RND(tech) - Apple/Mac

enabling OS X screen sharing remotely in Terminal

khanh@khanh.net (Khanh) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:40:56 -0700

short and simple for 10.5 (Leopard)

sudo sh -c "/bin/echo -n enabled > /Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd"

slightly different for 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

sudo sh -c "/bin/echo -n enabled > /private/etc/ScreenSharing.launchd"

rm the file to disable it. launchd polls regularyly, so after you "enable" the service, it'll be loaded by the time you check for the open port with netstat -an

Office 2008 Mac Updates and Issues

khanh@khanh.net (Khanh) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:11:24 -0700

Microsoft recently release Office 2008 for Mac and since the original release, several updates have come out. They can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx

Office 2008 SP1 is 12.1.0, but updates 12.1.1 and 12.1.2 are also available now. Each of these three updates has given me problems from the actual installer, straight through to actually opening some applications. The most famous of which is that Word won't start and it keeps bouncing back to the "user experience" wizard and then straight Microsoft AutoUpdate checks. Ironic.

First off, if you've used a program like Monolingual to remove the PowerPC binaries, stop right here, remove your Office 2008 folder from Applications and reinstall. Also, make sure you're installing to the default /Applications folder. Don't rename the folder, don't try and modify the installation.

Next, have your CD key ready (you'll need it at the end):

- Reboot the computer

- find any pre-Office 2008 Normal templates. These are just called "Normal" and have no file extension.

- find the 2008 Normal template and delete it. It should be in your user folder under
~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/

- Remove the following folders and files
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (10)
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (11)
~/Library/Preferences/com.Microsoft.Word.plist
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008

- Reboot and attempt the 12.1.0 (SP1) Update

- Reboot and attempt the 12.1.1 Update

- Reboot and attempt the 12.1.2 Update

- Reboot and start Word. Office should now ask for your CD key and user information.

I HAD to reboot in between updates. If I didn't, the installer for each update said it couldn't find the existing software to update. I'm not sure what happens on reboots, but I'm almost sure it has to do with caches in OS X. Also, I downloaded each of the installers from the Microsoft website. I didn't use the AutoUpdate. I'm sure it'll work just fine now that I've cleared all of my preferences, but we'll see.

iTunes and NFS... woahs and woes

khanh@khanh.net (Khanh) — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:53:29 -0700

A few months back I wrote about how I wanted to replace my iPod with my PocketPC. Alas, I've conceded to the mainstream. The iPod has won out for it's end-user experience. There's simply too much work involved in the PocketPC and the user interface is still stuck in its old roots. The stylus is still the primary form of "interface" and in the car, that just doesn't work. I'm sure it'd be fine for someone else, but I spend a lot of time in the car. I'll still use the PocketPC for phone, email, browsing, etc. Also, I actually really like iTunes. The interface is exactly how I like to manage my 40+GB of music and the podcasts just sync. The podcast client (Egress) I was using on the PocketPC was just too clumsy, never seemed to really "sync" the right way, and then of course there was that pesky ease-of-use issue. Once in Egress, there was little integration with Windows Media Player. Granted, it was functional, but it just wasn't easy to swith between podcasts and know which I've already listened to or not. Since my music library is also in iTunes already, I just didn't have the necessary investment in Windows Media Player. Back to iTunes for me for now.

On a similar note, I have iTunes running on a fairly new Mac Book. Since I have a large library, which I also like to access remotely, I put the whole thing on an NFS share from my MythTV box. The MythTV box is currently openSuSE 10.2. Everything was running great on Mac OS X 10.4, but I decided to upgrade to 10.5 this weekend and finally throw on Office 2008. Everything runs a bit slower than it used to, but I suppose that's to be expected with new OSes. OS X is probably suffering from Vista-style bloat. One thing that did improve was Quicken 2007 (PowerPC) stability, but that was a minor issue for me. At work, I've been running 10.5 and setting up a 10.5 server for ActiveDirectory integration and I've had nothing but issues with network mounts and network integration in general. So, when I found out last night that my iTunes library wouldn't open over NFS, it didn't surprise me. The issue was that the Mac had no problem mounting the NFS volume, but once you started clicking on files in Finder, they'd show up as zero length files and then they'd disappear. In the terminal, they showed as normal files, but of course, I was just doing directory listings, not actually opening the files.

Apparently, OS X 10.5 changes the NFS client behavior. However, there is a "fix" that I've implemented on the NFS server side, since I don't care enough to debug OS X in my personal life. I deal with it enough in the work environment. On the server side, I kept seeing these errors:

lockd/statd: failed to create /var/lib/nfs/sm/: err=-21

The problem there is that there's no hostname at the end of that path. For whatever reason, the OS X 10.5 is either not reporting the hostname, not the way openSuSE 10.2 expects it, or openSuSE 10.2 has an issue. Since I didn't have this problem under OS X 10.4, I'm guessing the first two options are the reason, not the third. Anyway, change the following value in /proc. I'm going to throw it in boot.local to survive reboots probably.

echo "0" >/proc/sys/fs/nfs/nsm_use_hostnames

iPhoto import problems

khanh@khanh.net (Khanh) — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:57:06 -0700

I was recently using iPhoto 6(?) or whatever the current version is. It seems it has problems importing JPGs from certain digital cameras with some setting. I know its a setting and not the camera because I actually imported from two identical cameras owned by two different people. Apparently there's a colorspace setting somewhere that is either wrong or corrupt on one of the cameras. This Apple support document hits the nail on the head for their idea of a fix:

iPhoto unexpectedly quits when viewing or editing certain photos

I'm currently working on an Automater script, but it's not quite ready for the masses.

LaCie brings Lightscribe to the rest of us

khanh@khanh.net (Khanh) — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:16:33 -0700

LaCie announced today that they now offer a complete Lightscribe solution for all platforms. That means now Mac OS X and even Linux users can write labels to Lightscribe media with Lightscribe drives. Lightscribe is a technology that allows you to etch silk screen quality images on the label side of CD/DVD media. Up until now, the technology was limited to Windows users due to lack of software. Now with the LaCie LightScribe Labeler for MAC OS, SureThing for Windows and LaCie LightScribe Labeler for Linux, we have software available to the three major OS platforms. Did I forget to mention the software is free from LaCie? Yes, it really is.

See:
http://www.lacie.com/lightscribe
http://www.lightscribe.com

Apple supports Windows XP on Intel-based Macs

khanh@khanh.net (Khanh) — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 10:06:22 -0700

Apple is now supporting Windows XP on their Intel-based Macs! No more hacked bootloaders required. Apple just released its beta of "Boot Camp", which will provide not only the bootloader, but a driver set as well. All you've got to do is provide your copy of Windows XP SP2.

I don't have an Intel-based Mac, but this is a huge step in the acceptance of a great OS, with support for some of those applications that are only available on the Windows platform. Now if only we could get better virtualization or emulation (like WINE), inside of OS X! Dual boots are nice, but switching back and forth requires an investment in time to reboot, especially if all you want to do is use Outlook!

More info can be found:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1808055
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303572

iTunes sharing over WAN connections

khanh@khanh.net (Khanh) — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 10:44:00 -0700

A few months ago I started to research streaming my iTunes library over the Internet. Basically, I was at work staring at my empty iTunes library and knew that it was possible to stream locally on the LAN over TCP/IP. IP is IP, right? How hard could it be? Well, it turns out, not that hard at all. Here's all you need to do. And yes, it even works with iTunes 6, contrary to popular belief. I've only shared from an OS X iTunes share. I'm sure if you have an SSH server for Windows you can do this with a PC iTunes share too.

First, you need to make sure you've got iTunes sharing enabled. You probably even want to make sure it's working before you leave home or wherever you've shared your library. So on the computer you want to stream the music to, you need something called Rendezvous Proxy. Download the software from that link. It's available for both Windows and Mac. Both are configured the same. Just make sure you have Java installed, if you don't already on the PC. Mac OS X should already have Java support and can be updated via Software Update. Don't worry that it hasn't been updated since 2003. It's still perfectly functional.

Next, you'll need to configure Rendezvous Proxy. Add a host and set the following options:
IP Address: 127.0.0.1 (I'll explain that in a minute)
Port: 3690
Host Label: Home iTunes (or whatever you want the shared library to display as)
Service Text: (optional)
Service Type: _daap._tcp. (iTunes Host)

The IP address is localhost (127.0.0.1) and port 3690 because we're going to set up an SSH tunnel from this port on your local computer to the iTunes host. 3690 is an arbitrary port that can be anything BUT 3689 (the actual iTunes sharing port). This way, the local iTunes can "find" the music being shared, but still be able to share its own library.

Now that you've got the proxy configured, we're ready to establish the SSH tunnel from your local computer to the iTunes share. Obviously, you'll need an SSH client. OS X users will just be able to run Terminal, PC users will have to find an SSH client that supports tunneling. You'll have to figure this one out on your own. I strictly stream from my Mac library to another Mac, but I've also successfully done it with a PC using the SSH Client from ssh.com. Before you actually establish the tunnel, you may need to adjust your firewall or open a port accordingly. This is port 22 for the SSH tunnel. If you're sharing from OS X, don't forget to turn on the SSH server (remote login sharing).

The tunnel from OS X can be established with the following command:

ssh -l user -L 3690:127.0.0.1:3689 home.ip.ext

where "user" is your username on the remote server (your OS X user login sharing iTunes).
"-L 3690:127.0.0.1:3689" opens a port 3690 on your local computer and tunnels it to 3689 on the remote server.
"home.ip.ext" is your public IP at the remote side, allowing SSH connections.

This can also be done with the ssh.com client for Windows. You'll have to play around in the profile settings under the tunneling tab and fill in the blanks based on my previous descriptions. Once you establish the tunnel, the remote iTunes share should pop up right away. It takes a few seconds to connect and make sure your ISP gives you a decent upstream connection from home. Your bandwidth requirements vary based on what quality (bit rate) your MP3s are, plus you'll need some extra for the SSH tunnel. Remember, SSH is encrypting your MP3 stream through the tunnel. I'm fine off my cable modem and I've read most good DSL connections are fine with this setup.

Have fun!