Technology How To’s

Article that I’ve written over the years to resolve specific technology issues that I’ve run across in my day to day life.

How to Fix: Google Earth “Please leave or end your current meeting”

Posted by Rick on in google, Technology How To's 1 Comment

How to Fix: Google Earth “Please leave or end your current meeting”

I recently upgraded to an Macbook Air, running OSX 10.8. As it had been a while, I decided to take this opportunity to reinstall all my applications from scratch instead of restoring from Time Machine in Migration Assistant.

One of these apps was Google Earth. Upon launching I got this error message immediately:

“Please leave or end your current meeting before starting or joining another meeting”

I followed a variety of troubleshooting steps in the Google Earth Forums but continued to get this error message. Apparently part of the problem is that Google released a new 7.0 Beta version, but the download doesn’t really tell you this. Some suggestions in the forums say to unplug the computer from the Internet and change some preferences. Another suggestion told how to download the older 6.2 version of Google Earth for Mac. My issue ended up being a Combination of these problems.

First I downloaded and installed the 6.2 version. This can be found by going to the download page: http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html

Uncheck the box that says “Include Google Chrome, a fast, free browser made for the modern web.” Then right above the “Agree and Download” Button is an arrow that says “Customize your installation of Google Earth with advanced setup.” Click and open this. Click on “Previous Version (6.2)” and then click on the “Agree and Download.”

Install Google Earth as normal by opening the .dmg file and copying the Google Earth App to the Applications Folder.

Launch it and see if the error goes away. If not, you may have to do this next step.

Disconnect the computer from the Internet. Open Up Google Earth. If should open fine. Go into Preferences (under the Google Earth menu option in the top left corner,) and then choose 3D View. I had to change “Texture Colors” to “High Color (16 bit) “Anisotropic Filtering” to Off, and checked the box “Use Safe Mode” under “Graphics Mode” before Google Earth was stable enough for me to use.

Once I did this, I was able to update my list of Oregon Ghost Towns again!

How to reinstall Apple App Store

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Technology How To's 2 Comments

How to reinstall Apple App Store

The Apple Store now allows Apple to bundle applications in an easy to download “iOS” like way. Since it’s release OS X application manufactures have been slowly moving over to it as a distribution channel for their apps. Some popular apps are now only available via the App store. If you are like me, one of the first things you might have done was to remove the App Store saying “I’m not going to play that game,” thinking we’d be able to continue to download apps as we wished.

Or perhaps you are in a corporate environment where the App Store has made managing Macs nearly a nightmare when it comes to application installation and asset management.

Unfortunately it seems that more and more application authors are going this way. It makes a bit of sense for the authors. It provides a better way to make some money off their hard work. It allows them to more easily digitally distribute their apps. And it saves them money on bandwidth.

The App Store itself is not a separately downloadable application though. The best, and quickest way, to reinstall it is to simply run and see if there is a Mac OS X Combo Updater install ready.

If not, you can download any Leopard or higher version from the Apple Support page. OS X Combo Updater 10.6.8 is a good start for most people; download it from here.

After that, you need to download an application installer program. Pacifist from Charlessoft is a good one.

Mount both Pacifist and and the Combo Updater Package. In Pacifist, go to the MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.8.pkg file and then use the search box in the right hand corner to search for store.

 

 

The first option that comes up is the Apple Store. Just click on the install button, make sure the check box “Install as Admin” is clicked, then hit OK. Enter your Administrator Password and Pacifist will start installing the application. When it’s done, go to your Applications and launch the App Store.

Please post in the comments if you have any questions.

How To: Change Mac Icons

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

How To: Change Mac Icons

Nothing says “Hands off! This is MY Mac” like a highly customized desktop.

http://www.pixelgirlpresents.com/icons.php?page=4&cat=mac

http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/

Once you’ve chosen a Icon Set (or six,) unpack them to a folder on the desktop.

Right click then Get Info on the new Icon. At the top will be a picture of the Icon, highlight this then use to copy the Icon to your clipboard.

Go back to the folder you’d like to change, IE, your hard drive’s Icon. Right click on it, the go to Get Info. Highlight the Icon at the top, but use this time.

Close the Get Info window, and the Icon should change!

How To: Fix Final Cut and Bonjour issues

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How To: Fix Final Cut and Bonjour issues

A lot of companies disable Bonjour on Mac OSX for a variety of reasons, usually because it’s very “chatty” and tends to take up a lot of network bandwidth by itself. It can also cause issues with Printer Sharing, causing print jobs to disappear.

But, some Apple products such as Final Cut, and certain Adobe Suite products demand to have Bonjour enabled.

Luckily Apple Support has a perfect fix for this.

1.) First step is to copy the plist file to make a backup, I like to just add .bak to make things easier in the future:
cp /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist.bak (all on one line)

2.) Open mDNSResponder.plist in your text editor of choice. Doing it from terminal is best.

sudo vi “/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist”

3.) Add “-NoMulticastAdvertisements” to the array in the “ProgramArguments” section.

It starts like this:

ProgramArguments

/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder
-launchd

And needs to look like this:
ProgramArguments

/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder
-launchd
-NoMulticastAdvertisements

4.) After saving the file and closing it, you’ll need to reboot the computer. Keep in mind that if you used EMACS to edit the file, you need to remove the temp file it created, “/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist~” first or your computer will not reboot.

How To: Change DNS (and make web surfing faster)

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How To: Change DNS (and make web surfing faster)

The Internet is so big now, and the average person has more bandwidth at home then existed in the entire world in 1980, that the biggest slow down in web surfing has become the initial DNS or Domain Name Service look up. DNS is the service that translates the human readable Domain Name of 1nova.com into the computer readable 173.236.191.132.

All ISP’s provide a DNS service of some sort that is usually automatically setup. By changing the default to faster servers, you can decrease the lookup time, and increase your web browsing speed. The first step to doing this is to download a program that looks for the fastest DNS near you.

namebench does exactly that.

Once you have a new DNS IP, follow the below directions. Note in the directions below that 8.8.8.8 are Google’s DNS servers. The actual numbers you want to use may differ.

Linux

In most modern Linux distributions, DNS settings are configured through Network Manager.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Ubuntu
In the System menu, click Preferences, then click Network Connections.
Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select the Wired tab, then select your network interface in the list. It is usually called eth0.
To change the settings for a wireless connection, select the Wireless tab, then select the appropriate wireless network.
Click Edit, and in the window that appears, select the IPv4 Settings or IPv6 Settings tab.
If the selected method is Automatic (DHCP), open the dropdown and select Automatic (DHCP) addresses only instead. If the method is set to something else, do not change it.
In the DNS servers field, enter the Google Public DNS IP addresses, separated by a space:
For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844
Click Apply to save the change. If you are prompted for a password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.
Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.
If your distribution doesn’t use Network Manager, your DNS settings are specified in /etc/resolv.conf

Mac OS X

DNS settings are specified in the Network window.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Mac OS 10.5
From the Apple menu, click System Preferences, then click Network.
If the lock icon in the lower left-hand corner of the window is locked, click the icon to make changes, and when prompted to authenticate, enter your password.
Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select Built-In Ethernet, and click Advanced.
To change the settings for a wireless connection, select Airport, and click Advanced.
Select the DNS tab.
Click + to replace any listed addresses with, or add, the Google IP addresses at the top of the list:
For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844
Click Apply and OK.
Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.
Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

Microsoft Windows

DNS settings are specified in the TCP/IP Properties window for the selected network connection.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Microsoft Windows 7
Go the Control Panel.
Click Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, and click Change adapter settings.
Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click Local Area Connection, and click Properties.
To change the settings for a wireless connection, right-click Wireless Network Connection, and click Properties.
If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and then click Properties.
Click Advanced and select the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server IP addresses listed there, write them down for future reference, and remove them from this window.
Click OK.
Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.
Replace those addresses with the IP addresses of the Google DNS servers:
For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844
Restart the connection you selected in step 3.
Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.
Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.