Well, I have finally converted all of my Macs to SL. I have one Mac Mini at work as well as my MacPro. At home I have two 2008 iMacs, one for work that is pretty plain and another that is my personal Mac. Every install went pretty well. As I have outlined below, the main thing that I had fail was the password vaulting program that I use. However, today I found something else that doesn't work and I've yet to find a reasonable solution for it. At my office we use Windows server 200 and 2003 as files servers. Mounting SMB shares has always been iffy with Leopard ever since 10.5.5. I was hoping that 10.6 might really address these problems... time will tell on that. However, I do use Office 2008 for the Mac as my document processing. I tried this twice today with different documents and I get the same problem.
I've mounted a Windows server share with SMB. I open an office document on that share and make some changes. When I go to quit and/or save Excel or Word tell me that for a variety of possible reasons it can't save the document. I gave up and finally went to my Fusion Virtual Machine running Windows XP and used Office 2007 to get the job done. I'll be working on getting this fixed as I only go to Windows when I absolutely have to.
The one program that I was a little worried about was VMware Fusion. Officially, Vmware says that the latest shipping version "Experimentally" works under Snow Leopard. Unofficially, it gets a thumbs up. My experience with it is that it's pretty solid.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
More on Snow Leopard
So, I continue to test and play with Snow Leopard. I found something else that didn't' work. I use 1Password as a password vaulting system. For those who don't know what that is, let me explain. We all have tons of passwords. So either we're not good at creating clever passwords or we write them down or we use the same one over and over and never change it. None of these are good plans. 1Password is a password vault where you can store in a secure fashion all of your user names and passwords. Then you create one hard to guess password to protect the vault. When you are on a web page that requires authentication you can select the site from the vault, you enter in the master password and the name and password for the site are entered in automatically. I tend to keep the vault open for a while so that I don't have to constantly enter in the master password. This allows me to create hard passwords and to change them frequently without having to remember tons of passwords.
Well, apparently the 1Password folks thought that they had a number of weeks to go before SL was released and Apple fooled them. Fortunately they are far along in their beta testing of a new version and if you have SL and are already a customer, you can get access to the Beta so that you can continue to use 1Password with your Mac. So I had to register on their site and agree to the NDA and now I can use the product, at least for a while until the new version is officially released. Then I'll have to buy the upgrade.
Well, apparently the 1Password folks thought that they had a number of weeks to go before SL was released and Apple fooled them. Fortunately they are far along in their beta testing of a new version and if you have SL and are already a customer, you can get access to the Beta so that you can continue to use 1Password with your Mac. So I had to register on their site and agree to the NDA and now I can use the product, at least for a while until the new version is officially released. Then I'll have to buy the upgrade.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Snow Leopard
Well, it's here and I've installed it a couple of times now. I pre-ordered it for work and also got a family pack for home. I am pretty trusting of Apple's OS releases, but not enough to just dump it on my production machines. At work, I installed it on a Mac Mini that I use for testing. This currently had 10.5.8 on it, but is a plain vanilla Mac with no third party apps of any kind of special utilities. It went in very easily and took about 45 minutes to install. I've done some minor testing with it and have seen several of the new functions working and have not had any problems.
Then I installed it on an iMac at home. This particular iMac is used for work as a support machine and has several other applications on it, but isn't so important that I couldn't afford to wipe it and start over if I had to. Install time was about the same. When it was done, it came up and ran just fine. It did prompt me to choose some kind of system file, which I canceled out of since I did not know what it was. I did a check on the Apple user forums and it seems like it has to do with a printer driver. I have a couple of printers set up on the Mac, but because right now it's on a different network segment without any printers, I am wondering if that had something to do with it. I have rebooted the iMac and the message did not come up again. And speaking of rebooting, it seems that Apple is true to its word that shutdown and boot up are faster than before.
I have tried a couple of applications and the only thing that hasn't worked right out of the box is my Microsoft Remote Desktop program. It did kick an error. A quick trip to the Mactopia web site and a download of the latest version seems to have fixed that issue. VPN also seems to work OK as does my wireless connection to my Airport.
I run Back To My Mac and was able to see and do a screen share to my other iMac without issue. One thing that I do notice though is when I see my other iMac in Finder I have the Share Screen button, but not the button to connect at a file sharing level. I found that stopping and starting BTMM on the Snow Leopard iMac fixed that problem.
Then I installed it on an iMac at home. This particular iMac is used for work as a support machine and has several other applications on it, but isn't so important that I couldn't afford to wipe it and start over if I had to. Install time was about the same. When it was done, it came up and ran just fine. It did prompt me to choose some kind of system file, which I canceled out of since I did not know what it was. I did a check on the Apple user forums and it seems like it has to do with a printer driver. I have a couple of printers set up on the Mac, but because right now it's on a different network segment without any printers, I am wondering if that had something to do with it. I have rebooted the iMac and the message did not come up again. And speaking of rebooting, it seems that Apple is true to its word that shutdown and boot up are faster than before.
I have tried a couple of applications and the only thing that hasn't worked right out of the box is my Microsoft Remote Desktop program. It did kick an error. A quick trip to the Mactopia web site and a download of the latest version seems to have fixed that issue. VPN also seems to work OK as does my wireless connection to my Airport.
I run Back To My Mac and was able to see and do a screen share to my other iMac without issue. One thing that I do notice though is when I see my other iMac in Finder I have the Share Screen button, but not the button to connect at a file sharing level. I found that stopping and starting BTMM on the Snow Leopard iMac fixed that problem.
Monday, August 17, 2009
iPhone GPS Update
Well of course as soon as I post about the GPS, the app store makes me a liar. Apparently there are now some apps taking advantage of the ability to dp turn-by-turn directions for a GPS app. AT&T has one that you can download for free, but there is a $10 monthly service charge. Navigon has added this feature to their app which you can buy for around $70. And Tom-Tom has finally come out with their app that covers the US and Canada with no monthly fee, but the cost is $100.
Tom-Tom is supposed to also be coming out with a car kit to mount your iPhone, charge it and it includes a secondary GPS receiver. Right now there is no pricing or availability on this. Of course now that I've said that it will probably be available tomorrow.
Tom-Tom is supposed to also be coming out with a car kit to mount your iPhone, charge it and it includes a secondary GPS receiver. Right now there is no pricing or availability on this. Of course now that I've said that it will probably be available tomorrow.
Friday, August 14, 2009
iPhone User
So, I've expanded my Mac world by getting an iPhone. I have the new 3GS and as a smart device it's great. The included apps are nice and I have added in some extra things like games and an entry into Facebook and some others. I made great use of it on vacation a couple of weeks ago. So we're in northern Michigan, a place we've never been before. We're looking for different things. Normally I would have opened up a browser on my old smart phone and looked up something, then written down the phone number and called. With the iPhone I asked for a specific place and it showed me if there were any within my immediate area. I could then click on the closet one to get an address or phone number and if I needed to call, I could call right from the info page by clicking on phone number. And if I needed driving directions, I could get that as well.
The mail app works pretty well and I can keep up with my work mail and two personal email accounts. The games that I have downloaded all work pretty well, although that can seriously depend on the type of controls that the programmer has built into the game. There are two things that I don't like about the iPhone. The first, which is not directly Apple's fault. is that there is no built-in turn-by-turn GPS app. Apple has finally allowed that type of app to be developed, but as of this writing, I don't think that any major GPS vendor has stepped up. The second thing is the phone. The phone has some great features that work well, but the signal strength is inconsistent at best. If I am in the open and near some major population center 3G is good. But at my home just north of a major population center it's iffy at best. For example. I can be sitting in my family room with full bars and the 3G symbol showing. Then without moving, the signal will drop to 1-2 bars and the E for the older Edge network showing. I am almost never able to do anything data-wise in my home without connecting to my wireless network. In northern Michigan I always had a great signal, but never had 3G. Still, it was better than the phones my family use that are on Sprint.
The mail app works pretty well and I can keep up with my work mail and two personal email accounts. The games that I have downloaded all work pretty well, although that can seriously depend on the type of controls that the programmer has built into the game. There are two things that I don't like about the iPhone. The first, which is not directly Apple's fault. is that there is no built-in turn-by-turn GPS app. Apple has finally allowed that type of app to be developed, but as of this writing, I don't think that any major GPS vendor has stepped up. The second thing is the phone. The phone has some great features that work well, but the signal strength is inconsistent at best. If I am in the open and near some major population center 3G is good. But at my home just north of a major population center it's iffy at best. For example. I can be sitting in my family room with full bars and the 3G symbol showing. Then without moving, the signal will drop to 1-2 bars and the E for the older Edge network showing. I am almost never able to do anything data-wise in my home without connecting to my wireless network. In northern Michigan I always had a great signal, but never had 3G. Still, it was better than the phones my family use that are on Sprint.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Another Chapter in BTMM
Well, this time I have some good news to report... I think :)
As I have chronicled here, Back To My Mac (BTMM) has been a very frustrating thing. I can get it to work between the one iMac I have at home on one circuit and the other one on another circuit, but that's pretty much it. We had a consultant in here about a year ago who was able to connect to his home iMac without issue through our network and he was using the same router at the home end that I was. But I could never get it to work. So I messed and messed with it, but basically gave up.
So I was having other issues with the router that I had chosen for my home router and I decided to replace it with an Apple Airport Extreme wireless router. I thought that this might even help some of my BTMM issues. So, after getting it running I attempted to do a BTMM from the one iMac to this one and it worked just fine. I didn't even try from my work Mac simply because I'd never been able to get it to work no matter what.
A week goes by and I need the file sharing capability of BTMM at home from the one iMac to the other so I fire up everything and am surprised that I can not get a connection... what's the deal? BTMM will not start without an error that it can't contact the service. I rebooted everything including the router and cable modem and could not get a connection. I opened a call with the Apple MobileMe tech support and they had me do much troubleshooting including hooking my iMac directly to the cable modem. When I did that it worked just fine and when I hooked the router back in it failed. So, it appears that there is an issue with the Airport. However I'm not buying that so I start a new thread on the Apple community forums. There is a guy there who really knows his stuff about BTMM, even more so than the Apple tech guys. He has me run some terminal commands and it appears that the DNS lookup is failing. His usual suggestion to folks is to replace the DNS entries that default to your systems with the ones from Open DNS (www.opendns.com). But I already had those in there so he had me remove them and let my ISP default back to the ones they want to use and lo and behold BTMM started working again. We both found this odd as I can't imagine my ISP would care whose DNS I used. So after I got it working I added back in one of the OpenDNS DNS settings and it still started up and worked OK. Then I added back in the other one and it still started up and worked OK. So I rebooted everything and checked to make sure that the DNS settings stayed and BTMM still starts without error and I can connect from my other iMac. I am back to the same settings I had before having the trouble. Weird... so I guess if I see it again, I'll mess with the DNS settings to see if that fixes anything.
Now the good news... I was sitting at my work Mac the other day and, as usual, I can see my home iMac in Finder, but I've never been able to connect. So I clicked on it to connect and was surprised when it prompted me for credentials and when I entered them I got connected to it. And the screen sharing is working as well. Great news... wish I knew why... but I'm good with this.
As I have chronicled here, Back To My Mac (BTMM) has been a very frustrating thing. I can get it to work between the one iMac I have at home on one circuit and the other one on another circuit, but that's pretty much it. We had a consultant in here about a year ago who was able to connect to his home iMac without issue through our network and he was using the same router at the home end that I was. But I could never get it to work. So I messed and messed with it, but basically gave up.
So I was having other issues with the router that I had chosen for my home router and I decided to replace it with an Apple Airport Extreme wireless router. I thought that this might even help some of my BTMM issues. So, after getting it running I attempted to do a BTMM from the one iMac to this one and it worked just fine. I didn't even try from my work Mac simply because I'd never been able to get it to work no matter what.
A week goes by and I need the file sharing capability of BTMM at home from the one iMac to the other so I fire up everything and am surprised that I can not get a connection... what's the deal? BTMM will not start without an error that it can't contact the service. I rebooted everything including the router and cable modem and could not get a connection. I opened a call with the Apple MobileMe tech support and they had me do much troubleshooting including hooking my iMac directly to the cable modem. When I did that it worked just fine and when I hooked the router back in it failed. So, it appears that there is an issue with the Airport. However I'm not buying that so I start a new thread on the Apple community forums. There is a guy there who really knows his stuff about BTMM, even more so than the Apple tech guys. He has me run some terminal commands and it appears that the DNS lookup is failing. His usual suggestion to folks is to replace the DNS entries that default to your systems with the ones from Open DNS (www.opendns.com). But I already had those in there so he had me remove them and let my ISP default back to the ones they want to use and lo and behold BTMM started working again. We both found this odd as I can't imagine my ISP would care whose DNS I used. So after I got it working I added back in one of the OpenDNS DNS settings and it still started up and worked OK. Then I added back in the other one and it still started up and worked OK. So I rebooted everything and checked to make sure that the DNS settings stayed and BTMM still starts without error and I can connect from my other iMac. I am back to the same settings I had before having the trouble. Weird... so I guess if I see it again, I'll mess with the DNS settings to see if that fixes anything.
Now the good news... I was sitting at my work Mac the other day and, as usual, I can see my home iMac in Finder, but I've never been able to connect. So I clicked on it to connect and was surprised when it prompted me for credentials and when I entered them I got connected to it. And the screen sharing is working as well. Great news... wish I knew why... but I'm good with this.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
More thoughts on Parallels
Earlier in my postings I chronicled some of my experiences using VMware Fusion and Parallels. For a variety of reasons I decided to stick with Fusion. However, I never like to truly limit my experiences unless the product or whatever is a complete dog. Parallels is definitely not a dog. The company recently released their new version so I purchased a couple of upgrade licenses and I have gone through the process of upgrading one of my installs. The first one didn't go as smoothly as I thought it should. I ran the upgrade wizard which seemed to run OK and I was able to get into the VM. However, there was already a patch so I started that process as well. For some reason the patch install got hung and I waited and waited and finally I forced the VM down. Now I was pretty well convinced that I had just totally messed up that VM... forcing it down while it was in the middle of doing an upgrade. To my surprise the VM started up just fine and I restarted the patch process which competed this time.
The product has some nice new features: (www.parallels.com) and I haven't had time to check them out completely, but as I do, I'll post more here.
But if you read back through my original posts you'll see that my complaints about Parallels weren't so much about the product as the company. In fact, I think that Parallels does some things way better than Fusion does. The purchase of the upgrades caught the attention of their sales folks since I bought this as a member of my company and not as an individual. I got called one day by an account manager for my area to see how I liked the product and how I was going to integrate it into our business. I told the guy that we have a couple of Macs and that's pretty much it. Since I had his ear I did relate to him the issues that I'd had earlier with tech support and that's why I had moved to Fusion and why I was not using Parallels more fully. His response was very telling.
I had expected him to say.. "Wow.. I'm sorry. That shouldn't have happened. Can I have some more information?" Or "I can't help you there, but let me hook you up with a technical manager and we'll see what we can do." Or "That's too bad and shouldn't have happened. We value all of our customers. I'll put you in touch with someone who can take your information so that we can improve the process." What I got was several moments of silence and then something like "Well... I mainly deal with corporate clients who are interested in rolling this out in their environment." 'nuff said.
The product has some nice new features: (www.parallels.com) and I haven't had time to check them out completely, but as I do, I'll post more here.
But if you read back through my original posts you'll see that my complaints about Parallels weren't so much about the product as the company. In fact, I think that Parallels does some things way better than Fusion does. The purchase of the upgrades caught the attention of their sales folks since I bought this as a member of my company and not as an individual. I got called one day by an account manager for my area to see how I liked the product and how I was going to integrate it into our business. I told the guy that we have a couple of Macs and that's pretty much it. Since I had his ear I did relate to him the issues that I'd had earlier with tech support and that's why I had moved to Fusion and why I was not using Parallels more fully. His response was very telling.
I had expected him to say.. "Wow.. I'm sorry. That shouldn't have happened. Can I have some more information?" Or "I can't help you there, but let me hook you up with a technical manager and we'll see what we can do." Or "That's too bad and shouldn't have happened. We value all of our customers. I'll put you in touch with someone who can take your information so that we can improve the process." What I got was several moments of silence and then something like "Well... I mainly deal with corporate clients who are interested in rolling this out in their environment." 'nuff said.
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