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: Deploy MS Office to Mac

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

How To: Deploy MS Office to Mac

One of the biggest pains in deploying MS Office to OS X in a business or education environment is making sure that the serial number deploys too.

To do this, you need to also deploy the following files:

~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.error_reporting.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.setupassistant.plist

Deploying these files will keep also keep the initial setup assistant from running upon first launch.

Deployment can be via any of your normal methods, Apple Remote Desktop being the “Apple Preferred Way,” of course.

How To: Disable OS X Quick Look

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How To: Disable OS X Quick Look

Quick Look in OS X is an awesome feature. I’m constantly using it to check out PDF files without needing to open them.

But in some environments, it doesn’t make sense or causes a huge amount of issues.

So to disable this, in the terminal type; (as root or admin user)

defaults write “$3/System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.quicklook” Disabled -bool true

Restart the Finder, and you’re good to go!

This works in 10.6.x but apparently crashes 10.5.x (I’m not able to confirm the later as I don’t have 10.5)

How To: Use Equation editor in Office 2008 (for Mac)

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

How To: Use Equation editor in Office 2008 (for Mac)

Equation Editor in Office 2008 should be installed by a default install of Office. If for some reason it is not, you’ll need to find your Office Disc and reinstall Office 2008 for Macintosh.

To check if Equation Editor is already installed, look in /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office. The Application, Equation Editor, should located there. But you don’t need to launch it from here or you’ll get error messages saying fonts are missing. Equation Editor is meant to be used inside of Word, and other Office applications.

To use Equation Editor, first step is to launch “Word” from your toolbar, or from Applications.

In Word, click on “Insert” in the menu bar, then at the bottom choose “Object.”

Choose “Equation Editor” from the list of Object Types.

Type in the required equation using the buttons at the top of the Equation Editor to get the Mathematical Operations needed.

Once you have your equation, click the red button in the upper left hand corner to close the Equation Editor. This will automatically insert the equation you just entered into the Word document at the cursor location.

Keep in mind this is for MS Office 2008 for Mac only. If you know how to do this in Office 2011 for Mac, please comment below!

How To: Tweak OS X “Spaces”

Posted by Rick on 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: Remove Skype Spyware

Posted by Rick on in Security, Technology How To's 3 Comments

How To: Remove Skype Spyware

 

These directions are for Windows 7 specifically but should work for XP and Vista also.

First, Open your task manager and delete any processes that have to do with Skype and Easybits. There should be at least three total, and they should be pretty obvious.

Go to the following directories:
C:/Users/NAME/AppData/Local/
C:/Users/NAME/AppData/Roaming/
C:/Program Files (x86)/ (And/or C:/ProgramFiles/ depending on your Win ver)
C:/ProgramData

Delete anything named ‘EasyBits’ or ‘go’ in these directories. Tip: Go to C:/ and put everything in ‘Date’ order. Now manually search through every folder that was last edited today. (Or the day you got the spyware if known)

Uninstall Skype using Revo Uninstaller and reinstall Skype when it’s been patched and fixed.

Then in Start search ‘regedit’ and allow it when it prompts you. Now under ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER’ find ‘Software’ and then EasyBits Go and delete it. Be careful in regedit though, delete EasyBits and quit it.

Now download ‘CCleaner‘ and run the cleaner. When the cleaner is finished, go to the Registry tab and click ‘Scan for issues’. When it’s finished scanning, click ‘Fix selected issues’. When it prompts you to create a backup of your registry, click No. When it’s finished fixing them all, scan for issues again and repeat this until no more issues show up.