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Showing posts with the label MAC OS X

Display RSS feeds as Screen Saver

Did you ever thought of setting up a Screensaver which displays all the RSS feeds of your favorite website? It's really simple if you have a Mac, all you have to do is follow the steps mentioned below: Launch System Preferences (this should be under the Apple icon at the top left corner of your Mac). Under Desktop and Screen Saver option, select the Screen Saver tab.  Try to find the drop down at the left, and expand it. Once done, you will find RSS visualizer, which should be under the Apple heading.  Now enter the RSS url of the website you want to be displayed.

How to uninstall Applications in Mac OS X

The problem with Mac OS X is that like a PC it does not have add remove programs menu which can be used to get rid of the application or software you want to. There are different steps which can be used to uninstall the application. Few of them are mentioned below: Method 1 Steps to uninstall applications in Mac OS X: 1. Click on Macintosh HD 2. Click Applications icon , it displays all the applications installed on your system 3. Select the application to be removed , hold ‘CTRL” key , it will bring the options and actions 4. Select the operation ” Move to trash” Method 2 Just dragging the application you wish to remove, to the trash bin in the dock will delete it. Method 3 You can also uninstall the applications and related preferences with the shortcuts using the third party applications like AppTrap. Method 4 If you ran an installer to install an application, you may wish to try running the installation program a

Lock your Mac in 5 seconds

Security has always been a concern for all of us, specially when we are in our office. For which it is necessary that we lock our machine whenever we leave our workstation. Were you been on a PC, you would have tried Ctrl+Alt+Del and clicked on Lock Computer or Windows+L can do the job. Being on Mac very few of us actually know how to lock the machine using shortcut. Let’s learn it here Open up the System Preferences and open the Security section.  Now make sure that you have set you computer to require a password once the screen saver begins or once the computer has woken up from sleep as below. Now when you hold down the keys Control+Shift+Eject your screen will go black and after 5 seconds your computer will then require a password to log back in.

Alternative way of taking backup of Mac

We all know the great app created by Apple, that is Time Machine. It is a brilliant application that every user should have and use it. In case you can’t manage to use Time Machine as your backup tool, you might want to try an alternative way to take one time backup. Here is another way of taking backup of your Mac using Disk Utilities. We will use this tool to take image of your current volume which has OS in it and can be used for back up. This backup is better if you don’t have a dedicated hard drive but use it once a week or so. As soon as you get this drive, you take a backup and then can replace where you got it from. Taking backup of your machine is way enabled you to use the newly taken image as OS whenever your machine crashes or you get another machine and you want all the files to be as it is on your older one. Great feature, lets try and explore more.

The power of "Secure Trash" in OS X 10.6

Once you delete the item (files/ folder) it is moved to Trash bin. Now if you want to delete those items permanently, you can click Secure Trash in the latest version of Mac i.e. Snow Leopard. In the earlier versions of Mac OS X, this feature was termed as Empty Trash. Its the same process that you do by when you select Empty Recycle Bin on a Windows Operating System. The purpose of this post is to focus on how safe your data is, once you delete is permanently from your machine. As we all are aware of the data recovery methods available in the world of IT today where you can use third party utilities and recover the data even after it is deleted from the machine. Taking this into consideration, the security of your deleted data is too low which might cause loss of business or integrity. In order to tackle this, Apple has added a feature of 7-Pass Erase using which you can securely delete the data from the machine. In this process, it writes random data on the hard drive and dele

An introduction to Mac OS X Server

Mac OS X server is combination of Power and Style. It derives power from its strong UNIX base and the style comes from well known Apple GUI. This combination makes Mac OS X Server one of the robust server available in present time. Mac OS X Server is built on a fully compliant UNIX foundation. This battle-tested core provides the stability, performance, and security that organizations require. And full UNIX conformance ensures compatibility with existing server and application software. Mac OS X Server is the ideal platform for deploying groundbreaking enterprise applications and services. The kernel in Mac OS X Server provides superior thread management and affinity algorithms for efficient handling of multithreaded applications on the latest generation of Intel multicore processors. It also provides precise control of real-time processing requirements, allowing a user-level thread — even an unprivileged one — to precisely specify its requirements for time-sensitive operations

SlingPlayer lands on iPad

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPad was looking pretty slick when we saw a preview a couple weeks ago, and now, just like that, it's arrived at the App Store. Folks who already invested in the iPhone app might be a bit disappointed to find they need to fork out another $30 for the iPad version -- although they can keep using the iPhone app in "Compatibility Mode" if they'd like -- but Sling is touting new video quality levels for the iPad, that your iPhone can only dream of, to sweeten the deal. There's also a new program guide UI and other iPad-friendly tweaks. Check out that video preview after the break to learn more, or just hit up your local App Store and start downloading (it's rolling out in typical App Store fashion, which means it might take a few minutes to pop up in your particular iTunes). SlingPlayer Mobile for iPad is exactly what you think: a new iOS app that lets Slingbox Solo and Pro-HD owners watch and control their home TV and DVR from an iPa

Fixing Keychain issues – Advance Steps

Quite honestly, I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. Before tossing out the Keychain Access application I’d run through the steps necessary to cure whatever ails your keychain. For those tuning in at home, the first step is to launch Keychain Access and from the Keychain Access menu, choose Keychain First Aid. In the same-named window that appears, make sure the Verify option is enabled, enter your administrator’s user name and password, and click the Start button. If any entries appear in red, click the Repair button and click Start again. With a measure of luck, the red entries disappear and you’re left with nothing but black entries and keychains that perform as they should. If this doesn’t happen and you continue to have keychain problems, quit Keychain Access, go to your user folder /Library/Preferences, and move the com.apple.keychainaccess.plist file to the Desktop. This is Keychain Access’ preference file. If it’s corrupt it could be causing the problems you ex

Find CISCO VPN profiles on a Mac

Once the CISCO VPN client is installed on the machine the profiles are automatically saved. In case you want to find where the VPN profiles are saved on Macintosh, you can peek at the following destination: /etc/CiscoSystemsVPNClient/Profiles/ /private/etc/opt/cisco-vpnclient/Profiles/ VPN can be configured on iPhones and Macs but you will be able to access the office network using VPN tunnel only when you have been provided sufficient privileges on your corporate Active Directory account. In order to get VPN access you may contact your IT Helpdesk . How to configure Cisco VPN on iPhone or Mac Understanding the .pcf files How to decipher .pcf files

Connect to server (afp, smb, nfs)

We will discuss about the different protocols and the process to connect to server using each of them using a Mac OSX machine. The famous protocols to connect to server used in Mac are: afp, smb, WebDAV & nfs. Lets have a look at each of them in details.   Connect to an AppleShare server (afp):    1. Under Finder, select ‘Go To’ menu, now select ‘Connect to Server’ or press Command+K .    2. In the Connect to Server window, type the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of the server. Click Connect.    3. In the authentication window that appears, type the credentials for the server. Now click on Connect.    4. Select the volume of the server and click OK. Connect to Windows file sharing (smb):    1. Under Finder, select ‘Go To’ menu, now select ‘Connect to Server’ or press Command+K .    2. In the Connect to Server window, type smb:// , followed by the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of the server, a forward slash, and then the name

Installing RAM in Macbook Pro (early 2008)

Today we will have a look at the RAM installation in the Macbook Pro. We will discuss about the old model because in the newer ones you hardly need an upgrade. The only thing you need to remember is that there is no static in your body as the RAM is more likely to be damaged due to static while installing it in Macbook Pro. So to remove the static in your body just touch any metallic surface and then follow the instruction in this video:

Using Mathematical Symbols

Whether you are doing your Math homework on your Mac, creating a great Math study guide for your friends, yourself, or students having the ability to actually use Mathematical symbols in documents or even Safari fields comes in handy. With the simple use of Character Palette, you can have access to lots of math symbols and add them to any document within any program. To add Math symbols in your documents and fields on your Mac: Click on the “Apple” icon located at the top of your screen. Select “System Preferences” from the menu. Click on “Language and Text.” Click on “Input Sources.” Check the “Keyboard & Character Viewer” to “On” Make sure that “Show Input menu in menu bar” at the bottom is selected. NOTE: You will now notice a new menu bar icon at the top of your screen. Click on this the new ‘Input Menu’ in the menu bar and select “Show Character Viewer”. Select “Math” from the list and click on the special math symbol you w

How to fix DVD region issues

I remember an issue reported by a user last week who complained that his Mac asked for DVD region code multiple times for the same disc. This was in fact a PRAM or NVRAM issue. The user who called in was on iMac 27” so it was NVRAM which I had to fix. For readers who are not sure what NVRAM and PRAM is, can refer to my last post : What is PRAM and NVRAM . As we know that information regarding DVD region setting is saved in NVRAM of an iMac, so all I had to do is reset the NVRAM by pressing Command+Option+P+R before the grey screen appeared during the start up. Just by this small step, the issue was resolved.

What is PRAM or NVRAM

Any person using Mac OS X machine might have heard of the term PRAM or NVRAM. These both are similar things, the only difference is that in Power PC based Mac machines it was termed as PRAM which stands for Parameter Random Access Memory and NVRAM is Non Volatile Random Access Memory which is in iMacs. What is the purpose of PRAM or NVRAM? The main purpose of PRAM or NVRAM is to save some settings related to hardware or software related to the system. In iMacs these are Screen resolution, display settings, video and screen refresh rate, recent kernel panic information (if there is any recent one), DVD region settings. How PRAM or NVRAM works? In an intel based MacBooks NVRAM takes power from the backup battery, however in other models it takes little (trickle) power from the main source to store data. The information saved in PRAM or NVRAM are: Display and video settings such as refresh rate, Screen resolution Number of colors Startup volume choic

Backup User Accounts And Files without Time Machine

This post is going to be very helpful for the users who don’t have Time Machine and cannot backup data or user accounts on regular basis. For such users, its hard time in case they have to migrate the data on a new drive. Although there are many options available, but this is the simplest ever and would take just few steps to do it (though it might take hours depending on the data you are taking backup of). We are going to perform this with the help of Disk Utility. So lets start: Go to Disk Utility i.e. open Application > Utilities > Disk Utilities from Finder From the Disk Utility application, select ‘New Image’ from the toolbar or Go to File> New> Blank Disk Image Give a name to it and proceed Save this file out, you can add compressing and encryption if you feel like, remembering that it will add to the compressing and decompression time. Compression is useful if you are short of space. This process might take few hours b

Office for Mac 2011 – Announced by Microsoft

Microsoft provided the most extensive look yet into the next version of the Mac version of its popular Office suite on Thursday at Macworld 2010 . The new product, Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, will arrive in time for the 2010 holiday season. Macworld spoke with several representatives of the company’s MacBusiness Unit, who told us the company is focusing on three things with this new release: better compatibility across platforms, improved collaboration tools, and a more refined user interface. Also, as Microsoft announced last August , the suite will include Outlook for Mac, which replaces Entourage as Office’s Email client. And, in keeping with Microsoft’s 2008 promise, the new version of Office will offer renewed support for Visual Basic , which was dropped in the 2008 version of the productivity suite. The new version of Office will incorporate document-collaboration features that take advantage of Microsoft's online storage features. With Office for Mac 2011, Mac

Completed my ACMT Mac OS X 10.6

It was on August 20th, 2010 when I completed my Apple Certified Macintosh Technician (ACMT) certification

Customize the Dock in Mac OS X 10.6

If you have upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard you will not find any major change in the dock. If you want to have a completely different dock, you can try this simple step and can have a dock similar as I have on my Mac in office. Let's try to change it. Open up the terminal, and type the following command, then press the return key defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES Now, you need to reload the dock, to do so, again, in the terminal, type the following. killall Dock   Once done, your dock should look like the following image: Now if your father doesn't like this new dock and you want to change your dock theme back to the original display, open the terminal, and type the following commands. defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO killall Dock That's it, now you can see a smile on your father's face!

Blog It for Safari

'Blog It' is a wonderful feature of TypePad that makes it easy to quickly post articles, photos, video, and more to your blog. Blog It for Safari is an extension for the latest version of Safari 5 (and would not work on older versions) that puts the power of Blog It right in your browser’s toolbar. Just click the Blog It button, customize your post, and publish. To try it out, first you need to update your Safari to the latest version and then simply get this extension . Once you donwload it, double-click to install, and you’re done. If you don’t already have a TypePad blog, you can create an account right from within Blog It. Safari 5 is not the end, for you, they also have support for other browsers, they also offer a Google Chrome extension and a bookmarklet .