Getting to files from a ClockworkMod backup in OSX

I use ClockworkMod to backup my EVO. It's nice because I have the space and backups are something everyone should do at some point, especially if you are rooted and like to play in the OS. This functionality is provided by ClockworkMod, which has all sorts of features which I will not go into here, but suffice to say it's worth it to install.

This bring up the question of retrieving information from the backups though. How does one go about this, especially in an OSX environment. Well we need to discuss a few things first, before diving into the solution. Android OS as well as ClockworkMod uses YAFFS (yet another flash file system). When clockworkMod backs up these files and directories, it saves them in the .IMG format. This is not to be confused with the NDIF files of old on Classic Mac OS. They will not mount directly. You will need to convert the file system first. Let's discuss this part now.

You will need to go to the following Google Code Site for UnYAFFS. Download the unyaffs.c; unyaffs.h, and unyaffs files. Save these files to your local drive somewhere (downloads will work fine). From here open up the terminal application and cd to your downloads directory (or the directory to which you saved your files).

From here you will need to gcc make the unyaffs application. This is simple enough but just for grins we will go through it. Type the following into the terminal command line interface.

sudo gcc -o unyaffs unyaffs.c

This created an executable in your folder. You will want to copy this to your /sbin directory (so that you can execute it without having to put in a full path). If you don't know how to get to your /sbin, you can use the finder and "Go to Folder" under the go menu, just type /sbin. Screen shot included.

Just drag and drop the unyaffs exec to the /sbin directory. Of course you can copy directly to the /sbin in command line if you wish. Now go back to terminal and navigate to your yaffs .img disk image. Use the following command structure to extract all the files in the disk image.

unyaffs diskImage.img

This will begin the extraction process. When you see a message in terminal "end of image", the extraction is complete. This was tested in OS X 10.7.2 and I assume it will work in most distros of Linux. 

General Org Gripe

I'm not sure why I cannot seem to find a good tool to help keep all the daily life organized. I have become more and more reliant on calendars, online file storage, and email clients as time has progressed in this academic venture. Dropbox, EndNote, Evernote, and Gmail are now more intertwined with my life than ever before.

I still cannot seem to find one tool to rule them all and stay on a desktop. I need EndNote (Mac or PC), Evernote is web-based (and I love it). Gmail is on my phone and Dropbox is useful for all sorts of issues. I still have this nagging problem of use-ability across all these products. Dropbox beats Google Docs for ease of use, but Docs kicks tail for organizational capability and storage space. Outlook on Mac kills when dealing with multiple EWS clients, but cannot seem to have the same functionality on the Windows side. The iPad rocks as long as I don't need to print or have multiple screens. Add to the need to have all of this mobile and I'm in a small rut. I think mail and calendars are my biggest gripe. I love being able to get multiple exchange accounts on one client without having to rely on VPN connectivity for each of them. I live by my Google Calendar, but integration between outlook and Google Calendar is for PC only, where I lose the EWS functionality in outlook. I would just rely on the iPad for calendar functions, but then what to I rely on when I'm on a desktop or laptop (lets face it, tablets and pads are no real substitute yet for the major applications like SPSS and SAS).

It would also be nice if Google had a utility to mimic Dropbox cross platform.

I need to get this crap squared away before comps and proposal time.