chrisduran.eu

The Mac OS X Finder does not allow overburning of optical discs, nor does the Disk Utility application.

Overburning is the process of recording data past the normal size limit. Generally, an optical disc has a lead-out of approximately 10% of the stated disc capacity. Having recording software that supports overburning will allow a user to exploit this extra space.

Unfortunately, Finder and Disk Utility have built-in checks to ensure users don’t try to burn over the stated disc capacity. However, OS X ships with a command-line program called hdiutil that does not perform such a check and will allow users to overburn a disc.

Step #1, create an ISO image

Use hdiutil to make a temporary ISO image. The easiest way is to put all the files to burn in a directory, lets call ours overburn. Once you have done this, open the Terminal [Application/Utilities/Terminal]. Navigate to the parent directory of the temporary directory you just created (for example, if the absolute location of overburn is /Users/cduran/overburn, navigate to its parent directory by typing:

cd /Users/cduran

Then, in this directory run the hdiutil program to create the ISO image.

hdiutil makehybrid -o tempimage overburn/

This will make an ISO image called tempimage.iso in the parent directory.

Step #2, burn the ISO image to disc

This step will use hdiutil to burn the ISO image file you just created to your disc. to do this, type the following (remember to put a disc in the drive!):

hdiutil burn tempimage.iso

DONE!

That’s it, you’ve just overburnt you disc! Now that you have burnt the disc, you can get rid of the tempimage.iso file, and the contents of the overburn directory. The thing I like most about this method, is it doesn’t require the installation of any third-party software – less rubbish to bloat your harddrive with!

Filed under: tips and tricks by Chris

Yesterday was Australia Day, and I joined 1300-odd people in protest against the continued pumping of sand from Tweed to Kirra. The sand pumping was initially envisioned to solve the problem of sand-buildup in Tweed due to the north Tweed training walls, and to preserve the ailing beach at Kirra (I’ve been told that 10-15 years ago, the waves would crash against the Pizza Hut next to the Kirra surfclub in cyclonic swells). It was a unique joint initiative of both the NSW and QLD governments. Unfortunately, due to what appears to be a lack of planning, or ownership of responsibilty, what was once an amazing surf break and natural reef is now a barren and surfless zone. The sand has built up over the natural reef, killing it. It has filled in the sand banks, with only a ’superbank’ that works of the biggest of swells. It has also deposited so much sand in Kirra and north Coolangatta that you almost need a camel and a compass to find your way to the water’s edge.

But onto the paddle out. As I mentioned, over 1300 people turned up to paddle out to the former site of the Kirra break. There were a few big name surfers there (or at least, I think they were big names, I’m not very up-to-date with the whole pro-surfer thing). It wasn’t until everybody was marshalling on the shore for the paddle out that I realised how big this was going to be: 1300+ people at a single break is a fair few people! Once out there, all the surfers coordinated to form the outline of Australia. It didn’t really work out fantastically, but I guess we gave it a go! Perhaps we just need to live in a country with a simpler border.

Many people are campaigning for the government to reverse its actions, and pump sand back where it came from. My opinion is that perhaps we should leave it all alone. The sand-movement of coastal systems is dynamic and should be left to its own devices. Sand generally shifts from one location and builds up in another -  natural events such as cyclones and storm swells come along from time to time and reset the counter.

There was a fair bit of press coverage of the paddle-out too, including:

The Courier Mail
Australian Longboarding
Surfer Magazine

If you want to help save Kirra, there are heaps of groups out that are fighting to save the once world-class break in its current plight.

KirraPoint.org (SurfRider Foundation sub-committee)
Surfrider Foundation
Coastal Alliance
Save Kirra Myspace Profile

Anyway, click on more below for a few more pictures of the paddleout, some of the water images really give an idea to the scale of this thing!

(more…)

Filed under: surfing by Chris

I’ve just launched a new website, wifi-in-australia.com. It is essentially a collection of (hopefully) useful maps annotated with WiFi hotspots. The maps are created using the google maps interface, and are completely user-driven and user-moderated. As much as I would love to say this is entirely my idea, it isn’t. This site is a direct homage to Neil Cocker’s website, www.wifi-in-uk.co.uk. I first found the UK version when reading Jane’s blog. The idea really rung a chord with me. I really like the concept of having WiFi maps that span a wide-variety of locations, are editable buy everyone and anyone, yet are uniform in their behaviour and representation of information. Unfortunately, I’ve been out of the UK for over 2 years now, so I thought I would bring the idea local.

The general premise is that using google maps, somebody (me, you, that guy over there.. anybody!) creates a publically editable map. This map serves as a WiFi map for a given location. The creator and the general public can then go to town and add landmarks for their favourite wireless hotspots. The Google Maps Interface allows people to choose from a variety of landmark markers. For a wireless map, the convention that has been adopted is that GREEN markers denote free WiFi locations, BLUE denotes paid for WiFi locations and YELLOW denotes WiFi that has access restrictions (i.e. membership of an organisation or group is required for login access). Unfortunately URLs for user-created Google Maps are about as beautiful as Gordon Brown having a good hair day. Because of this unfortunate fact, the final step is to give the map a friendly URL. This can be done a number of ways, including giving each map a unique domain (such as www.wifi-in-oxford.co.uk or www.wifi-in-cardiff.co.uk – this is Neil’s model), or giving each map a subdomain (such as brisbane.wifi-in-australia.com – my model).

I’m really excited about the possibilities of these projects, and am interested to see how they develop!

Filed under: IT by Chris

This site marks my return back to the blogosphere. It has been at least 2 years since I was last here. It is nice to be back. My last few blogs had quite a personal colouring, and ended up becoming a day-to-day, week-to-week account of the dreary details of my life. It got boring, so I stopped. Now that I have gone full circle and have returned to where I started (blogospherically speaking, geographically speaking I am over 16500km away from the birth of my last blog titled Brisbane to Oxford… guess where I am near now…) I want to filter the content of this blog a little, and only put up information that I think others might care for. I will be concentrating on a varied but somewhat definite set of things that are facets of my life.

I have been an avid surfer for a couple of years now, I started when I returned to Australia in fact. I have never embraced a sport quite like I have surfing. It is one of those unique activities that can change your very outlook on life, often for the better. It plays a big part of my existance these days, and I suspect I will write about it quite a lot. If I go somewhere, and it is amazing.. it will be up here, maps and all. I don’t believe in ’secret spots’ and the possessiveness it entails. Nobody owns the sea. Also, I snowboard from time to time so I might have to drop info down about that as well…

I have worked and studied in the IT industry and related fields (namely, Bioinformatics) for quite a while now. I am an applied informatician at heart, which is why I am currently researching in Bioinformatics. I’m not too keen on IT for the sake of IT, but rather prefer using it as a tool to achieve an end. I do a lot of work with a variety of languages including Java, Python, Perl, etc. I also use OS X at home, Linux at work, and Windows if forced. If I ever come across a cool trick, or if I write a script that I think might be useful, I’ll be putting it up here.

Filed under: general by Chris