I was asked to help upgrade a Promise VTrak E-Class RAID connected to a Leopard server. The RAID was set up several years ago, and the previous guy did not leave any documentation about how to access it. The RAID has a built-in web server, but again, I did not even know the IP address. Through the quick start guide, it seemed like the only way to manage it was through the serial port.

On a PC, I could use a terminal emulation program to connect. I thought I needed a similar 3rd party program on Mac, because there was no such option on the Terminal program to connect to the serial port. Later, I found out that you could use Terminal and the screen command to do so. All you had to do is open up a Terminal window and type the following command.

sudo screen -U -fn /dev/tty.serial 115200

This command uses unicode with flow control turned off. The baud rate is 115200 bits per second. You need to modify it to suit your need. On a side note, when you are done, if you just close the terminal window, the process is still attached to the serial port. You will not be able to use the screen command again to connect. If that happens to you, type the following command to find out the process id of screen command and use kill -9 to terminate it.

ps -fe | grep SCREEN

Ever since we switched from Leopard to Snow Leopard, the old Cisco VPN client has not worked. The new Cisco AnyConnect VPN client is required. One user had troubles installing the client. I tried it myself and found that the installation was not straightforward. A bit of tinkering is required. Here are the steps:

1. When you visit the AnyConnect VPN Client site, the automatic installation does not work. Follow the link on the page to download the installer: vpnsetup.sh .
2. Invoke Terminal application.
3. Change the directory to where you save the script. It’s usually ~/Downloads . Type the command in the Terminal window.

   cd ~/Downloads

4. The permission for the vpnsetup.sh is wrong; fix it by typing the following command.

   chmod +x vpnsetup.sh

5. Run the script. You will need to supply your password for this command.

   sudo ./vpnsetup.sh

The client should be installed now. Point your browser back to your company’s Cisco AnyConnect VPN web site again and it should connect.

If you ever wonder how can you convert the DVD you own to iPhone format, here is a perfect program for it. This free program is available for Mac OS X. A paid version is also available for Windows. In addition to DVD to iPhone video conversion, it can also extract music and image from DVD movies.

WinX DVD to iPhone Ripper for Mac OS X

As a system admin, I am always on the lookout for utility programs for the OS I support. Although most machines use Windows, we do have quite a few Macs. Both versiontracker.com and download.com offer comprehensive lists of programs available for download. However, it is difficult to know what are the better/best programs out there, because there are simply too many of them.

I came across a list of diagnostic, maintenance and repair utilities for Mac compiled by pure-mac.com. The editor has handpicked some of the top utilities and listed them on one page for your viewing pleasure. A short description for each program has been provided, so that you know the use for each program. Your Mac-Fu is sure to increase after you learn about these utilities. Give it a try next time you’re in a pinch to tackle a Mac problem.

Diagnostic, Maintenance and Repair Software for Mac

Amazon has released Kindle for Mac application. Mac users can now access their Kindle book library from their Mac computers. When you first run the application, there is no books on the Home screen. Click on Archived Items to access your library. If you have no books in your library, click on Shop in Kindle Store to purchase Kindles books.

Like Kindle for iPhone, you cannot directly purchase books from within the application. It opens up your browser and takes you to Amazon’s Kindle Store. If you just want to test drive the application and you do not want to spend money on purchasing books, there are actually tons of free books available. Please see this post if you do not know where to look for those free books.

Once you have some books in the Archived Items, double clicking a book moves it to the Home and opens it. You can use your arrow keys or the scroll ball on the mouse to turn the pages. One feature I like about Kindle application is that it keeps your reading progress across different devices. For example, I just read some pages on my Mac and when I open the same book on my iPhone, the application asks me if I want to sync to Furthest Page Read on my Mac. Therefore, I do not have to remember it myself.

With the launch of iPad approaching, it would be interesting to see if iPad proves to be a big challenge for Kindle’s ebooks market.

Kindle for Mac Download Page

You use Directory Utility  to join a Mac to an Open Directory in Leopard. It’s convenient because you only need to use one application. When I tried to add a new iMac running Snow Leopard to our Open Directory, I found that there is no Directory Utility in /Applications/Utilities . The utility is hidden in /System/Library/CoreServices , and you cannot use it to join the computer to the Open Directory. Therefore, it’s not very useful.

The function of joining the computer to OD has been integrated into the System Preferences. To do it, follow these steps:

1. Click on the Apple icon on the menu and select System Preferences.
2. Click on Accounts -> Login Options.
3. Click on the Join button to join the computer to a Network Account Server.
   

You can open the Directory Utility from the poped up dialog. However, the ability to mount NFS shares is also stripped out from the Directory Utility. To mount NFS shares, use Disk Utility instead.

1. Invoke Disk Utility.
2. Click on File -> NFS Mounts.
   
3. Add the shares.

When you run a Java application on Snow Leopard, the 64-bit Java is used by default. This might be problematic when you run some older applications. We ran to this problem earlier when a user tried to activate his Matlab license. The message he got is

There was an unexpected exception: Can’t load library: / Applications/ MATLAB_R2009aSV.app/ / bin/ maci64/ libactivation.jnilib See the log file (/ var/ folders/ Mp/ Mp0PQFo9GbKznsjhgBiZf++++TI/ -Tmp-/ TMW_svact_christophergiuliano.log) for more details.

The solution is to set the 32-bit Java as default. Here are the steps:

1. Invoke Java Preferences in Applications -> Utilities.
   
2. Click on the entry of Java SE 6  32-bit and drag it before Java SE 6  64-bit in the Java Applications section.
   
3. Close Java Preferences. The 32-bit Java will be used next time you run a Java application.

MacHeist offers their nanoBundle for free today. Originally priced at $154 and it’s now free for a limited time. The bundle includes the following 6 apps:

• ShoveBox
  “Catch all the little scraps of information that you can’t immediately act on, but don’t want to forget. ShoveBox sits up in your menu bar, waiting for you to drag in text, images, URLs, and more.”
• WriteRoom
  “WriteRoom is a simple, but powerful app that provides you with a distraction-free writing environment. WriteRoom does one main thing and does it incredibly well: It’s all about writing…”
• Twitterrific
  “Twitterrific is an exquisite app that enables you to make the most out of your Twitter experience. It has a clean user interface that’s designed to take up little of your precious desktop space.”
• TinyGrab
  “TinyGrab is a simple, powerful app that enables you to quickly share screenshots of everything on your Mac.”
• Hordes of Orcs
  “Hordes of Orcs is a Tower Defense strategy game where you build walls and towers to defend your village from orcs gone rogue.”
• Mariner Write
  “Mariner Write is a fast, streamlined word processor that’s useful for everyone… professional writers, educators, students, casual computer users, and everyone in-between. It has a simple, elegant user interface so that you can create beautiful documents the very first time you start using it.”

Interested? Here is the site:

http://www.macheist.com/

We just got some new Mac Minis last week. I helped one user to set one up with a Dell 30″ monitor. We used the included Mini-DVI to DVI adapter to connect the Mac Mini and the monitor. When the machine was up and running, we found that the maximum resolution is only 1280×800 which is way to low.

I first thought it’s software related, so I tried different software to use customary resolutions. The software I tried are ResSwitchX and DisplayConfigX. They did allow me to define resolutions, but neither of them would let me use the monitor’s native resolution 2560×1600. I then checked the spec of the Mac Mini and found that I need a Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter to connect it to a 30″ monitor.

The adapter is kinda expensive at $99.00. I cannot seem to find a cheaper 3rd party alternative. After we got the adapter connected, we were able to get the native 2560×1600 resolution. Note that the adapter is not plug and play, you might need to reboot your Mac to get it to work.

Snow Leopard is out today. If you are considering upgrading to it, the first thing you need to know is that all the software for PowerPC are not working any more. There are some other Intel based software which are not compatible. For a complete list of those incompatible software, please visit this link.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258

[Update] There is an unofficial Wiki page about application compatibility under Snow Leopard. This list is much more comprehensive than the official page.

http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/