Very recently it came to my attention, via Fusion’s warning that it could not do any more backups due to a lack of disk space, that my MBP’s 250 gig hard drive was quickly running out of room. How could this be? I rarely download torrents and I could not see where I could be generating so many files in so short a period. After a bit of searching, along with the use of a program called GrandPerspective, it became clear that it was Fusion that was taking up a huge amount of room to the tune of 58 gigs!

As an aside, GrandPerspective is very easy to use and uses a colour-coded map to show groupings of files and folders and how much space they use.

58 gigs was obviously very shocking since I had thought that I only allocated 40 gigs to Fusion and that it was a hard limit. Good thing I had earlier purchased a Take Control ebook from Tidbits Publishing called Take Control of VMware Fusion 2. It’s an excellent book that’s easy to read with good explanations of what does what and why certain actions should be taken. In it, Kissel talks about how to shrink a virtual disk which is where virtual machines store their data. It turns out that every time I save a file, delete a file, save a game, delete a game, and Fusion does a “snapshot” of itself, the virtual disk grows bigger. Obviously, major shrinkage will have to now occur or else Fusion’s virtual disk will take over the whole system.

So, the steps are:

1. (This is recommended) First, go into the WinXP environment and defrag the hard drive.
2. Shut down (don’t suspend) the Windows by choosing Virtual Machine -> Shut Down Guest.
3. Delete all snapshots by choosing Virtual Machine -> Snapshots and this includes not only the ones done by yourself but by Fusion too. You cannot delete the “running” state snapshot but that’s ok.
4. Go to Virtual Machine -> Settings and select Hard Disks.
5. Select the hard disk that you want to shrink and click on Clean Up Disk.

Ok, the steps may sound pretty easy but I encountered a couple of problems which are probably my fault. First, the defragging of the hard drive process encountered a problem when Fusion ran a backup. I don’t know what happened but it then could not continue with the defragging process because it could not find a certain file. This became a nightmare of trying to shut down the virtual machine and restarting it and finally I had to use the rollback function to go back to an early snapshot of the system and start again.

I never did do a complete HD defrag as I continued with the deleting snapshot step. Each snapshot can take up to a gig of space and Fusion takes quite a while to first delete and then clean up files. I’ve found that Fusion took a long time with the later snapshots but speeded up quite nicely with the earliest ones. I suspect that this may have to do with the size of the snapshots with the later ones being much larger. In all, this process took about four hours as I periodically came back to the MBP to check.

The last step of shrinking the virtual disk took Fusion about an hour and was a lot simpler. It’s a good idea not to become alarmed if Fusion seems to hang or take a long time doing something. It’s only when you do a Option+Open Apple+Esc and find that it’s no longer responding that it’s time to force-quit Fusion, which I had to do a few times. So, after several hours, Fusion is now 30 gigs smaller in size in a process that Kissel recommends being done every couple of months.

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It may be telling about the service that I am posting this a day AFTER using VIA Rail’s Wi-Fi service on the train that brought me to Montreal. I’ve heard about the service years ago when it was first being set up but never tried it since it was initially offered only to VIA1 passengers. When booking this latest trip, I found out that it was now generally available to everyone but for those who are not VIA1 passengers there is a fee involved.

At first, I was intrigued since I did not want to pay $8.95 for a day’s usage but, in the end, the attractions of keeping in touch with people, email, online music, catching up on articles, etc. was too much and I sprung for the service. Once on board, it was very simple to log on and we were on our way…both the train and the service.

Things got rocky first for the train as it had to slow down here and there. Ended up late by about half an hour which is about par for VIA. The Internet service quickly followed suit when I found out that streaming online music was simply not possible. The iTunes program kept buffering every few seconds and Youtube videos could only stutter.

Programs such as instant messaging, email and browsing forums and online articles fared better since they were “bursty” in terms of data traffic. That did not save them once the service started disconnecting itself. A bit of the disconnecting was my fault since I did not realize that the log-in window provided should not be shut down and that the service does try to keep the connection going for a bit as the router or server on board the train does “cache” before uploading via the satellite link. When it gives up, it will tell you.

I had originally thought that the service was using some sort of CDMA or GPRS or whatever technology it is when cell towers are used for transmitting data packets. I don’t think we have 3G in Canada just yet. Anyways, it is a satellite service because one of the error messages that came up said satellite upload. Pretty clear there!

That may also explain why the service was so slow and intermittent; I believe that clouds have a way of interfering with the satellite signal and yesterday was very cloudy. In the end, I gave up just sitting there trying to reconnect and read a magazine.

After that experience, I would say that I would NOT use the VIA Rail Internet service unless I know that the sky is clear all the way though the trip, even then I would have to be extremely desperate or have too much time on my hands.

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We’re back with Kathy Reichs and Dr. Temperance Brennan! This time around, Reichs does an excellent job of weaving Canadian (or Acadian depending on your viewpoint) history into her storyline of the providence of a teenage girl’s bones found many years and the disappearance of more teenage girls today into what may be a porn video ring.

I think that one of the most appealing aspects of Reichs’ work is how realistic it all seems, from the research she does into the treatment of lepers in Canada to weaving in how different diatoms live in different parts of their aquatic environment. What still does not ring true (at least to me as a guy) is Brennan’s emotions and/or emotional state and motivations. I think that Reichs has a hard time trying to develop this aspect of Brennan’s character. She still has an annoying habit of cliffhanger chapter endings but it’s not as pronounced as it was earlier.

All in all, it’s a fast-moving (it seems a bit too fast in one instance where characters are flying from Montreal and appearing all of a sudden in New Brunswick), very well-researched, twist and turn from present-to-past storyline.

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Wow! Last night I attended the taping of the last regularly-scheduled Royal Canadian Air Farce TV show. It’s going off of the air after about 15 years on CBC Television but I don’t know if they are entirely disbanding. A few years back they started to add new faces such as Jessica Holmes and Alan Parks and the former really livened up the series. Truth to tell, I have been watching them less and less over the past couple of years despite those new faces.

When I heard that they were shutting down I almost immediately tried to get tickets and somehow I managed to snag SIX tickets to last night’s taping. Woohoo! It’s rare to be in on historic events and I was pretty stoked about it. I decided to get together a few friends from the old bookstore days and make a night of it.

The lineup for the taping started a lot earlier and seemed much longer than other taping that I’ve been to. I think it was the latter which made the whole production a bit later than normal. The skits weren’t any more funnier than what I have seen in the past and it certainly was not as maudlin as some other TV series’ endings have been with little shedding of tears and just a standing ovation at the end. It was just good times.

Note to self and others, though, make sure to FULLY charge camera batteries before attending any special events! Grrrr…

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