I’ve been using PGP’s Whole Disk Encryption for Mac, and it generally works well. However, I discovered that if you encrypt say, a USB flash stick, and then decrypt it, it no longer will mount properly on a Windows XP or Vista system. The disk continues to work on Macs, and I even was able to use it on a Pioneer DVD player with USB mode, but inserting it into a Windows machine results in a prompt to format before use.

Disk Utility.app on the Mac shows only 1 partition, but Disk Management on Windows XP/Vista shows 2 partitions: a 200MB protected partition (can’t delete it), and the remaining space in a second data partition. When I tried to mount the second partition in Disk Management, it says that it will work only after a restart (but not surprisingly, a restart has no effect).

So here’s how to fix it, assuming you only have access to Windoze machines and Macs. You will lose all your data on the drive, so back it up.

1. Attach drive to Windows machine. Format when prompted. It will format the protected 200GB partition, but you will still not be able to delete it in Disk Management.

2. Attach drive to Mac and run Disk Utility.app. Now that the protected partition has been formatted, you will see 2 partitions. Re- partition the drive so it only has 1 partition, and it will now work properly on both Macs and Windows machines.

The fact that PGP leaves a hidden, protected partition is infuriating, but is easy enough to resolve using the above steps.

Lightning storm around the M/V Steve Irwin, originally uploaded by echeng.

A fierce lightning storm suddenly materializes and blows by the M/V
Steve Irwin. Lightning strikes are coming down every 2-3 seconds.

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I gave Google Sync’s new contact sync feature a try a week ago, which was a big mistake. I’ve been using their calendar sync from Blackberry to Google for a months now without incident (I use Busy Sync to sync iCal with Google so local changes propagate to the Blackberry through two syncs), but the contact sync feature did terrible things. Be sure to back up if you are going to give it a try!

I’m on Mac OS X 10.5.5, and am using Address Book and Mobile Me. Here’s what happened:

1. Dupes. All entries that were flagged as companies were duplicated as normal entries.
2. Random duplicate entries
3. Multiple “no name” entries
4. Weirdly named, new entries
5. A different number of contacts each time I checked (it was creating new ones with each sync)
6. Second computer reports dozens of entries modified even when I make no changes
7. Lost email addresses for dozens of contacts

FAIL.

Daryl Hannah, Eric Cheng and Captain Paul Watson

December 3, 2008 Daryl Hannah, Eric Cheng, and Captain Paul Watson at a press event in Brisbane.

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Daryl Hannah in front of the Steve Irwin

Daryl is joining part of Sea Shepherd‘s 2008-2009 campaign to stop whaling in Antarctica.

Hey guys! I’m in Brisbane now, and my assistant’s Canon 1D/1Ds Mk II charger has burned out. We are leaving port on Wednesday. Does anyone have a used charger to sell us? We’d love to order one, but we’re afraid that we don’t have time for a delivery.

Or, we can go into town and buy one from a camera store (have recommendations for who to call?).

Please let me know via email if you can help! Thank you. :)

I’ll get your message if you send one on Tuesday (in Australia) at: http://echeng.com/contact/