** update: For Snow Leopard, you basically don’t have to use Cisco VPN (or can’t)… you can use Apple’s built-in VPN in System Preferences… read more about that here. **

Cisco VPN Client (4.8.x, 4.9.x)

Error 51

If you find this annoying alert when trying to start up the VPN client following a reboot, your disk permissions are probably screwed up. You need to repair them using Disk Utility.

1. Go into your Application - found in your dock (bottom of your Desktop)
2. Go to Utilities – found inside the Applications folder
3. Double-click Disk Utility
4. Select your HD (hard drive) on the left – mine has the default name of “Macintosh HD”
5. On the main screen on the right, at the bottom, find button: “Repair Disk Permissions” (click it)
6. When it is done, you can exit out of this (cmd Q)

Reboot and try to open Cisco VPN Client again… hopefully it started working again beautifully.

There is a temporary fix you can do the might be quicker, but it will only last until your next reboot… Open your Terminal (Applications/Utilities) and enter this:

sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN restart

Again, this is only a temporary (but quick) fix.

As always, if you’re not sure what to do or any of this is confusing you should contact your IT department (assuming you have one).

Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)

This little #$!$@# has definitely earned his name. Since he and his mate moved in to the neighbor’s tree directly behind us, he has been chasing everyone off. Squirrels on their usual routes to and from nut trees in the neighborhood have been terrorized by this little bastard. Other birds, usually quite happy to fly about the yards have been run into our back windows. As they fly by, this Mockingbird locks in on them and they have a mid air-strike dog fight until he runs them into various structures… one bird even died. My wife found the poor, over-stuffed bird (apparently not worthy of withstanding the attack) was flown into our back window and then crashed on our lawn. The feathers are still on the glass outside.  In the last two weeks since he moved in, they’ve run 6 birds, that we know of, into our back windows.

So, how the hell do we get rid of this $!@#head? We can’t exactly kill it, since it is the state bird and all… not that we’re normally into killing birds. I forgot to mention that he also has mocked my wife and me while we’re in the backyard tending to our flower bed. I mean, it’s our flower bed, $#!off. He makes repetitive warning noises and the closer you get, they get louder and more frequent. He’s literally tormenting, killing, and annoying every other happily-existing animal in the neighborhood. I’ve gone out to throw a rock or two at him, and while he hasn’t dive bombed me, I’m sure he’s working it up in his little birdhead.

Any ideas for getting him out of our area? Fake owls? Concrete shoes?