Kbase Article of the Week: Prepare for Changes to Xsan Before You Update to macOS Sierra⇢

In case you are one of the three people on the planet that this would affect:

The first time you activate an earlier Xsan volume on macOS Sierra, the Xsan file system manager (fsm) upgrades your volume’s metadata to a newer format. Once this conversion begins, you won’t be able to use this volume with Xsan MDCs running OS X 10.11 or earlier.

Older MDCs won’t be able to control Xsan volumes that are created in Xsan 5. If you attempt to start a volume that has been upgraded to or created in Xsan 5 on an older MDC, the volume won’t open. When this happens, the system will deliver an ICB alert.

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On App Store Business Models⇢

Underscore David Smith:

On November 8th it will have been eight years since my first app went live in the App Store. Back when I started I would have been gobsmacked to hear that eight years later I’d still be making my living solely from apps.

The App Store ecosystem today is wildly different from what it was back then. I launched my first app into a store of around 90k apps, today we have well over 2 million. Back then we didn’t have advertising networks, in-app purchases or subscriptions. You were free or paid, and if you wanted to make a living you pretty much had to be paid.

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September: Another 12 Months⇢

Instead of running RSS sponsorships this month, I’m raising money in support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as part of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Click here to learn more and donate.


I can’t believe it’s only been a year since the last time September rolled around, but that’s what time does when you’re a parent. It speeds up, leaving you behind if you aren’t careful.

It’s worse when you have a child with a catastrophic disease. When I scroll back through photos of our oldest son, so many of them are tinted by his experience.

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Juno Beams Home Images From First Perijove⇢

Emily Lakdawalla at The Planetary Society:

On August 27, Juno soared across Jupiter’s cloud tops from pole to pole, with all instruments operating. NASA posted some terrific first results from several of the instruments today. And the JunoCam team released all 28 raw images taken during the close encounter. I’ve collected all the data onto a single page for easy browsing and downloading; I’ll have more to say about that below.

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September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Every September, I forgo running RSS sponsorships on 512 Pixels to highlight and raise money for a cause — and an organization — that is very close to my heart.

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

It’s a month that’s of vital importance to my family. As some of you may know, our oldest son was diagnosed in May of 2009 with a malignant brain tumor. In the blink of an eye, we went from a young family with a seemingly-healthy six month old baby to a young family facing the reality that our son was gravely sick.

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On ‘Statewide Emergency Alert Tests’

This morning, anyone with a smartphone in the state of Tennessee got two back-to-back emergency alerts:

A photo posted by Stephen Hackett (@stephenmhackett) on Sep 1, 2016 at 7:39am PDT

The alerts were part of a statewide test:

“This year, in Tennessee and across the nation, natural and human-caused disasters have taken lives, destroyed homes and damaged roads and infrastructure,” said TEMA Director Patrick Sheehan. “While we live in some of the safest times in history, these fires, storms, flash-floods, heatwaves, tornadoes, accidents, and active shooter tragedies serve as reminders of the importance of being aware of the potential threats around us and to prepare ourselves and our loved ones. This statewide EAS test message will recognize National Preparedness Month and emphasize the importance of emergency preparedness.”

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SpaceX Falcon 9 Explodes on Pad

News broke this morning that a Falcon 9 rocket due to launch later this weekend exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

Black smoke from an explosion of a #SpaceX rocket in Cape Canaveral, Fla. pic via @PointyEndUp pic.twitter.com/pHKy0jLgpK

— Zora Suleman (@ZoraSuleman) September 1, 2016

There are few details known at this point, but early reports say the failure occurred leading up to a static fire test, in which the rocket’s motors are fired while the vehicle is clamped down to the pad. Some tweets have indicated the explosion took place during a “catastrophic abort” of the test.

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Pastebot for Mac Public Beta⇢

Tapbots has a new project:

Pastebot is a versatile clipboard manager for your Mac that stores what you recently copied so you can quickly retrieve them later. Create custom pasteboards for frequently used clippings. Build powerful filters that you can apply as you paste.

While I’m using Alfred’s built-in clipboard manager, this looks very promising. I’ll be giving it a go.

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Harry Potter iPod Follow-Up

Back in January, I wrote about the Harry Potter Collector’s iPod:

The iPod was engraved with the Hogwarts crest on the back, and was revved to a 30 GB, 5th-generation iPod shortly after release.

It could only be purchased with the audiobooks, for a combined cost of $548, and there were some special terms and conditions that applied to the offer. It’s important to note that the iPod didn’t come pre-loaded with the audiobooks; this was a digital purchase alongside an iPod. Customers had to download the files and sync them over themselves.

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1999’s Artwork and Guidelines for the Mac Logo

512 reader Marc Robinson mailed me me a bunch of Apple marketing materials from the late 90s and early 00s. There was a ton of good stuff in his package, but there was one that I thought I should share first: a CD containing artwork and guidelines on how to use the then-new Mac logo.

A lot of companies publish style guides on how their logos should and shouldn’t be used.1

In the late 90s, Apple made a push for developers to standardize how they showed the Mac logo.

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