Recovering my Mac stuff after a Hard Drive Failure, September 2005

• Opening "registration" sequence from Apple
• network setup with DHCP, re-entered wi-fi name and $+key
• calibrated the monitor
• Replaced RAM and rebooted
• Ran "Software Update".  This took a while.  For some reason the iCal update didn't work the first time.
• Reboot

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• Downloaded Mozilla Firefox
• Imported iPhoto library successfully. 
  
• The backup CD had an "iPhoto Library" directory with "AlbumData.xml", "Dir.data", and "Library.data", and then directories "2003", "2004", and "Albums".
• Starting iPhoto with shift+option brought up a dialogue prompt for rebuilding the iPhoto library.
• Imported more photos from a second backup CD.  Used an applescript to batch-add comments.
• Installed Developer Tools:  /Applications/Installers/DeveloperTools/Developer.mpkg
• Downloaded X11User.dmg and Port Authority.dmg (the latter for DarwinPorts)
• Installed X11
• Re-building the iTunes library
• Installed Senuti
• Used Senuti to restore music and playlists from iPod
• Rebuilt smart playlists manually
• Restoring Firefox (web browser) stuff
• Loaded bookmarks from another computer
• Installed Flashblock extension
• Re-entered font preferences
• Scrolling skipped too many lines at a time.  Reduced Firefox mouse wheel scrolling step using about:config (type in into the navigation bar).
  
• mousewheel.withnokey.numlines 3
• mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines false
• Play images only once (again, about:config)
  
• image.animation_mode  once
  
• Installed DoubleCommand to make the "enter" key into an "fn" key for one-handed page up and page down
• Another round of Software Update (this time iCal updated fine)
• Installed X11 SDK
• Installed DarwinPorts
• Used System Preferences --> Sharing to rename the computer

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• Imported mail from another (Linux) computer
• "maildir" had to be converted to "mbox" within kmail to be importable into Mail.app
• Set up IMAP account again
• Show hidden files in the Finder
• from Terminal, "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true"
• then, "killall Finder".  Finder restarts itself with the new preferences.

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• Installing IDL
• IDL 5.3 lacked a "Darwin" option in xinstall.sh
• 5.6 was OK.  249.3 MB
  
• creates /usr/local/rsi and /usr/local/bin
• skipped license setup for now
• Emacs Adventures
• Installed Aquamacs Emacs.  120 MB (!)  But it couldn't launch IDL plots in X11.
• Carbon Emacs (48.6 MB):
• "/home.att.ne.jp/alpha/z123/emacs-mac-e.html"
• Setting up color syntax highlighting, custom font, location of IDL (for running the IDL shell from within idlwave mode), and reducing the mouse scrolling increment to 2 lines.  Created the "~/.emacs" file with the following contents:
  

  (global-font-lock-mode 1)

  
  ;;10pt Monaco

  (set-default-font "-apple-monaco-medium-r-normal--10-120-75-75-m-120-mac-roman")

  
  (setq column-number-mode t)

  (setq standard-indent 2)

  (setq scroll-step 1)

  (setq idlwave-shell-explicit-file-name "/usr/local/rsi/idl/bin/idl")

  (setq idlwave-shell-automatic-start t)

  (global-set-key [wheel-up]'(lambda ()(interactive)(scroll-down 2)))

  (global-set-key [wheel-down]'(lambda ()(interactive)(scroll-up 2)))

  (setq mouse-wheel-scroll-amount '(2.1))

  
  
• Emacs comes with IDLWAVE 5.7_22
• attempts to plot from within the IDLWAVE shell gave "Unsupported X Windows Visual"
• Made ~/.startup.idl
• device,true_color=15
• device,decomposed=0
• created and edited ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist using /Developer/Applications/Utilities/PropertyListEditor.app
  
• key IDL_STARTUP, string "~/.startup.idl"
• X11 must be started before attempting to plot!
• Installed Fugu for file transfers
• Installed VLC (12 MB)
• Created ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts and put the "Selected Tracks Bookmarkable" script in it