Category Archives: Mac

Don’t pull out that flash drive yet!

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On both PC and Mac computers there is a safe way to may sure you don’t corrupt your data..  PC instructions here from Microsoft:

 

Safely remove devices from your computer

If you unplug a storage device or removable drive from your computer while it’s transferring or saving information, you might risk losing some information. Windows provides a way to help you safely remove such devices.

Most USB devices can safely be unplugged and removed. When unplugging storage devices, such as USB flash drives or external hard drives, make sure that the computer has finished saving any information to the device before removing it. If the device has a small light that shows when it’s use, wait a few seconds after the light has finished flashing before unplugging it.

If you see the Safely Remove Hardware icon Picture of the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the notification area, at the far right of the taskbar, you can use this as an indication that your devices have finished all operations in progress and are ready to be removed. If you don’t see the Safely Remove Hardware icon, click the Show hidden icons button to display all icons in the notification area.
Picture of the notification area
The notification area, at the far right of the taskbar
To safely remove a certain device, click the Safely Remove Hardware icon Picture of the Safely Remove Hardware icon, and then, in the list of devices, click the device that you want to remove. Windows will display a notification telling you it’s safe to remove the device.

On a Mac, right click the drive and chose eject, OR drag the drive to the trash.  It is in the menu if the drive is selected also, as shown here:

macmenu

 

Office 365 on your personally owned Devices

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Not all apps are available to run on all devices, but here are all the components of Office 365:

office 365 components

office 365 components

For a nice colorful PDF explaining the basics of Office 365 for iPhone and iPad , look here

For campus specific instructions for how to get Office 365 on your personally owned devices of all kinds, go here

Files that prevent Microsoft Office updates (and others) on the Mac

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When an update to Microsoft Office isn’t completing because files are in use, you are asked to close those files.  Common examples are the Microsoft Database Daemon & SyncServicesAgent.

When this happens, you can find the running processes by going to your desktop and from the top bar choose Go, then the Utilities folder, then start Activity Monitor.

In the list of programs that are shown, find the file you were asked to close and double-click to open it. Screen Shot 2014-09-10 at 8.18.23 AM

Then Choose Quit in that window and then Force Quit in the next windows that opens to stop the processScreen Shot 2014-09-10 at 8.19.31 AM

 

 

 

Then return to your update and try again.

Bonjour causes 2 network connections and no access

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For some reason the Bonjour installed with CS2/CS3 can have the unintended effect of making your network connection look like two network connections and actually disconnecting you from the network.

I’m not clear on how it works, but it’s trying to help you out by looking for machines around you running Version Cue.  However, somehow it ends up making your default gateway 0.0.0.0 which doesn’t work at all.  If this happens to you, you can remove Bonjour pretty simply if you don’t need it.

Removing Bonjour for Windows (CS3 only)

To remove Bonjour:

  • Open a Windows command prompt and type the following command:
  • “C:\Program Files\Bonjour\mDNSResponder.exe” -remove
    • on 64-bit systems this may be Program Files (x86)
  • Navigate to the following folder in Windows Explorer: C:\Program Files\Bonjour
  • Rename the mdnsNSP.dll file in that folder to mdnsNSP.old
  • Restart your computer
  • Delete the the Program Files\Bonjour folder

Connecting to Eppley server resources from a Mac

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Over the years, there have been a number of changes in how we connect to the our file servers and printers from the Mac.  Below is a brief overview of the latest recommendations:

From the Mac, in the connect to server box, two things are important

  • Use the FQDN for the server instead of it’s shortname
    • Epp1.unmc.medforest.org  instead of Epp1
    • Eppapps.unmc.medforest.org instead of Eppapps
  • Use SMB wherever possible
    • Apple stopped supporting the AFP (Apple File Protocol) a couple versions of OS X ago and then added support back
    • In 10.8 SMB didn’t work either, only CIFS
  • On newer file shares, give the entire path as a shortened path will no longer work.
    • smb://epp1.unmc.medforest.org\labs\black works where
    • smb://epp1.unmc.medforest.org does not as you don’t have access to the root of the server and the OS no longer allows you to hunt for your shares in many cases.
    • smb://epp1.unmc.medforest.org/labs/nmr/Backup

To connect to resources, go to the top menu and choose GO, then down at the bottom of those choices, choose Connect to server. Fill in the full address of where you need to go.

For additional information not specific to Mac, read this post