Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Damn You George Lucas. Worth: $10
based on 360 retail

La la, ARGH! La la, ARGH!.

The difficulty level on this game is so all over the place that it's a wonder I didn't pitch my controller out the window. Yes, it looks great, sounds great, and has a good story that connects Trilogy I with Trilogy II. But certain areas and rooms are so suddenly and egregiously challenging that I learned to just have the GamerGal read me a walkthrough any time I got killed more than twice in the same room.

Pet peeve: Boss fights that finish with a button puzzle. I can't see the coolness when I'm doing a goddamned button puzzle. I cannot _wait_ for button puzzles to go out of style. It's such a cheap shortcut. Just give me a good boss fight, don't clutter it up with these mindless button puzzles. With that said, at least the timing for these button puzzles was relatively forgiving. Mercenaries 2 and God of War 2 gave me practically no time to hit the buttons.

Most rooms were fun. I'd Force Grip someone and throw them around, or I'd zap fools with Lightning. Sometimes I'd stab them with my Light Saber. But... that's kind of it. It's a pony with a great trick, but it's only got the one trick. Replay is practically zero except I wanted to see how the two endings looked. And don't get me started about the signature Force Move Of Amazingness, pulling down the Star Destroyer.

The signature Force Move Of Amazingness, pulling down the Star Destroyer
This goddamn puzzle managed to ruin what could have been the coolest video game moment, ever. Ripping a Star Destroyer from the sky and dashing it into the ruins of a once-great city. But the way this is handled is so long and tedious that it just becomes something to get over with, like doing the dishes after Thanksgiving dinner. It's a huge missed opportunity, and it sums up the entire experience of playing this solidly-built but deeply flawed game.

MySQL vs. CS4 on OS X

In brief:
Two partitions:
Boot partition: case-insensitive. Adobe CS4 installs normally. MySQL installs from easy-to-use binary installer pkg.
CaSe partition: case-sensitive. Holds MySQL data files.

Create this file:
/etc/my.cnf
...and enter:
[mysqld]
socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
datadir = /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data

Copy the data files:
sudo cp -R /usr/local/mysql/bin/data/mysql /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data/mysql
sudo cp -R /usr/local/mysql/bin/data/myDB /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data/myDB

Then:
sudo chown -R mysql /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data/mysql
sudo chgrp -R wheel /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data/mysql

For PHP:
sudo cp /etc/php.ini.default /etc/php.ini
line 761 (or so) find "mysql.default_socket=" and add "/tmp/mysql.sock"

Restart.

The Problem:
Gypsy 6's MySQL databases require a cAsE-SensiTive boot drive, but Adobe CS4 requires an case-insensitive boot drive.

The Brainstorm
Maybe it's only the MySQL _data_ that has to be on a case-sensitive drive, while the MySQL server software can be on a case-insensitive boot drive.

The Pain
Five years of installing CS2, 3, 4 on a case-insensitive virtual disk, totally foiled by Flash 10 and Actionscript 3. Nineteen straight hours of formatting my old 40GB external hard drive with various formats and then installing OS X and MySQL, over and over again.

The Result
It freakin' works!

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Prologue - The Death Sentence
I made a back-up of my client's database with the MySQL GUI tool called "MySQL Administrator". It was super easy. I could also have done this in a Terminal window, but I didn't so I don't have that command here. Just Google "back up MySQL database".

---

Act I - Installageddon
- I formatted my 40GB external drive with two partitions. One partition is about 35GB and is the default, case-insensitive format and is called "LaCie 40". The smaller 5GB Partition is HFS+ (case-sensitive) format and is called "CaSe" (<- no spaces in the name!!!).
- I installed OS X Leopard to the case-insensitive partition.
- I did all the software updates (which got me up to OS X 10.5.7).
- I ran the user-friendly installer for MySQL 5.x. on the same case-insensitive partition (you don't get a choice, the MySQL server software _must_ be on the boot drive).
- Restarted my Mac

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Act II - Terminalator
- I made a new folder on the very top level of my case-sensitive partition "CaSe" called "MySQL_data" and used the Info window to make all the permissions for that folder "Read and Write" for every user I found.
- I created a new file: /etc/my.cnf by typing this in the Terminal:
myMac > sudo bbedit /etc/my.cnf (you can use the omnipresent vi if you don't have bbedit)
and put the following text in it:
[mysqld]
socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
datadir = /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data
- Then I did this:
myMac > sudo cp -R /usr/local/mysql/data/mysql /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data/mysql
The MySQL server software uses it's own database called "mysql". The above line copied it to my case-sensitive partition. I've moved the actual mysql datafiles!

- Restarted my Mac

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Act III - Permission To Ill
Now I use Terminal to set up my database:
myMac > /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql

If this gave me the fucking "/tmp/mysql.sock" error I did this:
myMac > sudo echo
myMac > sudo /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe &

(See UPDATE 2 below for a more permanent fix for the mysql.sock problem.)

and then I left that Terminal window open. Maybe I didn't have to, but what the hell, Terminal windows are free.

Then I did this again:
myMac > /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql

Which got me the happy "MySQL is working" message and the mysql prompt:
mysql >

Hurrah, MySQL is running. Now I log out of MySQL (type "exit") and then do this:
myMac > /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root password myPassword

Now log in again as root like this:
myMac > su
sh-3.2 > /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -u root -p
and at the mysql prompt I did all this crap:
mysql > CREATE database MyDatabase;
mysql > GRANT all on MyDatabase.* to root@localhost identified by 'myPassword';
mysql > GRANT select, insert, update, delete, create, drop on MyDatabase.* to MainUser@localhost identified by 'UserPassword';
mysql > GRANT select, insert, update, delete, create, drop on MyDatabase.* to MainUser@"%" identified by 'UserPassword';
mysql > GRANT select on MyDatabase.* to WebSurfer@domain.com identified by 'WebPassword';

I opened another Terminal window and restored myDatabase like this:
sh-3.2# ./mysql -u root -p MyDatabase < /Volumes/myMac/web_sites/client_1/client_1_backup_file.sql <- your .sql file will be called something else.

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Act IV - Wacked-Out On PHP
From here it was the normal OS X web server set-up, including /etc/apache2/httpd.conf, /etc/hosts, and copying /etc/php.ini.default to /etc/php.ini like this:
myMac > sudo cp /etc/php.ini.default /etc/php.ini
myMac > sudo bbedit /etc/php.ini
I opened /etc/php.ini in BBEdit then scrolled down to line 761 where it says "mysql.default_socket =" and added "/tmp/mysql.sock" This is what makes PHP know how to find the MySQL server.

This did it. Now I have case-sensitive databases and a case-insensitive boot drive for CS4 to clog up. But this process is so long, and so many things can go wrong, that the best I can hope for is to provide a rough guide to be used in combination with the guides I used to figure out all this horseshit.

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Comments, addendums, fixes, all are welcome. This problem is not going to go away for me, so any extra info I can collect will help me the next time I have to do this.

UPDATE 1:
Adobe CS4 installs perfectly. Everything runs great.

UPDATE 2:
I migrated the external drive to my regular drive in my laptop, which generated a lot of permissions trouble and I couldn't get MySQL to run at all. I ran the permissions clean-up from the command line:
myMac > sudo /usr/sbin/periodic daily weekly monthly
the I Restarted. This helped a little. I could get MySQL to run, but only with difficulty and MySQL wouldn't launch automatically. After fighting with the permissions for a while, this worked:
myMac > sudo chown -R mysql /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data/myDatabase
myMac > sudo chgrp -R wheel /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data/myDatabase
myMac > sudo chown -R mysql /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data/mysql
myMac > sudo chgrp -R wheel /Volumes/CaSe/MySQL_data/mysql

sudo = "do this as the root user" (you'll need to put in your root password)
chown = "change user (or owner) that can access this"
chgrp = "change group that can access this"
-R = "do this for this folder, and everything in this folder"
the first mysql = "user name is mysql" (this is the mysql server's user name)
the second mysql = "the MySQL database called mysql that is part of the install and stores all the MySQL access info"
myDatabase = "other databases I need to access"

Good luck, and again, any war stories related to this are welcome. It seems like every time I do this it comes out a little different.