So, in further developments:

I got both drives up and running, copied over most of the files I need, and during the process I discovered that there were a couple of infected files on the old drive. My CA anti-virus caught and cleaned them. They were apparently temporary Internet files or something.

Also, just copying over the program files for the music converter didn't work. It was a special one day promotional giveaway, so I figured I'd need to find registry keys to convince it that I was allowed to run the thing, and sure enough.... It was worth a try though.

Actually, the paid version isn't that expensive. I may just buy it outright, like a good citizen.

Some software anti-piracy schemes rely on files being written to specific physical locations on hard drives. Or is that technique not used anymore? (It's obviously something that's not gonna work with disk defrag software, unless the defrag software leaves those files alone.)

Only I can look at the progress, but I'll report back when the status changes.

It's been marked as a duplicate of a bug already under investigation. Whether it will ever be fixed is a question.

Anyone familiar with putting a RedirectMatch statement with a regex expression into an .htaccess file? Here's what I'm trying to do. I've got a few hundred files of the form "playlist_YYYYMMDD.html" (where YYYYMMDD is a specific date). These files have been replaced by a php file on a different server where the date is a parameter: "playlist.php?date=YYYYMMDD". I thought I could use the following line in the .htaccess file:

RedirectMatch 301 {current path}/playlist_(\\d{8})\\.html
http;//{new domain and path}/playlist.php?date=$1

It doesn't work. Am I forgetting to escape something? Any other thoughts?

t on edit: colon after the http changed to a semi-colon so the the automagic [link] wouldn't kick in.

I have a somewhat rhetorical question. Every third or fourth or sometimes second CD I pop into my laptop, iTunes doesn't register it is there. It's on the desktop, in any case. I resolve this by quitting iTunes, ejecting the disc, then reloading, which then fires up iTunes and all is fine. It's 10.3.9 and iTunes7.

Is this my laptop being freak-o-deak, me being impatient and not waiting for my probable 7+ year old machine's cpu to catch up or ?

Update on my RedirectMatch problem: If I change the \\d to [0-9] it does redirect the files, but the "?" in the destination URL is replaced by a "%3f" so that the php doesn't work right. How can I get the destination URL to contain a "?" as intended? Using"\\?" doesn't work -- the URL then just includes the %code for a backslash on top of the %3f.

Hmmm... Someone else who had the same problem as me: [link]

I can't tell from the replies if there's a solution using mod_rewrite, or if I'm screwed.

More poking in the morning...

I have trouble with iTunes acknowledging my iPod, fwiw, with much the same setup. So if you find anything that works, let me know!

kewl: Macbook: As Viewed by a Thermal Camera

(I can't believe I used the word 'kewl.' Or is it 'kewel'?)

Summary: A FLIR Systems P65HS thermal camera was used to view a black, non-upgraded Macbook before and after yes > /dev/null was run for 5 minutes. The right side of each image includes a temperature scale bar [in Celsius], with the hottest pixel in the scene indicated by the number directly above the scale. The number in the top right shows the temperature of the pixel in the crosshairs. The error in each measurement is +/- 2 degrees Celsius. For fun, an Xbox 360 and a 38-inch CRT HDTV were also imaged.

I totally forgot about the Unix 'yes' command. And I just confirmed that running 'yes > /dev/null' is a good way of soaking up CPU power. But on my MacBook that only ties up one of the processors. But if I run that command on two shell windows, I can peg both CPUs at 100% And yes, my MacBook's CPU cooling fan is running already - and the CPU us up to 185.4 degrees F - usually it's around 130.

Thanks, Rob. I hope they do fix it. It's a pretty good client, especially for something that came with the OS.

Well, I guess those as use it know it, but ISOhunt is down for the count.