Help! Stuck in OVR mode running Windows on a Mac in Bootcamp!

Another useful tidbit for those using Windows on a Mac via bootcamp - it's all too easy to get your keyboard stuck in OVR (overwrite mode) rather than the standard INS (insert mode) - the apple keyboard doesn't have a button to switch it out (at least my wee wireless keyboard doesn't) but it is easy to switch back and forth between the two modes but typing the following incantation:

fn + enter

It could possibly be different for different programs but that certainly worked for my in MS Visual Studio

Hope that saves some of you some stress!

Maximising windows in OS X Yosemite

It has been a LONG time since i've posted anything here but i found this little nugget today while playing around with the OS X Yosemite Beta and I'm sure this is going to drive existing Mac users insane for a while!

When you click on the green zoom button on the top-left hand corner of a window in Apple's new Operating System, it defaults to bringing the window in question into full screen mode rather than simply filling the available screen real estate minus the dock and menu bar. This is ANNOYING! However, it is possible to get the traditional behaviour of the green button by doing one of the following:

1 - Holding down the alt/option key while you click the green button
2 - Not clicking the button at all and instead double clicking on the title bar

Heres hoping that Apple allow users to change this behaviour somewhere easily like they did with the 'natural' scrolling in OS X Lion which was equally annoying and unnecessary :)

Showing the desktop with OS X Lion

Have you been frustrated with how to clear away your open applications in OS X Lion (and now Mountain Lion) so you can see the desktop? I used to have a key mapped on my keyboard to do just that with earlier versions of OS X but it changed with the king of the kitties. However, it is still possible to do just that with the following handy key combination:

CMD + F3

Watch as your applications fly into the corners of the screen :)

More hash key fun: The hash key when using RDP on a Mac with a UK keyboard

Following on from the continuing fun of trying to find the hash key codes when using a UK Mac, here is a tip for anyone needing to write a # when using Microsoft RDP on a Mac with a UK keyboard - use the following combination:

CMD + \

Keyboard shortcut to turn on Mirroring of displays

I got a projector as a christmas pressie this year and I love it! I found this useful little tip in my travels which is very convenient when you have settled yourself in with a wireless keyboard only to realise that you haven't turned on mirroring of your displays, doh! You can easily turn on the mirroring of displays in OS X by using the following command:

cmd + f1

(this assumes you haven't changed the configuration of your fnumber keys, in which case, i imagine the command would be):

cmd + fn + f1

However, i don't know about that last one!

Problems emptying the Trash folder after deleting Time Machine backups

Yesterday i found that my 1.5TB external drive was running short on space so my first thought was that the i might have some old backups that could be deleted - I have used the drive also as my Time Machine backup for the last year. What i did next was bad i recommend you avoid! I went to the 'Backups.backupdb' folder, saw a bunch of timestamped folders going back into last year and dropped them into my trash folder - i didn't realise how unwise this move was until i tried emptying said folder - after 2 hours of trying to delete it's content, i was still getting nowhere so i had to turn the machine off, stopping the trash emptying didn't cut it. I tried fixing the problem by putting back the backups and deleting them individually but the machine wouldn't let me do that because the files were backup files and they apparently couldn't be put back. I then did some rummaging and found an article that proved to be useful:

Emptying the trash: an epic journey
http://wordmunger.com/?p=1165

Here, Dave let the machine take it's time - 13 hours later he was done...

there needed to be another way, surely? In the blog post, Dave mentions that using the terminal to trash items takes ALOT less time, i did some more digging and found this invaluable article:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10357452-263.html (Trash problems in OS X? Reset it!)

I found that the following command soothed my woes:

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/insert external disk name here/.Trashes

PLEASE read all of the cnet article before you try this though - it notes a word of warning that if you put a space before '/.Trashes' in your command, you'll nuke all the data on the disk so be careful but it does seem to have done the trick for me!

Note, if you need to delete individual things from Time Machine in the future, follow this path instead of deleting it directly from the Finder!

http://blog.adamnash.com/2008/03/02/how-to-delete-individual-backups-from-apple-time-machine/

Viewing EXIF Data in iPhoto '09

I was tearing my hair out, trying to find where I could see the EXIF Information (Shooting Data) about pictures in iPhoto - thanks to this blog post by Kevin Carter on the MacCreate website, i found it (http://iphoto.maccreate.com/2009/10/24/how-to-reveal-exif-data-in-iphoto-09/)

1. Choose a photo in iPhoto
2. Go to Photos -> Show Extended Photo Info

I had been rummaging in the get info menu with no luck but it is available - just not where I expected it :)

Getting Apple Magic mouse scrolling to work in Windows 7 via Bootcamp

After three years, my Apple Mighty Mouse finally gave out on me so I took the opportunity to buy myself a new multi-touch Apple Magic Mouse - while it was a doddle to set up in OS X (assuming you're running OS X 10.6.2), I had some problems with it in Windows. I was able to set it up to let me use the basic moving and clicking but i could get it to scroll. Some digging on the internet found that Apple have recently released an update to the bluetooth drivers for Windows XP and Vista:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL952

However, on trying to install these drivers on my 64-bit Windows machine, I got the following error:

'This update is not intended for this computer and will not be installed'

Fortunately, Rich G at wedigital.com has found a solution. He extracted the appropriate drivers from the install and conveniently put togther a 32 bit and 64 installation which seems to work pretty well for me:

Link to Rich G's blogpost about this

64-bit Windows 7 Compatible Apple Magic Mouse Driver

Thanks Rich G!

Hash key on an Apple a UK Mac Keyboard when using Bootcamp

The most successful post I've ever posted on a technical subject concerned where the heck to find the hash (#) key on a UK Mac keyboard - for some reason, Apple UK must have thought us Mac users in Blighty don't code or use Twitter ^_^

I worked it out in the end but encountered a similar problem when I started using my Mac via Bootcamp - the keystroke proved not to be the same, doh! So, having done some digging, I found that to create a # sign on a UK Mac keyboard that is running Windows via bootcamp, use the following keystroke:

Ctrl+Alt+3

Hope that helps!

Taking screenshots using a Mac running Windows via Bootcamp

I've recently switched jobs and now find that i need to use Windows 7 regularly via a Bootcamp partition on my shiny '09 Macbook Pro – it is a great little setup but i did find a small snag when trying to take screenshots using a Mac keyboard via Bootcamp. Mac keyboards don't' have a print screen key but i have learned that you can get the same effect by using the following key combinations:

Take a screenshot of the entire screen:

FN+SHIFT+F11

Take a screenshot of the active Window:

FN+ALT+SHIFT+F11

Hope that helps make y'all happy 'campers ^_^

Tethering your iPhone via Bluetooth using Windows 7

I seemed to be getting complaints from my iPhone when I tried tethering it to my Windows 7 Boot Camp partition on my MacBook Pro - the issue was that the system was looking for a driver for the Bluetooth Peripheral Device and couldn't find one. Luckily, some clever devil at the CoNetrix website found the solution to the problem - once the initial pairing has been set up, go to go to the properties of the phone in the Devices and Printers screen and click on Services tab. Uncheck “Wireless iAP” - don't worry! This doesn't stop it working as an Access Point, it just stops it asking for an inappropriate driver. Then right click on the Phone, choose 'Connect Using' and then choose 'Access Point' and voila! You have a happy, working tethered connection between your iPhone and your Windows 7 machine.

Upgrading RAM in a Intel Mac Mini

Just a very quick post (it's been too long!!!). I recently upgraded the RAM in my Mac Mini to 2gb thanks to the very reasonable pricing of RAM at crucial.com at the moment. They now have a cool little scanner app that shows you the exact memory for your machine and their prices are very reasonable (£30 for 2gb of RAM!!!!). With the ram in hand, i went to http://www.methodshop.net/gadgets/tutorials/macmini-ram/ which provides a comprehensive explanation of how to change the ram in the Intel Mac Mini (note that the process for changing RAM in the Power PC model is quite different...substancially easier in fact!)

After the intial insanity of taking the case apart (which is a truly terrifying task), the walkthru made the task fairly straight-forward. By the nature of the machine's size, it is fiddly work and not advised for a complete newbie but it isn't rocket science either - a moderately experienced hardware geek should have no trouble.

The difference in performance is immense. If you have the cash and the nerves to take this little beastie apart - i highly recommend it!

Parallels with Coherance

Just a quick post about the success I've had with the new Coherance technology built into the PC Emulation program, Parallels. When I heard about Coherance I thought it was a bit of a gimmick: Why do I really need to be able to treat Windows apps as native Mac progs? However, I have found that since I have started using it that it has made a big difference to the way I interact with Windows on my Mac. I have started working on a porject in the last couple of weeks that has required that I use TOAD and a couple of Orcale Forms apps that just don't work properly in Safari and Firefox on my Mac. With Coherance, I now have my Windows start bar fitting snuggly on top of my Dock bar and, while it is just an aesthetic change, I find myself using the Windows side of my Mac a lot more. While I'm not a huge Windows fan anymore I would say that Coherance has improved the convenience of the Windows-side of modern Mac life and that can only be a good thing.

Dreamweaver on the Mac: JavaScript problems

I encountered a problem with Dreamweaver today - when I started the program I was met with the following errors:

"...ColdFusion.htm has configuration information that is invalid"

"...DWScriptsExtData.js dwscripts is not defined"

After a moment of panic, I did some google searching and found that the problems can be due to a variety of things, as specified by the troubleshooting link (http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_19105#site_cache). For me, I was able to solve the problem by doing the following things:

1) Reinstalling Dreamweaver
2) Delete the filecache.dat file in Mac HD/Users//Library/Application Support/Macromedia/Dreamweaver 8/
3) Delete the MacFileCache-BFE7CE2E.dat (example) in Mac HD/Users//Library/Application Support/Macromedia/Dreamweaver 8/Configuration/

Taking screenshots on a Mac

Just a quick post about taking screenshots on a Mac. Other Windows switchers may lament the loss of their old 'print screen' button but fear not! There are 2 options to replace this Windows feature. The first in the following key combination: shift-command-3 - this will output a png image file to your desktop. The second is the 'Grab' feature, which in an Application sitting in the 'Utilities' folder. This little program offers you the capacity to grab single Windows and entire screenshots, depending on what you need.

Administering a MySQL database in OS X

Quick suggestion for those that might be new to MySQL databases. If you find administration of MySQL rather tedious from the command line, I throughly recommend you check out the official MySQL Administrator program provided free by the nice people at MySQL AB:

http://www.mysql.com/products/tools/administrator/

It is a truly wonderful tool and has opened up MySQL to me - if you are looking for the download page, it is here:

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/administrator.html

Problems with code generated by Dreamweaver 8.0.2 and Postgres

A cautionary tale about updating to Dreamweaver 8.0.2 if you use Postgres. Yesterday I decided to upgrade my copy of Dreamweaver 8 to 8.0.2 because it kept on telling me there was an update available. I didn't expect any problems and, if anything, hoped that the process would help resolve some of the problems I have encountered when using Postgres against Dreamweaver. While you can generate code for Postgres in Dreamweaver, it tended to complain about not understanding what a 'serial' or 'int4' datatype is. However, I found that once I had updated my Dreamweaver, I could no longer generate code to update records in my Postgres database. Instead I got an error like this:

ERROR: column "status_id" is of type 'integer' but expression is of type 'character varying'

We compared the code generated before and after the Dreamweaver upgrade and noticed that the code generated by the upgraded Dreamweaver was attempting to push data into the database as a literal (so the string in my page was being pushed as a String into my number field). While there could be another explanation for all of this, the process of deduction has pointed the finger at this new Dreamweaver upgrade (the pages I made in Dreamweaver pre-upgrade worked fine). If you NEED something provided in the new upgrade then you need to investigate this problem further, if not, then I highly recommend sticking to your pre-upgraded version of Dreamweaver 8.

Apple's iPhone is tasting a bit sour

More and more details are coming out about the Apple iPhone and I'm afraid to say that the more I hear, the less I'm impressed :( David Pogue (of the New York Times) has been posting an interesting set of blogs about the iPhone's capabilities (see link above) and he has found some infromation that is making it less and less likely that I will be able to buy one of these guys:

The biggest gripe is that developers will not be allowed to make products on this phone - this hits me like a sack of Bricks - I'm going to have the most advanced phone in existance, which contains an streamlined copy of OS X and I'm limited to using it as an iPod of iPhoto viewer?!?!? I'm a geeky software developer/webmaster - I want to be using this puppy to VNC into things, open up X11 windows, telnet into my OS X Server, mess with my FTP site, check my MySQL database and other things that are useful when you are on the move and your boss is yelling at you. Sure, I could get out my MacBook to do these things but if I don't have a Wi-Fi connection it's useless. How about using my new iPhone to act as a Modem for my MacBook? No, according to Pogue's blog, that ain't going to be possible either.

No Java support and only the possibilty of Flash Support? What about YouTube? Jobs' answer is to make a deal with YouTube but that is a cheap way around the problem if you ask me. What about the rest of the net's websites that use either Java or Flash???

No Stylus support: Call me old fashioned but I can work a charm with a stylus and a proper keyboard (my HTC Wizard is close to perfection in that respect) - according to Pogue's report, the iPhone will ONLY respond to skin touch. I'm sorry but this bites - I don't want to be chained to this gimmick.

PIM support for Windows: I don't use Windows at work any more and I try to avoid it at home but Apple need to allow people to Sync their contacts on Windows machines - it is not enough to allow people to sync their iTunes - we need PIM access as well!

grrrrrrr. I'm annoyed. This is a very cool phone but I'm going to have trouble being able to justify buying it some of these issues aren't resolved (my chief one being locking developers out)

Reaction to KeyNote 2007

Ok, so the iPhone and appletv have been announced but what impact will they have?

Well, I think the short answer is alot for the first and limited for the second.

The iPhone looks damn impressive - I have just checked out the Apple website and it's features do look very cool. However, it is not without caveats. The iPhone has, on paper, everything needed to kick the ass off of everything on the market. It has a touch screen, bluetooth, wi-fi, an iPod and OS X. Wicked? Well it is, but I am worried as to whether Apple will be able to make the European deals with providers to make this gadget affordable. I like the idea of an OS X phone but is it actually a streamlined UNIX distribution? This will be important because much of the third-part apps that could make this phone king will benefit greatly from an actual distro of Darwin. Think of it - a machine in your pocket capable of running all your fav OS X progs. If not, it could mean that you will be limited (for a while, at least) to what Apple has provided. 'That isn't a problem?' you say? Well, it isn't for a lot of things. Apple make darn good software and I'm sure this phone will be able to provide a better musical interface to anything else on the market. Equally, I imagine the iPhoto functions will be grand too. The basic phone functionality looks very sexy but I want to know whether I will be able to run TomTom? I use a Pocket PC for just about everything except for music (my 60gb iPod handles that) and I will need to be able to use an iPhone as a GPS navigator as well. In relatino to my iPod, I won't be replacing it for an iPhone - it is too small. I like having my record collection in my pocket at all times and I won't be able to do that with this device, sexy as it is. I also want to see how this new phoen handles a stylus - while Steve says that we won't need one anymore, I would find life very difficult without a stylus now. I am VERY excited about this device but I want to know more before I put money down (not that that will be a problem, there is a wait until the end of the year for the European release)

Now, I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed with appletv - it is a wicked idea and it looks great but I just wish they had put a TV decoder card in. In it's current state, the appletv can not replace my Media Center - I need to be able to record live TV, get at emails etc. I don't want to be restricted to view what it on the Apple Store (neither do I want to have to pay the quite high prices). It is a nice idea, but I think it won't suit my needs.

I was hoping for some more info on Leopard but it can be wait - there are enough things to get our teeth into for the moment :)

MacWorld KeyNote 2007

Before my introduction into the cult of Apple, I never quite understood the salivation that followed Steve Jobs' Keynote speeches. However, over the last year I have found myself going further down the rabbit hole of Mac fandom and now find myself, like many others of the Apple Legion, waiting with baited breath for Mr. Jobs' announcement. It still amazes me how well Apple plays these things - as consumers, we are just dying to know about the new toys Apple are going to offer us - I can't say I've felt that way about Microsoft since I was 11 and Windows 95 was just on the Horizon.

Anyway, I thought I'd give my 2 cents about this years coming Keynote speech. I am in two minds as to the rumored iPhone - it could be the greatest gizmo since Bread with Bluetooth functionality or it could be just an iPod Nano with a GSM chip. As a Pocket PC user, I would like to see Apple produce a PDA phone with a touch screen, a streamlined UNIX based OS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPs functionality (ideally with TomTom producing a port of their software for it). However, this is a lot to ask of an item on release 1.0. While it is possible that an iDA (or something of a similar name) will appear later today, I think it is far more likely that we will see an iPod Nano with GSM functionality. Most phone on the market at the moment are aimed at 'flash & trash' with very little movement on the functional technology front since 2004. The iPod has since become the killer item to own and I think that mixing up a non-smartphone with a Nano and giving it a GUI similar to that of the iPod would hit it off with the majority of consumers.

Leopard is another item we are all awaiting. I have to say though, I don't see there being an enormous amount for me in it. I'm sure I will upgrade but it isn't an enormous leap forward for OS X (the server functionality does look VERY good though - wiki's and ZFS on the horizon).

iTV could be a big deal depending on what is inside the package. I have spent a lot of time and money on my Windows Media Center so I don't know if I will be upgrading anytime soon, but if it comes with a Hard Disk and a free EPG then I can see Microsoft being booted out of my Living Room within the next 3-4 years.

Finally, iWork and iLife. I don't use iWork so I can't really comment on it - from what I've seen of it, it is a good package but I live in an MS Office-based world so I don't see my picking up a new suite any time soon (unless it has seemless integration with the new version of Office (think: new Office XML formats). In terms of iLife, I am waiting with baited breath for the new version of my favourite program, GarageBand. It would be very cool if we could be given time/key changes in the new version.

Anyway, the keynote starts in 2 hours, 2 minutes and 36 seconds (time courtesy of a dashboard widget another cultist put together :D) - we'll know the toys of tomorrow soon!