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Mac Attack
By Brian | February 21, 2008 | Share on Facebook
Last weekend, my friend Jeff Porten and I were in the same physical location, which basically means we got to stare at the same computer screen, rather than two separate ones.
In this case, I had an Excel spreadsheet to show him, which I had stored on my USB flash drive. I put the drive in his MacBook, and we were able to bring it up in Excel with just a couple of clicks. Excel threw a couple of warning messages at us, but the spreadsheet seemed to work fine, so we didn’t investigate.
Anyway, today I tried to use the flash drive on my Windows machine. Well, well, well…
I’ve got four hidden folders on the drive now, containing a total of 84 files that take up 17.5MB on the drive (to be fair, the spreadsheet has a bunch of bitmaps in it, so it’s 14MB on its own). The folders are named as follows:
| .fseventsd | .TemporaryItems |
| .Spotlight-V100 | .Trashes |
The one with the word “Spotlight” in it has 50 of the 84 files, all with inscrutable filenames, so I’m guessing the Mac tried to index my flash drive and stored the index on the drive itself.
The one called .TemporaryItems has several sub-folders, but eventually I come to a local copy of each bitmap in my spreadsheet, stored in .png format.
The other two folders are empty.
Everything deleted with no issues, and the spreadsheet still works, but it’s yet another example of how 100% compatibility is a false hope, as there’s always something that needs to be done whenever Jeff and I try to share/swap files.
No big deal for me, but I’m glad I’m not the guy on the other end of the tech support line when a novice user calls in asking if the Mac gave his flash drive a virus…
Topics: Tech Talk | 3 Comments »
Yes, you’re right, that was my MacBook that tossed those files onto your flash drive. Over here in Unixland, files preceded with a dot (cleverly called dotfiles) are invisible, so unless I do some trickery I’m not reminded of the existence of such things. Dotfiles are generally considered to be a nuisance in Windows-talking-to-Mac-land, and there’s a nifty third-party extension called BlueHarvest which deletes such items before they become inconveniently visible on Windows systems.
Unfortunately, I reinstalled my OS five days before we hung out together, and I’ve neglected to reinstall BlueHarvest. Hence, grumble grumble grumble feh.
(Before you ask: weird things happening in my Bluetooth dialup networking connections to my Palm Centro. A reinstall, if it solved the problem, would preclude the necessity of burning any actual neural glucose on the matter.)
(Before you ask, part two: yes, it helped, but I’m still rather annoyed and will actually have to fix the remaining issues.)
In any case, you were spot-on about the purpose of the .Spotlight folder. I suspect that .Temporary Items had so much stuff in it due to the on-the-fly conversion from Excel to Numbers format (which, frankly, worked much better than I expected it to). Had we rebooted my MacBook with the drive still mounted, this folder would have been emptied.
.Trashes is a way for OS X to handle the problem that anyone (with sufficient permissions) can trash a file on a mounted drive, but the file is then not actually deleted until the trash can is emptied.
.fsevents is part of the new filesystem framework in Leopard, which allows for all sorts of wonderful backtracking and security in the event of a drive failure. I don’t know diddly about what it stores there, but I assure you, it’s very cool.
it’s yet another example of how 100% compatibility is a false hope, as there’s always something that needs to be done whenever Jeff and I try to share/swap files.
Well, as you might suppose, the proliferation of dotfiles on Windows shares has been debated endlessly in the Mac community since the release of OS X. Folks who maintain mixed Mac/Windows networks have been quite vociferous on the issue. Long story short, it comes down to this:
1) The dotfiles all exist to do cool things on Macs. If you get rid of them entirely, the cool things break. No one wants to live in a world where Jeff trashes a file on a central server, but then Brian can see the file in its untrashed pristine condition because he used a different OS.
2) It would be quite possible for Apple to make the files just as invisible under Windows as they are on Macs, in which case — since that particular flash drive is unlikely to ever grace a Mac again — you’d be left wondering where 40 megs of its storage went. Hence, you get ugly visibility.
3) With some foresight, I could have turned off Spotlight indexing of same, but Spotlight’s default to index every damn drive it touches is yet another can of worms that’s not worth going into here.
4) Apple generally makes its OS decisions such that Macs Just Work Well, and to hell with anyone else. Can’t say as I blame them much for this attitude.
5) Software like BlueHarvest does away with the problem, but also add a great deal of complexity in the OS for all the non-techie Mac users — which is why it’s a third-party option rather than built into Mac OS X. (Why it’s not a Unix defaults switch, where only techies fear to tread, I have no idea.)
6) Agreed that it left some ugly detritus on your drive, but that said…
7) You whipped out a flash drive, slapped it on my computer, whereupon we launched an app I’ve used maybe three times, and everything displayed perfectly. Gotta tell you, I consider that to be interoperability.
8) Even so, grumble grumble grumble feh.
Dotfiles are generally considered to be a nuisance in Windows-talking-to-Mac-land
The irony here is that Windows has “Read Only” and “Hidden” attributes on every file and folder, just like UNIX. I wonder if BlueHarvest is just setting those attributes on all dotfiles so Windows handles them properly.
Unfortunately, I reinstalled my OS five days before we hung out together
I’ll note at this point that I don’t see this as a weakness in the Mac OS, but I do see it as further proof that “Just Works” is a myth of convenience. The reality, both with Windows and with Mac OS, is that when you use it as it was tested in the development lab, you run into very few problems. When you try to do something “unusual” (read: untested), you’re going to run into issues that require patches, reinstalls, etc.. The MO of the Apple zealotry over the years has been to compare the former case on Macs with the latter case on Windows. It might sell a few Macs, but it’s not a fair comparison.
The dotfiles all exist to do cool things on Macs. If you get rid of them entirely, the cool things break.
Agreed. I had started to writeup my thoughts on each kind of file, but my comment wound up being the same for each one. Windows has all these same concepts: Vista search indexes every drive it touches, Windows has UNIX-like file attributes to mark a file hidden, there are temporary files (typically with a .tmp extension) created by the O/S as well as by various apps, and there’s a trash folder (the “Recycle Bin”). What I don’t understand is why Leopard would store these files locally on a USB drive, rather than centrally. Windows keeps most of these files in the C:WINDOWS folder, or in the root folder of the application that’s creating them (Program FilesExcel or Program FilesWord, for instance). Not only is it neater and less invasive, but I would think it’s also faster and more stable (e.g., the search function can go to one place for it’s index, rather than scanning multiple indices on multiple drives). Also (and this is more of an ancillary benefit), it makes backup/restore easier, because my data folders contain data only, and not working files that depend on the current state of the app or the OS.
Apple generally makes its OS decisions such that Macs Just Work Well, and to hell with anyone else. Can’t say as I blame them much for this attitude.
Sure – things work better if you stick with your own kind. Except that Microsoft has been sued by two major world governments for taking this line of thinking to it’s logical conclusion.
You whipped out a flash drive, slapped it on my computer, whereupon we launched an app I’ve used maybe three times, and everything displayed perfectly. Gotta tell you, I consider that to be interoperability.
That’s because you’re used to working on a Mac. From my perspective, I slapped a flash drive in your computer, and my file launched in one application (Numbers), then you closed it and opened it again in Excel. It threw a bunch of warnings up at us, which we ignored because whatever was bothering it wasn’t bothering us. Then, it left a bunch of stuff on the flash drive when it was through. When I put that same flash drive on another Windows machine and open the same file, it opens in the same application, with no warnings or errors, and closes without incident.
But perhaps most importantly, I’d have no qualms about changing the file on another Windows machine and saving it back to the Flash drive. I would never have dreamed of doing that on your Mac, for fear of corrupting my file when I brought it back to Windows. That’s not interoperability, that’s two techie guys working their way around the differences.
Even so, grumble grumble grumble feh.
Fair enough. This isn’t that big a deal. But it’s excellent empirical evidence that reality is never as neat as it’s associated marketing campaigns. And I find that strangely satisfying…
Oh, that wasn’t bait, that was waving a raw steak sewn into a red cape in front of a pit bull-piranha hybrid.
The irony here is that Windows has “Read Only” and “Hidden” attributes on every file and folder, just like UNIX.
Right; the theory is that Apple deliberately decided not to muck with such, so as to avoid “maliciously hiding disk space on mounted Windows shares.” With repeated usage, those dotfolders can get pretty big; this is well managed with constant usage of a Mac drive, but there are probably edge cases where a hidden file could escape in the wild and eat up a few dozen gigs on a Windows share.
I wonder if BlueHarvest is just setting those attributes on all dotfiles so Windows handles them properly.
Nope. They’re simply toasted. All of the dotfiles can be rebuilt on the fly, so all you’re losing by deleting them is CPU cycles.
I’ll note at this point that I don’t see this as a weakness in the Mac OS, but I do see it as further proof that “Just Works” is a myth of convenience.
Cayenne pepper and Tabasco on the raw steak in the red cape….
Two points to make here, one slightly in favor of your opinion, one not.
1) Leopard has a few 1.0 issues in the new features that are being ironed out, and which most people think have substantially been taken care of in last week’s 10.5.2. Most of these are related to UI changes which work as intended by Apple, which people simply don’t like: the transparent menu bar, new Dock behaviors, etc. First thing I did when I upgraded to dot-2 is blow them out. A small number of these are out-and-out glitches, however.
1a) I resist characterizations that this makes Macs equal to Windows; we put up with a few months of glitches over a two-year life cycle of the software. The glitches we hear about on your end are far more pernicious and tend to last until the OS EOL. More on this next paragraph….
2) Meanwhile, Macs are chock-full of many rather glitzy features, which pretty much Just Work. You seem to take my experiences as indicative of Mac users, which is wrong; I beat my OS with a metaphorical two-by-four on a regular basis, and my system is almost always on several simultaneous bleeding edges.
Even so, for example, I can click a few buttons and turn my laptop into an ad-hoc hotspot sharing my EVDO connection via my Airport card. This Just Works about 90% of the time, and when it doesn’t (invariably to Windows laptops) it works 100% of the time with my Ethernet cable. Meanwhile, if this feature exists in Windows, I’ve never heard of anyone using it.
More interestingly, on a near-daily basis I see “hpsetup” networks from people whom, I presume, do not realize that they are using their wifi cards to advertise their existence and invite people to network with them and have their way with their hard drives. Try this in any airport or Acela train station; for true fun, see if you find more advertised Windows networks, or more people with their Bluetooth phones on permanent discover.
Granted that this is possible with a poorly-configured Mac, however: a) I’ve never seen such a Mac, and b) a rather prominent icon in the menu bar acts as a prophylactic against such things.
It’s stuff like this that really makes me wonder when you make assertions that Macs and Windows are both equally in the “Just Works” category. I don’t believe that any system as complex as a modern OS can do everything perfectly, but in my experience, Macs just have a stellar track record compared to anything else on the market. (And despite my limited Windows experience, I can point to “broadcast” situations like the one above which demonstrate, if not quite prove, my point.)
The reality, both with Windows and with Mac OS, is that when you use it as it was tested in the development lab, you run into very few problems. When you try to do something “unusual” (read: untested), you’re going to run into issues that require patches, reinstalls, etc.
Well, let’s make sure we’re clear here on what we’re talking about. In the case of my reinstall, I’m dealing with a system that crosses four different companies: Mac OS, Bluetooth 1.2 standard, Palm OS Garnet, and Sprint’s presumed tinkering with that OS. (One of my continued issues is that my EVDO connection degrades over time; my guess is that this is a deliberate malfunction to prevent me from “abusing” the Sprint data network.) The Mac reinstall served two purposes: a) to blow out whatever mods I may have inadvertently hacked in when I installed 10.5.0 — which I notably upgraded the day before my Dad died (in the worst feat of tech timing, ever), so I can’t say as I have my usual impeccable records about subsequent hacks; b) to exclude the Mac as a source point of problems in future unit testing, unless I hear that such problems are baked into the OS.
The result is that my BT connections are better but not perfect, and I suspect it’s because my usage pattern is somewhat bleeding edgy. I anticipate that the problem is probably with the phone, but since my Mac is infinitely more hackable, that’s where I’m going to attempt future mods. Better to do that in a clean environment, and BT networking is close enough to the metal that a clean reinstall is the place to do that.
The MO of the Apple zealotry over the years has been to compare the former case on Macs with the latter case on Windows. It might sell a few Macs, but it’s not a fair comparison.
Feh. I think you’re making that up, and I request documentation from a reasonably trusted Mac source (i.e., not some yahoo you find posting randomly in a mailing list). There’s a phrase in use on several Mac blogs called “Artie MacStrawman”, referring to the “Apple zealotry” you consistently quote whom somehow don’t seem to exist in my circles.
What is true is that Macs do better because they run on a consistent and constrained hardware set. (Probably has something to do with why so many PC writers have mentioned that Macs are the best laptops on which to run Windows.) I don’t call that a “lucky break” for Apple — Microsoft chose to license and get themselves into a position where monopolism was an issue; Apple chose to cancel licensing and stick to their own hardware. You makes your bed, you sleeps in it.
What I don’t understand is why Leopard would store these files locally on a USB drive, rather than centrally.
If you want a truly in-depth discussion of the various engineering decisions that were made here, I’d recommend Ars Technica. Long story short, the files are stored locally so that various clients can share the stored information; the USB drive is treated like a network share. When the USB drive is moved to another Mac, the indexing work and other behind-the-scenes stuff doesn’t need to be replicated.
Not only is it neater and less invasive, but I would think it’s also faster and more stable (e.g., the search function can go to one place for it’s index, rather than scanning multiple indices on multiple drives).
Always much easier to hash multiple indexes, than it is to index multiple drives. Also ensures that when a given drive is removed, the indexing function doesn’t accidentally show phantom files that are no longer available. No files means no index means no spurious search returns.
Also (and this is more of an ancillary benefit), it makes backup/restore easier, because my data folders contain data only, and not working files that depend on the current state of the app or the OS.
I’m guessing that Time Machine takes care of all this automagically; there are a number of places that are deliberately not backed up (the Library/Caches come to mind) because they have no context in a restored backup. Not sure if indexing is backed up or not; it would be faster in the event of a full restore, but indexing takes place at the filesystem level and never gets turned off, so your worst case scenario there is 6-8 hours of rebuild.
Except that Microsoft has been sued by two major world governments for taking this line of thinking to it’s logical conclusion.
Cf. earlier comment about the beds you make.
From my perspective, I slapped a flash drive in your computer, and my file launched in one application (Numbers), then you closed it and opened it again in Excel.
Nope. This computer has never had Excel installed on it, and we never launched NeoOffice; that app was last opened on 5/17/07. Everything you saw was Numbers converting your spreadsheet on the fly.
And here’s where I think you’re not giving Macs nearly enough credit. You’re presuming that every Windows system you’re talking about has Office installed. Pretty damned easy to be interoperable when you’re always running the same software. So what I’d want to see is the following side-by-side comparison: 1) Macs running iWork; 2) Macs with stock OS software (iWork is added software, but I think default apps can read .xls files); 3) Windows running non-Microsoft office suites and/or Microsoft Works; 4) Windows with stock OS software only. My instinct is that in that comparison, the Macs would eat the Windows’ machines collective lunches.
It threw a bunch of warnings up at us, which we ignored because whatever was bothering it wasn’t bothering us.
I didn’t take screenshots, but I don’t remember warnings; I remember conversion dialogs. And seeing as how we were launching software I’ve almost never used, trust me, I was watching for red flags.
But perhaps most importantly, I’d have no qualms about changing the file on another Windows machine and saving it back to the Flash drive.
If it were running Office. If I were running Office, you’d have been a semi-goofball to be worried about this. And if I’d known you’d be waving around the Tabasco steak, I have saved out the file in Excel format under a different filename just to keep you docile. ;-) In any case, there’s no question that with our experience, even if I were running glatt Windows and kosher Office, we’d have probably saved out to a second file, just in case.
I would never have dreamed of doing that on your Mac, for fear of corrupting my file when I brought it back to Windows. That’s not interoperability, that’s two techie guys working their way around the differences.
That’s not two techie guys working their way around the differences, that’s one techie guy being paranoid about the integrity of his work, which I completely understand.
Acid test: ship me the file so I can roundtrip it and ship it back to you, and then you can give me headline space when everything Just Works, okay?
This isn’t that big a deal. But it’s excellent empirical evidence that reality is never as neat as it’s associated marketing campaigns. And I find that strangely satisfying…
Hey, you’re a Windows guy. No wonder you’re a catastrophist.
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