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Determine EFI architecture on your Mac
edited by on July 7th 2015, at 14:21

It may be useful to know whether your Mac has a 32-bit or 64-bit EFI. This can be done by running the following command from an OSX Terminal (can run from the installer or recovery partition):

ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

This should return something like the following:

• For 32-bit EFI:  | | "firmware-abi" = <"EFI32">
• For 64-bit EFI:  | | "firmware-abi" = <"EFI64">
 
MacPostFactor 1.0.1 released
edited by on July 7th 2015, at 12:23

MacPostFactor 1.0.1 has been officially released:

Download (direct link)

MacPostFactor is a tool to install Mac OSX 10.8+ on older (Intel) Macbooks that only support up to OSX 10.7 (Lion). It works through a combination of a highly customized installer, a replaced set of drivers and various frameworks, and the original install app from the App Store. The installation can be done directly on a Macbook already running OSX Lion (so no USB disk required), or on an USB media for installation on another system.

 
Get the black boot screen + white Apple logo on any Mac with DarkBoot
edited by on June 30th 2015, at 15:15

Recent models of Mac boot up with a black boot screen and white Apple logo, instead of the old gray and dark gray boot screen. DarkBoot enables older Mac systems to get the black boot screen as well. For newer Macs, the app can also change the boot screen back to the traditional gray color.

  1. Download latest release of DarkBoot.
  2. Unzip and run the DarkBoot app.
  3. Select the desired color, then click OK.
    You will be prompted for the admin password. Enter it and press OK.
  4. Reboot twice for changes to take effect.

Known to work with OSX 10.10 and 10.11 DP.

 
MacPostFactor 1.0 released
edited by on June 29th 2015, at 17:15

MacPostFactor 1.0 has been officially released:

Download (direct link)

MacPostFactor is a tool to install Mac OSX 10.8+ on older (Intel) Macbooks that only support up to OSX 10.7 (Lion). It works through a combination of a highly customized installer, a replaced set of drivers and various frameworks, and the original install app from the App Store. The installation can be done directly on a Macbook already running OSX Lion (so no USB disk required), or on an USB media for installation on another system.

 
OS supported SMB versions
edited by on June 3rd 2015, at 15:09
SMB (Server Message Block) is an application protocol, most commonly used for file and printer sharing. Although it was originally designed by IBM for use in OS/2, it has been adopted and improved upon by Microsoft as the primary protocol for file and printer sharing in their Windows for Workgroup. It has been in use ever since on Windows and a myriad of other OS flavours.

Although SMB is proprietary to Microsoft, SMB is also available on linux (through Samba), Apple (first Samba, then later, Apple's own SMBX), and a myriad of other OS vendors. In fact, Apple has replaced their own AFP in favour of SMB in their latest releases of Mac OSX. SMB has become the most commonly used protocol for f  ...
 
Certain smartcard readers not detected after upgrade to OS X Mavericks
edited by on April 27th 2015, at 10:59
Smartcard readers that use the OpenSC PCSC daemon in order to work may no longer work after upgrading your Mac OSX to Mavericks (10.9). This is because of a problem that occurs with the PCSCD after the upgrade. Affected card readers are all that use this daemon for its communication. Examples are most ACR38U-based card readers, certain Vasco DIGIPASS readers, and some others.

The solution is to re-install the PCSCD package, which will fix corruption and make sure the daemon is started properly, enabling the card reader again.

Download the PCSCD-autostart package from the Vasco website.

Install this package. Note that you may have to circumvent the built-in application security, as  ...
 
iPhoto and OSX support matrix
edited by on March 25th 2015, at 17:01
The iPhoto and OSX version support matrix.

iPhoto version 10.10 10.9 10.8 10.7 10.6 9.6   9.5.1   9.5     9.4.7     9.4.3   10.8.3 10.7.5   9.4   10.8.2 10.7.5   9.3.2   10.7.4   9.3   10.7.4   9.2.3   10.7.3 10.6.8 9.2.1   10.7.2 10.6.8 9.1.5     ...
 
iPhoto '11 (version 9.4.3) on OSX Mountain Lion and Mavericks
edited by on March 25th 2015, at 16:55
If you have more than one Mac, and one of them is stuck at a certain version of iPhoto because it's no longer supported by Apple, you may have to install an older version on a newer version of OSX. OSX Lion, for instance, is restricted to version 9.4.3, so if you have another device with a newer version of OSX, you may also want to install 9.4.3 on that device, even though the App Store wants to install a newer version of iPhoto.

If you have a Time Machine backup with iPhoto 9.4.3, you could restore it from there. If not, you need the original software CD you used to install iPhoto on OSX Lion. If you do not have that either, there are other ways to get it, but this would be out of scope fo  ...
 
iPhoto 9.4.7 download link
edited by on March 25th 2015, at 16:50

If you need iPhoto version 9.4.7, which was included in the OSX Mavericks GM release, here's the download link:

Download iPhoto 9.4.7

Do not install if you're not running OSX Mavericks!
There's no version check during installation, so attempting to install on an unsupported OSX version will break iPhoto.

 
Downgrade your iPhoto library
edited by on March 25th 2015, at 16:25

If needed, you can use the iPhoto Library Upgrader to downgrade your library of iPhoto to an earlier version. In the tool, choose Rebuild library to do this. Do note that some of the features introduced in later versions of iPhoto will be erased from the library.

 
Mac Mini (2009) HDD replacement
edited by on March 17th 2015, at 08:10

I followed this guide to replace the HDD on my Mac Mini (2009, aka model A1283):

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+mini+Model+A1283+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1063

The most tricky part is probably opening up the Mac. As I did not have a putty knife at hand, I used a rack cage nut mounting tool to create an opening,  and a very thin flathead screw driver to pry the case off, as explained in the guide.

EDIT: added picture of tool.

 
Apple Airport Configuration Utility
edited by on March 16th 2015, at 14:15

I'ved noticed the Airport Configuration Utility from Apple requires "elevation" (= run as administrator) to work properly on a Windows 8/8.1.

If it still throws out an error after connecting, try disabling IPv6, then reboot.

 
Create a OSX Mavericks / Yosemite USB installer
edited by on March 16th 2015, at 11:09
EDIT: added Yosemite (it's exactly the same as for Mavericks).

Creating an USB installer for Mac OSX Mavericks or Yosemite is a little different than previous releases. The InstallESD.dmg no longer contains the complete bootable installation files, so writing that image to an USB stick is no longer a valid option.

There's now a tool within the downloaded OSX Mavericks or OSX Yosemite app which creates a bootable volume with all the required files for installation from a media. You can then unleash the command on any mounted volume (including disk images), provided they are big enough. For USB or other flash media, you'll need at least 8GB or more.

For this to wor  ...
 
Disable the new Avatar menu in Google Chrome
edited by on January 27th 2015, at 14:28

Google Chrome v39 introduces a new Avatar menu, which is now permanently displayed at the top-right corner of each window.

The only way to get rid of it is through the "experimental" flags. Type the following in the address bar to reveal the flag:

chrome://flags/#enable-new-avatar-menu

Set it to Disabled to turn it off, then restart Chrome entirely to apply the changes.

Note that this also works under Mac and linux.

 
Remove Only-Search adware (Mac)
edited by on November 20th 2014, at 15:47

If you have the Only-Search adware troubling you, you can download and run AdwareMedic. This is a simple and free adware removal tool.

Download: http://www.adwaremedic.com/index.php

 
WebDAV no longer working on OSX Mavericks
edited by on November 15th 2013, at 16:05
After updating to OSX Mavericks, WebDAV no longer works properly. There's currently no solution available. Apple has released a workaround while they are attempting to fix the problem with the next update.

To workaround the issue, download the 3 files at this location:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/webdavfs/webdavfs-334.2/webdav_cert_ui.tproj/English.lproj/MainMenu.nib/

These 3 files will have to be placed in the folder:/System/Library/Filesystems/webdav.fs/Support/webdav_cert_ui.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/MainMenu.nib

You would normally overwrite the current ones present, but there's a catch. You can't simply overwrite the files because they are still in use by the sy  ...
 
Mac EFI and SMC firmware updates
edited by on April 4th 2013, at 10:19

A complete list of firmware updates of all Intel-based Macs can be found here, together with download links:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1237

 
Reactivate the Java-plugin in Safari on Mac OSX 10.7 and 10.8
edited by on March 22nd 2013, at 14:42

Since a recent update of OSX, there's an issue with the Java-plugin not being active, even though Java Control Panel says it is. This is because in Safari the plugin is still set to inactive.

To resolve, surf with Safari to www.java.com/nl/download/testjava.jsp. You see the Java website with in the center the notification that the plugin is not active. Click on the text to re-active the plugin.

 
OpenVPN finally available on Apple iOS
edited by on January 18th 2013, at 13:10

OpenVPN is finally available on Apple iOS!

This means you will now be able to connect through OpenVPN via your iPhone and iPad devices. It is available through the AppStore:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/openvpn-connect/id590379981

More info about OpenVPN on pfSense: http://blog.pfsense.org/?p=684

 
Deleting an account in Apple Mail deletes e-mail messages
edited by on October 17th 2012, at 09:21

Be careful when deleting a POP3-account in Apple Mail. Doing so will also remove all messages from the folders Inbox, Sent items and Trash, even if they are no longer on the server and only available offline.

To prevent this from happening, move/copy all messages to folders created inside the On My Mac section. These are folders that are kept locally and will not be affected when removing accounts. After which, you can safely remove the account.

 
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showing posts tagged with 'mac'
 
 
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