iPhone ... cannot be synced (error 13014)

The iPhone ... cannot be synced.
An unknown error occurred (13014).

This occurred after the iTunes 8.01 (11) update. Restarting the Mac seems to cure it.

iPhone Screen Capture

To screen grab: While holding the Home button, click the on/off/lock button.

You will find an image file among your photos. Download it to iPhoto. Export as PNG, TIFF or JPEG.

VPN on iPhone L2TP/IPsec

Settings > VPN > Add VPN configuration...

To connect to vpn2.net.ed.ac.uk ...

Account

<your UUN>

Password

<your EASE password>

Secret

<find it here>
No cheating in the library!

Save

ENTITY &mdash;(X)HTML entities in XML for XSLT

You can use character entities in your XML provided you declare them.

Add a DOCTYPE to your XML — all you need is the name of your root tag (my document in the example below is a recipe) and a reference to the special character sets you want.

for example

XML-compatible ISO Special Character Entity Set for XHTML

— including lt gt mdash quot euro

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<!DOCTYPE recipe [
       <!ENTITY % xhtml-special
           PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES Special for XHTML//EN"
       "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-special.ent" >
       %xhtml-special;
]>
<recipe>
  ...
</recipe>

other standard character sets

You can add more declarations to the DOCTYPE mdash just add them between the square brackets [...]

XML-compatible ISO Latin 1 Character Entity Set for XHTML

— fractions, accented characters, pound, yen, cent, copy

       <!ENTITY % xhtml-lat1
           PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES Latin 1 for XHTML//EN"
       "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-lat1.ent" >
       %xhtml-lat1;

ISO Math, Greek and Symbolic Character Entity Set for XHTML

       <!ENTITY % xhtml-symbol
           PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES Symbols for XHTML//EN"
       "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-symbol.ent" >
       %xhtml-symbol;

Printing in the Forum

Updated for Snow Leopard 2009-10-21.

The print-server address is printif.inf.ed.ac.uk

You can look up the available printers with the DICE command printers
[tammy]mfourman: printers
if213m0 HP 4100DTN - IF213
if237c0 Canon iRC3080i multi-function device in IF237
if313m0 HP8150DN - IF313
if336c0 Canon iRC3080i multi-function device in IF336
if413m0 HP8150DN - IF413
if435c0 Canon iRC3080i multi-function device in IF435
if536c0 Canon iRC3580i multi-function device in IF536


You should install and select the Canon iR C3080/3480/3580 PPD Canon UFR_II_V200_MacOSX_us_EN.dmg File for Mac OS X for the multi-function (scan-print-copy) Canon devices.

You probably already have the HP drivers. If the configuration is not attached to the printer, you can print it using the printer's menu buttons.

Safari 4 beta scores 100/100 on acid3

Update 2009-02-24 This is now a public beta from Apple.

If you are registered as an ADC member (go to http://developer.apple.com/ then to the ADC member site link to register for free), you can now download the Safari 4 Developer Preview.

This this is very fast and very compliant: 100/100 on the Acid3 test. (Firefox 3.0.5 scores 71/100.)

First Direct online banking now works fine (and fast).

Starting over: MacPorts

As a long-term Fink user, I've found it hard to summon up the energy to move to Macports (previously known as Darwin Ports), until now. A dead disk provided the necessary impetus to overcome this energy barrier.

MacPorts—so I am told by friends I trust—is closer to the Mac zeitgeist, and has more packages available in fresher versions.

My first experience was not good. I tried the standard install from .dmg with two fresh, fully updated installs of Leopard + x11 + XCode Tools—one on my ageing MBP; one on a sparking new MacBook Air. Neither succeeded in creating the code>.profile that is supposed to adjust the PATH environment variable.

You should start with a standard install as it does almost everything—and may even do it all, for some it succeeds.

In the environment of a shell accessing packages installed by MacPorts, PATH should include /opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin and MANPATH should include /opt/local/share/man. The standard install is meant to create a .profile to achieve this. It didn't.

Googling macports leopard profile led to various suggestions (as usual, others have encountered this problem before me). One of these works—others don't.

Do not add the new paths to /etc/paths and /etc/manpaths.

Do not add new files named macports or MacPorts, containing the new paths, to /etc/paths.d/ and /etc/manpaths.d/.

Do create a file ~/.profile containing the following code:

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
export MANPATH=/opt/local/share/man:$MANPATH

Then you can type sudo port -d update in a fresh terminal window, to update your MacPorts installation, and sudo port install emacs-app, for example, to install a Cocoa version of emacs.

You'll find the Emacs installed as a regular application in /Applications/MacPorts/.

Note: If you already have a .bash_profile or .bash_login, you can and should append the commands above to that file, and optionally rename rename that file as .profile, instead of creating a new .profile.

Explanation: (for the full story try man bash)

When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-inter-active shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable.

Fixing mail.app’s IMAP date problem

Using imapsync to migrate mail from one IMAP server to another, I hit a problem. Google led me to the following description of the same issue:

The IMAP Date problem is the result of how mail.app figures out the Date Received time for an email. Rather than using the Date: header in the email it uses the time the file was written to the file system. This becomes a problem when files are copied to a new location on the server and the creation time of the file is changed.

Not mail.app's problem!

The solution is to use imapsync with the flag --syncinternaldates

I am now using

/usr/bin/imapsync --syncinternaldates \
     --host1 mail.inf.ed.ac.uk --user1 mfourman --ssl1 \
     --host2 imap.staffmail.ed.ac.uk --user2 mfourman -ssl2 \
     --noauthmd5

to finish the transfer of about 4GB of mail history.

To start, try it out on a small folder --folder Test

First test with --dry :

/usr/bin/imapsync --syncinternaldates  --folder Test \
     --host1 mail.inf.ed.ac.uk --user1 mfourman --ssl1 \
     --host2 imap.staffmail.ed.ac.uk --user2 mfourman -ssl2 \
     --noauthmd5 --delete --dry

If everything looks OK then run

/usr/bin/imapsync --syncinternaldates  --folder Test \
     --host1 mail.inf.ed.ac.uk --user1 mfourman --ssl1 \
     --host2 imap.staffmail.ed.ac.uk --user2 mfourman -ssl2 \
     --noauthmd5 --delete

Expunge from the source by hand (in Mail.app Mailbox > Erase Deleted Messages).

Using the --expunge flag upsets other users of the IMAP server:

Currently it is processing folder which is 100MB in size, it is deleting (and then expunging) one message at a time. The way that is implemented on the server, is that the message is deleted, and then the whole file is written out again with that one message removed. This is leading to a lot of disk IO.

That's the short story. The actual story was more involved and also included using my gmail IMAP account as a temporary buffer to recover from some false starts. (Free 6.5GB quota - thank you Google!)

Opaque Leopard Menu Bar

Many find the translucent menu bar in Leopard disconcerting. There are several tips posted elsewhere suggesting various hacks involving obscure environment variables to turn off this feature.

Apple did it for you! (since 10.5.2)

Go to System Preferences > Desktop and Screen Saver. Uncheck the Translucent Menu Bar checkbox. You're done!

emacs: Fatal malloc_jumpstart() error

Emacs fails with the error Fatal malloc_jumpstart() error

Black Magic

In a Terminal window type

$ sudo mv /usr/bin/emacs-i386 /usr/bin/emacs-i386.backup
$ sudo /usr/libexec/dumpemacs -d
$ emacs --version
GNU Emacs 22.1.1
...

(Here, $ is the shell prompt.)

Once youve checked all is OK you can remove the backup

$ sudo rm /usr/bin/emacs-i386.backup

Time Capsule

Setup

Time Capsule is an airport extreme base station (802.11 a, b, g, n) with built-in hard drive for backup.

You set up the base station as usual, using AirPort Utility.

You can use your old base station to create a WDS network and extend your wifi coverage to attic or garden – or share with a neighbor. In any case, APPL say, you should make the Time Capsule your main base station – the one directly connected to your ISP.

If you just have 802.11n-capable access points you can let your network autoconfigure. Choose a common Network Name, Wireless Security and Password. Under Airport > Wireless set the main base station to Create a wireless network; set the other base stations to Extend a wireless network.

A domestic ISP typically gives you internet access via a single IP address. Depending on your ADSL or cable hardware you have various options for setting up your system to distribute local IP addresses to clients on your local network.

My ADSL modem is a speedtouch router. It provides a DHPC server with optional MAC authentication. WDS setup is simple: each base station is configured to get its own IP address as a DHCP client, and to act as a bridge passing wifi client traffic to and from the ADSL modem.

If your ADSL or cable modem isn't set up as a DHCP server, you can get the Time Capsule (or any Airport base station) to do this. Set the main base station to "Share a public IP Address" (under Internet).

If your modem provides a range of addresses that clients can select manually, you can set the main base station to distribute these. Select "Distribute a range of IP addresses."

Backup

Time Machine sometimes gets confused and can't mount the backup disk. Apple say the volume name should be shorter than 27 characters. Elsewhere they say it should be purely alphanumeric [0-9,a-z,A-Z]*

Extreme 7.3.1 firmware update

All went smoothly, but now my remote base stations (I have a WDS daisy chain 4 links long - see earlier post) don't show in Airport Utility. Still connected - I can ping them just fine, and the remote airTunes express shows up in iTunes.

Update this seems to have been a temporary problem. Everything is now visible again.

All my airports (7 at last count) are configured in bridge mode - my speedtouch adsl modem router provides a DHCP server. On the bright side, this update seems to have helped with one issue: the 802.11n extremes now seem to pick up an IP address from my router using DHCP (previously I found this didn't work and had set manual IP addresses as a work-around).

application/x-mplayer2 plugin

Problems with BBC radio-player?

You need the Flip4Mac internet plugin. Download it free from microsoft. Use the "customize" button when installing to select the browser plugin.

Uninstall SPSS

installer tells me that a there is still a previous version of SPSS 16 on my mac

SPSS is great, but ...

The Mac install is clunky. If you've aborted an install and want to start again, or you just want to get some space free, you have to remove the old installation.

You've removed all files and directories matching *spss* (and, for good measure, youve also tried *SPSS*), and you can't start again because the installer complains that you haven't removed a previous installation.

remove InstallShield (probably sitting in your home directory) and start again!

If you want to get rid of an older version, and you haven't yet started, use the uninstaller installed with SPSS,

SPSS know about the problem

They say:

Problem Subject: Trying to install SPSS 16 for the Mac yields an error message that there is already a previous flavor

Problem Description: I am trying to re-install SPSS 16 for the Macintosh and I am unable to do so because during the installation I am met with an error message telling me that there is already a previous flavor of SPSS on this machine and that it must be removed before a new install can take place. What is the reason for this message and how can I resolve this so that I can install SPSS 16 for the Macintosh?

Resolution Subject: Completely remove the previous installation of SPSS 16 from this machine

Resolution Description: The reason this is happening is that the previous installation of SPSS 16 for the Macintosh was not uninstalled correctly. If you merely trashed the application folder then SPSS 16 was not uninstalled. The uninstall function is found with the SPSS 16 applcation in the 'Applications' folder. In order to resolve this issue if SPSS 16 is not removed through the uninstall process please go into the 'Users' folder on the main operating systems hard drive. In here you should find a house with your login name on it and you should go into this item. In this house (folder), please trash the following:

~/initspssmac

~/InstallShield (directory, remove the whole thing)

~/Library/Preferences/com.spss.spss for mac.plist

Now empty your trash. Now you will be able to re-install SPSS 16 for the Macintosh.

free iPhone SDK

Apple say:

``Start your development today with the free iPhone SDK ...''

... not quite: this is a 2.1GB download, and it looks as though AAPL wasn't ready for the demand. Currently at 7% after seven hours, and just picking up speed (presumably as the US goes to sleep): occasional bursts of action, but still very slow—10 hours to go...

Wireless Woes

Strange behaviour: Everything was fine, working with my MBP on a multi-AP WDS network of new Airport Extreme base stations; move to another floor, just next to an AP, can't see the signal, or rather I see it fleetingly, get asked for password, then it disappears. My first conclusion is that the AP must be caput, but back upstairs, where I started, I now see no signal.

Another laptop can see the signal fine. I try manually changing network setup, restart, shutdown, even taking out the battery then restart. Still no wifi connection. I conclude that the wifi card in my laptop must be damaged, or at least have a dodgy aerial connection.

Back at home I still have the same problem—and neither Airport Utility, nor iStumbler can see the signal either. I think I'll try looking at the wifi card.

To check on how to do that I need to get online. So I find an ethernet cable and connect a LAN port on one of my base stations. I'm now online, as expected, but I didn't expect to see Airport Utility and iStumbler burst into life just because I made a wired connection. Everything looks normal, and Network preferences now says I have a wireless connection.

I unplug the ethernet cable, and everything stays fine; back to normal. I don't pretend to understand why.

update

It happened again!

Same symptoms - persisting across two different WDS networks.

Again, recovery coincided with my decision to give up hope and use a wired connection to my base station.

Crazy!

AJAX demystified: import xml

Here's the barebones of a javascript function that will request xml from a url configured to return xml (text/xhtml+xml or application/xml for example) and then asynchronously add a selected fragment of the returned xml as a child of some node on your page; this target node is selected by id.

function getXML(url, toGet, id){ 
  var request = new window.XMLHttpRequest();
   // for IE use ActiveXObject instead

  function load(){
      var content, node;
      if(request.readyState == 4 &&
         request.status == 200){
         content = document.adoptNode(
           request.responseXML.getElementById(toGet));
         node = document.getElementById(id);
         node.appendChild(content);
    } // should handle null response or failure
  }

  if(request){
      request.open("POST", url, true);
      request.setRequestHeader("Accept","application/xml");
      request.onreadystatechange=load;
      request.send(null);
  }// else ...
}

This will work on a gecko browser, if you have everything set up properly. You'll have to expand it to make it robust, as per the comments (and more).

Example xhtml to call this:

<div id="putInfoHere" />
<span class="button" 
  onmouseup='javascript:getXML(
    "http://my.site.net/contact.xhtml",
    "address",
    "putInfoHere");'>Get Info</span>

The file contact.xhtml should have an element such as <div id="address">...</div> with the matching id. This will be harvested. The clever part is that the harvested code still lives in the correct namespace. So imported markup is correctly interpreted as xhtml.

Make sure files are served with an appropriate mime-type. With apache you can do this using .htaccess :

AddType application/xhtml+xml .xhtml

A future post will have more, on how to send text or xml data to a script using httpRequest with POST instead of GET.

AJAX demystified: import text; async cgi

Here's the barebones of a javascript function that will request text from a url configured to return text (text/plain or text/plain for example) and then asynchronously put the returned text into a textarea element (or any other element with a value field) on your page; this target element is selected by id.

function getText(url, id){ 
  var request = new window.XMLHttpRequest();
  // for IE use ActiveXObject instead

  function load(){
    if(request.readyState == 4 &&
         request.status == 200){
      document.getElementById(id).value
        = request.responseText;
  // should handle null response or failure
  }}

  if(request){
      request.open("GET", url, true);
      request.setRequestHeader("Accept","text/*");
      request.onreadystatechange=load;
      request.send(null);
  } // else ...
}

This will work on a gecko browser, if you have everything set up properly. You'll have to expand it to make it robust, as per the comments (and more).

Example html and javascript to call this (note how the call uses the id of the textarea):

<textarea id="putInfoHere" />
<span class="button" 
  onmouseup='javascript:getText(
    "http://my.site.net/info.txt",
    "putInfoHere");'>Get Info</span>

Make sure text files are served with an appropriate mime-type. With apache you can do this using .htaccess :

AddType text/plain .txt

You can replace info.txt with a cgi script that produces a header and info on stdout. For example (with otherwise pointless sleep to demonstrate asynchrony), put the following mydate.cgi in a cgi-enabled directory:

#!/bin/sh
echo "Content-type: text/plain\n"
date
sleep 2
date

Change the URL in your html accordingly, and make sure your script is executable chmod +x mydate.cgi

A future post will have more, on how to receive xml instead of text and how to send text or xml data to a script using httpRequest with POST instead of GET.

Mac OS X 10.5: Web Sharing - "Forbidden 403"

In what follows, substitute your short username for myshortname

Create the file
/etc/apache2/users/myshortname.conf
containing the following text:

<Directory "/Users/myshortname/Sites/">
Options Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

Set the group and owner as follows:
sudo chown root:wheel /etc/apache2/users/myshortname.conf

Restart apache by switching Web Sharing off then on in System Preferences.

Block Microsoft messenger on Speedtouch router

Blocking tcp traffic from two ranges of IP addresses on ports 80 and 1863 prevents MSN messengerlogin and initialisation.

You can input the following via telnet login to your speedtouch (telnet -l <user> 10.0.0.138) for temporary use—to revert to saved configuration use system reboot, save or add it to the firewall section of user.ini for a permanent block. (View source to see lines split here.)

firewall chain create chain=nomsn

firewall rule create chain=nomsn prot=tcp srcport=1863 src=65.52.0.0/14 action=drop
firewall rule create chain=nomsn prot=tcp srcport=1863 src=207.46.0.0/16 action=drop

firewall rule create chain=nomsn prot=tcp srcport=80 src=65.52.0.0/14 action=drop
firewall rule create chain=nomsn prot=tcp srcport=80 src=207.46.0.0/16 action=drop

firewall assign hook=input chain=nomsn

exit

See CLI reference for your model.

* 
*                             ______ 
*                         ___/_____/\
*                        /         /\\ Alcatel, Speed Touch 510 ADSL modem
*                  _____/__       /  \\ 
*                _/       /\_____/___ \   Version R3.7.2.1 
*               //       /  \       /\ \ 
*       _______//_______/    \     / _\/______ Copyright (c) 1999-2001 Alcatel 
*      /      / \       \    /    / /        /\
*   __/      /   \       \  /    / /        / _\__ 
*  / /      /     \_______\/    / /        / /   /\
* /_/______/___________________/ /________/ /___/  \ 
* \ \      \    ___________    \ \        \ \   \  /
*  \_\      \  /          /\    \ \        \ \___\/
*     \      \/          /  \    \ \        \  /
*      \_____/          /    \    \ \________\/
*           /__________/      \    \  /
*           \   _____  \      /_____\/
*            \ /    /\  \    /___\/
*             /____/  \  \  /
*             \    \  /___\/
*              \____\/
*

ClamAV an open-source anti-virus toolkit

Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV) is an open-source anti-virus toolkit for UNIX, released under GPL. It provides a number of utilities including a flexible and scalable multi- threaded daemon, a command line scanner and advanced tool for automatic database updates. The core of the package is an anti-virus engine available in a form of shared library.

ClamAV is included in both Fink and DarwinPorts, or can be downloaded directly from sourceforge

Configuration

You have to edit the configuration files. See the manual pages for details:

man freshclam.conf
man clamd.conf

You have to edit both files. On a Fink install, you'll find them in /sw/etc/. For other setups, locate clam.conf should find them.

Programs

clamconf -n tells you what non-defaults are set in your configuration.
clamscan -r directory recursively scans a directory.
freshclam updates your virus definitions.

man clamconf
man clamdscan
man clamscan
man freshclam

I added the following line to /sw/etc/anacrontab

   1       25        clamscan         nice /sw/bin/freshclam -quiet

When you check your imported software (for a Fink installation, do this by running the command sudo clamscan -r /sw) you should find a few ''infected'' files. For example:
/sw/src/clamav-0.91.2.tar.gz: ClamAV-Test-File FOUND
There are a few more examples in /sw/share/doc/clamav/test/. If you don't find these test cases, check your configuration.

The malware I have found is exclusively in spam mail and cached java applets.

clamdscan ˜/Library/Caches/Java\ Applets
clamdscan ˜/Library/mail\ Downloads

You can remove offending files by hand, or use the --remove option when calling clamdscan.

X11 on Leopard

X11.app won't launch for me - a quick google tells me that others have the same problem.

The idea under Leopard is that X11 will launch automatically as required, so just typing xterm in a Terminal window will launch a xterm window.

But for me this didn't work, since I had set DISPLAY = 0:0

To check, type echo $DISPLAY if the response is 0:0 (as you might expect) you need to remove the entry for DISPLAY from environment.plist (double-click on the file and the property list editor should open). On the other hand something bizarre:

mfourman$ echo $DISPLAY
/tmp/launch-SKAysC/:0

seems to be fine!

Note that some applications may set the DISPLAY variable on startup. I had to retire sshLogin (a Mac port of sshAskPass) because it insists on doing this. So I'm back to using ssh-add from the terminal to set up my ssh identity before launching xterm.

Connecting via ssh from the xterm then sets up an X11 connection so that remote X applications can use your Mac screen. Use ssh -X to forward X11 connections, or set this up, for hosts you trust, in your ssh configuration.

Your ssh configuration depends on various files in ˜/.ssh:

authorized_keys config identity  identity.pub  known_hosts

You can set your ˜/.ssh/config on a per-host basis: for example

# Any configuration value is only changed the first time it is set.
# Thus, host-specific definitions should be at the beginning of the
# configuration file, and defaults at the end.
Host trusted.local
     ForwardX11 yes 
     ForwardX11Trusted yes
Host ssh.foo.uni.ac.uk
     Compression yes
     Cipher blowfish
     ForwardX11 yes 
Host ssh.foreign.com
     User alias 
Host *
     ForwardX11 no
     ForwardX11Trusted no

Note X11 forwarding should be enabled with caution.

User Specifies the user to log in as, useful when you have a different user name on different machines.

The default configuration file (see /private/etc/ssh_config) includes a list of common settings. The configuration files contain sections separated by ``Host'' specifications, and that section is only applied for hosts that match one of the patterns given in the specification. (Lines starting with `#' are comments. Copy this template, remove `#' and edit values as desired. For details see man ssh_config)

# Host *
#   ForwardAgent no
#   ForwardX11 no
#   RhostsRSAAuthentication no
#   RSAAuthentication yes
#   PasswordAuthentication yes
#   HostbasedAuthentication no
#   GSSAPIAuthentication no
#   GSSAPIDelegateCredentials no
#   GSSAPIKeyExchange no
#   GSSAPITrustDNS no
#   BatchMode no
#   CheckHostIP yes
#   AddressFamily any
#   ConnectTimeout 0
#   StrictHostKeyChecking ask
#   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/identity
#   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
#   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa
#   Port 22
#   Protocol 2,1
#   Cipher 3des
#   Ciphers aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc
#   EscapeChar ~
#   Tunnel no
#   TunnelDevice any:any
#   PermitLocalCommand no

polyml

Dave Matthews's polyml is my implementation of choice for Standard ML (my language of choice).

The latest release (version 5.1) compiles on Leopard. The download should be unpacked automatically by Stuffit Expander—otherwise use gtar xvzf polyml.5.1.tar.gz.

cd polyml.5.1
./configure
make
sudo make install

You should get the message:

Libraries have been installed in:
   /usr/local/lib

If you ever happen to want to link against installed libraries
in a given directory, LIBDIR, you must either use libtool, and
specify the full pathname of the library, or use the `-LLIBDIR'
flag during linking and do at least one of the following:
   - add LIBDIR to the `DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH' environment variable
     during execution

See any operating system documentation about shared libraries for
more information, such as the ld(1) and ld.so(8) manual pages.

You can also download later development versions of the source from the cvs repository on sourceforge:

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@polyml.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/polyml co polyml
cd polyml
cvs update -Pd
chmod +x install-sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

Safari Crash; Firefox Crash; Applet Crash!

Leopard and Java 6 don't mix!

I didn't know this and used Java preferences to set Java 6.0 as my preferred version (I had earlier installed the developer preview, under Tiger)

Calamity!

Apple confesses

The solution is to expunge all traces of Java 6, then reinstall Java.

Javablog has the answer:

Move or remove all of the following

/Library/Java
/Applications/Utilities/Java
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework
/System/Library/Java
/System/Library/CoreServices/Jar\ Launcher.app
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/JavaApplicationLauncher.framework
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaEmbedding.framework
/System/Library/CFMSupport/StubLibraries/JavaEmbeddingLib

and all your Java 6 installation receipts from /Library/Receipts/.

Then re-install Java from the Leopard DVD with the commands

open /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/System/Installation/Packages/Java.pkg
open /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/System/Installation/Packages/JavaTools.pkg 

Kerberos for Leopard

For the avoidance of doubt, install Mac OSX Kerberos Extras—some say this is changed for Leopard (OS X 10.5) others hint that it's just as the same as it was for 10.4.

Add X509 Anchors to Keychain Access (found in /Applications/Utilities/). (It was there by default in 10.4, but it appears not in Leopard. Select Add Keychain from the File menu. In the file selection dialog, navigate to /System/Library/Keychains. You should find X509 Anchors there.

Install the University Certificate in X509 Anchors— drag-and-drop.

For me Keberos works for IMAP access to staffmail.inf.ed.ac.uk, but not to mail.inf.ed.ac.uk, nor for SMTP access to either.

Here's what support have to say:

I've run this past a few people who might know and the consensus is that Apple may have broken something. There's a strange looking message in one of the log files - Token header is malformed or corrupt

This is probably not the whole story, as staffmail does work with Leopard's Kerberos. Time to switch to staffmail...

Fink "Can't fix GCC after Repair Permissions"

I'm now working with Leopard aka OS X v10.5; this is a Leopard problem

Chasing around to see what could be wrong, I find two contradictory bits of information:

In Apple's version of GCC, both cc and gcc are actually symbolic links to a compiler named like gcc-version; which compiler is linked to may be changed using the command gcc_select.

% locate gcc_select
/usr/sbin/gcc_select
/usr/share/man/man8/gcc_select.8

% gcc_select -l
This version of gcc_select can be used only on MacOS X 10.4.

It seems this may be connected to the CHUD problem of the previous post.

Here's what worked for me:

1. Remove gcc_select (it says it doesn't work with 10.5).
2. Remove /Developer (XCode Tools didn't install properly anyway).
3. Reinstall XCode — make sure you install the Unix Developer Support option.
4. Run Fink: Selfupdate, then Update-all

Everything worked smoothly.

I still have some problems with Keychain and Kerberos, but I still like Leopard. Cover Flow is helping me clean up my desktop.

Leopard - a spotty start

Added later: See the following post (above) for solution!

First, the good news. I have Leopard up-and-running, and it is great. It feels faster (maybe it is faster, who knows) it looks great.

Installation is supposed to be straigtforward. Put the CD in the drive and follow the instructions. We got to the place where you are supposed to select a disk on which to install Leopard - no disk appears. Wait,... Wait some more,... Make a cup of tea, ... Still a blank.

Go back, and look for an exit button - there is none. Try Disk Utility as suggested to select startup drive - no drive appears. Despair begins. I did back up my important files before starting this process, but restoring them will be a hassle - and what about the unimportant ones (I have a long tail, lots and lots of not very important files, but if they all go, that will feel quite important).

I try various incantations of keys (escape, eject, command-Q, even ctrl-alt-del) nothing works.

In desperation, I plug in an external drive to see if I can perhaps escape this nightmare by installing Leopard on that. The drive appears, but I'm not allowed to install on that drive. I'm about to do a hard reset (well forced power-down by pressing the button until it gives up). Then, my hard drive appears as a possible selection.

I select the drive, hit continue, and leopard installs without further hitch (it takes almost two hours).

It looks just the same - it just feels better, and faster. Of course, if you look closely, it isn't the same, but the changes are subtle, it feels entirely familiar, but better.

Now to install XCode Tools... This time, everything starts fine, but then fails at the end telling me that CHUD installation has failed, and I should contact the software manufacturer (that would be Apple).

securityd memory hogging

Mac running slow, Keychain keeps telling me Google Desktop has changed and asks for authentication. Do I have a virus, or is something wrong with keychain?

Activity Monitor tells me that securityd is using 1.5GB of memory; something is wrong.

Googling suggests that /var/db/CodeEquivalenceDatabase may be corrupted. Furthermore, it seems that it can rebuild itself, so the lizard's tail treatment is suggested: remove the offending part.

I did the following:

cd /var/db
sudo rm -rf CodeEquivalenceDatabase

sudo rm -rf is serious magic, and can get you in serious trouble; be careful (long ago, I once did cd /dev ; rm -rf mouse * — where I meant mouse* — don't try this at home) ... the faint-of-heart could take a copy of the file instead and remove it later:
mv CodeEquivalenceDatabase CodeEquivalenceDatabase.old

In any case, this seemed to work. After a restart keychain asks me to authenticate access for various apps: SystemUIServer, GoogleDesktopAgent, Mail, ... I do this. Everything seems normal, and securityd is using "only" 28MB of memory (back in the old days, we used to run serious theorem provers in less).

Google Desktop Search for Mac OSX

Google Desktop
Search your Mac.

Faster than spotlight; integrates with web search

gmail IMAP access UK

I was delighted to see Google's announcment of IMAP access to gmail, then disappointed to find that my gmail settings page didn't provide the IMAP option.

Google evidently don't know how to say "IMAP" in english english!

Solution: Log in to Gmail. Go to your settings page. Change your language setting to English (US); Save Changes and the option appears: Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Use this tab to enable IMAP access, then you can go back to English (UK).

iSync with a Google calendar

First you have to subscribe to the Google calendar from iCal.

You look under Calendar Details on calendar.google.com; you want the format. Google tells you, Please use the following address to access your calendar from other applications.
http://www.google.com/calendar/......./public/basic.ics

Right-click to Copy Link Location. Then, in iCal, under the Calendar menu, select Subscribe..., and paste in the URL.

This works - but note that iCal stores the link as
webcal://www.google.com/calendar/......./public/basic.ics

Now you can set up iSync to synchronise this calendar with your phone. Launch iSync, add the phone as a device if you haven't already done so. Select the phone icon and select which calendars to synchronise. Note that this is really copy, from Google Calendar to your phone, rather than sync, since events modified on your phone (or in iCal) don't change on Google Calendar. Maybe the iPhone will do better?

pdftk doesn't rotate pdfs

pdftk - A handy tool for manipulating PDF

Highly recommended: I use it for concatenating pdf documents, or selecting a subset of pages. I get it via fink, but you can also find it online. Unfortunately, pdftk doesn't allow you to rotate pages.

Preview.app lets you rotate and save pdfs: ⌘-L, ⌘-R, or use the menu—to rotate a single page, hold the option (alt) key while doing this.

Skype Out? Use Gizmo or Jajah!

Error in Skype’s Software Shuts Down Phone Service

Never mind!

Gizmo works just like Skype—free calls to other Gizmo users, cheap calls to landlines and mobiles worldwide. Unlike Skype it uses open standards (SIP), so it is compatible with other VoIP tools, such as Asterisk.

Jajah uses a different model—cheap or free calls between landlines or mobiles worldwide, set up from the internet. You can set calls up from any browser, or your symbian phone can set up the call via a GPRS/EDGE data connection or SMS message, giving cheap calls from your mobile to POTS numbers worldwide.

In any case, Skype may cost more than you bargained for.

dependent dylib is not prebound

Is your Mac sluggish and running slow?

Are your Office apps refusing to run?

Your automated prebinding updates may be failing.

Run the command
sudo update_prebinding -debug -root / -force
If you get the following error:

dyld: re-prebound: 0x90bee000 /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib
update_prebinding: error: dependent dylib is not prebound
update_prebinding: error 256 running update_prebinding_core

then edit the update-prebinding-paths file (this has the list of files to prebind: the one that fails is immediately after the last one to succeed)

sudo emacs /var/db/dyld/update-prebinding-paths.txt

Search for libgcc_s.1.dylib, and comment out the next line (by adding the #) so it reads
#/Applications/Utilities/Java/Java Web \ Start.app/Contents/Resources/Java/libmacjavaws.jnilib
Save the file, then try updating the prebindings again. For me, the next (and final) failure was after libjsound.jnilib. So I comment out the following line

#/System/Library/Frameworks/\
JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.3.1/Libraries/librealawt.jnilib

On the next try everything else went through. My Powerbook is much snappier.

It seems that you may need to reinstall Flash Player after doing this. Try the Adobe Shockwave and Flash player test to check. First uninstall previous versions. Shockwave will still only work if you run your browser under Rosetta. Flash is Universal

Repairing your laptop startup disk

The easiest way is to find another Mac running OSX. Restart your laptop in Target Disk Mode (either via system preferences, or hold the T key down while restarting). Connect the two machines by firewire, and run Disk Utility on the other Mac.

Repairing the disk may take some time - so don't rely on battery operation, connect to mains power.

Repairing the disk may fail, so backup a copy of crucial files before starting the repair.

Microsoft Office 2004 broken: dead as a parrot

Quicktime 7.2 update breaks Office 2004 on Intel Powerbook

For solution, see below

If you haven't yet installed QT7.2, my advice is to wait!

Here's what happened to me:

• Office Update 11.3.6 refuses to launch.
• MS Word refuses to launch!
• MS Powerpoint refuses to launch.
• MS Excel refuses to launch.
• decide to remove Office, and reinstall!
• MS Office refuses to install—the installer won't run.
• Remove all traces of Office in preferences etc.!
• MS office installer won't run.
• !

macfixit has some suggestions these didn't work for me.

It seems that the prebinding of the java libraries is at fault!

Steps to Fix:

Remove Java 6

> su Administrator
> cd /Library/Receipts/JavaSE6Release1.pkg/Contents
> lsbom -s -f Archive.bom > /tmp/file-list

Edit /tmp/file-list to replace all " " with "\ " and all "./" with "rm /" (I use emacs for this.)

> sudo bash /tmp/file-list
> rm -r /Library/receipts/JavaSE6Release1.pkg
> sudo update_prebinding

I removed the following

sudo rm -r /Library/Receipts/JavaForMacOSX10.4Release5.pkg

and installed it again. (From http://developer.apple.com/java/download/)

802.11n

The following Macs have the 802.11n hardware built-in:

• * MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo
• * MacBook with Intel Core 2 Duo
• * Mac Pro with AirPort Extreme option
• * iMac with Intel Core 2 Duo (except the 17-inch, 1.83GHz iMac)

However, you will have to upgrade the firmware.

The CD that comes with your new airport extreme base station contains the AirPort Extreme 802.11n enabler, which updates the firmware on your airport card to enable 802.11n high-speed WiFi:

• 74 - 248 Mbit/s
• 70 - 160 metres range

If you buy a third-party 802.11n base station, you can get the enabler from the Apple store for $1.99

Zip it up

To zip a directory:

Select the folder in the Finder.

From the File menu, select Create Archive of "<foldername>"

that's all!

Leopard update:

In Leopard the menu entry reads Compress "<foldername>"

You have created a zip archive <foldername>.zip

To unzip, double-click the file <foldername>.zip

MacBookPro with Cinema Display - Sleep and Wake

I have an Intel MacBook Pro.

In my office I have a 30" Cinema Display, wireless keyboard and USB mouse (attached to the display). I have a spare power block next to the display.

In theory I should just arrive, switch on the keyboard, plug everything in to the MacBook(video, usb and firewire connections from the display, power and ethernet from the wall), and go!

In practice, sometimes it worked, and sometimes the MacBook would refuse to talk to the display. Worse still, it would refuse to wake up if I disconnected everything, and tried to run stand-alone. Until I found the secret, I had to force a reboot with the power key.

The secret is, connect the power first!

Connect the power, plug in video, usb, firewire, ethernet. The computer wakes and the display comes to life. Turn on the keyboard, type a few characters (type them somewhere non-critical). A couple of characters may get lost initially, but once the connection is established, everything is fine.

Airport Extreme WDS daisy chain

I've added two airport extreme 802.11n base stations to my WDS network. Mostly this was straightforward. The basic procedure is just as described earlier for the previous Airport models. The UI of the new Airport Utility app is clearer than the previous version.

However, I found the two Airport Extreme base stations got confused when I used DHCP to link them into the network. Instead, I've given them manually assigned IP addresses - in the same 10.0.0.xxx range as I use for DHCP. My Alcatel Speedtouch DSL modem acts as a DHCP server, and I've set it to distribute addresses above 10.0.0.16 — which leaves me plenty of addresses below this to allocate manually.

The network is now something like this (with some base stations running the full range of protocols, 802.11b,g,n, and othersonly one of these, as shown):

     airport(b)  express(g) = speakers
            \    /
    disk = extreme(b,g,n) - airport(g) - express(g)
           /                                 \         
       = extreme(b,g,n) = printer          express(g) = speakers
      |       
router     
      |
       = airport(b,g)

Here, "airport" means an old conical airport extreme; express is the small block airtunes gizmo; extreme is the new 802.11n-capable mini-sized device.

To insert a new base station into my existing network, I first set its MAC address (aka airport ID) as the WDS main value for each of its children; then I configured the new base station with the children's MAC addresses in the WDS remotes list.

To configure the new devices I found it easiest to switch off the other base stations, and connect wirelessly to the new device. If you click on the name of a setting shown under the Summary tab, you are taken directly to the tab where you can edit the value. You want Wireless Mode: Participate in a WDS network. You should also set the Channel: and Network Name: to match the other base stations. Then you can set IP Address:. (As described above, DHCP confuses my two new Express base stations, so I set Configure IPv4: Manually. You can find the subnet mask and router address from the configuration of another base station. You may want to try Configure IPv4: Use DHCP first, as this is simpler.) For WDS relay and remotes you want Connection Sharing: Off (Bridge Mode). This is also correct for the WDS root if your modem acts as a DHCP server; otherwise you may need the WDS root to act as DHCP server (Distribute a range of IP addresses).

OSX Alarm Clock

Stuck away from home with a dead mobile phone battery, I needed an alarm clock—no sign of it in Date and Time.

The solution: use iCal on the MacBook. Set an event at the time you want the alarm. Set up an alarm action to open a suitably noisy audio file (which will open with iTunes if you have the default setup).

Make sure you set the alarm to go off on date (not 15 minutes beforehand as I first did). Make sure the volume is set high, headphones removed. Leave the lid open and, preferably, power connected. The alarm will wake the laptop from sleep, and play your song.

Update 2009-02-15 In Leopard 10.5.6 the alarm does not wake your computer from sleep :-( In System Preferences >> Energy Saver >> Schedule, set your computer to wake a couple of minutes before the alarm goes off.

If you subscribe to any external calendars, set iCal offline — otherwise any alerts complaining that some calendar is unreachable will prevent the alarm from sounding.

Live video from an iSight camera

How can you use your iSight camera without iChat? You can capture live video from your iSight camera directly into iMovie HD.

You must have iChat AV on your computer. If you have a stand-alone iSight camera, turn it on by opening the privacy shutter.

• If iChat AV launches automagically, quit it.
• Start iMovie HD.
• Click the mode switch to set iMovie HD to camera mode.
• Click the camera icon to the left of the mode switch and choose iSight or Built-in iSight from the pop-up menu—you also have the option to make a time-lapse recording.
• Click the Record With iSight button at the bottom of the iMovie monitor.
• The video you see in the iMovie monitor is recorded as a clip in the Clips pane.
• Click Record With iSight again to stop recording.

For still photography with iSight, use Photo Booth.

Missing Google Spreadsheets

I've recently started using Google Apps for various collaborative tasks. These are great!

5 March 2007: Panic over—spreadsheets returned a few days ago!

But a few days ago, all my spreadsheets disappeared; replaced by the following message.

Sorry! We are experiencing technical difficulties and can only show word processing documents. Try again

I've now found the relevant help article. The third suggestion works for me: get into spreadsheets by creating a new spreadsheet, then use File>Open... from the menus.

My spreadsheets are missing. What do I do?

If you're having problems finding your spreadsheets, these suggestions might help:

- Make sure that you are logged in to Google Docs & Spreadsheets with the address you formerly used to sign in to Google Spreadsheets. Although you may be able to sign in to Google Docs & Spreadsheets with other Google Accounts, only the email/password combo formerly associated with Google Spreadsheets will allow you access to your spreadsheets.

- Near the top right corner of the active documents and spreadsheets page, click on "Browse Docs & Spreadsheets," then click on "All." This will show every document and spreadsheet associated with the account you're signed in with.

- If you're still unable to find your spreadsheets, click on the "New Spreadsheets" link from the document and spreadsheets list page. Once this opens, click on "File" > "Open." If listed, you can access your missing spreadsheets from this menu.

- If you have used the "move old documents" feature, and are missing your spreadsheets after this move, log in to the account from which these documents were moved. You should see your spreadsheets in this account. From here, you can add your new account as a collaborator on each of the spreadsheets, and consolidate your documents and spreadsheets in this way."

If none of these suggestions help you find and access your spreadsheets, please contact us so that we can investigate the situation further.

LATEX Equation Editor

In an earlier post I mentioned L^AT_EXiT, by Pierre Chatelier. The L^AT_EX Equation Editor is similar in function—and not entirely dissimilar in appearance.
I'm not sure yet which I prefer. Both are free—try both. If you already downloaded L^AT_EXiT last year, make sure you try the latest version.
If you have a Fink tetex installation, you must set the preferences for L^AT_EX Equation Editor to specify that L^AT_EX is in /sw/bin/ and ghostscript in /sw/share.
See also mimetex and L^AT_EX render.

iRecordMusic-record streaming audio as mp3 or mp4 (AAC)

Supports broadcasts in RealAudio and WindowsMedia, the preferred audio formats of many radio stations. Records to a variety of formats. This US$25 program lets you record clips from BBC Radio Player. Free demo version limits recordings to 15 minutes maximum. Radiotastic is a Dashboard widget for listening live and real-time recording of Internet audio.

Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.0 - Plugin with Controls

 
Adobe Reader 8 brings a Control Bar back to the Acrobat Reader Plugin, and adds a Sidebar. Under Acrobat 7, I had to save a pdf and view it with the standalone reader, in order to zoom. No longer!

My audio applications have stopped working

Audio device may be in use by another application

Mac OS X: No audio from certain multimedia content

This may mean that one application has changed your computer's audio settings to a sample rate that is too high for other applications to use. The problem may appear when you try to play audio content from BBC or NBC in Real Player.

Apple suggests:

To use the Mac OS X audio drivers:

1. Open Audio MIDI Setup and click the Audio Devices tab.
2. Choose Default Output: Built-in Output and System Output: Built-in Output from the pop-up menus.

Then set audio output to 44.1kHz 2-channel 24-bit

1. Under Properties for: select Built-in Output.
2. Set the Audio Output Format to 44100.0 Hz. 2ch-24bit
3. Quit Audio MIDI Setup.

What if it says output is not supported?

Under Properties for: choose Built-in Output

GimmeSomeTune

Get album artwork automatically, as you play your music.

GimmeSomeTune will get you covers from the Internet and, if you so choose, automatically add them to iTunes.

Freeware by Eternal Storms Software download from apple.

Flash Player Update

Flash Player Universal Binary no longer works with Safari - fine with Camino

Flash Player Version 9,0,28,0 works with Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) OSX 10.4.8 on Intel MacBook Pro (Boot ROM version MBP11.0055.B03)

Flash Player Version 9.0.20.0 was incompatible with Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) OSX 10.4.7 on Intel MacBook Pro (Boot ROM version MBP11.0055.B03)

Battery AWOL

Suddenly my MacBookPro 15" doesn't think it has a battery. Energy monitor menu says, "No batteries available"!

I've tried everything that Apple recommends: restart, forced shutdown and PMU reset. No joy. The battery shows 3/5 lights; the computer runs fine on AC power, but dies if this is interrupted. This is my new replacement battery from Apple - see earlier post.

Google shows me that I'm not the only one with this problem (or similar).

Scotsys were helpful as usual. We tried swapping batteries with a demo machine. This showed that the battery had the problem (I suspect that this is a battery software problem).

In any case, I now have a battery on loan while mine is returned to Apple for replacement.

I also bought a spare power supply, as the connection between DC cable and magnetic plug on the original power supply is starting to fray.

Update

New battery and new power brick have been working fine for a few months now. I still love my MBP!