tinyapps.org / blog

iODD-like optical drive emulation on a Raspberry Pi

with USBODE (USB Optical Drive Emulator):

"Ever wanted a GoTek for CDs? If you have a Raspberry Pi Zero W or 2 W, USBODE turns it into a virtual optical drive. It allows you to store many disk images on a MicroSD card and mount them through a web interface."

Demo: Finally a cheap CD-ROM emulator for DOS and Windows 98!

Known-supported models: Raspberry Pi Zero (2015), Raspberry Pi Zero W (2017), Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W / WH (2021), Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ (2018), Raspberry Pi 4 (2019)/4B (2019).

See also Boot any and all ISO images from USB drive.

❧ 2026-06-24

List or extract Linux ISO contents in macOS

DiskImageMounter.app silently fails to mount Linux ISOs in macOS and hdiutil attach linux.iso returns "attach failed - Resource temporarily unavailable". However, the built-in tar (bsdtar 3.5.3 in Tahoe) command can list contents:

tar tf /path/to/linux.iso

and extract files:

tar xf /path/to/linux.iso -C ~/extracted/

See also anylinuxfs ("mount any linux-supported filesystem read/write using NFS and a microVM") mentioned earlier this year.

❧ 2026-06-24

grep not returning text known to be in file

Symptom

cat displays text, but grep can't find it:

% cat foo.txt
The world is overcome--aye! even here!
By such as fix their faith on Unity.
% grep fix foo.txt
%

Cause

The file is UTF-16, not UTF-8/ASCII.

For example, in UTF-16LE, fix is encoded as:

66 00 69 00 78 00

not as the contiguous ASCII bytes, which are also the UTF-8 bytes for fix:

66 69 78

So grep fix does not match. cat output may appear normal since NUL bytes are often not visibly rendered.

Detect encoding

% file foo.txt
foo.txt: Little-endian UTF-16 Unicode text

If the file has no byte-order mark (BOM), file may fail to identify it:

% file foo.txt
foo.txt: data

For a file expected to be text, data is a clue to inspect the bytes:

% xxd -g 1 -l 8 foo.txt

UTF-16LE has alternating character/NUL bytes:

54 00 68 00 65 00 20 00

UTF-16BE has the reverse pattern:

00 54 00 68 00 65 00 20

Solution

Convert to UTF-8 before grepping:

% iconv -f UTF-16LE -t UTF-8 foo.txt | grep fix
By such as fix their faith on Unity.

Use UTF-16BE instead if the byte pattern is big-endian.

Why UTF-16LE and not plain UTF-16?

With a BOM, plain UTF-16 works everywhere: iconv reads the BOM and picks the byte order automatically.

Without a BOM, BOM-less UTF-16 input is implementation-dependent. Common GNU/Linux and macOS iconv implementations differ: little-endian on GNU iconv, big-endian on macOS. The same file can convert on one platform but fail on another:

iconv -f UTF-16 -t UTF-8 foo.txt | grep fix     # not portable for BOM-less input
iconv -f UTF-16LE -t UTF-8 foo.txt | grep fix   # explicit byte order

For BOM-less UTF-16, use UTF-16LE or UTF-16BE, not plain UTF-16.

Handling conversion errors

If iconv stops with illegal input sequence, -c can skip invalid input:

% iconv -c -f UTF-16LE -t UTF-8 foo.txt | grep fix

Sources

❧ 2026-06-24

Fix photo orientation/rotation on Apple TV

Issue

Some JPGs in iCloud Photos display with the correct orientation on Macs, iPhones, and iPads, but appear rotated or sideways on Apple TV:

Resolution

  1. Export affected photos from Photos.app to Finder (e.g., ~/Desktop/sideways/)

  2. Install jhead (GH | brew | MacPorts)

  3. cd ~/Desktop/sideways/

  4. jhead -autorot *

  5. Replace the affected photos in Photos.app with the corrected files from ~/Desktop/sideways/.

Related

❧ 2026-06-19

Creating offline website mirrors with kage

kage, recently discussed on HN, "shadow[s] any website for offline viewing, with the JavaScript stripped out". Set up in a new Ubuntu 26.04 ARM64 VM:

  1. Install Chromium via App Center

  2. Install a compatible Go version

    wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.26.4.linux-arm64.tar.gz
sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.26.4.linux-arm64.tar.gz
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin:$HOME/go/bin' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc

  3. Install kage

    go install github.com/tamnd/kage/cmd/kage@latest

  4. Clone the desired site

    kage clone example.com --chrome /snap/bin/chromium

  5. Browse the archive

    kage includes a serve command, but any HTTP server will do:

    cd ~/data/kage/example.com
python3 -m http.server

    Then open http://127.0.0.1:8000/ in your browser.

❧ 2026-06-18

External boot no longer working after wiping internal drive

Booted a Dell OptiPlex 7090 Micro from Windows 10 and 11 ISOs via an iodd Mini PRO without issue. Changed SATA Operation from RAID / Intel RST to AHCI* to expose the internal NVMe SSD; external boot still worked. Copied data off the internal drive, then wiped it with diskpart's clean command.

Post-wipe, external boot attempts failed: selecting the device in the Dell boot menu and pressing a key at the "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..." prompt led to a Dell SupportAssist "No bootable devices found" screen, with just a Continue button which rebooted the machine.

Fix: Disabling Secure Boot restored external booting. After installing Windows, re-enabled Secure Boot without issue.

Likely cause: Appears to be a Dell firmware bug rather than genuine signature rejection, since the firmware successfully ran the external media's first-stage loader (which displays the "Press any key" prompt) yet with Secure Boot enabled apparently failed the hand-off to the second-stage Windows Boot Manager; other Dell users have reported similar behavior.

Footnote

* Otherwise download Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST) Driver version 18.7.6.1010.3 (SHA256: A2B2E20D6D8100E9EE344746F80849524C64490B90686A13C09268CADB976B37) and extract the driver files via SetupRST.exe -extractdrivers SetupRST_extracted. When "Select location to install Windows 11" appears, click Load Driver and browse to SetupRST_extracted\production\Windows10-x64\15063\Drivers\VMD\, which contains the Intel VMD controller driver (iaStorVD.sys) needed for Windows to detect drives behind Intel RST. Here is the full extracted directory structure for reference:

SetupRST_extracted\production\Windows10-x64\15063\Drivers\

AHCI\
  iaAHCIC.cat
  iaAHCIC.inf
  iaStorAC.sys
  RstMwEventLogMsg.dll
  RstMwService.exe
HsaComponent\
  iaStorHsaComponent.cat
  iaStorHsaComponent.inf
HsaExtension\
  iaStorHsa_Ext.cat
  iaStorHsa_Ext.inf
PinningComponent\
  iaStorAfsServiceApi.dll
  iaStorPinningComponent.cat
  iaStorPinningComponent.inf
  OptaneShellExt.dll
  PinningServiceApi.dll
  SharpShell.dll
  SharpShellLicense.txt
RAID\
  HfcDisableService.exe
  iaStorAC.cat
  iaStorAC.inf
  iaStorAC.sys
  iaStorAfs.sys
  iaStorAfsNative.exe
  iaStorAfsService.exe
  Optane.dll
  OptaneEventLogMsg.dll
  RstMwEventLogMsg.dll
  RstMwService.exe
VMD\    
  iaStorAfs.sys
  iaStorAfsNative.exe
  iaStorAfsService.exe
  iaStorVD.cat
  iaStorVD.inf
  iaStorVD.sys
  Optane.dll
  OptaneEventLogMsg.dll
  RstMwEventLogMsg.dll
  RstMwService.exe

❧ 2026-06-07

Database of AI hallucinations in legal filings

Damien Charlotin maintains a searchable, actively updated database (1,545 legal cases so far) tracking instances where generative AI produced hallucinated content in court filings worldwide. The full database is freely available in CSV format.

Damien also offers Pelaikan, an automated reference checker designed to catch hallucinations before they hit a docket (free tier includes 3 documents per month; paid plans available but pricing link is currently broken).

❧ 2026-06-04

Disk activity LED for macOS

Legendary Windows dev Dave Plummer (whom we have to thank for Windows XP activation) just released BlinkenDisk for macOS, a "tiny macOS utility that puts a red LED in your menu bar and lights it up whenever there's I/O activity on the local drives you choose to monitor." H/T

BlinkenDisk in action

Swift source is provided, but the license is unusually restrictive for a vibe-coded app; it reads in part (emphases added):

To the extent this code works, it was written by Dave Plummer (davepl), and to the extent it doesn't, please blame Claude and Codex. I've still never written a line of Swift in my life, but here we are.

Permission is granted to any individual person to download, install, run, copy, and modify this software for personal, non-commercial use, subject to the terms below.

Commercial use is not permitted without prior written permission from the copyright holder. Commercial use includes, without limitation, use by or for a business, company, government agency, nonprofit organization, educational institution, or other organization; redistribution as part of a paid product or service; use to support paid work; internal business use; or use that is primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation.

You may share unmodified copies of this software with other individual persons for their personal, non-commercial use, provided that this license file and all copyright notices remain included. You may not sell, sublicense, rent, lease, host as a service, or commercially redistribute this software without prior written permission.

Modified versions may be created for personal, non-commercial use. Modified versions may not be distributed without prior written permission from the copyright holder.

Related

❧ 2026-05-27

Virtual OS Museum: boot hundreds of legacy OSes from a single VM

Andrew Warkentin has built a "virtual museum of operating systems (and standalone applications) running under emulation, implemented as a Linux VM for QEMU, VirtualBox, or UTM".

❧ 2026-05-22

FOSS alternatives to iMazing & iExplorer

❧ 2026-05-18