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Mac Airport Utility

Kurt Wolf — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:02:11 +0000

I needed a quick way to check the type of connection I had running. After a quick Google, I found that the MacOS has the utility, it just needs to be tweaked a little.

Open terminal and create a link to the utility.

1	sudo ln -s /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport /usr/sbin/airport

Now that the utility is available, run airport -I for all of your wireless information.

Sonicwall NetExtender and Snow Leopard

Kurt Wolf — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:47:43 +0000

Seems like pppd is no longer setuid anymore. To correct this, fire up terminal and enter the following:

1	sudo chmod u+s /usr/sbin/pppd

This will enable NetExtender to once again work its magic.

Snow Leopard – 64bit

Kurt Wolf — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:14:11 +0000

Looks like Snow Leopard does not boot into a 64bit kernel by default. There are a couple of ways to get some 64bit goodness.

Boot Keyboard Shortcut

Hold down the ’6′ and ’4′ keys while you are booting. Conversly, you can boot into 32bit by holding down the ’3′ and the ’2′ keys.

NVRAM setting

Set a nvram setting to boot into 64bit.

nvram boot-args="arch=x86_64"

Apple Configuration File

Set to Apple configuration file to boot into 64bit by editing /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<  !DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
< plist version="1.0">
< dict>
	< key>Kernel< /key>
	< string>mach_kernel< /string>
	< key>Kernel Flags< /key>
	< string>arch=x86_64< /string>
< /dict>
< /plist>

Mac OS 10.5.6

Kurt Wolf — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:15:22 +0000

An update is available now only through Apple Software Update. As of right now, download was not found on the apple.com website.

Mac OS X 10.5: Quick launch Front Row

Kurt Wolf — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:43:17 +0000

Pressing Apple-Esc will launch Front Row. Pretty slick!

Mac OS X 10.5: Hide the Time Machine drive

Kurt Wolf — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:33:11 +0000

I have two drives on my Mac and I wanted to hide the Time Machine drive. I have no need to access this drive and I wanted a cleaner desktop. I found some information online that lead me to a good method to perform the task.

Open the Finder preference window and uncheck the box “Hard disks” in the “Show these items on the Desktop:”

This will hide all of the drives on your system. To create a link to your Mac hard drive, we will create a symbolic link on your desktop to the mounted volume location. This is much simpler than that sounded.

Fire up the terminal and enter the following command…

ln -s /Volumes/Leopard ~/Desktop/Leopard

Of course, you should change “Leopard” to the name of your hard drive. If you have spaces in your hard drive name, include the operands in single quotes. For example…

ln -s '/Volumes/My Computer' '~/Desktop/My Computer'

This is a per user setting.

Many thanks to Zoomie on InsanelyMac for the idea!

http://tinyurl.com/yqpzl2

Mac OS X 10.5: Unable to eject (unmount) a disk image

Kurt Wolf — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:23:12 +0000

I have come acros a rather annoying bug in 10.5. It seems that when a disk image (DMG) is mounted, the finder is unable to eject (dismount) the image. I have tried both Apple+E as well as dragging the disk to the trash. Both methods were unsuccessful. The disks can be ejected using the Disk Utility application. See the following URL’s for an ongoing discussion.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1198385&stqc=true

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5677911

Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Help Menu

Kurt Wolf — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:23:39 +0000

I noticed an interesting little feature in the help menu. A search is now integrated directly into the menu. I’m sure this will be nice for those people who RTFM. This seems to be present in every application.

PHP version for Mac OS X 10.5

Kurt Wolf — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:41:32 +0000

I have been spending the evening looking at my fresh install of Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). It looks like PHP version 5.2.4 is installed by default. As of today, this is the latest version available. So far, the built in web server is not processing .php pages. I’ll look into that next.

UPDATE: Upgrading to 10.5.1 has resolved the issues displaying PHP pages.

Cingular/AT&T GPRS Bluetooth Internet Access

Kurt Wolf — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:35:13 +0000

I have given up on the Aircard when I switched to using a Mac at work. So, for remote Internet access, I configured my Mac to use my Treo 750. The entire setup is utilizing bluetooth. It took bit of Googling to find the right information.

Here is the outline…

Download the modem script file
Copy the modem script file to “Macintosh HD > Library > Modem Scripts”
Pair your Mac with your Treo 750
When setting up the internet connection, choose the modem script you downloaded and installed
Disable “Wait for dial tone before dialing” in the Bluetooth Modem options (System Preferences)
oh, you are done!

There is no need for user names or passwords or even a phone number. The modem script takes care of everything for you.

Download Modem Script

UPDATE

I got a comment pretty quickly about the script not working. There is one thing that I did have to change. Disable having the modem waiting for dial tone. I also including ome screen shots to see if these help as well.