Embedding data, particularly text-based data back into an mdbackup file isn't just a matter of setting the value in the dictionary for the @"Data" key. Instead, you need to serialize your output. The code that follows demonstrates a simple way to serialize property lists into an mdbackup-compatible format

Wondering which handheld digital audio recorder to buy? Guitarist and recording engineer Mark Nelson just compiled this helpful comparison chart based on his detailed reviews. Mark is one of the few people on the planet to have used each of the top recorders extensively, recording everything from Hawaiian surf to wild coyotes, so he has an especially deep perspective. As...

On a Saturday night in mid-May Phyllis's placental membrane ruptured with fluid spewing over our bed. She was twenty-four weeks pregnant, or about sixteen weeks shy of her nominal full term. We got my parents to come over to take care of the boys, and I drove Phyllis into the hospital in San Francisco. It was clear from the start...

Twitter is probably the most beloved unreliable web-service on the net. That said, if it is running (even with some features turned off), I tend to be using it. Here are some Mac clients I've been using with it instead of the default web interface.

Here's what I looked at last week: Disqus, TwitPic, Blender, and Tabs/Ajax vs. browser memory management.

The Safe Sleep feature in more recent Apple laptops is a good idea in theory: every time the computer goes to sleep, the entire contents of its RAM are written to disk so that the machine's state can be quickly restored in case the computer runs out of juice while sleeping. No data loss, no waiting for the computer to reboot, and very handy for exchanging batteries without having to shut down the machine, too. In practice, though, this feature may not work quite as advertised, so you might just as well want to deactivate it, and you can.

Just for a little levity, I came across this quote from Joel McHale on "The Soup" about American Idol contestant runner-up, David Archuleta mangling Beatles lyrics from a recent song he did on the show: "Congratulations Yoko Ono, assassins, cancer, and one-legged gold diggers: you're no longer the worst thing to happen to the Beatles". I don't know about you,...

Can your Mac make your smarter? I put three different "Flash Card" programs to the test and tell you what I found. Luckily, there are good ones to choose from.

Three Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) chicks sat in a nest about twenty-five feet above a wide path in Claremont Canyon right above the Claremont Hotel in Oakland, California. While I was there, Mom and Dad hovered higher up in nearby trees. The nest had been there for about a month, and was pretty well-known locally. I climbed up the...

Parts 1 and 2 of this mini-series introduced you to mdbackup files. When backing up your iPhone or iPod touch, iTunes stores files in mdbackup property lists. The name mdbackup comes from mobile device, the name of the private framework that's responsible for handling the iPhone backups. Today, you'll discover how to extract file data from the backups.