Leopard

How To: Disable OS X Quick Look

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

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)

Troubleshooting: Facebook constantly logs out in Safari

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

**Update** Facebook made updates that fixes this problem.

Troubleshooting: Facebook constantly logs out in Safari

A recent problem has cropped up with the latest version of Safari, 3.2.1 and Leopard 10.5.6. When using Facebook (and possibly other websites such as Last.fm, Gmail, and Twitter, that require authentication to login,) users are finding that they constantly have to re-login again. Of course this gets annoying, and makes accessing those sites nearly impossible. This problem is bad enough that it could even be affecting Firefox users too.

The culprit maybe partially on Facebook’s side as they attempt to combat the recent virus threats and the Leopard/Safari upgrade may be coincidence. Another guess is that Apple changed how multiple programs handle cookies and this is causing issues.

In addition users of iPhones and Adium in conjunction with Facebook seem to have a high chance of having an issue. Using Facebook Chat in Adium and on the iPhone is one of the culprits.

While not a guarantee, here are some possible fixes.

iPhone Users: (may have to be jailbroken to work, I do not have an iPhone to confirm)
1.) Download a terminal program for the iPhone
2.) chown -R mobile /var/mobile/
3.) Power Cycle the iPhone

It seems that the /var/mobile directory is owned by the root user instead of mobile and is causing some of these problems problems.

Adium Users:

  • Disconnect from Facebook or Google Chat before logging in to Facebook or GMail

    • Safari: One or all of these options may be needed to fix

  • Disable Private Browsing (Under Safari Menu, the Private Browsing)
  • Empty Safari Cache (Safari Menu, Empty Cache)
  • Clear Cookies (Safari Menu, Preferences, Security, Show Cookies, Remove All)
  • Reset Safari (Safari Menu, Reset Safari)
  • Reinstall Safari (Download from here)
  • Remove Autofill (Safari Menu, Preferences, Autofill, User Names and Passwords, Edit, remove the site that is having issues)
  • Remove Keychain Entry (Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access. Remove affected site, then go to Menu, Keychain First-Aid, then Repair.)
  • Delete cookie.plist file (/User Home Directory/Library/Cookies/Cookie.plist)

    • Advanced Safari Tip: Enable Developer menu using the command line: defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1 or download Safari Enhancer and clear cookies from this menu.

    Dashboard:

  • Disable any Web Clippings

    • If any of these do work, or you have another solution (or a question about the above,) let me know in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

    How To: Disable ._ Files and .DS_Store on Network Shares

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

    How To: Disable ._ Files and .DS_Store on Network Shares

    In heterogeneous networks of Macs and Window users, few things tick off Windows users then the “droppings” Macs leave behind in the form of files with . or ._ in front of them. These files are known as resource forks on the Mac side and store all kinds of really nifty information that makes OS X interact with files quicker and more efficiently. Among their uses they store metadata about files such as keywords, file size, and preview information.

    None the less for various reason Windows (and to a lesser extent, Linux) is not able to always ignore these files and automatically sorts them to the top of the file view list. These files tend to be confusing if one is not aware of what they are. Or worse yet cause problems in directories with thousands of files present.

    If on a small network with only a few Macs there is a program that takes care of this automatically. For $13 BlueHarvest works just perfectly.

    Of course there is a simple trick to disable .DS_Store files. In Terminal run the command:

    defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

    If the network is Leopard only, then editing nsmb.conf is a good trick too. In /etc/nsmb.conf look for the following line: streams=no and change to streams=yes .

    If the file does not exist, then it can be created via TextEdit or VI.

    These files are only viewable under very certain circumstances but they can cause a lot of coworker friction, and worse yet even cause management to question the usability of OS X in the work place. These simple tricks will go a long ways to resolving those issues and making work much more friendly.

    How To: Fix Safari 3.2 Crashing

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

    I’m still a huge fan of Apple’s Safari Browser. I feel it’s faster (and much less of a memory hog) then Firefox.

    But, the 3.2 Updated introduced a strange bug. Whenever I use tabbed browsing, it started crashing a lot. Clearing Cache and deleting preferences have not fixed at all. Even Onyx didn’t seem to help.

    I was able to find a nice utility called AppleJack that really helped a lot. It can be downloaded from this VersionTracker Link: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19596

    Once AppleJack is installed reboot the computer. While it’s restarting hold down the ‘s’ key to go into single user mode. type (as an admin user): applejack auto restart

    The computer will do a bunch of stuff cleaning up files, checking disks, etc, then reboot automatically. After this, Safari should all be good to go.

    I have also heard that reinstalling Safari totally with the stand along installer off of Apple’s website fixes this issue.

    How To: Synchronize Blackberry and Zimbra on OS X

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

    How To: Synchronize Blackberry and Zimbra on OS X

    At first looks there is no obvious way to synchronize RIM’s Blackberry devices with the Zimbra mail client. Blackberry already has a huge following in the business world while Zimbra is starting to become extremely popular as an Exchange replacement.

    But, out of the box neither will talk to each other directly on OS X.

    This can be resolved, but it’s actually a two step process so it will take a little bit of extra work to be sure that data does not get out of date.

    Zimbra provides Apple iSync Connector which is currently bundled in the Network Edition Professional Server download, available in the trial version (signup required) or from the Admin Console in an already existing Zimbra install.

    Install the iSync Connector with the directions here.

    Once the connector is installed it’s a good idea to go ahead and do the initial synchronization. This will sync Calendar, Contacts, Notes, and the Address Book to the corresponding OS X Application. Email will of course not sync since the Blackberry can be setup as an email client and can receive the emails directly.

    After the initial synchronization between Zimbra and the desktop, it’s now possible to sync the desktop with the Blackberry.

    This is done with the PocketMac Application which is a free download for those who already have a Blackberry. It is not free for any other phone or PDA, although it does work with a wide variety of other systems.

    Install PocketMac, plug in the Blackberry, hit the sync button on the dock and watch it all happen like magic.

    Using this scenario it’s possible to get out of sync very easily though. I highly suggest getting in the habit of only making changes to one device ever, or doing this two step sync process immediately after adding or making changes.