steven n fettig's Jitterin' Thoughts

This is something I searched high and low for after making the mistake of trying to run a virtual machine from a networked drive: once I had added that machine (which doesn't work because of limitations imposed by the design of Parallels - at the time of this writing), I couldn't remove it from the list of virtual machines (guest machines, whatever you want to call it). This presented a huge problem because I had done this on my MacBook Pro, which is a mobile machine and doesn't always have access to the network shares. To further exacerbate the problem, if Parallels could not find the shared folder where the machines were supposed to be loaded, it would eventually slow my MacBook to a crawl until the OS simply locked up. The solution is simple, yet only documented in one place, and not one of the directories removed when you uninstall Parallels. Delete the directory ~/Documents/.parallels-vm-directory (or, 'rm -r /Users/yourusername/Documents/.parallels-vm-directory'). Once this directory is removed, your machine list - aka the list that shows the virtual machines you have installed on your computer - you will lose the list you had (I'm assuming you'll be able to find where you installed your virtual machines on your own), but Parallels will again work as it should when away from those networked volumes.
I can't believe this isn't well documented since it causes a great deal of harm on a system where someone has tried to run a virtual machine from a networked drive. It is the only reason why I am beta testing VMWare Fusion.

Technorati Tags: parallels

While the title may sound sad, it isn't meant to be. I quit because Elgato finally released EyeTV 2 with a one-button Apple TV export option. Thank you Elgato!!! I didn't note many of the other attempts I made to find the perfect recording settings because each time, I had to wait hours to see whether or not what I did was worth it. For anyone wondering, last night I was able to view a few of the transcoded HD tv episodes from the "one button" export feature and am extremely pleased. HD native from a Mac Mini will always be more ideal, but considering the hoops one needs to jump through to get to the right episode, press play and constantly tinker with a keyboard, exporting for use with Apple TV just works better. I'd love to post a few of the clips I was able to transcode, but alas, that's probably illegal (even if it were fair use) and I am not willing to take the chance. Just upgrade EyeTV 2 to the latest version and you'll be happy.

Technorati Tags: apple tv, transcoding, video