The former design was already from 2008 and it was time for a refresh. I was trying for a more cleaner look with a more minimal design. Less is more… I also worked on the readability of the site. As people are getting more pixels on their screen it was time to make more use of it and I’ve made the design a bit wider to accommodate the use of bigger fonts. I also included a new plugin which should help in the readability of the code and scripts. It should also help in prevent in some of the errors that happened to some when copying and pasting the scripts directly to an editor or the Terminal. To preview the effect of the new plugin look at Compiling Apache in 32 bits mode on Snow Leopard. Drawback is that I need to make changes to all the rest of existing pages to make use of the plugin so bear with me. if you have any remarks please let me know, improvements are always welcome!

I’m working as well on a new rewrite of the instructions to accommodate the changes that were introduced by MySQL 5.5 but it takes some time. I’m also working on relocating the postfix stuff to have the compiled version in a different location than the original version to make sure we don’t get interference from Apple’s updates. I’m still having doubts on creating a specific direcotry for averything called /usr/local/diymacserver/ or just use /usr/local/. Let me hear your thoughts!

Some additional history and perspective: It’s almost 4 years ago I’ve started this particular blog and 6 years since switch.richard5.net (which still generates a lot of traffic). The current site has 250 posts and 150 pages with documentation which will be expanded greatly during the summer when Lion will be released.

I’ve always looked at the XServe in awe. They where the most beautiful designed rack servers I had ever seen, and not only on the outside. I dreamed of once owning my own, but alas hat i not going to happen anymore. Apple just announced that they are discontinuing the model. Everybody wanting to run a server will have to choose a Mac Pro or Mini for running OS X server.

I think it’s a pity that this is happening, I hope this does not mean that in a few years we won’t have a OS X server version. As that is still the best solution for running an OS X server. I’m only showing the cheap alternative here.

Apple put up a page in the knowledge base explaining how to find out if your Mac is 32 or 64 bits enabled. It will explain how to find out which CPU you have and in that lies the answer.

The short answer is:

Intel Core Solo is 32 bit
Intel Core Duo is 32 bit
Intel Core 2 Duo is 64 bit
Intel Quad-Core Xeon is 64 bit

Read more about it here.

As you might have remembered my oldest mini had died a few weeks ago by a malfunctioning hard-disk. Getting a new disk took this long as my new MBP was enjoying all the attention it got from me. Installing everything a new and playing with a copy of Snow Leopard.

I got the mini a brand spanking new WD Scorpio Blue 320 Gb for 79 euro, it had the most bang for the money. I had to look for the putty knife because it has been a while since I opened up my Intel mini for a faster HD. Installing it was as simple as always and I was finished within 30 minutes. I’m now installing everything fresh, starting with Tiger to be able to test the new Dovecot instructions on Tiger for the people with the older G4 machines who can’t support Leopard yet. Please remember that after Snow Leopard Tiger support will be officially dropped. (which does not mean you won’t get any help but I won’t be testing everything in advanced and I will only assist in trouble shooting). when that is done I will install Leopard on a different partition (plenty of room on the new HD!) to be able to support all the people still using G4 and G5 based Macs.

If you consider that I bought this Mac mini in 2005 and it has been on constantly since a few weeks ago it means that the hard disk has lasted for almost 4 years of continuous use. Not bad for a cosnumer device!

By the way thanks for all the donations in the last few months as you can see your money is being put to good use.

Yes, Hawk Wings the blog for everything related to Email, Todos and more is back. Tim Gaden has started to blog again after being more than a year off-line. His blog has been (and will be) a valuable source of information for people wanting to get the most out of their email (and related) programs on their Mac.