Tag: os x

Things I download on everyone’s Mac

These are direct as I can make ’em. Click on the links, and in most cases, the software will start downloading.
  1. Firefox 7
  2. Google Earth and Google Chrome
  3. Flip4Mac and Silverlight (To play Windows Media files — this is just the latest version, but I’ll try to keep it updated. The company’s download site is here.)
  4. Perian (To play everything else. Same note as for Flip4Mac; download site here.)
  5. OpenOffice (direct link to download) – I want to encourage everyone to start thinking about editing docs online, but if you need an Office suite, this is as good as Microsoft’s.
  6. SMARTreporter – get notified if one of your hard drives is going to fail. Of course, even if it does, you’re fine, because you’re backing up every day, right? (Note: I don’t always do this one any longer.)
I also have a list of my favorite OS X tweaks here.

Things we love and hate

And then there are those phenomena that stoke our duplicity:

  1. Apple’s rigidly constrained product line: Purchase decisions are easy, but you always want that one other product — the iMac that’ll take 8GB RAM, the MacBook Air with FireWire, the … dare I say it … tablet.
      
  2. Apple’s increasing popularity: It was fun to drive the BMW of computers. But now every other car at the coffee shop … er, I mean, on the road … is a BMW. I think Mac users used to skew smarter and more open-minded; now we’re all over the place. Plus, as evidenced by the MobileMe fiasco, Apple needs to stop trying to be all things to all people. Let the iPhone sync wirelessly with other services like Google or Plaxo, why dontcha? (I mean, besides Exchange, which is discountable as a consumer solution.)
      
  3. The Mac mini: 2GB RAM? Really? Come on! It’s a fantastic machine. I’m typing on one now. Gigabit Ethernet. Fits anywhere. Super-slick. It’s my multimedia server, and home backup. Fantastic — until it runs out of memory, and then nothing but a reboot is gonna fix it. Reaaaaaally?
      
  4. Democracy
     
  5. An unhacked iPhone
     
  6. OS X Server: So good, so pretty, so clean, yet so limited, and not nearly stable or reliable enough. There’s a reason that MS Small Business Server is so popular; if you follow the Microsoft dogma, you don’t have to learn anything else to be a PC tech. Apple has waited too long to make the managed-client scenario obviously plug-and-play GUIfied. And it’s got a lame Address Book Directory, and a calendar server that won’t easily sync with the iPhone. REALLY?!
      
  7. The f@$%*& iTunes App Store. What a boon to the iPhone, but I really can’t believe Apple rejected a podcatcher application. Jerks.

Things that bug us

I’m compiling a list of junk that Erick and I run across that make us crazy. In some particular order, and warning: profanity follows…

  1. Western Digital MyBooks
  2. Maxtor drives
  3. Backup software not backing up
  4. Backup software not backing up because your stupid MyBook keeps unmounting itself
  5. Best Buy’s crappy prices and inventory
  6. That Best Buy sucks so bad we actually miss CompUSA
  7. Circuit City
  8. Altex
  9. The disturbing lack of a Fry’s Electronics store in San Antonio
  10. Yahoo not offering IMAP access to mail clients besides the iPhone
  11. Configuring email on a Blackberry
  12. Dell printers
  13. Gas prices
  14. Ill-informed AppleCare reps
  15. Tech-support phone monkeys who don’t listen, who assume they’re dealing with ignoramuses, and who keep insisting that you need to archive and install
  16. No CalDAV support on iPhone
  17. DSL
  18. Best Buy’s upping the price on DSL modems — Fuckers!
  19. Having to buy a modem at Best Buy because the know-nothing, knee-biting AT&T rep installed a crappy 2Wire wireless router even though the client had a router sitting right there.
  20. AT&T
  21. 2Wire
  22. AT&T’s damn DSL setup CD, which a client unsuspectingly inserted in their server, only to have it change the server’s network settings and screw up their whole operation.
  23. Lack of copy-paste on the iPhone
  24. Black iPhones shipping with white accessories
  25. Entourage (though admittedly less so these days, but don’t tell Microsoft I said so)
  26. Windows Windows Windows
  27. Windows Me
  28. Windows Vista
  29. Windows XP
  30. Windows 2000
  31. Microsoft Small Business Server
  32. Mac OS X Server (yeah, it’s on the list of Things We Dig, too)
  33. Printer/scanner manufacturers with poor driver rollouts for OS X
  34. Stupid fucking Jar Jar (I just had to)
To be continued…

Theft-prevention for your Mac

Last year, I wrote about some folks in San Antonio who lost a couple of iMacs to theft. The SAPD reports that crime went up last year from 2006, and I have heard, secondhand, from a crime-statistician that there has been a marked increase again in 2008.
It goes without saying that portable computers are even more vulnerable than desktops, and it’s inconvenient to use on them the security cables I mentioned in the previous post.

So here are a few software-plus-service packages that people should know about. One of them you may already be using:

Back to My Mac

Since Leopard came out, the MobileMe-né-.Mac service has offered a feature called Back to My Mac. I’m not going to dwell on this, because it is one of the least reliable things Apple has ever produced, but it is worth mentioning that it did help one user reclaim her stolen MacBook.

Paid services: MacPhoneHome and Undercover

These are really cool services, and quite inexpensive. I really like that they involve one-time fees, with no monitoring charges. The first one, MacPhoneHome, has been around for awhile, along with its cousin PCPhoneHome. They purport success, and the $30 tag is great. But my main man Erick recently uncovered Undercover, which has a phenomenal feature set, and is clearly designed by Mac lovers. I’m sure both of these services would have roughly the same chance of recovering your property — may you never have to find out — but Undercover just feels like a better product.

Dynamic DNS

I also won’t spend much time here either, ‘cos it would have to get technical. Quick definition: Dynamic DNS uses a free service such as dyndns.com to translate an IP address — be it your home or office internet’s ever-changing IP, or whichever connection your laptop happens to be using a the moment — into a hostname, e.g. johnqmacbook.dyndns.org. So I have a program called DNSUpdate continually reporting my MacBook Pro’s external IP address to DynDNS. It’s a system-level process that starts at bootup, so the hope is that, if someone swiped my laptop and fired it up, it would reports its address, and just maybe Johnny Law could work with the relevant internet service provider to track down that last-known location. It’s a long shot, but the other services discussed here partially bet on the same probability.

Totally great enhancements to OS X

I’m editing this from my old web page. I’ll do an updated list soon; meanwhile I tweaked this, struck out some old stuff, and emboldened my favorites. Since I’ve been blogging, I’ve posted many more entries like this, but I want to preserve this list as a sample of the Mac tweaks I use all the time. I believe that the key to making OS X work best for you is to customize it. There are so many fantastic 3rd-party apps and add-ons out there, and often for free. The modern Mac can handle more of these tweaks than one might think, and without hiccupping a bit. If I like them, and they’re shareware, I’ve paid the few bucks, and they’ve had a great effect on my productivity. (Note: this list is mostly not about stand-alone applications, but rather plug-ins that modify the operation of the Mac.)

SMARTreporter – get notified if one of your hard drives is going to fail. Of course, even if it does, you’re fine, because you’re backing up every day, right?

MondoMouse – I’m putting this so close the top because I’m totally in love with it! Resize or move windows without clicking on a window handle. Totally crucial for smaller screens, especially.

Déjà Vu – If you’re not backing up every day, you will lose something precious at some time in your computing life. I may not even touch your computer if you don’t have an external backup. So, we can use Déjà Vu to schedule backups. Plug in your Firewire drive, and enjoy peace of mind. SuperDuper and ChronoSync are also fantastic. Slightly different tools for different situations. Time Machine is an amazing piece of software, but after almost a year with it, I still find it very hard to trust as one’s exclusive backup method. We almost always have at least a SuperDuper clone on a separate partition. (By the way, if you were wondering, Apple’s Backup is kind of terrible, but the next version of OS X —10.5 Leopard, due this Spring — will include a program called Time Machine that promises a great new era in backups.)

AppleScript and Automator – Yes, I know these are built-in, but the point is fantastic sites such as Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes and automator.us and Automator World are just fantastic for boosting one’s efficiency.

LaunchBar – The future of search was in our hands well before Tiger was announced! I can’t wait to see how LB incorporates with Apple’s next-generation operating system.

Quicksilver – A lot like LaunchBar, but free and with all kinds of neat little plug-ins built in. Quicksilver can also replace Spark to launch apps with keyboard shortcuts. I prefer the LaunchBar/Spark/Synergy/PTHPasteboard setup, mostly because Quicksilver ran a little slow on my PowerBook. Now that I’ve added memory to my laptop, I might give QS another try.

Default Folder X – How to get to favorite and recent files instantaneously. Tried-and-true since OS 9. Fantastic in a production environment.

PTHPasteboard – This free multi-item clipboard dramatically reduces my having to switch between applications. Keyboard activated, of course, or what would be the point. (BTW, Quicksilver has this, and Spark, and Synergy, all built-in.)

Spark – Set up your own shortcut keys

Unsanity haxies – These folks have been the most consistently great developers for minor-but-major add-ons for OS X. Check out:

  • WindowShade – Bring back that useful little OS 9 feature
  • Menu Master – instantly assign a keyboard shortcut to any menu item

Peter Maurer – I don’t use these so much anymore, but Maurer’s stuff is genius, much like the Unsanity group. He does Butler, which is a lot like LaunchBar and QuickSilver, but you should also look at:

  • TextExpander – Autocompletes text that you type frequently (the company SmileOnMyMac bought it from him recently)
  • Witch – Enhances the Apple-Tab application switching to include all open windows

Salling Clicker – the best reason to buy a Bluetooth phone
So cool, and man I miss it from my Sony-Ericsson & Treo days, but it ain’t available for the iPhone. The developer comments here.

MailUnreadStatusBar – puts a count of unread e-mails in your menu bar
Or you could go for Inbox Zero.

Synergy – best-of-breed iTunes control

You Control – I gotta admit, for a one-stop package, it’s worth every cent.
Haven’t used it in a while. It seemed to take a lot of resources.

MenuCalendarClock – iCal integration in a highly configurable menu-bar clock. And now there’s a new, free menu bar widget called MagiCal that does much of the same thing.

Text Wielder – a collection that will show in the Services submenu of any Cocoa (OS X-native) application. Look for more Services, such as CalcService, on VersionTracker. (Note: The link to TextWielder will begin downloading the disk image.)
Services were a fine idea, but they just never seem to have made it.

SBook – convert text to an Address Book card
Definitely made moot by Leopard’s Data Detectors

Just good software:

VueScan – The best scanning software available, and compatible with just about any scanner you can plug into your Mac

GraphicConverter – a great “can opener” for hundreds of kinds of image files

Free VPN!

Finally I had the opportunity/need/inspiration/circumstances to look for a free VPN server that would run on a server with a static IP on a LAN. 

Turns out Mac OS X has one built in! It’s an open-source UNIX deal called vpnd, and it’s the same one on OS X Server and configured through the GUI. It’s no surprise that Apple left a VPN GUI out of OS X client — Server costs either $499 or $999 — but a very nice developer named Alex Jones came up with the free iVPN, and after a little port forwarding on the router, and 30 seconds of config of iVPN, we had ourselves a legit L2TP VPN tunnel.

It was important to me that the VPN be accessible by the client built-in to OS X — found in Internet Connect in Tiger or earlier, and in Network System Preferences in Leopard. I have become bored with downloading and config’ing standalone software: too many checkboxes, not enough stability.

So…. whoop! Very easy, very free. 

Now, one thing about most VPN connections that has always bugged me is that, even if the client connects to a network resource, say a server, via its local Bonjour hostname, e.g. server.local, when a connection is attempted over the VPN it fails, and the user has to revert to using the IP address. Which is sort of fine, but a turn off to the less technically minded. So I just found this article on macosxhints.com about editing the /etc/hosts file:

Create the illusion that Bonjour works over a VPN

I haven’t tried it yet, but it makes sense to me. 

Leopard Server: file names are screwed up when connecting over SMB

Apple is all too aware of the chronic Apple File Protocol authentication issues with 10.5 Server. Some people have fixed this with a cron task that restarts AFP, say, every night. In my experience, this starts to corrupt file sharing altogether, to the point that, eventually, nobody can log in over AFP.

So I’ve been switching people to using SMB (Windows file sharing), which sucks just on principle, but it also cuts out Time Machine backups. I am also nervous about it losing Apple-specific file resources.

Anyhoo, at one site where I’ve asked everyone to connect over SMB, several on the server appeared with weird random file names, such as “_GNEWM~A” or “4UI5WM~7”. Didn’t matter which machine or which user account I was using to connect.

After some poking around, I figured out that folders and files with odd characters in their path, and especially with spaces at the ends of their names, were the culprits. Extra long names, too.

I don’t know if this is an historic problem with OS X Server, and I just never ran into it because most of my clients use Macs, or whether this is specific to 10.5. Regardless, right now OS X Server is hurting my schedule really bad, and I can’t believe I’m having to be wary of proferring it as a recommendation.

Leopard finally updated to 10.5.2

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, since 10.5.1, Leopard has been fairly stable. But a couple of computers I manage, especially servers, have run into some pretty dire problems with Leopard.

So I’ve been waiting for this with baited breath:

Leopard finally updated to 10.5.2

Basic info here, and there’s a complete list of fixes here. But what I really want you to know is that, as with any major OS X update, you should download the combo update, rather than letter Software Update do the work for you. I promise, it does a much more thorough job, and keeps your Mac happy.

The 10.5.2 Combo Update can be found here. And the one for OS X Server, here. Just click the blue-underlined file size over on the right.

Macfixit.com, the go-to site for Mac troubleshooting, hasn’t released any reports about 10.5.2. Please let me know if you have questions about the update.

Maybe my favorite hidden Mac feature

Did you know about the built-in dictionary? This is in OS X since Tiger: It’s a weird key combo, but it’s sooooo cool: In Mail or TextEdit or Safari — any good Mac app (which excludes, par exemple, MS Office 2004 but includes Office 2008) — put your cursor over any word, and hold down ctrl-command-D. Cool, huh? (The “command” key is now called that on newer keyboards; it used to be the key with an apple and a squiggly thing.)

Now move your cursor over other words while holding down those keys. Notice that there’s a thesaurus in the drop-down that says “Dictionary.” Now tell me that’s not friggin’ sweet.