macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

~Coxy posted:

Is it possible to turn off the "feature" where inactive apps are shut down but still look open?
It seems rather buggy to me and I have a good enough machine not to need it so I'd rather disable it entirely.

There's no good way to do it. You can edit the /Applications/[app]/Contents/Info.plist file, and add/modify the NSSupportsAutomaticTermination key with "NO" as the value, but you have to do it for each app that you think is problematic. (Do this on a copy of the app.)
This might solve it; apps can dynamically declare support for automatic termination, and this overrides the Info.plist value. If the app in question does that, you're out of luck.

Oh, and this will probably break some apps, especially if they're code-signed. Hence working on the copy.

withak posted:

What?

This.

Sonic Dude fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Apr 15, 2012

# ¿ Apr 15, 2012 04:05

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 11:14

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

~Coxy posted:

Thanks for that. Just editing TextEdit and Preview ought to be enough.

I think both of those opt-in dynamically, unfortunately. At least, the key isn't there on my copies, and yet they both seem to support automatic termination.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2012 04:24

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Mr. Onslaught posted:

That seems a lot more complicated than this

http://www.cultofmac.com/126621/how...e-folder-macrx/

I'm gonna try one of them right now, which one shall it be? Hopefully my potentially disastrous tinkering over something really trivial like the name of a folder is entertaining

Edit: Ok I just did the official one you linked using the root user, it took like 45 seconds and was completely painless, thanks. One weird thing, my home folder was def "Danny" before, but when I changed the home folder to the name I wanted the instructions said that everything had to be lowercase. Is that accurate?

Apple's article covers all of the strange possibilities for permissions issues, etc. You might not have needed to do the extra steps in there, but it doesn't hurt to have done them.

It's generally recommended to use all-lowercase characters in short names/Home directory names. However, I haven't seen software that has had a problem with mixed-case names in a long time.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2012 13:09

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Boris Galerkin posted:

I think there's something wrong with my Superdrive on my MBP and there aren't any Apple Stores hours from here. I've tried putting in two different audio discs and now an OS X SL "Applications Installation Disk" (which is a DVD?) and what happens is that it goes in, some noise gets made that sounds like it's being read, and then the disc ejects itself.

Is this something I can fix myself and how because really the closest Apple Store is like 4 hours away.

Call AppleCare, they'll send you a box and it'll go to the depot at a flat rate (provided it's not damaged).

# ¿ Apr 24, 2012 22:30

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Zenostein posted:

Unless I magically hosed it up, I can't. I could, in Snow Leopard. It's working now, the way it did previously, via some magical invisible "Default" profile (which somehow has the right protocol, username/pass &c.). I guess it's somehow reading this from my keychain?

Wifi:

Wifi Advanced, 802.1X tab:

Ethernet:

Ethernet Advanced, 802.1X tab:

As you can see, in neither connection may I add an 802.1X key. And clicking help just says "contact your sysadmin, and open the Config. Profile you got via web/e-mail. No provision for me inputting this myself, which is how the University does things/tells users to do things.

So it just works arbitrarily, I guess based on some magical repository where it is hiding my 802.1X key.

It's working because that setting was in there before you upgraded. New 802.1X settings have to come from .mobileconfig files, which can be created relatively easily with iPCU. I think the arbitrary-seeming restriction is Apple's way of getting people to switch away from MCX managed preferences and onto their new preferred device-management system.

# ¿ May 1, 2012 21:45

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Zenostein posted:

Also, thanks Sonic Dude. Once I figured out that the stupid thing actually chose to install to Utilities, rather than Applications or Developer, it was reasonably intuitive. So now: was that Profiles pref-pane always there, or is it there as a result of me making a profile and then importing it?

It's only there if you have profiles installed. I can't imagine the number of questions that would arise if it displayed all the time.

# ¿ May 1, 2012 23:07

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Xithyl posted:

I didn't get a OS disc with it, bought it used. I swear I used an online guide to make a bootable Lion disc, but that was ages ago and I have no idea where it is now.

Under Disk Utility, so pre-booting any partition, it shows Lion and allows me to 'Erase' it. Windows 7, however, gives me an error relating to mounting (I've tried mounting and unmounting) and says it's unable to erase and the data stays on. That's where I'm posting from now.

Edit: If it seems like I'm clueless, I am. Never had an issue like this with my MacBook before and usually on Windows it's as easy as grabbing my disc and reformatting. This is way different and I don't know how to do it (thought I did, but Disk Utility didn't work out for me, yet).

If it's a 2010 model with up-to-date firmware, or a 2011 model, you can hold Cmd-Shift-R at boot to do Internet Recovery. Then you can partition the drive with a single HFS+ and install Lion.

You'd need to be connected to the Internet via Ethernet, or have an open WiFi network around, however.

# ¿ May 2, 2012 15:08

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

I occasionally use ~/Applications for stuff that I want to sync between computers (either through mobile account syncing or just something like SugarSync). I'd rather not have everything in /Applications taking up space on an online service.

# ¿ May 2, 2012 18:21

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

flavor posted:

The thread disagreed with me so I'm going to argue semantics for several pages until everyone agrees with me! Foolproof!

Seriously, a cursory glance tells me that the thread as a whole isn't buying your "customers who want to use Windows and Mac computers together are unreasonable" crap, or really showing any interest in the entire argument between you two. I'll be honest, I stopped reading your posts after the first sentence of uninformed, defensive drivel - and I'd very much like them to stop making GBS threads up an otherwise cool thread, please.

Bob Morales posted:

It also inverted my display brightness and keyboard lighting.

That would drive me batshit insane. What machine?

Anyone try out 10.7.4 Server yet? I'm on vacation so I can't poke around with it too much until this weekend.

# ¿ May 10, 2012 04:39

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

mayodreams posted:

I have a VM at the office. Anything you want to look for in particular?

Mainly wondering what the new payloads/settings are in Profile Manager (come on, iCloud management...). I also am curious to know if you can change the hostname without breaking Profile Manager and requiring a teardown/re-configuration of the whole database.

Am I a nerd for wanting to go into the office and test that during vacation? I have a 10.7.3 server at home, but I'm not sure I'd want to sacrifice the house of cards that it is to find out.

# ¿ May 10, 2012 14:36

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Spectacular. Just updated to 10.7.4 on my laptop, and now I see "Wi-Fi: No hardware installed." Argh.

Windows 7 sees the AirPort card just fine, and it persists through all the normal PRAM/SMC reset stuff. Guess I've got a fun evening ahead of me.

# ¿ May 10, 2012 23:26

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Sonic Dude posted:

Spectacular. Just updated to 10.7.4 on my laptop, and now I see "Wi-Fi: No hardware installed." Argh.

Windows 7 sees the AirPort card just fine, and it persists through all the normal PRAM/SMC reset stuff. Guess I've got a fun evening ahead of me.

Update for anyone (no one?) who cares:

The combo updater worked fine, after I restored from a 10.7.3 TM backup. This is the second delta update in a row which has caused an issue necessitating a reinstall - strangely enough, my developer-build VM is just a clone of my main drive, and the prerelease updates seem to install just fine onto it.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of logic, besides "just use the combo updaters from now on." Perhaps I've angered a minor deity, or I need to enlist the help of a shaman.

# ¿ May 11, 2012 05:56

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

CaptainMidnight posted:

I've got two reinstall DVD's of Mac OS x 10.5 that are gray. Wouldn't they be for an iMac?

They would be for some specific computer - iMac or otherwise - if they're gray. It should say on the first disc what model it's for, and the build number can help lead you to the machine they were shipped with.

# ¿ May 11, 2012 23:04

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Shaocaholica posted:

Do I need to enable root user in 10.5 in order to use single user mode? Or can I just log into one of the admin accounts? I need to run memtest os x and the user guide says to log in as root in single user mode to have access to the most amount of memory. Not sure if the memory access restrictions are the same or not for admins vs root.

You don't log in as anyone in single-user mode. It's a partially-booted system, where you have access to stuff prior to user accounts and that whole framework being loaded.

Just boot to single-user mode (Cmd-S at startup) and that's it.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2012 15:16

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

As of like 3 days ago, Internet Recovery was still installing 10.7.3 for me. I have no idea what the App Store downloads.

I'm pretty sure the App Store downloads 10.7.4. Weird that Internet Recovery would still be 10.7.3.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2012 11:41

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

echobucket posted:

Is anyone concerned about the privacy implications of everyone dictating stuff to their computers and it sending that audio to a bunch of servers somewhere so it can "listen" to it and transcribe it? I guess dictation on iOS does the same thing, and you would think with all the paranoia about "being tracked" that happens today, I'm surprised there hasn't been a big stink about "Your iDevices are listening to you!"

I guess I just trust that Apple isn't going to be evil and isn't going to

a) Keep the recordings or the resultant text
b) Mine the recordings and text for stuff to sell to advertisers.

I guess I should go out and read the privacy policy but...

Siri can be disabled by device administrators through configuration profiles, so that solves a lot of the concern for corporations. For personal users, Apple's general idea has always seemed to be "if you don't like it, just don't use it."

# ¿ Jun 13, 2012 22:23

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

thegasman2000 posted:

Nope... But thats what they are on for whatever reasons they decided was a good idea.

Well that's insane. We basically say "no" to support on beta OSes (unless it's an existing client that we like, and even then it's best-effort). "It broke iPhoto" is a very good reason for production environments to use only production software.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2012 22:42

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Auron posted:

I'm possibly looking to sell my Early 2008 white Macbook, and was wondering if I absolutely have to put Leopard or Snow Leopard back on it to sell it? I know there is something in the license agreement about it, but does this mean that if the new owner wants to log in with their apple ID it won't work?

The reason I'm asking is because I didn't receive any recovery discs from the previous owner, and would have to purchase a Leopard or Snow Leopard disc to revert it back. I don't do anything important on this laptop so I don't NEED to format it.

Legally, the answer is likely to be "probably but maybe not." Ethically, it's up to you. Practically, no one will notice or care, and the new owner would not inherit your license to Lion so yes he'd need to buy it eventually.

You can get the original discs from AppleCare, an Apple Store, or an AASP if you're concerned.

And yes, you should wipe it before you sell it. It's better to give someone a machine that's at the setup assistant as well as clear out all of the stuff left on the drive so it can't be recovered. Don't go nuts; a single-pass zero is fine.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2012 17:31

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Bob Morales posted:

You can boot it single user then change some 'firstboot' file, and it will be like you just took it out of the box. I am on my phone or I would find the link for you.

If you don't really care about deleting the previous user account:

code:

mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
shutdown -r now

Otherwise just wipe it, it should only take 30-45 minutes.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2012 03:49

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Yeast posted:

GMs don't mean anything anymore.

The idea behind a GM at this stage in the computer industry is that it's the final code that will be distributed to users � so if a developer's app works with the GM, it will also work with the OS that everyone downloads later this month. No surprise changes, bugfixes that break little features, etc.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2012 03:56

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

Currently iWork doesn't work with Mountain Lion, so Apple has to do something.

It doesn't?

Nobody tell my laptop. :ohdear:

I finally got everything running smoothly in the GM, and iWork seems to be doing OK so far. I don't need it to quit working on me.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2012 22:21

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Experto Crede posted:

iWorks

That's right up there with "Mini Mac" and "Mac Air Book Pro" - just as grating to my internal monologue as it is to my ears.

I know, I know. :goonsay:

# ¿ Jul 11, 2012 22:38

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

The Macaroni posted:

Dumb Sharing question:

1. I shared my Mac Mini music folder on the network and made it public
2. I copied MP3s from my laptop into that folder
3. The individual files refuse to run, and copied folders say that I don't have privileges to access them

Everything works fine if I copy it over AirDrop. What did I do wrong?

Edit: I had it shared as Windows SMB, switching to AFP worked fine when copying from my MacBook. But I'd like to be able to copy files from a PC laptop as well. What should I do?

Permissions! Select the folder that contains the files (make sure it's just a folder of those files - not like your whole Home), choose Get Info, and make sure you're the owner with read/write privileges. Then click the gear and apply those permissions to that folder's contents.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2012 15:47

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Lance Rivers posted:

Question: My Mom gave me a used mac Laptop. I can't get it to start up. I can't sell a gift.

So now I have to put effort into trying to work with it.

It turns on, then goes to a screen with a flashing question mark and a folder, then a globe, then back to question mark, repeat, repeat...

If I press the option key early enough when I'm turning it on, I get a Lock on the screen, and a line for a password.

*sigh*

I do not know the password. Is there anyway to get around this, or do I have a fancy white brick?

To get rid of the password: change the amount of RAM (add/remove something). On the first boot, hold down Command-Option-P-R and wait for a few boot chimes. Password should be gone.

The question mark thing is probably either a corrupted OS or a bad hard drive.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2012 14:43

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Moeru posted:

Doesn't seem to be working. Latest build of lion. Tried on Evernote, Alfred and Mozy

Apps ≠ menu extras.

Menu extras are from (unsurprisingly) .menuextra files, and are things like Wi-Fi, Sound, Time Machine, etc. Those can be command-dragged off of the menu bar.
Apps cannot be dragged off (unless they use a .menuextra to put themselves there). Most of the time, as Gordon Cole said, there's a setting to remove the icon in the app's preferences.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2012 21:47

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

frrtbkr posted:

Bartender is free while in beta:
http://www.macbartender.com/

Holy poo poo, that's awesome. I have at least 15 icons up there at work and it drives me mildly insane.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2012 04:40

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

You Am I posted:

Welp, back to Super Duper for me

CCC is worth every cent of ~~$40~~ $30 on sale. Years of getting it for free (unless you donated) was quite a bonus.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2012 03:24

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

fleshweasel posted:

It's probably worth it if you are a computer janitor and clone drives every day. It is probably not worth it if you just bought an SSD and want to transfer your poo poo one time.

So use the 30 days you get for free. That should hopefully cover your single use, unless you have an inconceivable amount of data that takes ≥31 days to clone.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2012 05:06

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Binary Badger posted:

Mike Bombich has also tirelessly updated CCC for years, listens to users complaints, and has been great about supporting the drat thing essentially for free; for all the times CCC saved my bacon I thought it was only fair to throw some back at him (I bought it.)

This is the main point to take away from the discussion.

I also don't know of any application in which you can do a file-level clone, and it moves the recovery partition too. If you're moving to an images or a non-HFS+ drive, it images the partition and throws it in /Library/something/, then automatically puts it back in place when you restore. Pretty awesome, especially if you're buying a new HDD or SSD and want to have the Recovery HD on the new drive as well.

Commercial licenses are expensive, but (again) are worth every penny.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2012 16:59

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Kristneder posted:

So it was Crashplan that caused all these problems. The mac also crashed if I switched from the 330M to the integrated graphics card (Open Chrome then quit Chrome caused the screen to go black with some artifacts in the upper left corner). So for now, I'll have to do without Crashplan :-/

Anyone else having problems with Crashplan after installing ML?

It's been doing fine for me. Reinstall?

# ¿ Jul 28, 2012 22:22

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Captain Geech posted:

For future reference:

mount -uw
chflags 0 /Volumes/"name of disk"
chown 0:80 /Volumes/"name of disk"
chmod 1775 /Volumes/"name of disk"
chmod -N /Volumes/"name of disk"

That's actually good to know. We've had a couple of customers do similar things, and generally we just chmod -r 777 /, then reinstall the OS, then repair the home directory ACLs. It takes a little while, but it's always done OK.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2012 04:14

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

scottus posted:

I'm not too thrilled about my software updates going through Mac App Store. Well, at least when I check for updates from here by clicking the "Check Now" button, it goes to the App Store. The old software update thing wasn't great, but I liked it better than this. Do you guys like this switch?

Just be nerdy/lazy like me. Edit the sudoers file and add:

code:

yourusername   ALL= NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/softwareupdate

Then make an AppleScript app with:

code:

do shell script "sudo softwareupdate -ia"

Then start it when you go to bed or leave the office or whatever.

And don't do it unless you know the implications of allowing a particular user to run a particular command as root without authorization.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2012 06:42

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

neolithic posted:

So Gestures are breaking on sleep, as well as the Dock at least half the time. I have to force quit Dock in Activity Monitor to get things appearing/disappearing properly. I updated rather than clean installing.

Any fixes out for these yet or do I have to gently caress about clean installing to make it go away?

First, just try reinstalling over what's there. That fixed some issues for a few of our machines at work.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2012 14:19

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

pupdive posted:

Has the App Store made any of that less of a hassle or does it end up being even more of a hassle than the iTunes Stuff?

I think you're going to have to be more specific about what you want to know. "more of a hassle than the iTunes stuff" doesn't help us know exactly what you mean when you say "experiences with getting locked out of [iPod touch] apps."

To sort of answer your question, I've had zero problems with the App Store. You buy the app, it goes in your Applications folder, and you do whatever you want with it. Everyone with read/execute access to /Applications (or wherever you feel like moving the app) can use it.

Sonic Dude fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Aug 9, 2012

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 18:58

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Halloween Jack posted:

Um, I downloaded and installed Lion and it automatically updated to Mountain Lion, which I can't use for work. Command+R doesn't work, so can anyone tell me how to reinstall it and keep it from automatically updating to the latest version? Apologies if this should've gone in HoTS, but it seemed too minor.

I'm confused. Lion and Mountain Lion are separate products, and you would have had to buy Mountain Lion before upgrading to it. Are you sure you didn't buy Mountain Lion by mistake?

# ¿ Sep 7, 2012 18:56

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

Jolan posted:

Didn't the last few versions of Bootcamp provide drivers to write to HFS drives from Windows? Whenever I try it, I get an error about not having the correct permissions (doesn't matter if it's an internal or external HFS drive).

No, read-only for HFS non-Core Storage volumes.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2012 20:03

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

evol262 posted:

That's correct, though it could also run over Ethernet. Duck may be wrong (and confusing it with afpd), but AppleTalk support can still be explicitly enabled in netatalk, and he may have.

AFP can also run over AppleTalk.

AFP is the presentation/application layer protocol, for file sharing amongst Macs (et al.). AppleTalk itself was a suite of protocols that was relatively independent of other networking schemas at the time. It could run over Ethernet (which could - and frequently did, as time went on- carry AppleTalk at the same time as TCP/IP) or Token Ring, but in its relative heyday it was usually carried over LocalTalk.

AppleTalk hasn't been supported by any modern OS since its removal from OS X back in 2009 (and even then, support for AppleTalk-only servers died in 2005). If you're using AFP in these modern times (which is sometimes [incorrectly] referred to as AppleTalk), you're using AFP over TCP.

:eng101:

# ¿ Oct 3, 2012 22:56

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

evol262 posted:

Ok; if things that run netatalk (Solaris, AIX, *BSD, Linux, probably OSX, ironically) don't count as "any modern OS". While I realize that AppleTalk itself is a suite of protocols with the same relation to TCP/IP as IPX, I was not misspeaking when I said that Duck could still quite literally be running AppleTalk. Even an "AppleTalk-only" server (really, TCP, but you're not required to present anything over TCP with netatalk either).

AFP != AppleTalk. AppleTalk is still supported by netatalk. Duck is running netatalk. Says he's running AppleTalk. Unlikely, but plausible.

Nothing is accessing the AFP shares through AppleTalk. They're only using TCP. Not only do the clients probably not support it (provided they're not PPC Macs with 10.3 or earlier) but the current version of afpd (in netatalk) uses AFP 3.3, which is TCP-only.

Don't get your panties in a wad. I posted that information to provide an explanation, not as the directed personal attack you assume it was.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2012 01:51

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

IUG posted:

I was thinking about that bundle for Sam and Max and the Strongbad games, but I wish they could be in Steam.

Huh? They both say "this app is redeemed via Steam."

# ¿ Oct 19, 2012 03:19

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 11:14

Sonic Dude: May 6, 2009

dexter6 posted:

Advice Needed

I'm getting a divorce and need to get my Wife's poo poo off the iMac (that I'm keeping) and on to an external drive she can use with her MBA.

I know all of her music, movies, TV shows and apps are in iTunes, so I know I move the library to an external drive pretty easily. Same with iPhoto. However, she has tons of poo poo strewn about her user folder and would need all of that as well. If I move the iTunes and iPhoto libraries to the external drive (move, not copy), can I then just copy her user folder to the external drive as well? I'd hate for her stuff in the user folder to be on lock down or some usable format.

Any concerns with this?

Once you move the stuff, open Terminal and run this:

code:

sudo chmod -R 777 <drag the folder on the external here>

Don't forget the space between 777 and dragging the folder, and only drag the folder from the external drive, not the internal.

Or just copy stuff over and let her figure out the permissions bullshit. That's what I did when I copied my now-ex-wife's stuff to a drive.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2012 22:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

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