doctormac

The case of the gabonkadunk iPhone ... uh, case

2015-12-10T09:19:00.002-08:00

Apple just released probably their most ballyhooed product in recent years, and I'm not talking about the "iPhone Watch" or the Apple Pencil. They released this:

Everyone has been writing about it, blogging about it, reporting about it, and talking about it. And what is it? It's an iPhone case with a battery built in. You can tell by the bulge. There's a battery in there, that looks like it's bursting to get out.

The Verge wrote 3 articles (!) and had a video about this on the day it came out. One was lamenting the fall of Apple's ability to make sound design decisions, other's have joined the choir and ramped up on the chorus echoing through the blogosphere, that Apple is going down.

My humble opinion is that this might be the most clever marketing Apple has ever done. By making a design so radical, that everyone's talking about it is not easy to pull off these days. I haven't seen hype about a design decision like this since maybe the inception of the first iPhone.

Junk in trunk or not, the hump has made it's bump.

HOW TO CIRCUMVENT HOTEL-INTERNET RESTRICTIONS, AND GET YOUR APPLE-TV ONLINE.

2015-06-21T17:16:00.001-07:00

So you've checked into a hotel, and you brought you AppleTV to enjoy your movie collection in the cloud while on vacation. But alas.... the internet in the hotel, requires you to agree to "terms and conditions" which is a page that you're re-directed to in Safari when you choose the WiFi. Or, a panel that comes up when you log on via an iPhone. But the AppleTV doesn't have Safari, and no panel pops up, so the internet won't work. What do you do?

Well, here's what you do. You need to spoof the MAC address of the AppleTV on your Mac, to get the device approved on the network. That's a very complicated technical way of saying that your AppleTV has an ID and the ID needs to be put on an "approved list" that the internet in the hotel has sitting somewhere in it's memory.

A MAC address has nothing to do with Mac and Apple, but is a word that basically means network-ID. No devices on the planet has the same MAC address, and hence a network can blacklist or vice versa specific devices.

Alright, so all that tech mumbo-jumbo is out of the way; here's how you do it.

First you have to figure out what the "Wi-Fi Address" is on the Apple TV, and write that down somewhere, let's call that the "AppleTV Wi-Fi-address". Then you have to figure out what is on your Mac, so you can set it back after you're done.

So here goes:

Go to Settings on your Apple TV and choose "Network" and jot down the thing under Wi-Fi Address. It goes something like this: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Open up the application "Terminal" on your Mac. It's located in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder.
In the terminal type the following, or copy it from here and paste it and hit enter. networksetup -listallhardwareports
It shows you a list of all the network interfaces on your computer. The one you're looking for is either called en0 or en1. Note the the one that's called Wi-Fi and write that down, or copy it somewhere. Let's call that "Mac Wi-Fi address".
Now here's the magic. Type in the following and hit enter, but replace the "xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx" part with the "Apple TV Wi-Fi address". sudo ifconfig en0 ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
It will ask you for your computer password. Type that in, and hit enter.
Then go to the Hotel Wifi, and then launch Safari and accept the terms and conditions.
Disconnect from the wifi (Choose another one, or "forget the network").
Go back into the Terminal and type the following: sudo ifconfig en0 ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx tand replace the x's with the "Mac Wi-Fi Address" and hit enter.
Go to your Apple TV and connect to the hotel Wi-Fi again, and voila, you're online.

List of places that accept ApplePay

2015-02-05T17:08:00.001-08:00

I've noticed that there aren't really any OFFICIAL list of ALL the places that accept ApplePay, and since I'm a huge fan of the service/thing I decided to keep a list of places I have found that accept the technology.

Fairway (Grocery chain in New York)
D'agostino
Container Store
Christian Louboutin
Gourmet Garage
New York TaxiCabs (TLC)
Union Market (Houston Street)
Push Cart Coffee (on 25th and 9th)
FIKA
CitiBike (new stations will enable you to unlock with ApplePay)

aside from all the obvious ones:

Duane Reade
Wallgreens
McDonalds
Subway
Foot Locker
Bloomingdales
Apple Store

How to remotely run FSCK on a mac.

2014-04-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a client that had disk problems on his mac, and the only way to fix them would be to boot into single user mode, and do an /sbin/fsck thingie? Well, you really can't do that if you're not there in person, can you .... or can you?

Turns out you can!

http://www.jeremycole.com/blog/2012/10/10/how-to-remotely-run-disk-repair-fsck-on-os-x/

But the article fails to tell you how you set the whole thing back after you're done, thus avoiding the user having to type in "exit" at a DOS looking prompt every time she/he wants to use his computer.

So here's my take on the manual. To enable single user, and make the Mac run fsck at boot; do the folllowing:

Open up the Terminal / Utilities folder.
type: cd .. and hit return a couple of times
type: sudo su
then type: sudo su -
then type: nvram boot-args="s" (this sets the boot type to single user boot, you can revert this by typing: nvram boot-args="")
then type: sudo nano /etc/bashrc
then copy paste this block of text at the end of the file

singleuser=`sysctl -n kern.singleuser`

if [[ $singleuser -eq 1 ]]; thennvram boot-args=""/sbin/fsck -fyrebootelseecho Not in single user modefi

You wanna save the changes by hitting CTLR and O to do a write out. Hit enter.
And then restart.

If you wanna revert the process, then remote log in after the Mac has restarted automatically, do all the steps again, but remove the block of text you just added, and change the start up mode from single user mode, to normal by removing the S as described in step 5.

Inverse selection in finder

2012-10-20T16:14:00.003-07:00

Basically this little video shows you that if you have marked a few files and not marked a few other ones in finder, and you realized you did it wrong, you can hold the command key and drag to INVERSE the selection. This changes EVERYTHING.

Replacing a home-button on an iPhone 4

2012-09-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

These iFixit guys are uncanny:

Gain control over your Time Warner Cable modem.

2012-09-14T10:51:00.001-07:00

It's simple. We kill the Batman.
No, just kidding.

If you feel like being reemed over and over again by TWC, this guide might be for you. Especially if you're tech-savvy, and want to control your modem, instead of waiting around for guys from TWC to show up and amble around for 20 minutes.

Unplug the COAX cable from your Motorola SBG6580 Modem.
Plug an ethernet cable from the first port on the modem into a PC/Mac.
Hold the reset button down on the back of the modem with a pen or some small thing that can go through the little port hole. Hold it down for 30 seconds, until the modem restarts.
Go to a browser and type: 192.168.0.1
Log in with admin/motorola

There, you're in. You can turn the modem into bridge mode, turn wireless off and so on. When you've made your changes, plug the COAX cable back in and restart the modem.

You've wielded your first Motorola!

See this original post for more detailed geeking around:

http://enshinkas.com/forum/showthread.php/469-How-to-Getting-a-Motorola-SBG6580-into-“Bridge”-mode-on-TimeWarner-Wideband

itunes error 5103?

2012-03-04T09:15:00.003-08:00

The easy fix:

1. Go to the finder and hit Command + F to start a new search.
2. Choose that the name should begin with: SC Info
3. Select that it should look for folders
4. Make sure that it looks for System Files, by hitting the little PLUS sign and adding that search parameter.

When you find the SC Info folder in your Users folder under Shared (it's invisble, hence the search thing above), trash the folder, restart iTunes and you can now watch movies in all their rented glory.

Thanks to this blog entry; How to solve iTunes error 5103

Recovering data from a zip file that won't expand.

2012-01-17T09:40:00.001-08:00

Let me just point to this excellent article: Recover ZIP archives.

double forwarding through airport and internet sharing

2011-09-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.soundc.de/blog/2009/01/24/mac-os-x-port-forwarding-with-internet-connection-sharing/

How to enable sub-calendars in google so they show up on your iphone.

2011-08-30T18:32:00.001-07:00

There's a complete guide here: Guide to enable calendars on the iPhone

but it all boils down to this; enable the calendars here in the google sync control-panel: http://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect

TRIM enable for SSD's other than apples in LION

2011-07-24T00:09:00.000-07:00

So TRIM? What the hell is that? Well, it's a technology that enables the operating system in a computer to keep the SSD (instead of a hard-drive) working fast an efficient by cleaning up the mess once in a while ... automatically. I know that makes little sense, but over time SSD's will turn slower and slower, unless the operating system supports TRIM which is like having a cleaning lady tidying up the order of things.

Unfortunately, unless your mac originally came with an SSD the new version of Mac OS X (Lion) will not support that, unless you do the following.

1. Open the terminal and backup some files first:

sudo cp /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage.original

2. Patch some files to add support for TRIM

sudo perl -pi -e 's|(\x52\x6F\x74\x61\x74\x69\x6F\x6E\x61\x6C\x00).{9}(\x00\x51)|$1\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00$2|sg' /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage

3. Clear the caches (two lines, each with a return)

sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

sudo kextcache -system-caches

4. Then reboot to see changes take effect.

If you wanna disable it again:

sudo perl -pi -e 's|(\x52\x6F\x74\x61\x74\x69\x6F\x6E\x61\x6C\x00).{9}(\x00\x51)|$1\x41\x50\x50\x4C\x45\x20\x53\x53\x44$2|sg' /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage

sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

sudo kextcache -system-caches

And if you want to revert to your backup:

sudo cp /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage.original /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage

Original post found here: http://digitaldj.net/2011/07/21/trim-enabler-for-lion/

How to check for bad blocks on a mac with Mac OS X?

2011-04-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

In the olden days you could always check a hard drive for bad blocks using the built in tools, but no more since the dawn of Mac OS X, which is about a decade ago. Anyways, a good article here on bad blocks and a Terminal Tool that will actually allow the process of checking a disk gone haywire.

Link to article on bad blocks

Here's the gist of the article

The badblocks command will be installed in /usr/local/sbin/badblocks, and it will probably not be on your PATH, so you have to type the entire path when using, or edit your PATH environment variable.

Usage is simple. First, run the “mount” command, so that you know the device names for the drives you want to test. You can obtain something like this:

arroz% mount
/dev/disk0s3 on / (local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (local)
fdesc on /dev (union)
on /.vol
automount -nsl [142] on /Network (automounted)
automount -fstab [168] on /automount/Servers (automounted)
automount -static [168] on /automount/static (automounted)

The internal hard drive is /dev/disk0 (note that /dev/disk0 is the entire drive, /dev/disk0s3 is a single partition). Imagining you want to test the internal hard drive you would type the command (as root):

badblocks -v /dev/disk0

Here's the link to the tool: Download BadBlock Terminal Tool
And my personal mirror of it: Mirror of BadBlock Terminal Tool

Some things I noted was that it couldn't run a check on a disk mounted, so I unmounted the drive, and had to run the command in sudo. But other that it's a great little tool.

What do you do if you can't restart your MacBook air, and have no DVD drive to boot from?

2011-02-05T11:44:00.002-08:00

Since I booted my DVD drive months and months ago to fit in another hard drive in its place, I have now no means to boot my computer if both hard drives fail. The solution is to create a memory stick with the installation of Snow Leopard for use in emergencies. Instead of me rambling on how to do this, another dude on the internet has a nice little guide on how to perform this operation. Except that his piece is about making the 6GB installer DVD down on a single layer DVD rather than a dual layer. But this works for memory-sticks too, in case you don't have one that can fit more than 4GB.

Instead of burning the disc image in the last step to a DVD, you'd simply carbon copy it to the memory stick. Remember to format the memory stick with a GUID partition scheme, in order to make sure that Intel Mac's can boot from it.

The guide can be found here:
http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/01/fit-mac-os-x-snow-leopard-on-single.html

What do you do if you can't restart your MacBook air, and have no DVD drive to boot from?

2011-02-05T11:44:00.001-08:00

What to do, when your internet fails?

2010-06-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

OK. So it can happen to even the best.

After some construction workers did some roof stuff and tripped on an internet wire (MY internet wire), I've been struggling to stay on, having to go to the roof and duct tape the cable in. But that was only a temporary solution, and I was counting down to the arrival of the Time Warner guy. He came, fixed (we thought) and left. Unfortunately, now it was worse than ever, and currently speaking .. i'm OFFICIALLY without internet.

But wait a minute. I have internet on my iPhone, only AT&T doesn't allow ... BS!
You can take matters into your own hands.

Now this is a little bit hairy, but stay with me. You CAN get on the internet on your computer, and your AppleTV or whatever other devices you need to get on; all by downloading an app, using a USB cable and the built in OS X internet sharing feature.

Let me go through this one step at a time. There are 3 steps.

1. Jailbreak your iPhone. 2. Install PDAnet 3. Share your internet
This is very easy.

1. JAILBREAK YOUR PHONE

A) Download and open the application called Spirit.
http://spiritjb.com/

B) Hook up your iPhone with the USB cable, and open Spirit.

C) Click the "Jailbreak now" button.

2. INSTALL PDANET

a) Now there's an App called Cydia. Find that, and open it. If it ask you all sorts of things, just "upgrade essentials", and "Graphical User Only".

b) Go into "Search" in Cydia. And search for an app called PDAnet. Download and install that.

c) On your computer go to this address:
http://www.junefabrics.com/iphone/mac.php

d) download, install and restart

e) when you open system preferences from the Apple menu, and choose network, it will tell you that there's a new port available. Name this PDAnet. Or something.

3. SHARE YOUR CONNECTION

Now to share your connection wirelessly with other devices in the house, you have to do the following.

a) go to System Preferences on the Apple Menu.

b) Go to Sharing

c) Select INTERNET on the list

d) Make sure that it's set so you are sharing the internet FROM PDAnet to Airport. Click the checkboxes to apply.

e) Check box the INTERNET on the list, to start the sharing.

You can click the box "Airport Options" to give the network a recognizable name, and perhaps a password.

THERE!!
Now as long as your mac is on, and your phone is hooked up with the USB cable, you're online.
Now it ISN'T fast, but it works and is better than nothing.

New SSD M225 256GB not working in MacBook Pro

2010-05-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

I've been promising myself for years, that I would buy my LAST hard drive that year. I've been yearning to get an SSD drive, which for the unenlightened non-tech savvy readers, is a technology that works lightening fast as a storage device, rather than slow and sluggish as normal hard drives do.

Finally a couple of weeks ago I caved in, and bought a Crucial 256GB drive at B&H in New York. I complacently tossed the box it came in, when I was unwrapping on my way to the subway. I thought: Of course it's gonna work.

Then sadly, as soon as I had installed it into my MacBook Pro, and powered up it came up with all sorts of errors. "Oh, no. More bug-hunting."

But luckily I found the solution:

Firstly, here are the symptoms you might experience:

• Drive shows up fine, but during format it exists unexpectedly and comes up with an error.
• Boots only to the spinning symbol under neath the Apple logo, and stalls
• It works fine in an external USB enclosure with external power supply.
• After a PRAM reset, it might actually boot up, but then it stalls as an error warning of disk disconnect appears.

The problem is your computers firmware. If you've installed the EFI 1.7 update, the drive won't work. If you downgrade to EFI 1.6, then it will.

Here's how:

1. Download this: http://rs475.rapidshare.com/files/275188610/Aluminum_MacBook_Pro_Recovery.dmg
2. Get a USB memory stick
3. Open up Disk Utility, in Utilities and format the USB stick as Mac OS X Journaled (GUID Partition map)
4. Choose the restore pane up top, and select the source to be

the disk image you just downloaded

and the target to be

the memory stick volume you just created.

5. Restart you mac holding down the option key.
6. MAKE SURE YOU'RE CONNECTED TO A POWER SUPPLY!
7. Choose to boot up from the memory stick.

The firmware downgrade will commence and restart, when done.

That's it. Your Crucial SSD will now work perfectly.

QuickTime crashing when exporting?

2010-03-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

I've had this annoying bug that I didn't care to do anything about for the longest time. If I opened up a movie in QuickTime Player 7 on Snow Leopard, and went to the file menu to export, the player would crash immediately. Because of my endless complacency and procrastination I just used my other computer running Snow Leopard through Screen Sharing to export the files I needed. But it was an error that would begin to haunt me. Like a closet you know is a mess, but you can't deal with cleaning up, but constantly need to access... I turned my blind side to the problem, but then got frustrated every time I had to deal with it.

So finally I got myself to man up to the task. And it was so simple. It was just a bad plug in:
Here's what I did.

Find the folder Library on the very top of your hard drive. In there, there's a folder called QuickTime. Plain and simple. And inside THAT folder, there are three plug ins called Flip4Mac something. Just remove those, and you once again can export.

OR... alternatively... and much simpler:
Go to this site:
http://dynamic.telestream.net/downloads/download-flip4macwmv.htm

and download the newest version (64bit) of flip4mac and install.
Voila!

Dr. Mac

Flash crashing Safari; a solution.

2010-02-04T18:50:00.001-08:00

Seen this happen on your mac lately? I was, as everyone else, extremely bothered with Flash crashing constantly while watching video on the internet. After digging around a little bit, I found out that if your drive is named "Macintosh HD" the Flash plug in will likely crash. If you rename your drive, it won't. That simple.

Booo, what a bug!

Dealing with texting woes on iPhone 3.0

2009-07-09T11:17:00.000-07:00

I just got a new iPhone. Good riddance to the old cracked up, patched up and duct taped dying device I had for years. PLUS... the new iphone have the new 3.0 software, with cut and paste and everything.

BUT... unfortunately, in texting terms... it hasn't all been bliss. If you ever encounter an error, saying simply that it couldn't sent. And that error keeps happening. And it's driving you nuts? Well then, look here.

1. In the conversation with that one person that you can't send to; tap the "edit" button.
2. Then hit the "Clear all" button up left top.
3. Tap "Done", and then "Back".
4. Then swipe over the empty conversation with the name of the person in question. Hit the red delete button.
5. Finally. Quit the texting app by hitting the home button.

Phew. Then try it again. Start a new text to that person, and it should work now.
Downside is that you are gonna loose a lot of texts, so here's hoping it's only a select few of your phone book this issue is tied to.

Sleep spasms of the macbook

2009-02-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

Technology is so fragile and precise like clockwork, that the slightest alteration can make everything go haywire.

For some time now, I had the pleasure of trying to diagnose a macbook that would never fall to sleep, or really not wake up either. It was some times impossible to shut down, and once in a blue moon just as hard to start up. Furthermore the cd drive would make weird noises, and the computer in general seemed to be growling. Very odd behavior from a machine.

The great thing about computers is that there is ALWAYS a perfect reason for even the oddest symptoms. In this case I through much research found out, that the USB constantly felt like someone or something unplugged something. Or maybe even plugged something in. In any case, that normally causes the mac to wake up. Or halt whatever it is doing. Which was probably why the whole experience felt a little like driving in heavy rain, on an ice surface buttered up with grease.

By restarting and holding down the apple and s key, the problem became apparent. The computer kept repeating this line:

"IOUSBFamily could not enumerate a device."

I whipped out my screwdriver set and took off the top case, disabled the cd drive and behold: No more growling, or misbehavior.

a macbook with no cover

2009-02-07T20:48:00.000-08:00

You can always judge a good cook, from the meals he makes for himself. A gourmet cook probably lives off fries and fast food. The mechanic that is highly regarded for his unique skills, drives around in a converted old worn out VW. And I, as a mac doctor, have the crappiest old Macbook that I've taken apart one too many times. Literally.

The fan was driving me nuts, as it had become misaligned and was emitting the sound of an old single engine airplane getting ready to take off. I cranked open the hood while I was working on the computer, to try to realign it so the horrible noise would seize. But that didn't work. What it DID do though, was that the connector cable between the keyboard and the physical computer snapped in half, rendering my keyboard and trackpad completely unusable.

Sigh. The death of my trusty old Macbook had long been underway. Just really had hoped that the day, wouldn't have been today. I had shut the computer off, before I realized what the problem was. And was now unable to turn it on again. Crap.

Well, fear not. If you ever get in this situation, it is certainly rectifiable. By using a flathead screwdriver and inserting it into the connector that used to be for the keyboard, I was able to simulate the short circuit that the power button is normally responsible for thus bringing my mac back to life.

For now I have to live with an external keyboard, and wait until I receive a new top cover for my mac. Those cost around 139 dollars.

Time travel is wee bit difficult...

2009-02-06T14:40:00.000-08:00

I like to start all my articles differently, but basically I'm just keeping this blog for my own purposes so I will remember how I finally fixed something. If you who are reading get something out of it too, then I'm only glad to have helped.

In this case, I had a client who had purchased the Time Capsule in the belief that it would help him backup. But that was hardly the case, as it hasn't really worked for at least a year now. Or something in that order. The problem wasn't that it wasn't working, it was just working exacerbatingly slow. Like it would take days, just to copy a few megabytes. And when you have 80 gigabytes to go, it can be a patience test to endure.

Up until now it has been postponed again and again. But finally this week, I got around to trying to figure out what was wrong. To sum it up, the result was that it now works pretty fast, and reliably. But there was a lot of trial and error to get there.

So without further ado, these are the settings that I found to be working best.

1. Make sure that if you have an airport network with more units than the time capsule, that they are ALL compatible with 802.11n.

2. Make sure that the other devices are NOT extending the range of the network. This can be checked off in a checkbox under wireless, in the apple airport setup utility, under the specific airport base.

3. Make sure that the MultiCast rate is set as high as possible. In a nut shell: Higher multicast rate, means higher speed, but less range.

4. Check mark "Interference Robustness" on the internet connected, or first, airport base station.

With those settings I was able to get a pretty good throughput. My test file was 4.5 GB and would take 15 minutes to copy over to the mounted Time Capsule drive.

5 games that really MUST come to the iPhone!

2008-12-28T12:23:00.000-08:00

I recently read an article about games that should be ported to the iPhone, and while the list consisted of a good collection of games, most of them had already been released. So that sucked. But as I luckily have had my first iPhone bestowed upon me, by the sheer generosity of a former client, I can now join the club of making silly lists that no one reads.

So here goes.

The iPhones lack of controls could be a huge drawback in terms of finding games suitable to port. But no. Not really. As the iPhone excels in one very specific area. Point and click! And therefore there are tons of turn based strategy games out there, and the good old fashioned adventure point and click games.

5. Fallout / Fallout 2

This game would be AWESOME to have ported. Not only is it one of the best Role Playing Games out there, but the scope and the longevity of these games should be reason enough.

4. Diablo / Diablo 2

Once again; games where you do nothing else than point and click. Also spawned a whole generation with mouse click infections in their clicking joints. Diablo has a safe place in my heart as the two games I've spent most time on ever. Would be sweet to pull out your iPhone at the subway, for a round of demon slashing action between stops.

3. Monkey Island 1 + 2 + 3 + ....

And then some. If LucasArt could pull themselves together a little, they would discover that they are sitting on a cash cow ready to be milked. In the early nineties they were releasing one amazing graphic adventure game after the other. Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Sam & Max Hit The Road and so on. The list is long, and the games are great. A little updating with better graphics and we are golden.

2. Alone In The Dark

A semi adventure, action game. Spawned a horrible movie by Uwe Boll, but the games were pretty good. And really scary for the time. Which leads me to a PlayStation classic:

1. Resident Evil

This one would need a little modding, and it's a really long time ago since I played the first one. But I think it would be possible to do with point and click. Maybe I'm wrong. Tell me in the comments....:)

That's it. The iPhone has just begun the gaming game.

the mac mini TV of death syndrome

2008-11-14T22:07:00.000-08:00

One of my friends around the bend thought it would be a good idea to show off some slides from his website, on his friends TV connected Mac Mini. Only problem was that he tinkered too much with the resolution settings, and rendered the Mac Mini incapable of displaying anything at all. This can be upsetting, and in this case was mildly more than that. Our common female friend thought it was less than amusing, as she doesn't even own either TV or Mac Mini, and the owner would come back to his apartment within a short narrow time frame. Out of his wits, my friend obviously called me for desperate help.

What do you do, when neither restart or take the power cable out makes any significant difference? Call Dr. Mac : )

Well anyway, I thought I had to try different options so I brought my landlords old first generation iMac keyboard to hook up to the Mini, as it only was equipped with a wireless keyboard. Wireless keyboards takes a backseat when it comes to troubleshooting a problem as they are first recognized when the computer has started up right.

But my remedies were not working, as either zapping of the PRAM (a list of default system preferences being zapped by holding down a number of keys during boot, or deleting the windows preferences file through single user boot. This is very technical, but in layman terms it means that what I had hoped would work, didn't.

By some heavy thinking I came up with a solution, which is posted here for your convenience, should you ever be so unlucky of being in a situation with a Mac Mini and a TV stating: Invalid Format.

1. Restart the Mac Mini with a connected USB keyboard. Hold the T button down, until a nice big firewire symbol fills the screen, or just hold it down for 15 seconds.

2. Connect a firewire cable from the Mac Mini an external mac laptop. Remember this has to match in terms of processor type. Intel Mac Mini + Intel Laptop, or PowerPC Mini + PowerPC laptop.

3. Restart the laptop, holding down the option key to get a list of disks to boot from. Choose the disk of the Mac Mini that is connected via firewire. Click the restart button underneath the selection.

4. You are now starting up on you laptop as the Mac Mini. Once logged in, go into System Preferences via the Apple menu, and choose "Sharing" Put a check mark under "Screensharing". Make sure to note the network the Mac Mini is connected to (wirelessly).

5. Restart both the laptop and the Mac Mini, and disconnect the firewire cable.

6. Once again the screen will go black and give you an ominous error message, but fear not. Help is on the way. Once the Mac Mini and your laptop has fully restarted, and you join the same network on the laptop; Take a look at the sidebar in an open finder window under "Shared". Here is the Mac Mini, and next to it a button called "Share screen".

7. Click the Share Screen button, and type in username and password. Voila, you now have access to the Mac Mini remotely.

8. Find the Displays option under System Preferences, and fiddle until you get the settings right, and the TV once again displays an image.

Good luck!