apple Archives - Page 2 of 5

How To: Tweak OS X “Spaces”

Posted by Rick on June 16, 2011 in Apple, OSX, Technology How To's 0 Comment

How To: Tweak OS X “Spaces”

Spaces is OSX’s cool virtual window program that allows “multiple” desktops to be setup. The thought is that it allows you to group programs together by task and thereby increasing your workflow productivity.

Apple has a great tutorial on how to really maximize it’s usefulness.

But some of us want to tweak it’s usability. For instance to disable the “teleport to another space feature” in terminal (as root)

defaults write com.apple.Dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool NO

killall Dock

To switch back:

defaults write com.apple.Dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool YES

killall Dock

To remove the animation between spaces:

defaults write com.apple.Dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES

killall Dock

Please comment and add any other tricks you have.

How To: Disable MacDefender and MacProtector

Posted by Rick on May 10, 2011 in Apple, Technology How To's, virus 0 Comment

How To: Disable MacDefender and MacProtector

MacDefender and MacProtector are the latest in “anti-virus” protections that are actually malicious themselves. These are targeted towards Macs specifically, but are NOT virus. These are trojans, and can be picked up by visiting malicious sites.

To disable:
As an admin user (most are by default)
Open up Terminal and type: sudo killall MacDefender
Substitute MacProtector if that’s the version affecting your computer.

The password will be your login password.

Then type: sudo -u $username> defaults write com.apple.Safari AutoOpenSafeDownloads -bool false

Replace the word username with your login name; or if you don’t know it, look to the left in terminal.

Hit enter, it should not ask for a password for the second time. This will keep the application from downloading again.

Once that has happened, be sure to visit http://adobe.com/flash and update your Flash software to help block these.

The last step is to use Spotlight to search your computer for the bad app. Once you find it, be sure to throw it into the Trash, then Empty the Trash.

“What was your biggest challenge?”

Posted by Rick on February 2, 2010 in Lists 0 Comment

“What was your biggest challenge?”

Just now coming up on the one year mark of being unemployed, and having gone to about a dozen different interviews now, one of the most common questions I hear is “What was your biggest challenge?” or “Describe a time when you had a particularly difficult challenge and how you resolved it.”

In order as I think of them:

Apple and it’s lack of Enterprise support

Node locked software on a machine that just died, it out of warranty and the company refuses to return support phone calls or emails.

The user who doesn’t understand that going to certain web sites pretty much automatically means the machine is getting a virus.

Being asked to deploy non-existent machines to user who were hired only a few hours earlier and are scheduled to start the next day.

Explaining what “Corporate Standard Software” means, and why I can’t simply give you a license number so that you can install at home “to learn”

Complaints about machine slowness and weird problems to find that the uptime is 45 days.

User who upon being told “Those computers are too old, you will not be happy with them when I’m done,” buys new computers (from someone else,) the next day and then expects them to be installed for free after I’ve already done all the work.

Users who do not contact their IT support at all when there is a problem, then go home for the day because they “can not get any work done.”

Being expected to install a 15 computer network within 8 hours, never having done so ever before (it’s harder then it sounds)

Users who expect something done their way when it’s technically impossible.

The above, but when it’s illegal or unethical

Explaining to your direct supervisor why you REALLY don’t want to see the Midget Porn Website they found

Yeah. All of those.

How To: Check Apple Warranty Status via ARD

Posted by Rick on November 19, 2009 in Apple, Technology How To's 6 Comments

How To: Check Apple Warranty Status via ARD

Here is an awesome little script by Scott Russell of the University of Notre Dame. Using the “send Unix command” in Apple Remote Desktop, it can pull the system’s serial number, send the information to Apple’s Warranty Website and then tell you if the machine is under warranty.

#!/bin/bash

# warranty.sh # Description: looks up Apple warranty info for this computer, or one specified by serial number on the command-line

# Written by: Scott Russell, IT Support Engineer, University of Notre Dame # Created on: Sat Jan 5 16:20:54 EST 2008 # Last Modified: Thu Sep 25 09:29:11 EDT 2008

############### ## GLOBALS ## ###############


WarrantyTempFile="/tmp/warranty.txt"

PlistFile="/Library/Preferences/edu.ND.DSSBranding"
if [[ $# == 0 ]] ; then

SerialNumber=`system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | grep "Serial Number"

| awk -F': ' {'print $2'} 2>/dev/null`

else

SerialNumber="${1}"

fi
[[ -n "${SerialNumber}" ]] && WarrantyInfo=`curl -k -s

"https://selfsolve.apple.com/Warranty.do?serialNumber=${SerialNumber}&countr

y=USA&fullCountryName=United%20States" | awk '{gsub(/","/,"n");print}' |

awk '{gsub(/":"/,":");print}' > ${WarrantyTempFile}`
#################

##  FUNCTIONS  ##

#################
GetWarrantyValue()

{

grep -w "${1}" ${WarrantyTempFile} | awk -F ':' {'print $2'}

}
###################

##  APPLICATION  ##

###################
echo "$(date) ... Checking warranty status"

InvalidSerial=`grep "serial number provided is invalid"

"${WarrantyTempFile}"`

#echo "InvalidSerial  ==  ${InvalidSerial}"
if [[ -e "${WarrantyTempFile}" && -z "${InvalidSerial}" ]] ; then

echo "     Serial Number       ==  ${SerialNumber}"
PurchaseDate=`GetWarrantyValue PURCHASE_DATE`

echo "     PurchaseDate        ==  ${PurchaseDate}"
WarrantyExpires=`GetWarrantyValue COVERAGE_DATE`

echo "     WarrantyExpires     ==  ${WarrantyExpires}"
ProductDescription=`GetWarrantyValue PROD_DESCR`

echo "     ProductDescription  ==  ${ProductDescription}"

else

[[ -z "${SerialNumber}" ]] && echo "     No serial number was found."

[[ -n "${InvalidSerial}" ]] && echo "     Warranty information was

not found for ${SerialNumber}."

fi

exit 0

Troubleshooting a Mac – Boot Options

Posted by Rick on August 24, 2009 in Apple, Command Line, Technology How To's 0 Comment

Troubleshooting a Mac – Boot Options

Every once in a while a Mac gets so messed up that it won’t even boot. It’ll sit at the Apple screen, turning away. Or it’ll kernal panic just as it hits the blue login screen.

From Apple’s Support Knowledge Base here is what you need to do.

Resetting PRAM and NVRAM
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.
Your computer’s PRAM and the NVRAM are reset to the default values. The clock settings may be reset to a default date on some models.

If you have an older PPC Model Mac such as a G5 or Powerbook there is an additional step which will help.

Boot into Open Firmware by holding down the ‘Command-Option-O-F’ keys from a cold start while the chime is being played. You will see a command-line screen…enter these commands:

1. At the Open Firmware prompt, type: reset-nvram
2. Press Return.
3. At the Open Firmware prompt, type: reset-all
4. Press Return.
Example:
0 > reset-nvram
Press Return
0 > reset-all
Press Return

The reset-all command should cause the computer to restart. If this occurs, you have successfully reset the Open Firmware settings.