Archive for the ‘Apple’ Category
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
Problem: When MacBook lid is closed, fan continues to spin and MacBook becomes very hot.
Description: When in use the MacBook fan behaves as expected. On closing the lid to put the MacBook sleep, the fan continues to spin and the base of the machine becomes very hot.
Opening the lid displays a black screen. No mouse or login screen displayed. Fan continues to spin at what seems to be maximum RPM. Closing the lid again does not stop the fan from spinning.
Only available option is to hold the power button to shut down the system.
On pressing the power button to restart the system, the MacBook starts, displays grey start up screen for a second or two and then restarts automatically. MacBook then starts normally.
Once the user logins, the system works as normal again. Putting the system to sleep, causes the problem to reoccur.
Solution: The user deactivated the Ethernet interface within System Preferences -> Network. Reactivating the Ethernet interface and restarting the machine resolved the problem.
(Who’d have thought that disabling the Ethernet interface would prevent the system from sleeping? Certainly not me when I decided to do so.)
Tags: ethernet, fan, mac sleep, network
Posted in Apple, Hardware, Mac, Mac OS X, Networking, Technology | Comments Off
Thursday, June 4th, 2009
Tags: app store, downfall, eff, video
Posted in Apple, Internet, Software, Technology | Comments Off
Friday, November 14th, 2008
I’ve spent the last couple of days updating my iTunes library. Updating track and album info, finding album art, that kind of thing. Took me quite a few hours to get everything organised the way I wanted it, but it’s finally done.
One thing I did notice is that if you use the Grid View and go to Genres, you’ll see the iTunes default logos for each genre of music that you have in your library.
iTunes Genres Default Logos
That’s not the cool thing though. Move your mouse left and right over the logo, and iTunes will display the album art for each album in that genre.
iTunes Showing Album Covers
See? Cool!
Tags: itunes
Posted in Apple, Software, Technology | Comments Off
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
While Firefox is my browser of choice, Safari does have one feature that makes it a great choice on a Mac – the ability to add webclips to the Dashboard.
I posted recently about RTE’s new digital radio stations that are now available on-line. Using Safari it’s now possible to load the radio station in your dashboard and have it available when you want it. Here’s how.
- Open Safari and browse to the page containing the player for your preferred radio station.
- Go to the File menu.
- Open in Dashboard.
- Move your mouse cursor over the player.
- As you move over the player is should be highlighted.
- Click on the area of the page that you want to save to the dashboard.
- You’ll be prompted to adjust the size of the webclip.
- Click the Add button at the top of the page.
- The Dashboard will open with your webclip.
- Position your mouse over the webclip and then click the i that appears in the bottom right hand corner.
- Unclick the tick box that says “Only play audio in Dashboard”.
- Click Done.
- Click out of Dashboard.
Your digital radio station will now play in the background. When your finished listening, just go back into dashboard, and re-tick the “Only play audio in Dashboard” option and click Done. Exit Dashboard and your radio station will shut down.
On a slightly related note, Firefox have confirmed that they have been given the record for the most downloads in a single day by Guinness World Records. If you downloaded Firefox on that day, you can get a certificate with your name from Mozilla.
Tags: audio, dashboard, digital radio, firefox, rte, safari, webclip
Posted in Apple, Internet, Software, Technology | 2 Comments »
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
Secure Mac are reporting that they have found a trojan designed to take advantage of the ARDAgent root exploit that I posted about previously.
The Trojan dubbed “AppleScript.THT” allows the remote attacker full access to the system, steals usernames and passwords, hides by turning off system logging, opening firewall ports and can also be used to install key logging software, take pictures using the inbuilt iSight and to enable file sharing.
The Trojan come as either a compiled AppleScript titled ASthtv05 or as a disc image called ASthtv_06. In both cases, the files have to be downloaded and executed by the user. At the moment, the Trojan does not take advantage of any other Mac vulnerabilities to automatically infect new machines – but that’s probably only a matter of time.
Secure Mac are advising Mac users to use MacScan to protect themselves against the threat. Or you could just stop the ARDAgent service from running scripts as root.
Tags: applescript, applescript.tht, ardagent, macosx, root exploit, trojan
Posted in Apple, Mac OS X, Security, Software, Technology | Comments Off
Friday, June 20th, 2008
If you’re worried about the security problem with Apples Remote Desktop Sharing that I posted about yesterday, but still want to use the service, then here’s a quick solution:
Open Terminal and type, all on one line, the following command:
sudo chmod u-s /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/
ArdAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent
Now if you use,
osascript -e 'tell app "ARDAgent" to do shell script "whoami"'
you should get your own username back.
Tags: applescript, ardagent, macosx, root exploit
Posted in Apple, Mac OS X, Security, Software, Technology | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
A serious security hole has been found in Mac OS X – both Leopard and Tiger are affected. The exploit allows someone with physical access to a Mac to run programs as the Root user.
The exploit uses the Apple Remote Desktop, (ARDAgent), application to execute a shell script. When the shell script is executed it is done so as Root. To test this, type the following command in Terminal:
osascript -e 'tell app "ARDAgent" to do shell script "whoami"'
This command works even if Remote Desktop Sharing is disabled and the Root user is disabled in the Directory Utility. However, it will only work if the user is logged into the computer. It will not work if Fast User Switching has been used.
As this is a brand new exploit there is no fix as of yet.
Tags: applescript, ardagent, macosx, root exploit
Posted in Apple, Mac OS X, Security, Software, Technology | 1 Comment »
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
It’s been a tiring couple of weeks. First there was moving house, then there was my MacBook problems, and then RAG week came along. It’s just been one stressful event after another.
I’m still not fully unpacked, but for various reasons out of my control, it looks like I’ll have to move again in the next couple of weeks. I’m not happy about having to move again. In fact, I’m pretty pissed off about it, so I’ll have to carefully consider where I want to go.
My new MacBook arrived last week. It has a slightly different keyboard layout to my previous one, so I’m still trying to get used to that. Thanks to Time Machine I was able to copy all my data, settings and applications from the old machine to the new one with very little fuss. All I really need to do now is remove the extra memory from my old MacBook and put it in to this one. Maybe tomorrow.
The replacement keyboard I ordered arrived the other day. As I had already removed the original keyboard, I had the new one on in a couple of minutes. So that’s another problem solved. But it has raised another issue: I now have two MacBooks, and seeing as I can only use one at a time, I think I’ll sell the old one. It’s just about a year old and now in perfect working order. I also have a top of the range Windows desktop that I want to get rid of. If anyone is interested, drop me a line.
Posted in Apple, Blog, Hardware, Life, Mac, Technology | 3 Comments »
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
After a bit of work, I’ve managed to get my MacBook up and running. It’s not what you’d call “portable” any more, but it does work. The problem seems to be that keyboard is damaged, and it’s shorting out the powerboard. Because of this, the adaptor won’t power the mainboard or charge the battery.
With the keyboard off, the battery charges OK and the rest of the system seems to be OK. The only other minor problem is that the power button is built into keyboard, which means that the system can’t be powered on, even with the battery charged. The solution seems to be to connect the adaptor and touch the connecting cable from the keyboard to the mainboard, and voilà the system starts.
I’ve ordered a replacement keyboard, so that should sort out the problem, (fingers crossed!). For €70 (including shipping), it’s worth replacing. Now I have a replacement keyboard and a replacement MacBook in transit, so it’s decision time – do I keep the new MacBook and sell my old one, or do I repair the old one and return the new to Apple? Decisions, decisions, decisions.
As a side note, there’s a great guide to disassembling your Mac available from the iFixIt website.
Tags: keyboard, macbook, repair
Posted in Apple, Mac, Technology | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
With the latest 10.5.2 update to Leopard, Apple have fixed the issues with connecting to an SMB server over a wireless network. However, Time Machine will still not back up to a network drive. Looks like we’ll have to wait for Time Capsule for proper network backups.
Tags: leopard, smb, time machine
Posted in Apple, Mac OS X, Technology | Comments Off
