Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with osx and apple

TOSLINK USB surround sound adapter + Mac OS X?

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:57:24 -0800

What is a good, working surround sound USB adapter for a Mac mini in a home theatre setup, which uses a TOSLINK connector? (I would be using this with DVD Player, iTunes, VLC, QuickTime Player, etc. if that matters for software support.)

Help me bring back my wifi!

COBRA! — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:15:02 -0800

I'm having wifi troubles with my MacBook, and the lack of connectivity for the weekend gave me the shakes. Help me before the withdrawal gets worse! The gist: WPA2 Personal network, running on a Netgear router. Been up for a while, played nice with my MacBook (running Snow Leopard) and my wife's XP laptop. Over the weekend, the router rebooted during the setup of a new Roku, and my MacBook abruptly dropped the network; since then, I haven't been able to reconnect, just getting the standard "There was an error trying to join the network [SSID]. Please try again later."

My wife's XP machine still connects with no trouble.

As nearly as I can tell, it seems like my laptop sees the network, but can't recognize it as WPA2 Personal; when I try to connect, the SSID shows up in my saved networks as WPA2 Enterprise. Editing one of the Enterprise instances to Personal with the correct login information doesn't help, nor does manually adding a new Personal instance.

Other things I have tried:

- rebooting the router (multiple times)
- deleting the keychain storing network passwords
- deleting the plist storing network prefs
- deleting and re-adding the entire Airport connection in my network prefs
- reinstalling and updating Snow Leopard (update done with the MacBook connected by ethernet)

Any thoughts/suggestions/ideas?

AppleWatchers: Mainstreaming the Hackintosh?

ZenMasterThis — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:54:20 -0800

AppleWatchers: Mainstreaming the Hackintosh? What does the hive mind know about Apple's history, culture, marketing, business models, people, etc. which would confirm or refute the hypothesis "Apple will fully embrace the use of Apple OS and applications on non-Apple hardware in the next 3 - 5 years"?

How do I start using OS X Mail?

Junior687 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:46:45 -0800

How can I start using OS X .Mail App when I'm so in love with Gmail on the web? I recently purchased a Mac and I'm really interested in using OS X's Mail program. The only problem is Gmail is my bread and butter. It has a lot of different features and I love the labeling system. Is there a way to integrate labels, IMAP, and some other Gmail features with Mail? Will it hurt my current setup on the iPhone? What are the pros and cons? Thanks!

I'm trying to win a bet

metacort — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:30:50 -0800

Is Windows 7 an upgraded version of Vista (like Snow Leopard presumably is of Leopard) or completely re-built from the bottom up?

Options for a small & cheap Mac laptop?

attercoppe — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:01:07 -0800

What are my options for a cheap, small Mac laptop? I'm on a tight budget, but would love to get a laptop. I've been looking at netbooks because I love the light weight and small size. However, I may be about to get a job at my school, which basically is an Apple campus, so now I'm considering a Mac instead. I'd still like to find something cheap, small and light, and with some serious battery life. Of course one option is to buy a used or refurbed Mac (maybe an Air?). Could I also buy a netbook and install OS X? Or install some *nix - how compatible (not look and feel but interoperability) would this be?

P.S. I could probably do some research and get some good info, but I thought I'd see what ya'll can tell me first. I've read other questions here, and they seem to be either out of date or about desktops (or both).

Snow Leopard upgrade

Science! — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:01:05 -0800

Does the $29.99 upgrade version of Apple's OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard come with iLife and iWork 09 like the box set, or will it update older versions of iLife and iWork to the 09 version? I own a macbook running 10.5 and I want to buy the $29.99 update, but I'd really like to also update iLife and iWork. I have the iLife apps that came with my macbook, and I bought iWork 08. Will the upgrade version of Snow Leopard update these apps or do I have to spring for the box set?

A link to an article or store site detailing this would be appreciated.

Lotsa kernel panics on OS 10.6 Snow Leopard w/ MacBook

delladlux — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:54:02 -0800

Why does my MacBook keep kernel panic'ing under 10.6? Log dumps inside! Here's /var/log/system.log:

Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Sending on VNet/vmnet8/192.168.192.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Internet Software Consortium DHCP Server 2.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 The Internet Software Consortium.
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: All rights reserved.
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Please contribute if you find this software useful.
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/dhcp-contrib.html
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook pcscd[56]: Non-smartcard device launched pcscd [Vendor: 0X3F0, Product: 0X6C11]
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Configured subnet: 192.168.43.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Setting vmnet-dhcp IP address: 192.168.43.254
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Opened:
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Recving on VNet/vmnet1/192.168.43.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Sending on VNet/vmnet1/192.168.43.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook pcscd[56]: Non-smartcard device launched pcscd [Vendor: 0X3F0, Product: 0X6C11]
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook vmnet-bridge[91]: Starting up.
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook vmnet-bridge[91]: Examining network configuration.
Sep 21 15:26:04: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Sep 21 15:26:04 XXXXXX-MacBook configd[13]: network configuration changed.
Sep 21 15:26:04 XXXXXX-MacBook vmnet-bridge[91]: Intf: en1
Sep 21 15:26:04 XXXXXX-MacBook vmnet-bridge[91]: Turning on bridge for: en1
Sep 21 15:26:08 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.SystemStarter[21]: Starting HP IO Monitor
Sep 21 15:26:08 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.SystemStarter[21]: Starting HP Trap Monitor
Sep 21 15:26:09 XXXXXX-MacBook loginwindow[28]: Login Window Started Security Agent
Sep 21 15:26:09 XXXXXX-MacBook loginwindow[28]: Login Window - Returned from Security Agent
Sep 21 15:26:09 XXXXXX-MacBook loginwindow[28]: USER_PROCESS: 28 console
Sep 21 15:26:09 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[132] (com.apple.ReportCrash): Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self
Sep 21 15:26:11 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[132] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[160]): Exited with exit code: 1
Sep 21 15:26:14 XXXXXX-MacBook WindowServer[59]: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
Sep 21 15:26:14 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.WindowServer[59]: Mon Sep 21 15:26:14 XXXXXX-MacBook.local WindowServer[59] : kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
Sep 21 15:27:12 XXXXXX-MacBook mds[26]: (/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/5A30616A-1C82-4B6D-BF81-EB0086574585)(Warning) IndexStore in setAttributes:Items's transaction id 7 is too low for the current index 8. Discarding oid 0.
Sep 21 15:34:03 XXXXXX-MacBook Safari[233]: CantParseData: errno 0, euid: 501, egid: 20, pathInfo: { Target path: /Users/angela/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist, modTime: 2009-09-21 15:20:50 -0500, size: 145536, st_uid: 501, st_mode: 100644 st_flags: 0x0 acl: none parentInfo: modTime: 2009-09-21 15:20:50 -0500 st_uid: 501, st_mode: 40755 st_flags: 0x0 acl: none}
Sep 21 15:34:27 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.WebKit.PluginAgent[236]: Debugger() was called!

Anything else to consider? It's happening 3-4x a day now.

Please recommend PDF indexing software for OS X.

NucleophilicAttack — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:41:35 -0800

Please recommend OS X software which can generate indexes from PDF files. Freeware is best, but shareware is also fine. I have a number of PDFs which are several hundred pages in length, for which I would like to generate indexes. Some wishlist features:

* indexes both rare words, and words from a list.
* can adjust the page numbers it outputs to match the actual numbering on each page of the PDF, rather than the logical page numbers.
* tweakable with respect to what kind of words get indexed, and what kind do not

One Image, One Audio Clip: One Movie?

furtive — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:59:06 -0800

How to make a video from an audio track for Youtube? I'm on a Mac, I'd like to make a video for Youtube that just shows an image for the duration of the video. iMovie is not playing along (limiting video to 4 seconds, wtf!)

How to control airfoil remotely, possibly on iphone?

joshgray — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:49:10 -0800

I know of only one app (remote buddy) that claims a plugin that would let you control airfoil on a mac remotely via an iphone but it does not work very well. Is anyone else doing this? Plan is to have a few airport express units in different rooms, and i would like a way to tell airfoil to switch between audio inputs (itunes, pandora, radioshark, etc) without going to the machine itself.

Latency? This. Is. Infiniteloop!

selfnoise — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:28:23 -0800

Help me try and fix my mother's weird internet/Mac Mini issue. So, my mother has a Mac Mini. This is one of the older PowerPC ones... no wireless. It's connected via a cat5 cable to a ZyXel wireless router, which is then connected to a DSL modem. The problem she has is a delay between requesting a webpage and having it start to load (in any web browser). Since I am a Windows user, I don't know much about Macs, so I am at a loss.

Pertinent factoids:

-When I go to dslreports.com and run a speed test, I get a latency of between 500-900ms, which seems really high.

-When I ping google.com from within OS X's network dialog, however, the latency looks normal.

-My netbook and another Windows PC can connect wirelessly without this issue. I also connected my netbook to the router using the same cat5 cable; no issue.

-I tried setting the DNS servers to opendns instead of the default; no change.

Apparently the system did not originally have this issue. Any ideas?

Cookies and Apple Juice

trueluk — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:47:58 -0800

I've been debating with myself for the last week or so about which Mac I should buy and when I should buy it. My brain could use a break from the back and forth, and that's why I'm asking for help. I recently sold my Asus laptop (offer was too good to refuse), and I've been computer-less now for about two weeks. I bought the Asus in December 2008, and during the six months I owned it, I rarely took it out of the house. This is partly due to the fact that I'm a programmer, work on a computer all day at work, and often have free time while there to do my 'browsing.' I don't have a current desktop computer, so anything I buy will be my main computer.

I like the idea of portability, but with a $2500 laptop I can't imagine I'd let myself take it out of the house during the first 6-12 months out of fear of breaking it.

I mention the MacBook Pro for $2,500 because the RAM is upgradable to 8gb in that model, and not in the $2,000 2.4ghz model. However, besides that fact, there is no other reason that I can think of for me to buy the $2,500 model (the extra vram is useless, minimal upgrade in processor speed, starts with 4gb RAM but I can upgrade the 2.4ghz model cheaply).

I've done a lot of thinking and have concluded that I could buy a 24" iMac (2.93ghz, 4gb ram, 512mb vram in the ATI card) for just over $1,800. And then also buy the smaller, 13" MacBook for just over a grand in a month or two if I feel like I need the portability. Or, I could buy a MacBook Pro now, and then buy an external display for that down the road if I feel like I need the screen space and am using the computer mostly at home. Those two options are practically identical in price when buying both components, however, in the first I'd have two computers, and in the second I'd have only one. I've also thought about buying a cheap netbook instead of a MacBook with the iMac, and that seems to make more sense financially.

The thing is though, money isn't an issue. But I am extremely cheap, and have a hard time making myself spend money in excess. And I have a history of being incredibly indecisive. Can anyone help me out here?

Oh, and should I wait until after the WWDC? What's the chance of Snow Leopard being released and for its distribution to start immediately? I don't want to buy a new computer and then have to upgrade the OS if I can help it.

A crash course in server administration

meowN — Sun, 31 May 2009 02:52:02 -0800

At work I'm jumping head first into trying to setup and manage a OS X Server to be used for network load balancing, routing, and possibly netbooting a group of machines. Any tips or help appreciated. I'm currently working retail at a computer sales store that also has an internet cafe of about 30 computers. I've asked for, and been given permission to play around with and attempt to configure, an OS X Server 10.5.7 running on a dual-processor G5 (with 5 ethernet ports, 2 for WAN and the other 3 for each subnet). I've never really used the mac os before, but have a few years of playing around with various linux distros as my desktop os.

For most of these questions I'm not needing direct answers even, I've really just been at a loss trying to find good online resources to read and put it all together. I really want to learn and get a grasp on what's going on, so even just links to reading to get me started would be excellent.

Issue 1: network load balancing. In the store we have two separate DSL lines coming in to serve the whole building. From what I've read so far, it seems that OSX doesn't have this functionallity built-in, and I'm at a loss as to where to start looking for a solution.

Issue 2: Routing. This one I feel like I've gotten really close and am just missing one last step. The goal here is to have DHCP and NAT running for 3 subnets; the tech/service area, the internet cafe, and our internal network. I have the DHCP/NAT/Firewall services all running, and dhcp is working properly giving each subnet an appropriate IP address, I'm able to ping the local server from a client machine, but it's not actually sharing the internet connection to any of the subnets. (Haven't had the chance to hook up a switch to any of the subnets yet either, so don't know if client machines would be able to see each other on the network as well.)

Hypothetical 1: netbooting for the 30+ computers in the internet cafe. As it is currently, the cafe has about 3 or 4 different models of computers all running windows xp. The problem is, they're all regular installations, so if during the course of a days use one gets a virus, we have to manually take a disk to the machine to re-image it. I'd like to set it up to where each machine could just load a fresh image off the network each morning and run like new. This I'm not familiar with at all, and don't even know if OSX can even netboot a WinXP machine.

Besides this there will probably be some basic file sharing and web hosting, but those seem pretty well documented and I'm not worried about getting that running.

So any tips, links, answers, or leads would be excellent. I'm hoping to get this machine configured and possibly even implemented into the network by the end of next week.

Newest Mac Mini a worthwhile upgrade?

Venadium — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:38:56 -0800

Would a new 2.26GHz Mac Mini be a worthwhile upgrade from my 2 year old Macbook Pro? I've got a 15" Macbook Pro that I bought in early 2007. It still runs fine, but it's starting to show its age. It's literally falling apart, needs a new battery, etc. I was considering spending the cash to get it fixed up, but then a friend of mine bought a new Mac Mini and it got me thinking...

I know it'll be faster than my Macbook Pro, at least I'd hope so, but I'm wondering if the difference is enough to make the upgrade worth it. The only resource-intensive things I use are Photoshop, sometimes Final Cut Pro, but mostly Nikon's Capture NX2 for editing RAW files.

Out of the box my friend's Mini seems really smooth, and one thing I noticed right away was that the newer video hardware handles Leopard's 3D dock better than my laptop's does, but I'm wondering how big the difference in overall performance will be once he's installed and running a bunch of applications.

I've also been considering just putting together an OSX-compatible machine of my own, but the convenience of just being able to go to the store and pick up a Mac Mini might just be enough to make me forget that idea. I don't know though. Help me out here, folks.

Do I need a new computer or do I have unreasonable expectations?

tehgeekmeister — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:27:20 -0800

Do I need a new macbook or am I expecting too much from my current one? I have a first edition macbook pro, (1,1), with the processor and ram upgrades, so 2gb ram and a 2.16ghz dual core processor. I've recently been having it hang irrecoverably as a result of running out of ram, and apparently I can't upgrade the ram any more on this model. As an example of what I'm doing when this happens, I was: 1) downloading stuff on itunes 2) syncing my ipod 3) backing up my system on mozy 4) downloading some torrents 5) browsing the web with too many tabs open in firefox (very possibly the culprit, I do try to avoid doing that) and 6) had a few other apps open in the background, but completely idle. I realize this is a lot to have going at once, but if a newer system can handle all that at once, it'd be worth it for me. My question is really, can a newer system with more ram manage that, or is this beyond the limits of osx or something like that?

Dual-Boot Blues

rtimmel — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 21:13:54 -0800

Has anyone installed OS X on a windows laptop? How does it compare to a Mac Book? Is it as stable and/or fast? I would like to put together a Windows/OS X dual-boot machine to take advantage of both operating systems and while it sounds good theoretically I an curious about how it works practically. (Plus, I would rather not pay Apple laptop prices)

Mac OSX right click/context menus and "create new document"

jmd82 — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:52:02 -0800

How do I make Mac OSX right click/context menus show "create new document" and other awesome options. I love and miss the Windows feature to create a new document from the context menu now that I use OSX. Is there any way to make OSX context menus within Finder utilize this useful feature? Or how can I customize the context menu in general?

This time with feeling

bytewrite — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:09:14 -0800

Can we talk seriously about Mac OSX security this time? In light of this comment it seems pretty clear to me that OSX is not just "inherently secure" which was pretty much the advice I got last time I posed this question.

If we are to believe mock and basically everyone in the previous thread the reason viruses don't exists in abundance now is simply because there aren't that many OSX boxes compared to Windows machines. The "do nothing" advice from the previous thread sounds like security through obscurity to me. Now it may be that there are no good security tools for OSX (other than ClamXav and Little Snitch which I already use) which is something else entirely but that is part of what I'm asking.

What I am looking for is advice on how to secure my box and any tools that will help with this. Advice like this article and specific software recommendations (or software to avoid) are what I'm looking for.

I know that there are very very few OSX viruses RIGHT NOW that is besides the point and not what I'm asking about. I'm a good driver and haven't been in a wreck. But guess what? I still wear my seat belt every time I get in the car.

So in short, how do I keep my OSX machine secure?

Two SMB shares with similar names. Why the trouble?

furtive — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:52:51 -0800

Two SMB shares on OSX with same/similar names causing big headaches. Is there a way to force mount points? I have the following two samba shares on OS X 10.5:

Filesystem                   Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on

//lamothec@devwebv/inetpub/  25Gi   17Gi  7.8Gi    69%    /Volumes/inetpub

//lamothec@prodweb/inetpub/  88Gi  8.7Gi   79Gi    10%    /Volumes/inetpub-1

They seem distinct enough from the command line, but when it comes to Finder/Desktop/Dreamweaver/TextMate all sorts of shenanigans occur, the most common being:

they both show up as "inetpub" (quick fix was to give them diff icons)

When Dreamweaver or TextMate save to the second inetpub (e.g. /Volumes/inetpub-1) it actual saves to the first one! (/Volumes/inetpub)

It's the second bug that's killing me the most. I'm guessing (unless you know of an easier solution) that there's a way to force the second drive to have a different mount name. If so please hope me!

HD animated maps for video?

nitsuj — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:54:58 -0800

What's the easiest way to create HD-quality (1080x) animated maps for use with video? iMovie '09 has the nifty little map feature, but I use Final Cut Express and don't want to plunk down the extra cash for another editor. Is there a similar -- perhaps a bit more professional and detailed -- solution for creating animated maps for importing into Final Cut Express?

Ideally this would be a standalone program that creates the maps and outputs them into a format that is easily ingested by Final Cut Express.

(Other details: Final Cut Express 4, OSX.5.6, 2.4GHZ MBP + 4gb RAM)

OS X 10.5.6 Dock remains hidden

the_binary_blues — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:20:33 -0800

I have OS X 10.5.6 and Logitech V470 bluetooth mouse. 1. When I hide the dock it stays hidden and there is no way for me to get the dock to reappear without turning off autohide 2. My courser works sporadically a. sometimes it will only work on some area's of the screen b. sometimes it won't recognize clicks Are these related? and can I fix this? will the plist file removal work?

my computer is:
I have a macbook 2.16GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo
with 2GB of SDRAM
running OS X 10.5.6

Protect me from evil

bytewrite — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:30:35 -0800

What security / anti-virus tools should I use to protect my Mac? Currently I'm only using the security updates Apple pushes out and Little Snitch.

I'm a relatively new OS X user so I'm not sure what is worth using and what isn't. Specific software recommendations are what I'm looking for. Free / open source is always preferred. But if something is really useful and well made (like Little Snitch) I don't mind paying.

My one software specific question would be what do you think of ClamXav?

I'm really not interested in safe browsing, phishing, etc. advice or discussions or of the superiority of various OSes security.

Thanks in advance, you are the best Ask.Meatfilter!

OS-X-like touchpad acceleration under Linux?

korpios — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:05:56 -0800

Is there any way to get the standard OS X touchpad acceleration curve working under Linux? I've tried messing with the "synaptics" driver settings many different ways, but nothing yielded anything close to what I was looking for. In the latest round of my seemingly annual experiment of running Ubuntu on my MacBook (rev 2,1), I was pleased to get most of the way towards a usable experience. I managed to get all of the important hardware bits working reasonably well; only two things kept me from considering a permanent switch this time: my iPhone (a subject for another discussion), and the touchpad.

I love my MacBook's touchpad under OS X. I haven't used a mouse in ages; the acceleration curve is perfect, IMHO. Under Linux, however, you get three settings: minimum speed, maximum speed, and acceleration factor. No combination of these yields a smooth-feeling touchpad experience; movements inevitably end up feeling either jumpy or ridiculously slow. It would appear that OS X is using a proper curve, whereas Linux is using a simple acceleration cutoff.

That said: has anyone had better luck with getting the touchpad to behave under Linux as it does under OS X?