Ramblings of a Programmer » Apple

MacBook hard drive and memory changes

ksanders — Fri, 19 May 2006 19:33:05 +0000

A video from Macworld has been posted on YouTube which shows how a consumer can easily change the RAM modules and the hard drive on the new MacBook.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8c6ckjy-gdY

Technorati Tags: Apple, laptop, MacBook, MacBook Pro

Switch To A Mac: Key Isolation Features in Mac OS X

ksanders — Sat, 13 May 2006 22:32:04 +0000

I found this article on switchtoamac.com. Read the excerpt intro and continue on to the article.

Aside from an awesome user interface and a great underlying architecture, Apple built OS X with security in mind. As part of that central security theme, OS X has been designed using three key isolation features:System IsolationUser IsolationMemory and Application Isolation.

Switch To A Mac: Key Isolation Features in Mac OS X

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Windows, security

OS X Updates

ksanders — Fri, 12 May 2006 11:38:00 +0000

Apple released an upgrade to QuickTime 7.1 and Security Update 2006-003 today. You can get it from Software Update on your Mac or from Apple Downloads.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, QuickTime, security

iLife updates

ksanders — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 08:29:38 +0000

Apple today released updates to the iLife '06 applications. Most of the updates deal with speed and stability enhancements. The updates are available via Software Update or from the Apple Support Downloads site.

Technorati Tags: iLife, Apple

Mac OS X Update

ksanders — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 08:56:12 +0000

Apple has released an update for Mac OS X 10.4.5 today. The update is available via the Software Update command. The following is information from Apple about this update…
The 10.4.5 Update is recommended for all users and includes general operating system fixes, as well as specific fixes for the following applications and technologies:
- iChat video conferencing
- Safari rendering of web pages
- usability of Dashboard and widgets
- viewing of QuickTime streaming media behind a firewall
- printing to some Epson printer models
- iDisk and Portable Home Directory syncing
- time zone and daylight savings for 2006 and 2007
- VPN connections to Cisco servers when using NAT
- compatibility with third party applications and devices
- previous standalone security updates
For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n303179.
For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X

Backup 3.1 is now available

ksanders — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 08:11:58 +0000

Apple released Backup 3.1 today via Software Update. According to Apple, “Backup 3.1 delivers added support for some backup destinations and addresses file restoration and other issues.”
Protecting Your Data

Technorati Tags: Backup, Apple

iPod nano 1GB

ksanders — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 22:44:06 +0000

Apple today quietly released a 1 GB model of the iPod nano. It is available in white or black.

Technorati Tags: ipod, Apple

Apple lands another one

ksanders — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 23:02:52 +0000

Apple has been in the buying mood recently, not for other companies' products like one Redmond based company, but for office space. Apple has signed a deal for another 116,830 square foot building in Cupertino. The ironic thing with this lease is that just after dropping IBM as one of their major chip suppliers, Apple leases half of this space from that very same company.
read more

Technorati Tags: Apple

Frivolous Lawsuits

ksanders — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 04:18:24 +0000

I am really getting tired of all of the frivolous lawsuits in this country. The new national pastime has to be making easy money by finding something common and bring a lawsuit over it. Take this case, as reported on C|Net News.com, about a man who has file a class action suit against Apple over iPod-related hearing loss. Give me a break!

I can get hearing loss from listening to my car stereo too loud. What? Maybe I already have hearing loss from that. My younger days were about 20 years ago.

These kind of easy money schemes have to stop!

Technorati Tags: ipod, Apple, lawsuit

Fixing Mail when it crashes during launch

ksanders — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 12:00:27 +0000

I had a situation tonight where Mail was crashing on my Power Mac when I tried to launch it and check my mail. I have several email accounts setup and I could see that it was coming up and trying to show the last message that I was viewing in my Gmail account before I closed it previously. Just afterwards, it would crash.
After several times of trying to launch Mail and clicking on a different mailbox to no avail, I started poking around in my ~/Library to see if I could find anything. I came across ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist.
At the top of the preferences file is a string named AccountInfoLastSelectedAccountId. I soon discovered that the mailbox ID that this was pointing to matched the uniqueid for my Gmail account under MailAccounts. So, I copied the uniqueid string from my primary mailbox to the AccountInfoLastSelectedAccountId field. I saved the preferences file and relaunched Mail.
Unfortunately, my happiness turned to disappointment not too long afterward, because it died again just as it had been doing. So, I went back to the pref file for Mail and poked around some more. This time, I came across an array field named SelectedMailboxes which is in the first dictionary under the ActiveViewers array field.
I noticed that the string value for the first selected mailbox pointed to my Gmail account. This time, I copied the mailbox account string for my primary mailbox and replaced this string in the SelectedMailboxes section.
I saved the preferences file, relaunched Mail, and to my joy, it is working without crashing again.
Just a note, please make a backup of a .plist file before editing it. This way, if you make a mistake, you will have the original copy to revert back to.
Hopefully this tip will help someone in the future who might have this same problem.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OS X, Mail, Tiger