Mavericks - old tricks are still working

Every time I upgrade OSX there is a concern about something stop working on the new version. Fortunately, it is not the case with Mavericks.

Both FTP server and iMovie + NAS workarounds are fine with 10.9.

So if you guys were concerned about that, move forward and upgrade. 

VMware Fusion 6.0 installation crash - how to fix

I have got my VMware Fusion updated to 6.0 today. Unfortunately, Fusion was crashing every time I was trying to start it. If you have the same, the solution is not so hard:

sudo rm /Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/license.fusion.site.6.0.200*

Official reference from VMware is here

Enabling use of NAS with iMovie

Once one starts playing with iMovie, the main problem is about free space. It runs out very quickly. Too quickly, I would say. And the main issue is that you cannot put your projects on NAS. iMovie by default only allows you to use directly attached storage devices or your local drive.

Luckily there is a way. To enable NAS with iMovie, open Terminal application and run defaults write -app iMovie allowNV -bool true command.

Restart iMovie, now you are able to store and work with your project using NAS.

Tested with OSX 10.8.4 and bellow.

Changing hibernate mode

When you switch close your laptop or just leave it for a long time, it may go to hibernation mode. That usually means your memory space is copied to HDD/SSD for safe-keeping. RAM is also suspended, so it should keep its content, but not for too long.

When you start it again after a long pause, it may take some time to read RAM data from your drive. Some people are always in a hurry, so they may want to change the default settings to keep RAM suspended but not to write/read on the disk.

If you one of these people, please be advised it is not safe to run hibernation with RAM only, because you may run out of battery and memory status will be gone. Said that, this is how to deal with hibernation mode.

To check the current settings, run pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

The output usually 3, if you have a laptop. That means "suspend to disk + RAM (default on laptops)"

If you have a desktop, the default is 0: "suspend to RAM only"

To change from one mode to another, use the following command:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode <0 or 3>

Cisco MeetingPlace does not like retina screens

I was preparing a remote demo for a customer today.

Our company is using Cisco MeetingPlace for such things.

During some trials I have realised that if one shares retina screen through MeetingPlace tool, it is not properly shown to other participants. In fact, it does not matter which resolution you set, as far as it is retina, remote users can only see 1/4 of your shared screen, application or window.

XBMC on Mac: Frodo is not good (yet)

I have Mac mini working as HTPC with XBMC on it. For more than a year I was using XBMC 11.0 a.k.a. Eden.

The new version, XBMC 12.0 Frodo is supposed to be great. The main feature I was missing is Ariplay. I have an external application serving Airplay server, but having it as part of XBMC is so much nicer. So as soon as Frodo has been release, I have upgraded.

All was working fine, but on some movies there was a green line at the bottom of the screen. I have started digging. As reported in the issue log, it is caused by HW acceleration. I have disabled it, as XBMC has recommended.

Then some movies have started showing distortions. It was so annoying I have rolled back to version 11. But the issue was still there. HW acceleration, disabled or enabled, seemed not to work properly. I have re-installed. Same damn thing.

Finally I had to remove ~Library/Application Support/XBMC files for XBMC to start working as before the upgrade.

My personal recommendation: if you are running XBMC on your Mac, wait till the developers fix the acceleration bug. Anyhow, the app is great, I am a big fan.

A phrase that crashes your OSX apps

There is a new OSX bug reported recently. If you are typing the following phrase: 'File:///' (without quotes), your application crashes.

I have checked it, and it's true for TextEdit, Chrome and some other apps.

Take care, guys.

Changing icons on Mac

In my last post I was complaining about an ugly icon of Google Chrome on Mac. Luckily one can easy change that.

First, you need a picture. I have found plenty of icons for Google Chrome on Internet. Get one you like, download it as a file, open in Preview, choose Edit / Select All and copy it to clipboard.

To change an icon of your application, folder or a specific file, right-click on it and choose Get Info. In our case it was Google Chrome app. Click on the icon in the upper left corner and press cmd + v to paste the image. Voila!

To show you the difference, this was before

and this was after the facelift

Google neglecting Mac lately?

Chrome is my default browser for year. It is light, minimalistic, it has lots of important add-on.

But lately I am quite unhappy with it. It is still 32 bit, that means it's not supporting the latest Java package. And its icon is not update to support retina screen. Look, how ugly it is now.

Google, are you neglecting Mac?