In addition to my post about Mac OS X: restarting Google Drive when it shows a spinning wheel, restarting a hanging Tunnelblick is even easier:
killall Tunnelblick
open -a Tunnelblick
–jeroen
Archive for the ‘Apple’ Category
Mac OS X: restarting Tunnelblick when it isn’t responding any more
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/03/31
Posted in Apple, bash, Development, iMac, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, MacMini, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, OS X 10.11 El Capitan, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Mac OS X – serial communication programs
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/03/30
Some links that helped me getting FTDI USB serial communication to Raspberry Pi systems going:
- Serial adapter drivers, programs, pinout, and tips for console TTY’s on a Mac.Source: Mac’s and serial TTY’s
- List of GUI terminal emulation software for console TTY’s on a Mac with OS X.Source: Mac OS X Serial Applications
- Source: Is there an OS X terminal program that can access serial ports? – Ask Different
- Source: SHA – – – Raspberry Pi – RS232 Serial Interface Options (Revisit)
–jeroen
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Posted in Apple, Communications Development, Development, Hardware Development, Hardware Interfacing, iMac, Legacy Ports: COM, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, MacMini, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User, Raspberry Pi, USB | Leave a Comment »
Mac OS X: restarting Google Drive when it shows a spinning wheel
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/03/29
Every now and then, Google Drive on Mac OS X gets confused and starts showing the spinning wheel when hovering over the menu bar icon similar to for instance DropBox does every once in a while.
This is how to terminate and restart Google Drive from the terminal (no need for su):
killall -v -SIGKILL Google\ Drive
open -a Google\ Drive
Alternatively you can start Google Drive using this:
/Applications/Google\ Drive.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Drive &
I found this executable through osx – Find all executable files within a folder in terminal – Ask Different
Note that this won’t kill Google Drive as it sends the TERM signal (SIGTERM):
killall -v Google\ Drive
–jeroen
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Posted in Apple, bash, Development, Google, GoogleDrive, iMac, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, MacMini, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, OS X 10.11 El Capitan, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User, Scripting, Software Development | 1 Comment »
ducks: How Do I Find The Largest Top 10 Files and Directories On a Linux / UNIX / BSD?
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/03/20
Explains how to find out top 10 files and directories under Unix / Linux using sort and du command in human-readable format.
Interesting, especially
alias 'ducks=du -cks * | sort -rn | head'
Source: How Do I Find The Largest Top 10 Files and Directories On a Linux / UNIX / BSD?
via: Joe C. Hecht and nixCraft.
–jeroen
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Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Apple, BSD, Linux, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Microsoft Remote Desktop 8 on OS X stores RDP configuration in com.microsoft.rdc.mac.plist and passwords in keychain
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/03/15
One day I write some scripts based on:
- /usr/bin/plutil
- /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy
Some starting materials are at:
- How To: Create a Microsoft Remote Desktop 8 Connection | macmule
- com.microsoft.rdc.mac.plist needs to be binary for RDP to work and XML to edit it manually (use plutil to do the conversion)
- macmule/Create-a-Microsoft-Remote-Desktop-8-Connection
- Microsoft Remote Desktop version 8 – JAMF Nation
- remote desktop – Where does Microsoft RDP 8 for Mac store it’s configuration – Ask Different
- .rdp files are now using the XML plist format: Microsoft releases Remote Desktop 8.0 for Android, iOS and Mac | OfficeforMacHelp.com
- CoRD .rdp files seem to share the same XML plist format: Transfer CoRD bookmarks to Microsoft Remote Desktop | OfficeforMacHelp.com
A thing I learned is that the Microsoft Remote Desktop 8 is basically a rebranded iTap RDP (it looks like Microsoft bought iTap RDP for Mac, as iTap RDP for Mac is now discontinued)
–jeroen
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Posted in Apple, Development, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, OS X 10.11 El Capitan, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User, Remote Desktop Protocol/MSTSC/Terminal Services, Scripting, Software Development, Windows, XML, XML/XSD | Leave a Comment »
Factory restoring a 3rd generation Apple TV was more cumbersome, but I learned about BlueTooth keyboard sharing from my Mac
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/03/03
Apple TV needs iTunes
A while ago, my model A1469 3rd generation Apple TV had a slowly blinking white light but nothing displayed over HDMI any more, so I searched for Apple TV slow blinking white and
Reading Restoring your Apple TV (when its white light is flashing) | Comics and gadgets, I opted for the first option: a soft-restart of the Apple TV. To do that you have to press menu+down on the Apple Remote at the same time for 5+ seconds, then wait for the Apple TV to restart. That initially did show an image over HDMI which later disappeared. I didn’t get the image at first as I thought it was looking for iTunes media over USB (like from an iPhone or iPad), so I waited for a time-out to occur.
After a while that image disappeared and the Apple TV white LED started rapidly flashing. Not good.
Later I found the image was portraying a USB cable not having a connection to an iTunes logo and some dark grey text on a black background pointing to support.apple.com/appletv/restore.
I didn’t see that at first as the room was a bit brightly lit since we had a lot of sun that day so this non-descriptive image with grey on black UX worked really well.
Conclusion: I had to restore the Apple TV which I thought would be straight-forward as it had been connected to my iCloud account.
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Posted in Apple, Apple TV, iOS, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Interesting historic read of notes on end 1970s Apple SSAFE project – how it started and ended
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/02/27
This appeared a few days back: [WayBack] http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/apple/ssafe/Apple_SSAFE_Project.pdf
It’s about “Software and Security from Apple Friends and Enemies” an early exchange of ideas and possibilities for DRM in the Apple ][ and Apple III era.
I got it via my bitsavers.org RSS subscription, but it has been over the net in quite a few other places as well:
- Longer articles:
- [WayBack] applemos Software Security from Apples Friends and Enemies
(which due to my dyslexic - [WayBack] Documents unearthed from early Apple history show shift in company focus from hobbyists to businesses
- [WayBack] Found at a thrift shop: the last record of a doomed Apple DRM effort from 1979 / Boing Boing
- [WayBack] Apple SSAFE Project.pdf (1979) | Hacker News
- [WayBack] Vintage Apple memos refer to dongles as ‘a case of the cure being worse than the disease’ | 9to5Mac
- [WayBack] Treasure Trove of Internal Apple Memos Discovered in Thrift Store
- [WayBack] applemos Software Security from Apples Friends and Enemies
- PDF scans:
I think the most important quote is from the one on reddit, submitted 20170223 by vadermeer for which I added some WayBack/Archive.is links:
[WayBack] Found Internal Apple Memos about copy protection for Apple II, SARA, LISA(self.VintageApple)
The reddit thread is very nice reading as it explains how close we are now to this Level 1:
Level 1. Totally secure. Absolutely no method of stealing the software. 100% effective. Note that the ideal, level 1, is achievable only through disallowing any access of any kind to the software and the computer. Not very practical in our circumstances.
and this one from boingboing:
It’s so neatly packaged and well-documented it could be a Harvard Business Review case-study.
Edit 20240819: the above Googl links pointed to [Wayback/Archive] Apple SSAFE Project.pdf – Google Drive.
--jeroen
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Posted in 6502, Apple, Apple ][, History, Power User | Leave a Comment »
iMovie on a 2010 iMac was starting and running slow: 2 simple steps solved that
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/02/27
iMovie on a 2010 iMac was starting and running slow. During startup, it wasn’t using much memory, but during editing it did: less than 2 gigabyte out of 8 gigabyte free memory left.
The hard-disk was like 30% full, there wasn’t much in the cache, few processes were auto-starting and the recycle bin was almost empty.
So my first thought was adding more RAM (which is easy): duplicating it to 16 megabyte was easy and not expensive when you look at the Amazon prices for it.
After that it was faster, but not really fast: especially the loading was still slow (less slow than before, but still taking minutes).
Then I scanned for permission issues and there were quite a few as the machine had been getting updates since 2010. So I repaired the permissions using disk utility.
Now iMovie loaded much faster as well: in under a minute.
So out of 17 Ways to Speed Up Mac OS X Lion – ChrisWrites.com, only 2 steps were really needed so far.
–jeroen
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Posted in Apple, iMac, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, OS X 10.11 El Capitan, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Ultimate Micro Releases the Universal PSU Kit and Upgrade – Call-A.P.P.L.E.
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/02/24
I might buy this as a preventive measure: Ultimate Micro Releases the Universal PSU Kit and Upgrade – Call-A.P.P.L.E. [WayBack]
Videos of how to install are below.
–jeroen
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Posted in //e, 6502, Apple, History, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Finder doesn’t work since Yosemite – Ask Different
Posted by jpluimers on 2017/02/20
Source: Finder doesn’t work since Yosemite – Ask Different [WayBack]:
This fix from Reddit worked perfectly for me!!
http://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/2jtikj/finder_not_responding_new_yosemite_install/ [WayBack]
You can most likely fix the issue by clearing out Finder’s saved state, caches, and/or settings.
Use Spotlight (the search icon in the far right of the menu bar) to find and open the “Terminal” application. Triple-click the following line in order to copy and paste it into Terminal’s window:
rm -fR ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.finder.savedState ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder; killall FinderIf it still doesn’t work, try this one:
mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder{,.backup}.plist; killall Finder
–jeroen
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Posted in Apple, iMac, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, MacMini, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Power User | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 