MacNewsBlog

Now that Apple's Front row is available on every new Intel-Mac you may eventually start to have some problems if there are others using the Apple Remote in the same space as your Mac. Well therese an easy way to solve this: follow these instructions to pair your remote with your mac. Via TUAW.

iFixit, which hosts a slew of Mac disassembly guides has updated their site with a MacBook disassembly guide as well. The guide aids in repair and part replacement and includes high-res photos of each step.

I've personally used their step by step guides and would recommend this site to anyone who repairs Macs or has to take one apart for repair or diagnostics. They also sell some nifty replacement parts!

Ah! See what slowness gets me? I was writing an article on all of the various Mac Processes that show up in my can't live without tool the Activity Monitor but someone beat me to the punch!

Gordon Davisson has compiled a list of background processes and daemons on Mac OSX. Although not all processes are listed, the most frequently seen ones are on this list. Thanks for saving me the trouble Gordon!

So JC over at mac geekery decided to throw his dead 4G iPod off of his balcony to test an iFrogz case. The said iPod was dead due to what has been termed by some as the evil click o' death where the harddrive decides to die followed by a clicking noise and needs to be reset.

Well it seems that the fall from the balcony cured his ailing iPod of it's click and allowed it to play music for about an hour before having to reset it again. Why did it work again he wondered. After taking apart the now working iPod to figure out why it worked he discovered that reseating the harddrive was the solution. No more click o' death!

So if you've got a 4G iPod thats suffering from clicks and a dead HD, don't throw it off the roof of your house. Be brave, screw your warranty (if you even have one) and take it apart to see if your hard disk needs to be reseated properly!

Read the full story here.

I wanted to try out FireFox 2 RC1 beta (BonEcho) but had a hard time finding the link to download this guy. Since I've found it, I'll post it here for all of you to try out as well!

Get it here: Nightly Builds.

Here are some places carrying live feeds for today's WWDC event!

MacRumorsLive
MacNN
The Apple Blog
MacTeens
Podcast photos
Engadget

So theres this new Captcha plugin for Movable Type 3.3 but you need to install GD and a few other PERL modules (Authen::Captcha and GD) before you can use it. Should be an easy task but it's really not!

Before I started I did my usual "googling" for information on doing the install before I actually did it. I found a few things, but they seemed rather lengthy so I threw caution to the wind and went along my merry way attempting to install it all using CPAN. NO CAN DO. Things failed left and right when attempting to install.

I went back to google and found this helpful page:
Compiling GD on Mac OSX

Pretty good instructions and they are all step by step although, because I am on an Intel Mac Pro there were a few things I did differently.

For instance, to configure libpng, instead of following his advice to use the makefile.darwin script (which didn't work anyway) I chose to just run ./configure and let the Makefile figure things out on its own.

Also you'll want to do the following commands for installing GD after running ./configure:

rm ./libtool
ln -s `which glibtool` ./libtool.

then do make and make install.

Figuring it all out so that it compiled nicely took the longest! After GD was installed, installing the perl modules was pretty simple. Thank God there was documentation out there for doing this install. If not I'd have given up (and I actually was about to give up because of the constant error messages).

Sadly I couldn't get Captcha to work because the plugin stored the images in the CGI directory. The author of the plugin claims he's working on a fix though!

YIKES!! A whole lot of new Knowledge Base Articles for you all:

.Mac Webmail: After renaming a contact, the contact may not be searchable
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304670

Adding LUNs to Xsan Volumes fails
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303571

Aperture 1.5 may fail to open on some iMac G5 computers
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304509

Aperture: Album not visible in Project Pane after restoring from Vault
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304671

Aperture: Compatibility Checker gives error for unsupported graphics card
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304488

Aperture: How to preview an order
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304700

More after the cut....

Here's a short list of some really cool Mac Applications that you should give a try. I realize that some of these cost $ but they really are great apps and all of them have demos for you to check out.

I'll work on a list of Open Source and Free Mac Applications for my next round. If you have any suggestions or want to tell MacNewsBlog about your favorite applications feel free to leave a comment!

iTerm
If you use the terminal, you NEED this! Tabbed windows and a lot more features than Apple's built-in Terminal.
http://iterm.sourceforge.net/
Open Source

Vienna
A really great newsreader that almost feels like Apple's Mail app.
http://www.opencommunity.co.uk/vienna2.php
Open Source

FireFox 2
If you're still using Internet Exploder Explorer for Mac then you NEED this. FireFox is my favorite browser because it's fast and there are a ton of plugins to make web browsing easier.
http://getfirefox.com/
Open Source

Transmit
If you do any type of FTP/SFTP and you want a Mac-like interface then look no further than Transmit.
http://panic.com/transmit/
$29.95

Parallels Desktop
It's better than rebooting when you only need to use Windows to check a website or run an Application.
http://parallels.com/
$79.99

Xtorrent
Torrent client, currently in Beta from the creator of NewsFire. Has a cool swarm feature to show torrent activity.
http://www.xtorrentp2p.com/
Beta

Linotype FontExplorer
If you're a designer and have a ton of fonts, be sure to try out Linotype FontExplorer. I like this better than Suitcase because it just works and it's Free!
http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX
Free

Okay so I already covered some cool Mac Applications that I use and like but some of you wanted some cheaper alternatives... meaning FREE or Open Source. So here's a compiled list of some really great Mac Free / Open Source software to check out. All 25 of them! If you know of any other great one's feel free to comment here!

Internet Applications

Vienna The folks who brought us one of the best freeware newsreader for the mac have just launched version 2! Vienna allows you to subscribe to Atom/RSS news feeds and podcasts using a simple interface with everyones featured flavor of the moment: tabbed browsing. There's also blogging integration, three separate reading layouts and a lot more! Download Vienna here.

FireFox 2 Probably the best all around browser. Some might disagree but I really do like FireFox 2! So many cool features like reopening your windows to where you left off and a slew of plugins to extend it. Get FireFox 2 now!

Shiira Shiira is a web browser written in Cocoa. Since this is the same rendering engine used by Safari, HTML content rendered by Shiira will look the same as in Apple's own browser. The goal of the Shiira Project is to create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari. This browser is pretty nifty if you like eyecandy! It features exposé windowing, Page Dock, a shelf and other unique browser features. Get Shiira here.

Cyberduck Cyberduck is an open source FTP and SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) browser that is constantly being updated and refined by it's author David V. Kocher. It's really come a long way since I first started using it. Universal Binary. Download Cyberduck here.

iTerm If you're tired of Apple's Terminal or just want more flexibility such as tabbed windows, and transparent windows look no further. iTerm is a full featured terminal emulation program written for OS X using Cocoa with complete VT100 emulation. Download iTerm here.

Transmission Transmission is a free, lightweight BitTorrent client. It features a simple, intuitive interface on top on an efficient, cross-platform back-end. Get Transmission here.
Open Source

Adium Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more. Get Adium here.
Free

David Pogue has round two of his iPhone FAQ and it answers a lot of questions!

So far:
- NO Java MAYBE Flash
- Jobs says YouTube would work with deal with YouTube
- Adding ringtones from your iPod is undecided
- Charges with a sync dock or plug just like the iPod
- The phone doesn't run Leopard OSX but rather a stripped down OSX with a phone interface
- No bluetooth or wireless syncing
- Google Docs and Spreadsheet should work in theory.

Read More here.

Here's a helpful tip for all of you who use FireFox as your main browser. We're not sure if there is a similar trick in Safari but there may be. If you know please drop us a line!

I run MenuMeters on my MacBook Pro so I can keep tabs of my system at all times. I also do a ton of work in my web browser of choice, FireFox, which means I usually have multiple tabs opened at once. One day I saw my CPU usage was going crazy and I decide to see what the deal was. Turns out it was FireFox that was hogging up all the CPU time.

At first I couldn't figure out how a simple webpage could be using up all that power but then it dawned on me that many of these pages had Flash advertisements on them that were constantly cycling through their animations. Quitting FireFox successfully calmed the CPU down to flat line which proved that it was indeed the Flash sites causing the excessive CPU usage.

I went hunting for a plug-in to kill Flash ads in FireFox and found a really great one called FlashBlock. Description from their website:
"Flashblock is an extension for the Mozilla, Firefox, and Netscape browsers that takes a pessimistic approach to dealing with Macromedia Flash content on a webpage and blocks ALL Flash content from loading. It then leaves placeholders on the webpage that allow you to click to download and then view the Flash content."

After installing this plugin I very rarely see CPU usage spike because of multiple tabs opened in FireFox. In additon, I can still view flash media when I want to by clicking on the placeholder. This plug-in is a must have if you do any type of surfing in FireFox and notice CPU usage getting hogged up.

For anyone out there running Mac OS X Server with a large number of clients, this free pdf is a real must have! Tips and Tricks for Macintosh Management, written by John DeTroye is a 116 page guide to setting up a workflow for using Mac OS X Server - Tiger 10.4.10.

This document gives great tips for working with Workgroup Manager and implementing Portable Home Folders. Go get it here. Via AFP548.com

Tired of the song and dance of switching file extensions around so that you can get your custom ringtone into iTunes so it can go on your iPhone? We are too.

Luckily the folks at Rogue Amoeba have come up with a solution: MakeiPhoneRingtone.

This app will get iTunes to recognize your custom ringtones again. Hopefully this won't break with the next iTunes update!

A few folks have reported some problems when'd installing Leopard. May we humbly suggest backing up your current install withva utility like Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner? At LEAST do this step before updating.

Besides, you'll need an external drive for time machine anyway.

This article that I found after reading simplebits.com is really cool! Especially if you want to get rid of the glass doc and use a dock that doesn't take up so much space!

How to get rid of the glass dock in Leopard.

A reader has requested some information on how to remove the 'Codec' Trojan if you already have it installed. The easiest way is to install Intego's VirusBarrier, and be sure your virus definitions are up to date. You can however do it yourself using the terminal.

This info is from MacWorld and fully tested:
1. In the Finder, navigate to /Library -> Internet Plug-Ins, and delete the file named plugins.settings. Empty the trash. This deletes the tool that sets the rogue DNS Server information.
2. In Terminal, type sudo crontab -r and provide your admin password when asked. This deletes the root cron job that checks the DNS Server settings. You can prove it worked by typing sudo crontab -l; you should see the message “crontab: no crontab for root.”
3. Open your Network System Preferences panel, go to the DNS Server box, and copy the entries you can see to a Stickies note, TextEdit document, or memorize them. Now retype those same values in the box, then click Apply.
4. Reboot your Mac.

After you reboot, you can confirm you’re free of the trojan horse (in OS X 10.5) by opening the Advanced pane of the Network System Preferences panel and looking at the DNS tab—you shouldn’t see any gray entries. In Tiger, to really prove that you’re free of the infestation, use the scutil command detailed above, as that’s the only way to see all the DNS Servers your machine knows about.

As a footnote, Mac OS X security works just fine. This Trojan actually asks you to install it using your own username and password. This doesn't mean that Mac OS X security doesn't work, it proves that it does. Be careful of what you install and be sure your software comes from trusted sources, not porn sites :-)

Apple Discussion Forum is reporting of an Unknown error (-2) while accessing iTunes Store. No one is sure if this happened before or after iTunes 7.6 was released, but many people are being affected by this error, including yours truely.

When trying to access my account via iTunes I get this error. Turns out my account (Apple ID) is one that was created long before iTunes came out . That means I had been using a user name and not my email address as the account login name. Now I cannot get into my account, even after resetting the password all I got was the -2 error.

To test if this was due to iTunes 7.6, I got on another computer with an older version of iTunes and no dice. Still couldn't log into my account.

I have a feeling that something happened to our accounts because of the new rental system employed at iTunes or perhaps because they changed something and I've been using a user name instead of an email address for so long.

I emailed iTunes support via this page and I'm waiting and hoping for a fix.

If you use FontExplorer X to manage your fonts and you've just updated your mac to Leopard 10.5.2, you may be in for a crash! Apparently something has changed in the new Leopard update causing FontExplorer X to crash various applications and wreak havoc on any Mac that tries to launch it!

Don't delay! Download the update that was released today that squashes this Leopard 10.5.2 bug! Download Linotype FontExplorer X update here.