Solving technology problems, one at a time
I used to use Directory Utility occasionally, and was surprised not to be able to find it anymore in the Utilities folder in Snow Leopard. It turns out it’s been moved to the SystemLibraryCore Services folder, but the best way to access it is now through System Preferences.
Continue readingI use several large external drives with my iMac to manage photos and multiple systems. Lately I’ve had a frequent problem with Finder crashes. Using Force Quit to “Relaunch” the finder does cause it to quit, but it never restarts.
Continue readingWhen installing Windows 7 in VMWare Fusion or Parallels, if you get the following error: The unattend answer file contains an invalid product key” simply open the VMWare Settings or in Parallels, select Virtual Machine
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I find the new debugging tools in Safari almost as useful as Firebug. There’s a Web Inspector that lets you see exactly how the HTML is formed, a Javascript console that lets you see errors and debugging messages written into the code and much more.
But to use them you must enable the Debug menu in Safari. Open Safari preferences in the Safari Menu, click Advanced, and select Show Develop menu in menu bar.
Continue readingXCode, the developer tools suite provided by Apple is available to registered Apple Developers for free. If you are not a registered developer with Apple, you can still get XCode for a small fee through the App Store. But unlike many of the app store applications, clicking the “Install” button under the XCode description does not directly result in a working application appearing in your dock. The icon for an XCode installer shows up there instead. And that can installer isn’t trouble-free.
When I tried to run the XCode installer, it failed when it was nearly done, and displayed a message to go look for an error in the log (/var/log/install.log) where I found errors like this:
Xcode install Underlying Error=(Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain…
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If you get this error when trying to upgrade the operating system on an iPhone or iPad:
“There are purchased items on the iPhone (iPad) “[name of device]” that have not been transferred”
Things to try:
Continue readingWhile setting up Nutch on a Mac, I kept getting this error in the terminal:
Error: JAVA_HOME is not set
To fix the error on OS X 10.6.x (Snow Leopard), enter the following at the command prompt:
export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)
On 10.5 and above, the command line tool /usr/libexec/java_home dynamically finds the top Java version specified in Java Preferences for the current user. Using this method will allow the path to automatically change as software updates change Java versions.
Continue readingA quick troubleshooting tip for Mac users: If you are having problems with image icons in the Finder that look like generic jpeg icons instead of icon previews, try relaunching the Finder. Select Force Quit
Continue readingI have an old Mac notebook that I use for surfing the internet or to store and upload photos while on trips. While travelling around this summer I found that it would no longer connect
Continue readingLogic Pro is a popular digital audio workstation/ Midi sequencer for the Mac. It contains many virtual models of mixers, effects, synths, drum machines and sequencers. Since the typical audio gear requires simultaneous fine-grained control of multiple parameters, the typical adjustment method is with a knob or slider control.
A standard mouse is not the best way to control such a UI. Many companies sell USB-Midi control surfaces with knobs and faders that allow real-time control of the sound using Logic’s virtual mixers and effects. However these can be very expensive. For those who are on a budget it can be a high price to pay to get started.
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