Category Archives: common sense

I dig the hole – and then I bitch!

For close to an year now, whenever I have tried to upload a file to any site using Safari – say attaching a file to a mail via webmail – I get this error:


“POSIX error: Invalid argument” (NSPOSIXErrorDomain:22) Please choose Report Bug to Apple from the Safari menu, note the error number, and describe what you did before you saw this message."

I have invariably moaned “Darn Safari” and switched to Firefox or Camino to upload the file and come back to Safari to continue browsing, without bothering to do anything about the problem except maybe hoping it would be “fixed” in the next release. Never so much as “Googling” the problem, which is so unlike me. Until today, which is ironical considering I switched to Firefox 3.0 beta sometime back, which is awesome btw.

I thought I would file a bug-report over at Apple but just before I did that, I thought I would look up the problem. And lo behold, right up there amongst the results I saw this:

That often happens when you have disabled the Safari cache… make sure that ~/Library/Caches/Safari has Read/Write permissions for you.

Sounded like something I could have messed around with because of my “caching is no longer necessary (( Network speeds are high enough not to warrant Internet caching by individual users. ))” belief:


~/Library/Caches lfc$ ls -l Safari
lrwxr-xr-x 1 lfc lfc 9 Aug 3 2007 Safari -> /dev/null

For the uninitiated, that’s the surest way of ensuring that nothing ever gets written to/ read from “Safari”. Look up /dev/null for details.

Removing that link and restarting Safari solved the “problem” – Safari recreates the folder on Startup and everyone lives happily thereafter.

How to walk on a street – seriously

I am often surprised (and upset) that people don’t know – or atleast act like they don’t (know) – simple things. No, I am not talking about things like square of 17, or capital of Greece and stuff. Basic things, which can make a difference to anyone’s daily lives. So I have decided, the next time I see people displaying an ignorance of any of these “simple things”, I am gonna post the “rule” around here. I am gonna keep it short and simple. Now they have absolutely no excuse – well, atleast the half a dozen who read this site don’t. Nor their dogs. Here’s the first one.

When walking on the street – be it on a sidewalk (footpath) or just the road itself, like we do in India most of the time – always walk on the side, such that you are going opposite to the flow of traffic. You might have to cross the road to accomplish this, but it’s better to make that small effort wherever possible to ensure you are facing the oncoming traffic at all times. By giving yourself the chance to see what is coming towards you, you can prevent yourself from getting hurt in case of an accident by taking the surprise element out almost completely.

That’s the tip really – you might have a trouble implementing it on a one way street though! Here’s a bonus in the spirit of good starts. This one involves walking on the street as well.

When an adult is walking with one or more kids, the kid(s) should always be on the “inside”, the side away from the traffic. In other words, the adult should always be BETWEEN the kid(s) and the traffic. Mix it with the tip above for best results.

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen this being “violated” and I blow my top every time – to the point of waving the “switch” sign frantically to ignorant parents from inside the car while driving. I am not sure if any of them ever understood what I meant, though.

Simply things, you would think everyone would know and follow.