The Mac Admin's Blog

Sometimes while connecting to a server, you may get  a prompt of Kerberos log in failed. Kerberos is a "single sign on" technology in Mac for the convenience of the users. Next time if yu get this error then have a look at the clock on your Mac. It might be incorrect and hence creating this issue. So now as you are aware of the root cause, you can fic it yourself. Though it is easy for you to change the time ion your Mac, but if in case you face any issue while setting up time and date, please drop a mail at Laeeq.Humam@MacMasters.net

Here are the steps to get this done: Open the System Preferences (either from the Dock or from the Apple menu).   Go to the Display Panel and choose the 'Display' tab. On the left of the Displays tab you can select one of the Resolutions from the list. Higher resolutions allow you to see more “stuff”. IT is recommending at least 1024x768 unless you have a specific reason to use a lower resolution.   Quit or close the System Preferences when done. Also make sure: At higher resolutions, you may not be able to see as many colors (Thousands instead of Millions) Flat panel monitors have a prefered resolution. If you set the display lower or higher, the display will be noticably more blurry. The prefered resolution should be noted in your display manual. For example, the new 17 inch Apple Studio Display (flat panel) is most crisp at 1280x1024.

How to increase the size of a mouse pointer Ever wished for a bigger cursor so that you can see it easily on the screen? Now, you can make you cursor larger and easier to be located on the desktop. In order to get this done, you have to: 1. Select System Preferences from the Apple menu. 2. Now select Universal Access . 3. Open Mouse & Trackpad and drag the Cursor Size slider to the right to make it larger. Now it should be visible without your specs too.

What is file sharing and how activate this feature? File Sharing is a service which enables file on a Mac to be shared on other Mac, not just file now you can also share applications in your network. Go to System Preferences and open Sharing . Select the application/s that you want to share. On the mid-right there is an option of Shared Folders, where you can select the folders that you want to be shared with other users. Now on extreme right there is another option of Users, using which you can define who all people on the network should have access to the defined application/s or the folder/s. From this menu itself you can also define the access type, should it be Read only or Write access. At the top of this window, name of the machine is mentioned. If any user wants to connect, he/she can use the machine name or the IP address of your machine. Other sharing options in Mac.

When clicking on Apple menu, there is not list under drop down Last week I came across a case where user was not able to find any menu item when he clicked on Apple menu and he has some changes to make in System Preferences which he could not do just because of this problem. The solution for this issue is very simple, if you face this just follow these steps: Go to your account and open Library . Under library locate and open the Preferences folder. Find the .plist file for finder and drag it to the desktop. After this, launch the Apple menu, it should work fine. Once it starts working fine, just move the .plist from desktop to Trash . In any troubleshooting when you move the .plist file and it does not fixes your issue then make sure that you move that file back to its place.

How to check the Printing Queue If the printer is not working, the very first thing that needs to be checked is if the printer is stopped. 1. On the dock, click the printer icon to open it. or 2. Go to Apple menu, choose System Preferences and then click Print & Fax. 3. On this window, click the Printing tab & then Print Queue and try to find out if any error message is there that says “Jobs Stopped”. 4. If you find any, then click on Resume or Start Jobs from the printer's menu. This is the simplest and initial step that you need to start from in troubleshooting.

Guide to set up a printer on Mac Machine 1. Launch System Preferences and go to open Print & Fax. 2. Next, click on " + " sign above the lock. 3. Enter the IP address under Address , then click on Add button. 4. O nce successfully completed, the printer details will be displayed in box (right). In some cases you might need to install the printer. Process to map Network printer and Local Printer is same.

How to change the settings of the mouse 1. Go to System Preferences and open Keyboard & Mouse. 2. Select the tab that says Mouse.From here you can control mouse sensitivity as how fast the pointer moves across the monitor when you work or move the mouse, and adjust for your double-click reflexes. 3. If you want to control the speed of the mouse pointer across the screen when you move the mouse, you need to glide the Tracking Speed slider left which will slow it down or right to increase the speed. 4. In order to change the speed of a double click, move the slider 7 adjust to the level of your choice. 5. Now comes adjusting the scroll wheel (if you have it in your mouse) and this is also done in the same way, being controlled by the slider representing left to slow & right to fast. Mouse settings in Mac seems much easier in PC.

Enabling right click and coming back to control+click. In general, the mouse setting for a Mac mouse is made single click and for contextual menu it is ctrl+click. For the users switching from a Windows environment it is tough to work with one click and in general it is handy to work with one hand rather than using other hand to hold down control key. If we use the terms that Mac prefers, they call the single click button as Primary and the right click as Secondary button. In order to change it, follow these steps. a. Go to System Preferences and open Keyboard and Mouse. b. The selected drop down in blue is the option from where we can activate and deactivate the secondary button. We will talk about more settings of mouse in upcoming post.

How to control, disable and enable sound in Mac? Controlling sounds on Mac is really easy. The sound icon shows on the menu bar somewhere to the extreme right. This sound icon can be shown and hidden as per your choice. To increase and decrease the volume all you have to do is just click on the sound icon on the menu bar and then click on this sound icon and you will get the seek bar that allows you to adjust the volume. There are some further sound controls and to play with it all you need to do is, open System Preferences and click on Sound . Img 1 This will take you to a new window that controls sound on your machine. Img 2 Select the output tab (as in Img2) and to control the speakers, if there is any external speaker attached, you will see it listed here and in order to change the settings for this speaker just select it (and it will be highlighted blue) and control the settings. Img 3 If you want the volume bar not to be displayed in the menu bar then just check the option th

Set up Entourage to launch automatically when you login If Entourage is an essential application for you and you use it as an important tool for your business, then this post could be of great help for you. I am mentioning the setup procedure to launch Entourge at the time of login. 1. Go to "System Preferences". 2. Select "Accounts". 3. In Accounts window, select you name. 4. Open the "Login Items" and add click on "+" icon. 5. Browse and add Entourage as its default location is in Applications > Microsoft Office 2004 (or 2008) > Entourage. 6. Once you add the application, come out of Accounts window and re-login to the machine to check if it is working fine. I suggest new users a simple way i.e. just launch Entourage and then hold the icon on the dock, you will get an option of Open at Login, just select it and it is done.

PROBLEM IN TURNING THE MACHINE UP (for 10.3 and older only) The worst thing you could ever experience in a computer is not turning up. No matter how many times you do a hard boot but the result is same. If the machine is Mac, there could be variations in error notification. Most of the time it is a simple issue that you could fix after going through this article. IDENTIFYING THE SYMPTOMS There can be empty blue screen with a spinning wheel (the progress indicator in Mac). A " Prohibitory sign " appears or " Kernel panic error " is mentioned on the screen. Blank gray screen without any text could appear. No notification , but machine doesn't turns up. There can be empty blue screen with a spinning wheel (the progress indicator in Mac). I am mentioning 5 simple steps that you can try and hope it will work for you, but if in any case it doesn't works then try the last few steps that are slightly critical but I know you will easily do it because you can't