The Mac Admin's Blog

How to disable the spotlight in Snow Leopard In our last post we discussed about disabling spotlight in 10.5, now I will mention the way to make it happen in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Disabling Spotlight in Snow Leopard is simple, all you need to do is launch the Terminal and type the following command: sudo mdutil -a -i off This will give a command to the Spotlight manager to disable all indexing on the mounted volumes, this command requires your admin password to execute. Re-enabling Spotlight in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is as easy as disabling, just type 'on' instead of 'off' as below: sudo mdutil -a -i on Now everything should be cool as it was. Additional tips & tricks are available here.

Dock Exposé: The all new feature in Snow Leopard Apple has introduced Dock Exposé in Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard, its a quick and intuitive way of viewing all of the windows for an application. To activate this, you need to click and hold an active application icon on the Dock; Dock Exposé shows you a thumbnail of every open window for that specific application. This will show you all the windows in that application, regardless of which Space is it, opened or minimized in. In order to open this, just click the Window tile (or hit return after selecting the window) you would like to work on and it will instantly bring it to foreground. To see Dock Exposé live, view this video. Dock Exposé screen is divided with a line, bigger windows are on the top and the smaller ones displayed below. The bigger ones are the window which are open and the later ones are the minimized window. If there is no minimized window, the line would not appear there.

Snow Leopard troubleshooting knowledgebase released by Apple For the convinience of Mac 10.6 users, here is the list of knowledgebase released by Apple. Almost all the topics are covered in those, if any missed can be founded on other sites like wiki , mvps , Mac Fixit , MacLife etc. Mac OS X v10.6: About gamma 2.2 Mac OS X v10.6: Mac 101 - Printing Mac OS X v10.6: About Wake on Demand Mac OS X v10.6: Printer and scanner software Mac OS X v10.6: About Sync Diagnostics assistant Mac OS X v10.6: Mac 101 - Finder and the desktop Mac OS X v10.6: Unable to use third-party screensaver Mac OS X v10.6: Digital camera RAW formats supported Boot Camp 3.0, Mac OS X 10.6: Frequently asked questions Installing QuickTime Player 7 on Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard Mac OS X v10.6: Mac 101 - The Dock, Dock Exposé, and Stacks Media formats supported by QuickTime Player in Mac OS X v10.6 Mac OS X v10.6: About the Battery menu bar extra for portable Macs Mac OS X v10.6: Using Microsoft Excha

How to get printers back to work after installing Snow Leopard Some of my users after installing Snow Leopard , have complained that the printers are missing from the list. Some of them found that their printer is not functioning properly, if there is any left. According to Cnet review, "Changes in the printing system between Leopard and Snow Leopard may have the operating system reset the printing system upon updating, which will remove all printer devices, so the printers need to be added again ". In order to fix this, you need to follow the steps mentioned here by Apple on http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3771 . If you want you can check if your printer is listed in supported printers, insert the Snow Leopard DVD and launch the "Optional Installs" package in the "Optional Installs" folder. Agree to the license and then check the "All Available Printers" option in the "Printer Support" category.

How to connect CISCO VPN in Snow Leopard 10.6 According to the latest review on Cnet about Cisco VPN compatibility with 10.6 the Snow Leopard version of Mac OS X is limited to TCP connections and does not support the UDP protocol. There is a built in client in Apple to connect to VPN and the limitation of TCP transportation will stop users from connecting to VPN using UDP setting. Unluckily, if your VPN server is set up to accept connections IP sec over UDP only, you will not be able to connect using Apple's client. In such a condition the use of Cisco's third-party VPN client is needed. The good news for such users is, the Cisco VPN client works well in Snow Leopard, so those who need this alternate connectivity can download the client from here: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/secursw/ps2308/index.html For more info about VPN client please read FAQs on CISCO VPN

Ready to make your Mac fastest ever? Working simultaneously on a Mac and any Core2duo PC you will experience that the speed is too slow on Mac while performing the same task on both the machines, but now with Snow Leopard, Apple claims your Mac machine will be faster than ever (make sure your drivers and the hardware meet the compliance). Mentioning some of the tasks that Apple claims about 10.6: Installation 1.8 times faster. Backup 2 times faster. Wake up 2 times faster. Shut down 1.75 faster. Join network 1.55x Times faster than Leopard. Resolution in iChat 4 times clear than before. 75% faster shut down. 55% faster connectivity to networks. With Snow Leopard, Safari 4 delivers up to 50 percent faster JavaScript performance thanks to its 64-bit support. So get your fingers ready for faster rate of click to work on Snow Leopard.

Introducing Snow Leopard & its price The biggest question in every Mac lover's mind is, "How much will it cost?" Snow Leopard will cost $29 for existing Leopard users, and a family pack will charge for $49. In case you’re still running Tiger on an iMac, Apple is going to offer you a Mac Box Set which will include Snow Leopard, iLife ’09 and and iWork ’09. This fantastic Mac Box Set costs $169, with a family pack available for $229... Oopsss! “We want all users to upgrade to Snow Leopard, because Snow Leopard is a better Leopard,” said Serlet of OS X 10.6’s price.” Source: http://bit.ly/FgYqm