Tag Archives: 10.8 Mountain Lion

fixed : repair corrupt RAR-files on your Mac

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Question :

I have some RAR-archive-files on my Mac that I would like to decompress/unarchive. I have tried several unarchiver-applications, but they all end up telling me that the RAR-file is corrupted.

Is there any way to fix this ?

Answer :

RAR (which stands for Roshal ARchive) is a very popular file-compression that is developed and maintained by the Roshal brothers Eugene & Alexander. Their RAR & unRAR utility is called WinRAR (for Windows) or simply RAR (for all other platforms including MacOSX).

One interesting thing about WinRAR/RAR is that it is also capable of repairing corrupted RAR-archive-files. Slight down-side is that the utility doesn’t have a graphic interface (GUI) like most MacOSX-apps… it is a ‘command line only’ tool…

To repair damaged RAR-archive-files on MacOSX, do this :

– download WinRAR/RAR for MacOSX from the Roshal brothers’ website :

http://www.win-rar.com/fileadmin/winrar-versions/rarosx-4.2.0.tar.gz

NOTE : if you want to be sure you get the latest version of RAR for MacOSX, go to this website to find it :

http://www.win-rar.com/download.html

– After downloading, open the Terminal app that is in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder and drop the “rar” program file from the “rarosx” folder onto the terminal window.

– Then make sure there’s a space (by typing on the SPACE-bar of your keyboard)

– Then type “r” (without the quotes).

– Then make sure there’s another space (by typing on the SPACE-bar of your keyboard again).

– Then drop the file you want repaired onto the terminal window (it’ll give the path and name of the file).

– Then make sure there’s another space (typ the SPACE-bar)

– and type “/Users/yourname/Desktop” or wherever you want the fixed file to be delivered.

(if you want to deliver to a specific destination folder, it may be easier to just drop the folder where you want it placed onto the terminal window again so there’s no chance at typos)

– Then hit “return” and the repair scan will start. if the file has a recovery record, it will say that it was found almost immediately. Then the repairing the file will start. (this might take a couple of minutes, depending on the size of the file)

– After that, double click the repaired RAR-archive-file to have it unRARed

…that should do the trick!

NOTE : the file will have the prefix “rebuilt” appended to the beginning of the filename. You’ll need to delete that once the repair process has completed before you attempt to join the files again.

fixed : HideSwitch can’t hide invisible files

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Question :

I used to use the HideSwitch app to view the invisible files on my Mac from time to time.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/36771/hideswitch

It used to work great, but now I’ve run into a problem that the “Hide Invisibles” does no longer hide the invisible files in the Finder (the ones that I had just made visible using HideSwitch’s “Show Invisibles” button…)

FYI : I’m running OSX 10.8.2 “Mountain Lion”

How can I fix this ?

Answer :

The fix is rather simple – if you don’t mind using the Terminal :

– inside your Applications folder, go to the Utilities folder, there you’ll find the Terminal app ; open it by double clicking on the icon

– in OSX’s Terminal window that opens, type (or copy-paste) :

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool NO

– and activate by pressing the RETURN-key on your keyboard

– then type (or copy-paste) :

killall Finder

– and activate by pressing the RETURN-key on your keyboard

…now your Finder will rebuild, and the invisible files will be invisible again

 

NOTE :

Offcourse, you can also use the Terminal to make invisible files visible. (the reverse process of what’s lined out above) To do so, type or copy-paste the following line into the Terminal :

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool YES

…activate using the RETURN-key, then type (or copy-paste) :

killall Finder

…and activate again using the RETURN-key ; that’s it !

 

[ thanks to Matt Swain and others for the tip ]

fixed : delete SPanel from Mountain Lion

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Question :

When I installed OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion, the SPanel application for my Samsung printer was disabled. But it wasn’t deleted…

Now the SPanel application turns out to be incompatible with OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion, because nothing happens when trying to run it, but the SPanel icon now sits pointlessly in the upper menu bar of my Mac…

…is there any way of deleting it ?

Answer :

Yes – there is.

To delete the SPanel app (a.k.a. “Smart Panel”) and the menu bar item :

– open the Samsung folder inside your Applications folder

– drag the SPanel app to the Desktop

– open the Printers folder that’s in your main Library folder, so :

~/[your hard disk]/Library/Printers

Note : the SPanel folder may be inside the Samsung folder you’ll find there , but usually isn’t

– drag the SPanel folder to your Desktop

– restart your Mac

– then drag both the SPanel app and the SPanel folder from the Desktop to the Trash

– then empty your Trash

…done !

fixed : NSURLErrorDomain Error while updating through Mac App Store

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Question :

When I tried to install the updates that were available in the Mac App Store today, I got a “NSURLErrorDomain”-error, and the update refused to install…

…what can I do to get the update installed anyhow ?

Answer :

This is the type of error that you might encounter when trying to upgrade a piece of Apple software in the Mac App Store on OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion.

The fix is relatively simple (ironically, this does render the use of the Mac App Store obsolete) :

Go to the Apple website, download the update you’re having problems with there, and install it manually.

http://support.apple.com/downloads/

That’s it.

e.g. when trying to upgrade Safari 6 to Safari 6.0.2 you might get the error message “(NSURLErrorDomain error -3001.)(102)” ; you can fix that by getting the right update here :

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/53/02/041-8081/2jwp4wjrwygtm4lc608qy4h0n4a9yyq 37g/Safari6.0.2Mountain.pkg

e.g. when trying to upgrade Mountain Lion itself to version 10.8.1 through the Mac App Store, you might get the error message “(NSURLErrorDomain error -1100.)(102)” ; you can fix that by getting the right update here :

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1571

e.g. for the manual update to OSX 10.8.5, go here :

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1675

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fixed : “Your browser is not supported” error in Safari on iCloud.com

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Question :

I have OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion with Safari 6, but when I try to log in on iCloud.com, I get a message saying “Your browser is not supported. To use iCloud, we recommend using the latest version of Safari, Firefox, or Internet Explorer.”

The error on iCloud.com is the worst, but I also get reminders on other sites like Facebook and ANWB.nl that my browser isn’t recent enough, and I should update…

I can’t upgrade as I am already on the latest version of Safari.

I’ve tried switching the User Agent under the Develop chapter in Safari’s menu bar, but whatever I try, when I restart Safari, it automatically defaults back to a custom User Agent string that reads :

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible- MSIE 6.0- Windows NT 5.1- SV1- .NET CLR 1.1.4322

What can I do ? this is getting on my nerves…

Answer :

the solution is rather straight forward : delete all plist-files associated with Safari manually

here’s how to do so :

– in the Finder, in the upper menu bar go to “Go”

– then “Go to folder…”

– in the popup window type “~/library/preferences”

(that’s how you get into the hidden Library-folder)

– then drag these files to the Desktop (you might not have all of them on you Mac) :

com.apple.Safari.plist

com.apple.Safari.plist.ByIRcYZ

com.apple.Safari.plist.lockfile

com.apple.Safari.plist.RRS.plist

com.apple.Safari.plist.RSS.plist.lockfile

– then restart Safari and check if everything works as you would like it to

– if so, drag those .plist-files you just moved to the Desktop to the Trash

…that’s it

FYI : theoretically you could also have replaced the custom User Agent string by the proper one for Safari 6 :

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 6_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10A5355d Safari/8536.25

…too bad that your Safari will probably not be able to save that though, so you’ll still have to follow the directions outlined above…

more User Agent strings can be found here :

http://www.useragentstring.com/_uas_Safari_version_.php

fixed : add sound to Screen Sharing

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Question :

I am using OSX’s built-in Screen Sharing option to control the Mac in our living room, when I am in another room with my MacBook – it’s great !

But sometimes I would like to listen to a video or a music track that I’m playing on my ‘living room Mac’ and Screen Sharing doesn’t support that…

What can I do ?

 

Answer :

There’s a simple and FREE utility that will help you out on this one : Soundfly

Just download and install Soundfly on both Macs and then run “Soundfly” on the ‘sound sending Mac’, and “Soundfly Receiver” on the ‘listening Mac’… it’s that simple…

You can download Soundfly here :

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26855/soundfly

UPDATE : the latest version can be downloaded here :

http://www.abyssoft.com/software/soundfly/

 

Thanks to Graham Johnstone for this updated link 😉

fixed : iCloud Photo Stream from business iPhone to family Mac

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Question :

My iPhone is a business device, so I want to sync my ‘business life’ including Contacts, Calendars, Mail, Documents & Data, etc to my MacBook Pro… but I want my upload/sync the photo’s I’ve made with this ‘business’ iPhone to our shared ‘family’ Mac which holds our family’s entire iPhoto-database. iCloud doesn’t seem to enable me to do so… what can I do ?

Answer :

Even though you can setup a secondary iCloud account on your iPhone, you cannot do what you would like to do, because :

1- Photostream is only supported for your primary iCloud account (*)

(*) UPDATE d.d. September 20th 2012: only when running iPhoto 9.4 or newer on OSX 10.8.2 or newer, you have the option to subscribe to a ‘Shared’ Photo Stream besides your primary iCloud account’s Photo Stream

If you want to this ‘Shared Photo Stream’ feature on an older, officially unsupported Intel-Mac, you could consider installing a patched version of OSX 10.8 – for more info, look here :

fixed : install OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion on unsupported Macs

 

2- Documents & Data syncing is only supported for your primary iCloud account

…so using iCloud you will never be able to make the logical split between Documents & Data sync (which is strictly ‘business’) and Photostream (which is mainly ‘family’)…

The only solution at this moment is to find an alternative to Photostream… and I’ve found (only) one : Eye-Fi does the trick !

And… Eye-Fi is free (free account, free iOS-app & free Mac-app ; by SanDisk)

download it here for OSX :

http://support.eye.fi/downloads/center/

and download the iOS-app here :

http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/eye-fi/id306011124?mt=8

the only thing you need to beware of is that the Eye-Fi App needs to be running/open on your iPhone/iPad and on your Mac both Eye-Fi Center and iPhoto need to be running/open…

…so it still feels a little more ‘manual’ than iCloud Photostream, since you need not forget to open the Eye-Fi App…

…but that’s a small price to pay, since you get 3 things that iCloud doesn’t give you :

– auto-transfer of your video recordings into iPhoto

– a free online gallery (like the one we lost when ‘upgrading’ from MobileMe to iCloud)

– separation of your ‘photostream’ from your primary iCloud-account

Note :

even though using DropBox might seem to be a valid alternative to iCloud’s Photostream also, since it does auto-upload of iPad/iPhone pictures to ‘the cloud’… it is not really useful in the end, as it does not provide auto-import into iPhoto…