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/

I worked on an Open Directory problem on a Leopard server for 5 hours straight yesterday. With the help of an Apple’s consultant, the system is finally fixed. The computer setup is like this. We have two Leopard servers, one is the Open Directory Master (ODM), the other works as a client for the Open Directory. We noticed that the changes made on the ODM don’t reflect on the client. I tried to unbind the client from the OD and re-bind it again. After re-binding, the ODM shows up in the Directory Utility windows with a red light and the message “The server is not resonding.” .

It turns out this client was an Open Directory Replica. Somehow, it was not demoted to a regular client properly, therefore a copy of Open Directory is running on this client. Here are the steps that we took to fix this problem.

1. On the client, use Directory Utility to unbind it from the server. You might need to force unbind it.
2. On the client, type the command to delete the Directory Service preference. If you have other settings in there, you might want to write them down first.
   sudo rm -R -v /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService
3. On the client, use Keychain Access to search the items related to kerberos and delete them.
   
4. On the client, type the following commands to delete the setting related to kerberos and them again.
   sudo rm -fr /var/db/krb5kdc
sudo /usr/libexec/configureLocalKDC
5. The client was previously setup as an OD replica. We want to delete all the previous settings related to the replica. You do not need to do this, if your situation is different. On the client, type the following command.
   sudo slapconfig -destroyldapserver
6. Reboot the client.
7. On the server, use the Workgroup Manager to delete the computer accounts related to the client.
8. On the client, use the Directory Utility to bind the machine to OD.

If this does not fix your problem, google “Open Directory Administation” and read the PDF docuement from Apple. It has some troubleshooting tips about OD.

I encountered some mkv files that play poorly under Mac OS X using VLC media player, the sound is OK though. The video codec is avc1. I tried to fix the problem by going to Preferences and change Video Output Module, but that didn’t help. The VLC player version is also the latest one, so update of the program is not possible.

Without a true solution, I did find out an alternative player under Mac OS X. It’s called MPlayer OSX Extended. For people familiar with Linux, MPlayer is no stranger. It is my favorite media player for Linux. Here is a screenshot showing the same scene under MPlayer OSX Extended.

My experience with MPlayer Extended is good. It supports more file formats than VLC player does. The subtitle supports is also better. As with other free open source software, it has some quirks though. And you cannot fast forward the video like you can on VLC.

Here is the link to the developer’s page. The link to download the player is currently down. Please try again later if you cannot download it.

My MacBook has been acting strange during the holidays. I wanted to run some diagnostic tests on it. There is a program called TechTool Deluxe that came with the AppleCare protection. However, I couldn’t find where I put the installation media.

A bit of googling, I found that Apple is actually offering it as a free download. All you need is your machine’s serial number. Sweet! Here is the web site.

https://support.apple.com/techtooldeluxe/main?id=dl

I helped one user to solve a strange network preference problem today. The machine is a Macbook Pro running 10.4.11. According to the user, after he updated it with the 2008-006 patch from Apple, he started to get this message whenever he clicks on the Network preference in System Preferences.

Your network settings have been changed by another application.

If you click on OK, the message would pop up again right away and you cannot do anything about it until you force quit the System Preferences.

There is a discussion thread on Apple Support forum, which gave me hints to solve the problem. It turns out the security patch changes the way of saving PPP (or PPPoE) passwords. If you have a network profile that has PPP (or PPPoE) passwords, you would run into this problem. The way to fix it, is just resetting the passwords.

Here are the steps.

1. Log on as a administrator on the machine.
2. Run “System Preferences”.
3. Click on “Security”.
4. Check “Require password to unlock each System Preferences pane”
5. Click on “Show All” and then click on “Network”
6. Now it’s the fun part. You have to find any connection that has PPP or PPoE passwords saved. When you find it, uncheck “Save Password”. Enter the password and check “Save Password” again. Note that you need to click on the Padlock on the lower left corner first to make changes. Apply the changes as needed.
7. You can go back to the “Security” pane and uncheck “Require password to unlock each System Preferences pane”.