Ryan Collins

🕹️ Do Something Great! 😄

Tag: osx

  • Apple just killed the hackintosh

    Apple announced yesterday at their event that the newest version of OS X, version 10.9 (Mavericks), will be free to all Macintosh computers that can run it. This is pretty amazing, we can finally keep all of our Macs on the same OS instead of us currently supporting three different versions.

    But for hackintosh users, it means that there is no longer a way to purchase a legal copy of OS X. A hackintosh is a computer that is assembled out of parts that can be made to run OS X. It’s a way to get a Mac without paying for a Mac. A lot of users of hackintosh like the challenge, like OS X, but for the most part Apple doesn’t offer a hardware configuration for them. That ends now for those that try to stay as legal as possible, although a hackintosh was never quite legal. The OS X terms of service require OS X to be used on Apple labeled computers, which means even if you buy a copy it’s still not quite legal.

    Although this is probably not what Apple had in mind, it is the end of an era.

  • Multiple email addresses with one Apple ID

    Apple IDs, the center of identification in the Apple universe, have the capability to attach multiple email addresses. By signing into appleid.apple.com you can verify additional email addresses. Once added you can use them with several Apple services, most notably, iMessages. Others can iMessage you with any of the verified email addresses.

  • My Apple Event predictions

    Tomorrow Apple is holding an event to announce new products for the Mac.
    What will be announced is anyone’s guess, but here’s what my intuition
    is telling me:

    1. A new MacBook Air is pretty much a given. The rumors are pretty
      strong that there will be an 11.6″ and 13.3″ Macbook Air, and that
      they’ll be more affordable than the current Air. I’m hoping there is
      an 11.6″ because I’m ready to upgrade my original MacBook! 
    2. New MacBook Pros. This is something I haven’t read anywhere, but I’m
      pretty sure it’s going to happen. Why? I ordered two for the school
       district on October 8th with a shipping time of 3-5 days. A week
      later I received a notification that they would ship between Oct.
      21-26. Notice the first day is the day after the Apple Event. And
      now today I received notification that they will not ship until Dec.

      1. Apple must have something planned for the MacBook Pros, and
        originally thought they would be able to ship them on the 21st, but
        something happened and they’re planning on shipping them 6 weeks
        later.
    3. OS X 10.7
    4. iLife ’11
    5. Mac App Store – Apple added the ability to sign applications in OS X
      10.5 Leopard, and with the success of the iOS App Store will create
      an App store for the Mac. Unfortunately it will still go through
      iTunes, because for some reason everything has to go through iTunes
      with Apple.

    Anything I missed that you want to see Apple unveil?

  • OS X Widget to show machine name

    [Dashboard screenshot][]I use Apple Remote Desktop or a KVM
    (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) switcher to administer several OS X servers and
    machines. When you’re working on machines in this way you can sometimes
    get confused on which machine you’re currently controlling. If you’re
    lucky you won’t do anything stupid, but there have been times when I’ve
    shutdown/restarted a server that I didn’t mean too!

    Over Christmas break I wrote a little OS X widget call Show Name. All it
    does is show the name of the current machine. To start using it you just
    install the widget onto your Dashboard. Once there, it will show you the
    hostname of the machine you are currently using.

    Where things get interesting is when you drag it off of the Dashboard
    and put it on your Desktop. This way you can alway see what machine
    you’re on. To drag widgets off of the Dashboard, you need to turn on the
    widget developer mode. On the Show Name widget, you can click the little
    “i” in the bottom right and check the box to turn it on. As soon as you
    click Done it will restart the Dock, so the Dashboard and the Dock will
    disappear for a second. To drag the Show Name widget (or any widget for
    that matter) out of the Dashboard and onto the Desktop, click on the
    widget and start dragging. Don’t let go of the button and close the
    Dashboard. The widget you are dragging will stay with your mouse
    pointer, and you can drop it anywhere on your Desktop. To put the widget
    back in the Dashboard, start dragging it, open the Dashboard, and stop
    dragging it. It will now re-attach itself to the Dashboard.

    I use Apple Remote Desktop or a KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) switcher to
    administer several OS X servers and machines. When you’re working on
    machines in this way you can sometimes get confused on which machine
    you’re currently controlling. If you’re lucky you won’t do anything
    stupid, but there have been times when I’ve shutdown/restarted a server
    that I didn’t mean too!

    Over Christmas break I wrote a little OS X widget call Show Name.
    All it does is show the name of the current machine. To start using it
    you just install the widget onto your Dashboard. Once there, it will
    show you the hostname of the machine you are currently using on the
    Dashboard.

    Where things get interesting is when you drag it off of the Dashboard
    and put it on your Desktop. This way you can alway see what machine
    you’re on. To drag widgets off of the Dashboard, you need to turn on
    widget developer mode. On the Show Name widget, you can click the little
    “i” in the bottom right and check the box to turn it on. As soon as you
    click Done it will restart the Dock, so the Dashboard and the Dock will
    disappear for a second. To drag the Show Name widget (or any widget for
    that matter) out of the Dashboard and onto the Desktop, click on the
    widget and start dragging. Don’t let go of the button and close the
    Dashboard. The widget you are dragging will stay with your mouse
    pointer, and you can drop it anywhere on your Desktop. To put the widget
    back in the Dashboard, start dragging it, open the Dashboard, and stop
    dragging it. It will now re-attach itself to the Dashboard.

    [Grab the widget here][Show Name].

    [Dashboard screenshot]: https://ryancollins.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Screen-shot-2010-01-15-at-12.40.41-PM.jpg

  • OS X not saving passwords?

    About a month ago I noticed that passwords weren’t being saved in apps
    in OS X like Safari, Omniweb, etc. I didn’t bother trying to figure out
    the problem, until today when I would go to a site in Safari and it
    would ask to save the password. I said yes everytime, but it still
    didn’t save it. Finally I tracked down this blog post, OS X Keychain
    Not Saving Passwords…    :

    I struggled with this one for about a month before I finally dug into
    what was wrong and how to fix it. It all started when I reinstalled
    because I couldn’t get BootCamp installed because of volume
    fragmentation. Since then, my applications, specifically Mail.app and
    Adium, weren’t remembering passwords even if I checked the little
    “remember” box.

    Basically, for some reason, the keychain file at
    \~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain was now owned by root instead of by
    me. To check and fix from the commandline (\$ is the command
    prompt):

    $ ls -l ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain -rw-r--r-- 1 ryan admin 781380 Apr 8 11:17 (*deleted...*)
    My username is ryan. If it says anything else, use the following to
    change the ownership:
    $ sudo chown ryan ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
    It will ask for the administrator password, and then change the
    ownership of the file. I don’t think repair permissions in Disk Utility
    would fix this problem.

    ![][]