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How to Create and Use Symlinks on a Mac
In my recent post about pairing SSD and HDD storage inside a MacBook Pro, I used a little-known command line feature to redirect some of my user folders from the SSD to the hard drive. I wanted OS X to still refer to the default locations of ~/Documents, ~/Downloads and so on for these folders, but I wanted to use the storage space on the big drive for these kinds of files. Symbolic Links (symlinks) are a function of the UNIX underpinnings of OS X to create something like an alias, but at a low-level in the filesystem.

Aliases

Aliases were introduced in Mac OS System 7 and were then carried forward to Mac OS X. They are a pointer to a file or a folder somewhere else, even on a server. The alias is tied to the unique ID of that file and will continue to work even if you move the original file or folder because it stores this information (and more) in the resource fork of the alias file. Unfortunately, you may have noticed that some applications do not follow aliases properly.

Symbolic Links (or symlinks)

Symbolic Links are an older feature that harken back to the BSD roots of Mac OS X. These files simply contain the path of the target file or directory stored as text. If you move the target file, the symlink will break because it still points to the original location in the link. However, symlinks work at a low-level such that almost all applications and OS features will follow them to the target.

A Note on Hard Links

The “ln” command below is used to create hard links. “ln -s” makes symbolic links. You can read more about hard links on Wikipedia, but we don’t want to use them here. Be sure to use the “-s” switch when you enter the “ln” commands.

The Home Folder

The User folder in OS X contains several important sub-folders for different types of content. The system expects to find those directories inside the user’s home folder. On installation, OS X created my home folder in the default location on the boot drive, which is the SSD. I then used symlinks to replace some of the default sub-folders with pointers to a location on the secondary hard drive. The “~/” notation, used frequently in the steps below is a shortcut to the current user’s home folder. It is the same as entering “/Users/jack” if the short name of the current user account were “jack” on that machine. The notation “~/Downloads” refers to the Downloads folder inside the current user’s home folder. So “~/Downloads” would be the same as “~/Users/jack/Downloads” in our example. You can use the “~/” notation and you will be sure to refer to your own current user folder.

The ~/Library folder

~/Library deserves some discussion because the contents of this folder are both critically important and not very well understood. The user library (~/Library) contains application preferences, settings, and data. The preferences files are generally small, but are read each time an application launches. The data files could be a different story. Mail keeps all your messages inside ~/Library/Mail/ which can grow to be quite large if you have a several email accounts and a lot of email correspondence. My Mail folder is about 10GB, for example. Steam stores game files down inside the Library as well. Be careful when working with your ~/Library folder, but you may find some large folders that could be better off moved elsewhere.

Steps to Create a Symlink

Here are the steps to create a symlink for the ~/Downloads folder. First step is to make sure that the destination folder is in place. I did this by copying my old Downloads folder from the previous system drive (moved to an external drive enclosure) to the new internal hard drive so it could be found at /Volumes/Bucket/Downloads (“Bucket” is the name of my hard drive). Next, remove the existing Downloads folder (make sure it is empty first). You can’t create a symlink file if another file in that directory has the same name . I use “sudo” to override the normal protections because OS X wants to keep this folder in its usual location. You will be prompted for your password after you enter the following command…
```
 sudo rm -rf ~/Downloads/ 
```
The next line creates the symlink with the “ln -s” command and sets the target location to “/Volumes/Bucket/Downloads/” and creates the link file at “~/Downloads” in the home folder. If you are following along on your own machine, you will need to replace “Bucket” with the name of your hard drive.
```
 ln -s /Volumes/Bucket/Downloads/ ~/Downloads 
```
You could also do something like “/Volumes/Bucket/Links/myname/Downloads” so that you have a directory structure to accommodate multiple users. Your other users could also put their folders in the “Links” directory. Just don’t use “Users” at the root level of the hard drive.

After the symlink is in place, any browser (or other application) that tries to write to ~/Downloads will actually save the file to the linked location on the hard drive. When you look in your home folder, you will see Downloads with an alias icon. Just remember that it’s not an alias, it’s a symlink.

Repeat this process for the other folders that you want to keep on the secondary (non-booting) hard drive.

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Apple Execs Discuss Location Tracking, White iPhone Challenges
Apple’s Steve Jobs, Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller discussed in more detail some of the announcements the company made today regarding the white iPhone 4 and recent concerns over the usage and storage of location information on iOS devices. In an interview with Mobilized’s Ina Fried, the Apple execs reiterated info found in the PR materials for the most part, but they also revealed some interesting additional tidbits.

White iPhone 4

Regarding the white iPhone 4′s production delays, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller told Mobilized that far from being “as simple as making something white.” Schiller said that Apple’s main concern was with “how it holds up over time… but also in how it all works with the sensors.” Apple encountered problems with how the color of the device interacted with the iPhone’s internal components, and also that the white color ended up requiring more protection from UV rays than the black version. Apple waited to release the white iPhone, Schiller said, until it could ensure the device will live up to customer expectations.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs also said that what the company has learned regarding the white iPhone’s production process has provided valuable info that it can leverage in other products, like the iPad 2.

Location Issues

Jobs mostly stuck to the major points of Apple’s press release when discussing location information, but he also told Mobilized that the company is looking forward to testifying before Congress and regulatory bodies in order to provide more transparency about how location data is used. “I think Apple will be testifying,” he said. “They have asked us to come and we will honer their request, of course.” Jobs also expressed interest in seeing how other companies that deal with location data address these concerns. He didn’t discuss any companies by name, but Google is the obvious other major player when it comes to mobile location-aware devices.

Jobs also discussed the perceived “delay” between the problem’s discovery and Apple’s response. He noted that Apple’s response took “slightly less than a week” from the discovery of the problem, and that the approach the company took was “engineering-driven” in that it tracked down all of the info and assessed the problem fully, which “took a few days.” Apple also spent another “few days” to write up the results and make them intelligible to a broad audience.

Apple is being remarkably candid about these issues for a company that’s normally very tight-lipped. It’s understandable, though, when you consider that both the white iPhone 4 delays and the company’s recent problems with location issues have represented two of the biggest ongoing sources of negative press for the company in recent memory. But maybe this is also the first sign of a less secretive phase for Cupertino?

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Does Apple Even Have a Cloud Strategy?

Apple’s massive data center in North Carolina has been in the news of late, prompting more wide-eyed speculation among some analysts as to its ultimate purpose. Possibilities include a music subscription service like Rhapsody, a video subscription service like Netflix, free MobileMe. However, the most likely service, at least initially, is a digital locker for iTunes. Music storage for a fee would be the latest online service for Apple, the first of which was launched more than a decade ago:
- 2000: iTools offered e-mail, web pages, and online storage.
- 2002: .Mac adds more features, including online backup for $99 a year.
- 2006: Apple launches blogging app iWeb, closely tied to .Mac service.
- 2008: MobileMe introduces “Exchange for the rest of us” push services for mail, contacts, appointments.
- 2009: iWork.com beta ties online servies to Apple’s office suite.
- 2010: Ping social networking and music recommendation service added to iTunes.
- 2011: iTunes storage locker expected for a yearly fee.
While that history looks impressive, the reality for Apple’s online efforts has been markedly different. Apple’s problems started in 2002, when the company began charging $99 a year for online services, going from more than two million iTool users to 100,000 .Mac subscribers in about two months. That was the last we heard about paid subscriber numbers from Apple. In sharp contrast, Google’s Gmail, which launched in 2004 with e-mail and storage for free, now has about 200 million users.

Even more successful than Gmail is Facebook, which now has more than 600 million users for its social networking service. Apple launched Ping, the music-focused social networking service in iTunes, last year. Although there are more than 200 million iTunes Store accounts, Ping’s user experience leaves much to be desired and has done little for Apple or Ping’s users. Hardly worth mentioning is iWeb, Apple’s apparently short-lived blogging application which was not updated in iLife ’11 and one can presume is on its way to becoming obsolete.

As for MobileMe itself, it remains a highly limited service centered around e-mail and personal information management. It works well enough, at least in 2011. When MobileMe launched in 2008, push services failed so badly Steve Jobs apologized and MobileMe users were given a 60-day extension on their subscriptions. Sadly, iDisk, Apple’s online storage never received similar corrective attention and remains a tortuously slow service to use, unlike the marvelous non-Apple Dropbox. MobileMe also offers photo sharing via Gallery, and it works well enough, but it’s nothing special. Whatever happend to the iWork.com “beta” launched in 2009? Still in beta. Apple’s online services are, at best, uneven; at worst, missing.

What would a comprehensive strategy to turn Apple’s online services around include? The first step is to fix what doesn’t work well, the second might be to generate interest and usage by offering limited free services. Besides current offerings, MobileMe badly needs document and data syncing. How frustrating is it to sync iWork documents on a Mac and iPad? Somehow iBooks manages to synchronize across devices wirelessly. Wouldn’t it be great if Game Center synced your progress across games played on iOS devices, too? These are the kind of free services that cost little and generate interest, and interest is platform lock-in.

The next step is to add expanded services, such as an iTunes storage locker, though arguably that may not be that desirable. Video streaming certainly is more so, as Netflix has demonstrated. How about shared photo libraries in the form of an iPhoto Cloud? Cloud-based Time Machine certainly would seem to be another obvious choice. There are many possibilities, but they need to be offered as part of a package built upon a free set of limited but relevant services. To summarize, a cloud strategy for Apple in 2011 will hopefully look something like this:
1. Fix what doesn’t work, like iDisk.
2. Include free services, including data and document synchronization, as well as basic e-mail.
3. Offer expanded services like music storage, individually and as a part of a package.
If, instead, Apple launches yet another isolated online service for profit, this time music storage, well, it will no doubt make another great bullet point in Apple’s list of less-than-scintillating online services.

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Apple Outs Future Traffic Plans in Location Q&A
In its explanation of how and why it collects anonymized location data from iPhones, Apple provided a rare glimpse into its future plans. The company revealed that it is collecting traffic data from devices, too, in order to build “an improved traffic service” for iPhone users “in the next couple of years.” The service would be crowd-sourced, and presumably more accurate than existing iPhone Maps traffic information.

Both location data gathering and traffic information collection seem to be in service of improving Apple’s built-in Maps app and on-device location services. Apple took over the management of Maps location databases in June of 2010, where devices running iPhone OS 1.1.3 to 3.1 had (and still do) rely on Skyhook Wireless’ databases of Wi-Fi and cellular tower locations. Apple also acquired mapping companies Placebase and Poly9 last year, and posted job ads looking for individuals to “take Maps to the next level” in 2009, and to “radically improve how people interact with maps and location-based services” just last month.

Apple revealed last year in its letter to Congressmen Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Tex.) that it “used [location] data to analyze traffic patterns and density,” so presumably that’s the same thing it’s doing in order to improve its traffic service. The Maps app currently has a traffic layer that can be enabled and disabled, but the info appears to currently be supplied by Google, since it matches traffic pattens displayed on the web-based version of Google Maps. Apple seems to be intent on either supplementing that information, or replacing the Google-sourced data with its own.

Some are speculating that this means Apple is keen to introduce turn-by-turn navigation to the onboard iOS Maps app, and that’s a definite possibility. But since Apple only claims “an improved traffic service” as part of its plans, its not the only logical conclusion that one can draw. Apple has been steadily decreasing its reliance on outside service providers (and even components, thanks to its in-house designed A4 and A5 mobile chips), and a new traffic service might just be that, and not representative of any attempt to leapfrog into navigation.

Apple’s assertion that any improved service will come “in the next couple of years” hints at the long development tail it has for new products and software offerings. The Mac-maker would never release a product to market that pales in comparison to what it’s replacing, and that’s no less true of the iOS Maps app. Until it can assure a better user experience itself than is provided by Google, it’ll stick with the Mountain View, calif.-sourced option, because unlike its competitors, Apple seldom, if ever, rushes anything to market.

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iPad 2 Coming to 13 More Countries — Supply Nearing Demand?
The iPad 2 is coming to 11 more countries this week, according to Apple. New countries getting the second-generation Apple tablet include Japan on Thursday, April 28 and Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and eight other countries on Friday, April 29. The iPad 2 is also coming to China beginning Friday, May 6. Expanded availability may be an indication that Apple’s iPad 2 supplies are nearing existing demand for the product.

Apple had promised to release the iPad 2 in Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore in April when it announced the availability of the device in 25 more countries two weeks after its initial U.S. launch. At the time, Apple said “other countries” would also get the iPad 2 in April, though it didn’t specify how many or which countries specifically. iPad 2 availability in China, where Apple saw its largest growth last quarter, had not been announced even generally before today. The other countries that will get the iPad 2 on Friday include Hong Kong, India, Israel, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and UAE.

That Apple is ready to launch in these countries suggests that it may finally be catching up with demand for the product. During the company’s conference call last week, Tim Cook admitted Apple was facing the “mother of all backlogs” regarding the device, which is not a statement you’d generally expect to precede a wide increase in availability. But ship times for the device have improved to between one and two weeks, both in the U.S. and most international stores, and according to Apple’s 10-Q filing with the U.S. SEC, the company will spend $11 billion in purchase commitments (including, but not limited to iPad components) during the upcoming quarter. It’s a steep increase over the $7.9 billion it spend in that capacity during the previous quarter. That investment could go a long way toward resolving the production bottlenecks that are apparently preventing Apple from meeting iPad 2 demand thus far.

Another possibility is that demand is finally slackening in countries where the iPad has already launched. But there are still lines at some Apple locations, including in front of NYC’s Apple Stores every morning, according to reports. Demand may be less than what it was at launch, but it still seems far from being satisfied, and it’s much more likely improvements in Apple’s supply chain are more responsible for improved shipping times and availability than lack of consumer interest.

If Apple can manage to resolve issues that led to its massive backlog during the launch quarter, expect to see iPad 2 sales balloon during the next three-month period. Some analysts have revised their expected sales figures downward based on last quarter’s performance, but if Apple’s supply concerns aren’t a factor, you can expect it to beat those predictions in the coming year.

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Apple Confirms White iPhone 4 on Sale April 28
Apple will begin selling the white iPhone 4 April 28, the company said Wednesday. The white iPhone 4 will be available for purchase online from Apple.com, at Apple retail, and at AT&T, Verizon and other authorized retail outlets. It will launch simultaneously in 28 countries tomorrow, and make its way out to the rest of the world soon after that.

Reports earlier this week pegged the white iPhone’s release for Wednesday, April 27, and indications (like the unboxing video embedded below) are that some of the devices have already reached a few customers, so the announcement doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The white iPhone 4 will be exactly the same as the black version, but with a different outer casing color. Even pricing and storage options will remain the same at $199 for the 16 GB version and $299 for the 32 GB model with a new two-year service agreement in the U.S.

I’m very curious to see how the white iPhone does with consumers. I anticipate it being a hit with diehard Apple fans, and maybe also with fence-sitters who’ve been waiting for any reason to take the plunge and finally get a smartphone, but if it results in even one actual store lineup I’ll be very surprised. It may result in a nice little bump in stock of black iPhones in the resale market, so now’s the time to start combing Craigslist and making lowball offers.

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Apple Responds: We Are Not Tracking Your iPhone
Apple answered questions about location information stored on the iPhone in a press release issued early Wednesday morning. The official statement follows last week’s revelation at a location services conference that Apple’s iOS 4 included an unencrypted location tracking log file. Here’s Apple’s statement in full:
Apple would like to respond to the questions we have recently received about the gathering and use of location information by our devices.

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?
Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this?
Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.

3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it's maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone's location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?
The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone's location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.

6. People have identified up to a year's worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?
This data is not the iPhone's location data—it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don't think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple's crowd-sourced database?
It shouldn't. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?
We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).

10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important?
Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.

Software Update

Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:
- reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
- ceases backing up this cache, and
- deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.
In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.
The “discovery” of the file actually just publicized to a much wider audience what infosec professionals already know, which is that iPhones gather and store device location logs. Nonetheless, the announcement sparked questions from U.S. and international lawmakers, and investigations by the Wall Street Journal and other media entities.

But as Apple’s answers above indicate, the info appearing on your iPhone isn’t necessarily data gathered by your phone itself at all. It’s a selection of anonymous, crowd-sourced data that provides the location of cell towers in your immediate area. That explains why many users were seeing the odd location pinpoint in locations where they hadn’t been or which appeared to be inaccessible (in the middle of a river, etc.). Of course, the end result is still that your phone provides a rough record of where you’ve been.

Apple does admit that location info shouldn’t continue to be gathered for its crowd-sourced database when you have location services turned off, and promises a fix for that bug. It also promises changes to how the data is stored, gathered, and used in backups that should greatly reduce or eliminate any privacy concerns.

Apple answered at length regarding this issue, which was clearly beginning to become a sore spot for the company and the subject of inquiries by lawmakers. Does the answer Cupertino provided put your doubts and fears to rest?

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Quick Tip: Type Unicode Characters Quickly
There are some Unicode characters which are useful (and fun) to be able to type. However, while some of them are readily accessible using the keyboard, most are hidden away in the Character Viewer. Here’s a method which allows you to use the actual Unicode codes to type these special symbols.

Most Mac users know about the characters which can be accessed by holding down the Option key, such as accented characters using Option + E, and some others such as the Apple symbol —  — using Option + Shift + K. But there are a whole list of other Unicode symbols which can’t normally be accessed with keyboard shortcuts. Normally, you’d open System Preferences, go to Language and Text, enable Character and Keyboard Viewer and access them that way. However, it’s even easier to enable Unicode input, which lets you type the Unicode code for a symbol.

Load up Language and Text in System Preferences, then choose the Input Sources tab. There’s a list of languages on the left. Scroll down the list and check the box next to Unicode Hex Input. You should see a small flag appear in your menu bar, representing the current input language of your keyboard. Click that flag and choose Unicode Hex Input from the list. It’s now possible to type any Unicode character that you know the code for.

To type a character, hold down the Option key, then type in the code for that character. For example, a pencil icon has the code 270E, so you would hold Option and type 2 7 0 E on your keyboard, and a pencil icon will show up, like this one: ✎. For a full list of Unicode characters, you can visit this Wikipedia page.

Obviously it would be difficult to remember the codes for a lot of symbols, but if there are a few you have to use often, I’d recommend doing this instead of resorting to the Character Viewer.

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Fresh Apple

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

GigaOMApple (8 сообщений)

Aliases

Symbolic Links (or symlinks)

A Note on Hard Links

The Home Folder

The ~/Library folder

Steps to Create a Symlink

White iPhone 4

Location Issues

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