Apple

How to: From “.phone owner” instead of correct user

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Microsoft, Technology How To's 0 Comment

How to: From “.phone owner” instead of correct user

The problem is that in Entourage, emails are saying that they’re from “.phone owner” instead of the correct (usually yourself.)

This comes about from iPhones synching contacts in a Enterprise environment. The “default” contact on the phone is the user who owns it. So this issue comes up when contacts are synched between the iPhone and Entourage.

Luckily this is easy to fix. In Entourage, go to Address Book. Look for .Phone Owner. Open the contact (double click or right click) then go to “Name & Email”

Change the contact name to the correct name, save and close and you’re all good!

How To: Force Safari to Download PDF Files

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Command Line, Hacking, Technology How To's 1 Comment

How To: Force Safari to Download PDF Files

I hate having my Internet Browser display PDF files when I click on them. I much prefer them to be downloaded. Here are two commands that changes this default behavior.

in terminal (as Admin or Root user) type:
defaults write com.apple.Safari
WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool YES

Essentially you’re removing PDF Support from Safari so that it doesn’t know what to do with the files. Safari simply downloads the file to the /User/Downloads directory instead.

Keep in mind that updating Safari or Adobe Acrobat may change the PDF handling behavior back to the default. Yes, it is also possible to right click on a PDF and use “Download Linked File,” but this process is more automated.

How To: Check Apple Warranty Status via ARD

Posted by Rick on 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 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.

OSX 10.5.7 Update Issues

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Technology How To's, troubleshooting 0 Comment

OSX 10.5.7 Update Issues

It’s comforting to know that when Apple screws up, they do it but good.

Not since the days of Tiger has a dot release from Apple done so much damage. On the surface, 10.5.7 is a very important update. A lists of fixes includes the usual round of security fixes, fixes for network performance, updates for Camera RAW support, among several other fixes. But, initially the Software Update version was throwing up errors “digital signature for the package is incorrect.” Apple rapidly fixed this but it underscores the importance of having good backups and a clean file system.

Afterwards, others started reporting BSOD or Blue Screens of Death after the update was done. Having originated on Windows, the BSOD is now available in Leopard, a nice, if unintended bonus from Apple.

Luckily this problem seems to be fairly easy to fix:

  • Wait for Hard drive access to stop
  • Hold Power button down until computer shuts off
  • Hold shift button down and power computer on to boot into safe mode
  • Use regular user name and password to login if asked
  • type reboot to reboot the computer

    • The next issue to commonly pop up is messed up display resolutions for non-Apple monitors. People are finding themselves stuck in 1920×1080! Resetting the PRAM (Hold down the Command, Option P and K keys while booting until it chimes three or four times) seems to fix for some.

    For some of us REALLY unluckily people, the update gets stuck part way. After letting it sit for an hour at 33% there was no choice but to reboot the computer. Upon booting back up, OS X is not able to fully boot up. In one machine I was able to fix by going into safe mode, then issuing the softwareupdate -l -a command to finish the download and install.

    On my Macbook, it was a full reinstall.