I knew there must have been some reason I went to college. For just about anyone with an *.edu email address, you should be able to score this deal from Microsoft on Windows 7 Professional ($29.99 is a touch less than retail…). It’s not clear if this is just an upgrade or you can do a clean install (I suspect the latter), it’s also not clear if it’s a download or a disc. If it’s a download, you should be able to convert it to a bootable DVD, according to the Internet. Also available from that site is Office Ultimate 2007 for $60, and Vizio for $60.
Some will be wondering why anyone would care about this, but a few people I think still use Windows so it could be useful for them. Apple has promised Boot Camp support for Windows 7 by the end of the year, so that’s something. My Sony VAIO netbook that I loved dearly won’t charge any more, so no Windows 7 for me, for now.
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While I was reading about Snow Leopard’s old version of Flash, I also learned that Snow Leopard doesn’t preserve your screensaver/energy saver password protection settings from Leopard. If you upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard rather than doing a clean install (or possibly if you did a clean install and then migrated settings from your old Leopard installation), you’ll want to check your preferences on this.
Chester Wisniewski of Sophos writes:
My screensaver password lock was disabled after upgrading. Another change to my security settings without notification or permission? Some changes are necessary and difficult to migrate, but PLEASE tell me about things that affect my safety when using my computer.
Odd thing for Apple to overlook.
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I just learned Snow Leopard installs a ~9 month old version of Flash instead of the latest version. So, some important security patches aren’t in the Snow Leopard release. I confirmed this for myself on my own installation just now and updated accordingly.
Check your version of Flash at Adobe’s site here (the newest is 10.0.32.18). Download the latest version from Adobe here. I first heard of this from The Cult of Mac, who talked to Graham Cluley of Sophos who writes more here about why this is important. Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team acknowledged the problem on their blog here.
UPDATE: Apple updates the old version of Flash in the 10.6.1 update here, or through Software Update.
From a few days of testing and regular use, Snow Leopard is fine. Noticeably faster, takes up less space on the drive, and plenty of pleasant surprises feature-wise. No important applications broke in the transition. Amazon now has it for $25. I might be annoyed if this was a $100 update but I’ve almost forgotten the $30 charge (with free overnight from Apple).
And, you don’t need 10.5 installed on your drive. I had 10.5 installed and the 10.6 disk tried to upgrade 10.5. I didn’t want that. I booted from the 10.6 DVD, wiped the drive and installed a fresh copy of 10.6 without incident.
And, there is a great new mountain wallpaper.
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Another OS X discovery.
If you try to run TextEdit as root in OS X by typing ’sudo open /Applications/TextEdit.app’ you will get ‘open’ running as root, not TextEdit. TextEdit will run as the user you issued the command as.
Instead, try ’sudo “/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit”‘ and you’ll have TextEdit running as root.
[Adapted from something by user gatorparrots on Mac-Forums.com]
I got a new old MacBook the other day and installed Snow Leopard on it as soon as the disk came in the mail this past Friday. It’s weird to be back on a Mac.
Anyway, at some point the procedure for enabling the root account changed. In Snow Leopard, you open Directory Utility in /System/Library/CoreServices. Click the lock, enter an admin password, and Enable Root User in the Edit menu. Enter your root password, click the lock again and you’ve got root.
Apple makes this hard to find on consumer Mac OS X because it’s almost always a bad idea to have your root account enabled. It’s a big security risk. You should be able to do whatever you’re trying to do with sudo.
[via Snow Leopard Tips]
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The glass trackpads on Macbook Pros make Photoshop and Illustrator almost unusable. Constant unintended rotation and zoom.
[Original image from Notebook Check]
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We got a new MacBook Pro 15″ at work. I have been trying to install Windows XP SP3 on it with Boot Camp and was having some annoying problems with driver support. I’d do the Boot Camp Assistant stuff in Mac OS X (partitioning the hard drive), restart and install XP SP3 from its CD (taking care to format the Boot Camp partition in the Windows installer!), restart, put the Mac OS X Leopard retail DVD in the drive, run the Boot Camp Drivers Installer, restart, and nothing would happen. No hardware support for anything (not wireless, not the display, not sound, zip).
I reinstalled Windows once and reinstalled the Boot Camp drivers a bunch of times from the retail DVD. Nothing.
Somewhere on the internet just now (I can’t remember where, unfortunately), a single sentence fixed it. “Use the install DVD that came with the computer.” I uninstalled all Boot Camp stuff from the Retail DVD, popped in the DVD that came with the MacBook Pro, and magically, everything is working.
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I get packages all the time. I buy a lot of stuff on the internet. I always ship USPS because I live in a building where UPS, FedEx and DHL can’t get access to the lobby without you personally being there to buzz them in. The Postal Service, though, does have access to the lobby because that’s where they deliver our day-to-day mail. FedEx/etc. will either leave a notice that they stopped by, leave the package outside the door (on the street) or if you’re lucky, show up just as someone is entering or exiting the building, and they’ll pop it inside. A notice is a tough one, because good luck getting them to reschedule the delivery when you’re actually home. It’s a better bet to go get the package, which entails a bike ride somewhere and negotiations to get your package from the distribution center.
But the non-USPS carriers at least have package tracking figured out. The package tracking number tells you where your package is (or last was scanned) at all times, and is updated in real time. The UPS driver drops off your box to you and as he’s driving away you run upstairs and refresh the tracking page, and it says “Delivered.” The USPS does not work that way, or rather, sometimes they do. There are two different tracking-related products they sell: Tracking and Delivery Confirmation. Tracking is only available on more expensive shipping options (Express), Delivery Confirmation is generally available.
The above screenshot is from the delivery confirmation page for something I was expecting to arrive today. The package wasn’t there when I left the house after 7:15am, and it wasn’t there when I went home on my lunch break just now to go get it. Where is it? Well, as I discovered, “Unit” doesn’t mean your house. I’m not the first one to think it does. It turns out “Arrival at Unit” actually usually means arrival at the distribution point for the delivery zip code. For me, that means my box got to the 47th Street Post Office on Cottage Grove at 7:15am this morning, and is now roaming the greater north Hyde Park, south Kenwood area. It may show up today. It may show up tomorrow. This is the price you pay for Free Super Saver Shipping. (I think the confusion is probably still worth the ~$14 I save, especially now that I know what to expect.) More information on the USPS and their tracking and confirmation options is available in an eBay Guide here.
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You can switch users in bash by typing “su username” and entering that user’s password. It sounds so familiar that I bet I knew it once and then forgot it. [Image from UGO Movie Blog and maybe one person will understand why I chose this image.]
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