mac
Locking your Snow Leopard Mac’s Screen when connecting using VNC
Mar 5th
So as you probably know I have been supporting more and more Mac’s in my previously Windows Shop. Now I had to allow Windows home users to connect to their Macs in the office and lock their screens or monitors as they worked in case they were doing confidential or stupid stuff…
This should have been easy. Macs are supposed to be easier to use than Windows machines right? Well no dice. You could not do it with out modifying they system. I tried over and over using VNC, Logmein, PcAnywhere and more… Everyone of them would open my screen right on up, so anyone walking by could not only watch me work but also move the mouse or type on the keyboard! It was the end of the road when someone type hello into a spread sheet of a Production manager… Sonofabitch!
I found a hack courtesy of ArtOfGeek and added my Vine VNC server and a new port for the win! My favorite quote from the article has to be:
I know, enough with the chatter, get on with the tutorial! Just follow these steps and you’ll be locking your Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard like it’s running Windows XP! Wait, did I just write that? Shudder. Sorry, I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
Here is the nitty gritty for ya:
- Open Automator (in your Applications folder) and choose Service from the list of templates provided and click the Choose button.
- In the left hand column under Library, select Utilities.
- In the second column, drag “Run Shell Script” to the right hand pane.
- At the top of the right hand pane where you dragged the Run Shell Script action, click on the menu next to “Service receives” and choose “no input”.
- Copy and paste the following Terminal command into the empty text area of the Run Shell Script action:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspendThe entire command should be entered on a single line and note there is a space after “/Menu\”.
Completed Automator action, ready to save (click to enlarge)
- Choose File–>Save, and give the new service a meaningful name like “Lock Computer” that will appear in the Services menu. Once you’ve done that, you can go to the Services menu (located in the current application menu, next to the Apple menu) and your newly created service should appear there.
- Next open System Preferences –> Keyboard –> Keyboard Shortcuts and select Services in the left column.
Setting the keyboard shortcut (click to enlarge)
- Scroll down to the bottom and under the General category, you should see your newly created service listed there. Select it, then Double-click close to the right side of the selected line to reveal a field where you can enter a custom keyboard shortcut. Enter an easy to remember but unique keyboard shortcut (I decided to go with ctrl+option+command+L), and then quit System Preferences.
That’s it! Go ahead and test your keyboard shortcut! That locked your screen right? Now you can install Vine VNC Server on your machine change the port that it is listening on to 1111 or something other than 5900. Connect to your Vine server using UltraVNC using the IP address and the port like this 192.168.1.1:1111. That will keep your Mac locked and allow you to log into your machine keeping the screen locked. If you try to lock the screen and log in on port 5900 (built in screen sharing) you will arrive at the login screen and defeat the purpose of this hack!
You can read the full post at ArtOfGeek here
_TheMacinAdmiN_
Moving Emails from Outlook (Windows) to Entourage (Mac)
Mar 9th
Given:
Microsoft Outlook – created by Microsoft. Platform: Windows.
Microsoft Entourage – created by Microsoft. Platform: OS X.
Requirement:
Move emails from Microsoft Outlook to Microsoft Entourage.
Common sense suggests:
In Windows, launch Microsoft Outlook, export everything to a .pst file. Copy this file to a USB drive or burn it to a disc. Copy it to Mac OS X, launch Entourage in Mac OS X and import the .pst file.
Well, that’s what I thought.
The real solution:
It turns out Microsoft does NOT support email interchange between Outlook and Entourage. I was horrified shocked Not Surprised to learn about this lack of interoperability.
Entourage can only import from it’s own archive format .rge or mbox files (text format files). Unfortunately, Outlook can NOT export to either of the two.
After doing some research and reading about convoluted methods of exporting one folder at a time from Outlook, converting those to mbox format and importing it in Entourage, I stumbled upon this excellent utility.
It’s a Windows application and costs $10. You can download it and pay for it online.
Simply install it on your Windows OS and launch it. It will automatically read your Outlook files and convert them to Mbox format, and PRESERVE the attachments!!
Once the export is over, copy the newly created mbox files and port them to Mac OS X. Launch Entourage and import the files. You will lose Outlook Rules though. Also, the folders will be renamed per ASCII standards i.e. no blank spaces. Blank Spaces will be replaced with underscores.
It’s possible that Entourage may suddenly not recognize mbox files either but don’t worry – there’s a work around. Import the mbox files in iMail. Then, import iMail emails into Entourage.
Another Microsoft horror story? What’s your take.
Why am I getting Winmail.dat files on my mac from Windows users?
Jan 12th
Jodi writes in:
?<‡META †[1]0 ?Xt=”‡$.
On the exchange server, go to global settings, Internet Message Formats, Default Properties, Advanced tab, for “Exchange Rich-Text Format” select “Never Use”.
This will prevent your Exchangeserver from using Rich-Text Format and creating winmail.dat files.
From TNEF’s website:
TNEF’s Enough allows Macs to read and extract files from Microsoft TNEF stream files. The files are usually received by SMTP based e-mail programs from Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook users. The SMTP based e-mail program will usually receive either a MIME attachment named “winmail.dat” or a MIME attachment with the type “application/ms-tnef.”
The file is a rich text (or MAPI) message that is sent from Outlook to Exchange. When Exchange sends the message to an outside server it writes the MAPI message as a MIME attachment. The unfortunate side effect of this plan is if the Outlook user has someone in their address book as a person who can receive “Rich Text” then the user will receive the TNEF file whether the user uses Outlook or not.
TNEF’s Enough is a freeware application
PC power users switching to Mac? Mac’s got a toolbox that’s right up your alley!
Dec 24th
HAPPY HOLIDAYS kiddies,
Comodore64 back again to shed some light for any newly ordained Mac users that are carrying over from the M$ world. Since Mac is gaining a kind of strangle hold on the industry, I’m pretty sure there are a lot of guys like myself who have a PC for certain purposes and a Mac for others. In my case, it’s a Powerbook. But not just any Powerbook, this is one of the last Powerbooks made with a PowerPC processor, right before Jobs and Co. made the switch to Intel processors. In retrospect, it was one of my better purchases in life. Worth every penny, and keeps on tickin. Unfortunately, a lot of you didn’t stay on the PowerPC bandwagon, and jumped over (maybe not even by choice) to the new Intel Macs. From what I’ve seen and heard , they are quite the problematic little buggers. But my PowerPC Powerbook has been rock solid since day 1 (gleam.)
Shortly after buying this Powerbook over 2 years ago, I was rummaging around the hard drive for whatever pre-installed goodness I can come across a folder that looks like the image above. This collection of proggies is sure to make any former M$ user feel right at home.
Here is a rundown I’ve found courtesy of http://www.freemacblog.com/exploring-the-utilities-folder-on-your-mac/
Activity Monitor – Activity Monitor let’s you know what is going on with your computer. It can let you know where your memory and CPU is being used most.
Airport Admin Utility – The application will let you configure your Apple Airport products.
Airport Setup Assistant – This app is used when you first set up your Airport product. It’s an easy wizard for setup.
Audio MIDI Setup - You can use Audio MIDI Setup to configure the audio input and output devices you use with your computer, such as microphones and audio playback equipment. If you need this app, you probably already know how to use it.
Bluetooth File Exchange – If you have a cell phone or PDA with bluetooth, this application makes it very easy to send files back and forth. This is a great way to take your photos off of your phone, or to add ringtones to your phone.
Colorsync Utility – This app gives you access to to Apple’s Colorsync specs. In this app you can set different profiles. There is also a nifty calculator that can convert between RGB and CMYK. This is another of those apps that isn’t useful to most people.
Console – Console gives you a “behind the scenes” look at your Mac. While you see all the pretty pictures and graphics of Mac OS X, there is a ton happening in the background. Console lets you watch that. It’s especially helpful to see error or status messages.
Digitalcolor Meter – If you are preparing your work for professional printing and you have an Apple monitor, you can use DigitalColor Meter to match the color on your screen against several industry standards.
Directory Access – Directory Access lists the different kinds of services that Mac OS X can access. The list includes directory services, which give Mac OS X access to user information and other administrative data stored in directory domains. The list also includes kinds of network services that Mac OS X can discover on the network.
You can enable or disable access to each kind of service. If you disable a kind of service in Directory Access, Mac OS X no longer accesses services of the disabled kind. The different services can be found here.
Disk Utility – There is all kinds of power in the Disk Utility. Here you can reformat a disk, check and fix permissions, and so many other things.
Grab – Grab will let you “grab” screenshots of your Mac. Of course, you can already do this with key combinations, but Grab does have one nice feature. You can do a timed grab. Start the timer and ten second later the Mac will grab a screenshot.
Grapher – Grapher lets you create 2D and 3D graphs from equations.
OS 9 came with a graphing calculator. OS X versions before Tiger had no graphing options. But, with Mac OS X Tiger, we now have Grapher.
Installer – You’ve probably used Installer a hundred times and didn’t know it. Whenever you download a new application that comes in a package or a metapackage, Installer makes it possible to install that application.
Keychain Access – Keychain Access gives you access to the keychain. Duh.
Anytime you save a password to a site or a server or anything on the Mac, it is stored in the keychain. If you forget one of those passwords and it isn’t filling in automatically, you can access keychain with this application and find your password.
Migration Assistant – This is simply one of the most amazing applications. If you’ve ever purchased a new Mac and migrated from your old one, this is the app you used. You can also use it to get a use from a different machine.
Netinfo Manager – Netinfo is the built-in Mac OS X directory system. It stores information about users and resources and makes it available to Mac OS X processes that want to use it. This application helps you manage it.
Network Utility – Since I run a fairly large network of Macs this app is great. It makes it easy to ping machines, lookup name server and DNS, do traceroutes, port scans, etc. It also is a quick way to find info on your Network interfaces. (e.g., ethernet, airport, etc)
ODBC Administrtator – This will give you access to database management systems using Open Database Connectivity standards.
Printer Setup Utility – When you get that new printer and hook it to your Mac, this app comes to the rescue. It will lead you along to get the printer working.
System Profiler – If you need information about your Mac, here is the place to come. It will tell you about your RAM and your drives and your processors and anything thing else you’d need.
Terminal – This is the gateway to the true power of Mac OS X. It is a terminal emulator that will let you use the Unix base of Mac OS X.
VoiceOver Utility - Voiceover is a Mac OS X feature that lets you interact with your Mac via voice. It will read the text of websites, email, and documents. It also allows you to control your Mac using audible commands. Voiceover Utility lets you determine how Voiceover will behave.
Well, kiddies I hope this helps you settle into your new Mac a little easier. Some of these Utilities are clutch and definitely make me feel more in control of my MAC.
Til next time,
Commodore64 (The one you used to play Bruce Lee on)
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