Mozy is having problems accessing port 443 and asked me to open this port within my Mac OS X Firewall.

So, I replied back to Mozy technical support, asking why does Mozy need to access port 443 and asked whether port 443 is the default port of HTTPS access. Plus none of my other programs have problems accessing ports 443.

Up until now they [Mozy Technical Support] still have not given me any explanations as to why Mozy needs me to open port 443 in my Mac OS X Firewall.

I am guessing that Mozy is setting up a HTTPS server on my Mac to allow Mozy’s own server to retrieve data from my Mac OS X system. Is this a good idea? As I am not a network expert so I cannot tell.

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Problem with Mozy [July 1 Update]

Mozy Error Message

Now I am running Mozy for Mac OS X version 0.6.0.0. It no longer requires me to be in an account in Mac OS X with administrator rights. As I had pointed out previously that is definitely not a good idea.

Now when I ran Mozy on my Mac, it keeps triggering Little Snitchwanting to contact various servers through port 443. Although, I am uncertain what these servers are; as it only displays the IP addresses of the servers rather than their domains, I still allowed Mozy and MobBackup access.

Shortly after Mozy ran for about 20 minutes it encountered an error “ConnectionError0?. So I reported this to Mozy Support.

Dear Sir/Madam,I had encountered a problem while Mozy was attempting to backup my
Mac.

Mac OS 10.4.10
Mozy v0.6.0.0
Mac OS X’s built in Firewall is turned on
Internet is accessed from a Router (Apple’s Airport Extreme Base
Station) via the ISP, Netviator (a service offered by PCCW in Hong
Kong).
No anti-virus application running other than LittleSnitch, which
had already set to allow Mozy (the entities Mozy and MobBackup)
access to servers/ports that it asked for. Currently ports 443
(https) for the following servers:
66.133.112.13
66.133.112.23
66.133.108.30
66.133.117.214
The error message displayed is “ConnectionError0?

Please see my original article “Problem with Mozy” for background.

Movie Review: Live Free or Die Hard

Poster
My Rating: 4Stars

This evening I saw the movie “Live Free or Die Hard” at UA Cinema, Time Square, Causeway Bay.

One simple word, WOW!!

If the plot of this movie was a bit more different than the previous 3 movies in the franchise, I would have easily given it my 5 penguins rating.

The special effects in this movie is very similar to the up coming movie “Next” with Nicolas Cage. You can find the exact release date in Hong Kong from my Must See Movies list.

I do not want to get into the plot, as it will give it away. I was presently surprised that it can be better than the previous 2 movies: “Die Hard: With a Vengeance” and “Die Hard 2” in the series. Of course, very few sequels can be better than the original. So if you like the Die Hard franchise you will like this movie.

PS: the “Mac Guy”, Justin Long, from Apple’s Get a Mac commercials co-star in this movie with Bruce Willis.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere