I added a second DVD writer to my Mac Pro which also supports HP’s lightScribe. I wasn’t really interested in the lightScribe feature as much as just adding a second optical drive to the Mac Pro. At time of purchase I wasn’t sure if LightScribe is even supported by Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.x).

My test hardware:

LightScribe DVD Drive: LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1H LL0A 136
LightScribe Media: DVD+R Memorex (label is gold colored)

I came to find out that there is indeed support of lightScribe for Mac OS X. Drivers and two application can be downloaded free of charge at:

Driver:
LightScribe System Software for Mac OS X 10.3.9 and higher

Application:
LightScribe Simple Labeler for Mac OS X 10.3.9 and higher (Very basic application)
LACIE LightScribe Disc Labeling (Offers many more options than the LightScribe Simple Labeler)

There are many commercial application available for Mac OS X that support lightScribe.

The LightScribe Simple Labeler is very easy to use and guides you from the beginning up to the lightScribe process. If you like to add image/photo resources to your label and/or like to place text yourself, you would need to use LACIE’s LightScribe Disc Labeling or one of the many available commercial lightScribe applications out there.

All of these applications have one thing in common, which is the use of the same lightScribe drivers. Following are my findings about the lightScribe feature/experience:

Pros:

• - Water resistant.
• - Very crisp and clean results.

Cons:

• - Very SLOW, depending on the quality it can take up to 35 minutes.
• - Even at best quality, the result seems quite washed out in color. It might me possible that it depends on the media brand but I don’t think it would be significantly different from what my results were.
• - At this point lightScribe only creates monochrome labels.
• - At least double the price compared to regular writable CD’s/DVD’s.

Personal Opinion:

I am personally not impressed by this technology. It is too slow. If you need to create a label quick, which usually is the case for me, then LightScribe is not an option. To print a label takes little time compared to lightScribe. And the good old Sharpie beats both of these methods :) ...

I moved into my new office. This also the reason that there were no new posts about my work. The major part of the move has been completed and the equipment is ready for action. I am still waiting for the internet service to be activated. At this point over a month has passed by since I placed the order at Verizon Highspeed Internet Services. They determined that there are problems with the line and they need to send out a tech which I have to wait for almost 2 weeks from now. What a shameful demonstration of Verizon and horrible customer experience.
There is a Wifi point available in this building but it is so unreliable that I can not effectively use it for my daily work at all.

It is time to see the family again. I will travel to Germany for the next two weeks. Not a lot of time but better than nothing.
I am looking forward to see my family and finally get to eat my favorite foods and sweets.
I will report back from New York in two weeks.

Follow Up: 11/23/2008

Time has gone by way to fast. I will be flying back to New York on Monday morning.

I have just finished another toon. Thank you Manuela for having me toon you.

Do you want to be tooned by me? Feel free to check out my service at iToonU

I have just finished another toon. Thank you Katja for having me toon you.

Do you want to be tooned by me? Feel free to check out my service at iToonU

Briefing:

- Create a scalable version of our Logo as close to the original as possible. Referenz image:

- Keep the same look as current logo but change it to give it that web 2.0 effect.
-The Logo is trademarked and also used as a brand at partner sites so it is important that the over look stays the same.

This was a simple job and it didn’t take much time to accomplish the requested work. The only time consuming process was to recreate the logo since the client had no other art work frm it than the referenced website screenshot.
Following the result I created. The work has been done in Adobe Photoshop CS3 and the logo is sizable just like a vector without loss of quality.

The client was happy, all I care about.

I have just finished another toon. Thank you Daniela for having me toon you.

Do you want to be tooned by me? Feel free to check out my service at iToonU

I have already posted about the crash of one of my four 1TB Seagate hard drives. It seems the saga continues with another 1TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive.
Every time I started my local journal application my system froze for 2-4 minutes showing the ball of doom, you know, that little colorful twisting ball. Every time I would backup the hard drive in question it would have the same result during the backup process. I figured I am dealing with a corrupt file which causes the system to ‘freeze’ temporarily, when accessed.
I ran the Disk Utility and click on the Verify option. Following the screen with the results of this hard drive:

Looks like a more serious problem. I don’t really know what to make out of this. Is it my Mac Pro (first generation) causing these drives to fail or is it the hard drive? All other drives I have up to 750GB work without a hitch for over a year now. Just these (4 weeks old hard drives) cause a huge headache.

As if this morning didn’t give me enough problems, I saw the following screen as I tried to pull up my website at PixelGrinch.com:

Can this morning present anymore ‘positive’ surprises for me? Judging by this screen I assumed all files are gone and lost. My last backup dates back over a month. You know what that means if you are talking about regular blog entries. I connected to my server and the files seemed to be available. I contacted my webhosting specialist and there was an issue with the ip address assigned within the Apache configuration file. No clue on how this happened. The website is running fine again and I am happy.

But what a bad start in the day. Both these issues wasted 4 hours of my day.

I have just finished another toon. Thank you Andreas for having me toon you.

Do you want to be tooned by me? Feel free to check out my service at iToonU

I have just finished another toon. Thank you Stephan for having me toon you.

Do you want to be tooned by me? Feel free to check out my service at iToonU