Insert the CD you want to create an ISO image from into your CDROM/DVD drive and then launch Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility). Select the CD underneath the drive listed on the left and then click New Image in the tool bar at the top.

On the Save As dialog, enter a name for your ISO image and choose the location where you want to save the file. Change the Image Format from compressed to DVD/CD master (compressed will save the file as a DMG image). In the example below, I use example as the filename.

Disk Utility will create the disk image with the .cdr extension, even though the image itself is identical to a .iso image¹.

When Disk Utility is finished, you can browse to the file with Finder and rename the file from example.cdr to example.iso.

The ISO image can then be distributed and burned on any system (I tested this by burning the resulting ISO on a Windows XP machine using the free DeepBurner application).

Not a true ISO image?

I have read that the resulting ISO image is not a “true” ISO-9660 filesystem and that you can use the following command to convert DMG images (leave the Image Format as compressed to create a DMG image in Disk Utility) into *real* ISO images using the following command:

hdiutil makehybrid -o example example.dmg

This will convert example.dmg into example.iso. However, after burning the resulting ISO image on a Windows machine the CD was not bootable. Using the renaming method I described above, the CD was bootable and Windows was able to see the contents of the CD without any problems.

I looked over the man page for hdiutil and even tried some of the examples to convert a DMG to a *true* ISO file:

hdiutil makehybrid -o example.iso example.dmg -iso -joliet

But after burning the resulting ISO to a CD, I discovered the CD was again not bootable. Maybe I’m missing something and someone can enlighten me. Until then, I will continue creating a .cdr image and renaming it to .iso.

While registering for my Harvard email account, I came across this:

Thank you. You must take a short quiz on Use of Computers and Networks before selecting your username and password. You will be automatically redirected to the quiz within a few seconds, or you may click the button below.

I suppose it’s a step in the right direction…

I had an interesting dream a few weeks ago but haven’t had a chance to write about it until now (I jotted down the main points to remind of the details). I don’t dream often, but when I do the dreams are vivid and full of detail.

I was somehow thrown into an alternate dimension where Earth’s history had taken a different path (must have come from FMA!). When I came to, I found myself in a forest at the edge of a dirt road. Suddenly, I heard the sound of horses approaching and hid behind a thick bush. The horses were mounted by these creatures, wearing all black and sitting very ridged; very little movement. As they passed, I noticed blue lights on the side of their heads but couldn’t figure out what they were (cyborgs perhaps?). I followed the road for a bit and it eventually lead to a tunnel in the side of a mountain. Just as I entered, I heard something behind me and before I could turn around, I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head.

When I woke up, my head hurt like hell. I looked around to find myself in a dimly lit prison-like room, with wet stone walls and big metal doors. I was a bit surprised to see a girl in the room with me (she looked very much like a girl that works at the register in the Whole Foods near my workplace). Apparently, she was the one who knocked me out. She explained the tunnel was crawling with guards and that she was trying to save me from being caught by them — she seemed to know that I came from an alternate world. When I asked about the lack of technology she laughed and said there was tons of technology. She explained the blue lights I saw on the horsemen were from the bluetooth headsets they were wearing!

Then I woke up (for real) and realized that was a cool dream. So I went back to sleep to see if I could continue it…

The next thing I knew, I found myself in a giant mall. It looked a lot like today’s malls except that it was the size of a small town. I was being chased by a group of government agents who knew I was from an alternate world and didn’t want me to disrupt their control over the citizens. The girl who “saved” me in the tunnel was apparently part of a resistance of sorts. She was undercover and was trying to help me escape from the “men in black” (while maintaining her cover).

I found myself running up gigantic 5-story escalators, hiding inside random stores that seemed to always have and front and back entrance, avoiding random people in the mall who thought I was crazy, and looking for differences in technology between that world and my own (I couldn’t find any differences!).

Then I woke up again and realized that imaginary dreams, no matter how adventurous, were still dreams and that real life work is more important.

I was shocked to see news that IndyMac, the holder of the mortgage for my second property (Bowers St), had been seized by US regulators. The mortgage for that property went to foreclosure back in March (my first foreclosure), so needless to say, I contributed to their downfall.

IndyMac’s fate was sealed after Senator Charles E. Schumer wrote a letter about the bank. Mr. Schumer spoke strongly about the agency:

“IndyMac’s troubles, like Countrywide’s were caused by practices that began and persisted over the last several years,” he said. “If O.T.S. had done its job as regulator and not let IndyMac’s poor and loose lending practices continue, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

IndyMac held $32 billion in assets and its demise is being called the biggest failure in 24 years. In addition to loans, IndyMac Bank held one of the largest savings in the country. The FDIC said nearly $1 billion of the $19 billion in deposits held by IndyMac were uninsured, affecting about 10,000 people. When news got out that IndyMac was in trouble, people started taking their money out of their bank accounts, to the tune of $100 million per day. Things like this are exactly why I feel uneasy saving money at all. It feels safer to invest in things that are real, be it a car, motorcycle, boat, education, health, general experience, or yes, even real estate.

Coupled with the craziness that happened to Fannie and Freddie yesterday, the reality of what’s happening in the US is finally starting to sink in. Fannie and Freddie, which own or guarantee almost half the $12 trillion of home loans in the U.S., plunged as much as 49 percent and 51 percent yesterday. ^[1] Think about that for a second: half of all the home loans in the U.S. This happened as investors feared failure in the market would cause the U.S. government to rescue both companies, which would wipe out the shareholders.

Britain’s Telegraph has an intriguing article about Sex in Space (and on other planets). At first it seemed a bit silly, but towards the end of the article I realized how incredible it is that scientists are even beginning to talk about solving such “problems”. Imagine being the first human born on another planet. Or being their parent.

Here is what my MacBook Pro desktop typically looks like while I’m working. All these programs running and I have 24% free memory and 60% free CPU.

It looks like all those Sci-Fi books that talk about life on Mars are becoming more realistic. If there is one thing that never ceases to inspire awe, it’s life on Mars and the idea of standing on another planet exploring places where no other humans have stood (at least not in currently known history).

That feeling of awe is what I experienced when I saw this news headline this morning: Water found on Mars, Nasa scientist confirm.

Sure, there still isn’t one hundred percent scientific proof that water has been found on Mars, but the scientists feel sure enough to confirm it. They saw a white substance, which was present a few inches underneath the surface, “melt” away over the course of a few days. That confirmed the substance wasn’t salt or CO2 ice (CO2 ice would take hours, not days, to melt and salt wouldn’t melt at all). Of course there’s a chance that the substance isn’t water either, but something unknown to scientists. I hope not.

Finding water on Mars would swing the door wide open to future human trips to the planet and would make setting up a base on the planet a whole lot easier. One of the biggest problems with human space travel is the need to transport our water supply, something that is both heavy and very costly. Having a base on Mars with access to water would not only allow astronauts to explore Mars, but also use it as a refill station for other exploration.

I just hope that near-future space exploration is not hindered by other events on this planet. We seriously need to fix our energy problems (by fixing our political problems) and stop turning our only home into a dumpster. Recycle!

It’s difficult being vegan. Being vegan means you need to be willing to sacrifice. It means accepting the single vegan choice on a restaurant menu of fifty items and skipping a latte if they don’t offer a soy option. It means making it known to the world that you don’t eat meat when ordering an item you’re unsure about. It means always packing alternatives (ProBar, almonds, trail mix). It means having respect and care for what you put into the one and only machine you are truly responsible for maintaining.

I’ve felt unusually tired this past week. I’m not sure if it has something to do with starting the new workout routine (Phase III) or if it’s because I caught something (if I’m working out regularly, I can get sick and not feel the symptoms as long as I keep working out). My eyes have also been unusually sensitive to bright sunlight and headaches have been more intense and widespread.

Wow. That was an awesome workout! For the first time in months I actually had ton’s of energy from beginning to end. I pushed through every exercise and challenged myself with heavier than normal weights. I’m not sure if it’s the Zinc and Magnesium I started taking last week or the 5mg of creatine I started taking earlier this week — maybe a combination of both. Either way, I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere. I finally broke through that plateau!

Case sensitivity in Mac OS X does not exist.

The OS X command line is probably the most commonly used feature of my MacBook Pro. I love the fact that almost all the Linux commands I’m used to using on a Linux box work the same way in OS X. So, as you can imagine, I was shocked when I couldn’t rename a simple directory:

eris:~ raam$ mv Downloads/ downloads/
mv: cannot move `Downloads' to a subdirectory of itself, `downloads/Downloads'

That command should allow me to rename ‘Downloads’ to ‘downloads’, but apparently OS X thinks ‘Downloads’ and ‘downloads’ are the same thing! That’s absurd! In the Unix world, case matters!

So how did I eventually rename it?

eris:~ raam$ mv Downloads/ downloads2/
eris:~ raam$ mv downloads2/ downloads/


That’s just ridiculous.

I installed the Fluxbox window manager on my MacBook Pro a while back and decided to start it up to make sure I had access to a “real” command line. Sure enough, the command worked as expected within Fluxbox. Maybe I’ll start using Fluxbox a lot more often.

Check out this snippet from an article on InformIT:

Mac OS X, like the classic Mac OS before it, is not case sensitive; it doesn’t care whether you said File1.txt or file1.txt. Only one of them can exist in a folder at the same time, and there’s no ambiguity for either computers or humans in telling which file you meant. Even Unix commands like ls will work if you give them filenames to operate on that don’t match the capitalization of the actual files (try it: ls /library).

That’s really quite disappointing. I have suddenly lost so much respect for the OS X command line. Being derived from BSD in the Unix world, you would think Apple would keep something as fundamental as case sensitivity in OS X.

How does someone like this even get enough support to run for US presidency? Are there really that many stupid people in this country?

Wait, nevermind.

The Real McCain.

Until entire communities are willing to sacrifice individual comforts, a sustainable society based on renewables will cease to exist.

I started taking supplements of Zinc and Magnesium today (100mg and 400mg respectively) after reading that vegans (especially body-building vegans) generally have Zinc and Magnesium deficiencies. It’s easy for me to notice the effect of slight changes to my diet (since I control my diet so well) and I’m really curious how the extra Zinc and Magnesium will affect my overall health.