June 2010 – Jeff Kelley’s Blog

Google Earth Now Available Without Automatic Updates

A while back I blogged about Google Earth’s stealthy, silent automatic update feature. That post continues to be pretty popular, so I wanted to share an update: Google has released a version of Google Earth, including the Web plug-in, that does not include the self-updater. On the download page, the EULA features this paragraph:

(b) Automatic Updates. The Google Earth software may communicate with Google servers from time to time to check for available updates to the software, such as bug fixes, patches, enhanced functions, missing plug-ins and new versions (collectively, “Updates”). By installing the Google Earth software, you agree to automatically request and receive Updates.

However, if you navigate to the advanced setup page, there’s a box you can un-check labeled “Allow Google Earth to automatically install recommended updates.” This box directs you to a separate download that does not include the updater. The EULA, however, does not change when you deselect it. I don’t think that really matters as much in the grand scheme of things, so I’ve really got to give Google some kudos here for listening to systems administrators and concerned users on this one.

WordPress 3.0

I’ve updated the site to WordPress 3.0. So far all is well; I’ll likely create a new post type (excellent new feature) for software once I have more software to be creating posts about.

Updating dyld Shared Caches with Radmind: Best Practices

Similar to my last post about updating kernel extensions, you can run into problems with Radmind due to the dyld shared cache. You may see messages like this in your system log:

current cache invalid because /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/WebKit has changed

Running the update_dyld_shared_cache command will fix this, but there’s a better way. Sure, there’s almost no overhead to that command, but where’s the fun in that? Here’s a pre-apply script that will delete any shared caches that have changed, which will then be re-built at reboot.


#!/bin/sh

# update_dyld_caches: Inspects the applicable transcript for something that
#                     might cause a dyld cache to become outdated. If it exists,
#                     delete the cache so it's re-created at startup.

DYLD_CACHE_FOLDER="/private/var/db/dyld"
DYLD_PREFIX="dyld_shared_cache_"
ARCHITECTURES="i386 x86_64 rosetta ppc ppc64"

for arch in ${ARCHITECTURES}; do
	cache="${DYLD_CACHE_FOLDER}/${DYLD_PREFIX}${arch}"
	map="${DYLD_CACHE_FOLDER}/${DYLD_PREFIX}${arch}.map"

	if /bin/test -f "${cache}"; then
		if /bin/test -f "${map}"; then
			/bin/cat "${map}" | grep ^/ | sort --unique --ignore-case | while read line; do
				if /bin/test -n "$(grep ${line} ${1})"; then # found a match
					/bin/rm -f "${cache}"
					/bin/rm -f "${map}"
					break;
				fi
			done
		else
			# Cache exists, but there's no map.
			/bin/rm -f "${cache}"
		fi
	fi
done