OS X Tip: Apple Voodoo - SMC & PRAM Resets

SMC RESET

Shut down the computer.

Disconnect the computer's power cord and all peripherals.

Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.

Release the power button.

Connect the computers power cable.

Power on the computer

PRAM RESET

Shut down the computer.

Turn on the computer.

Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. This step ia done prior to the gray start screen.

Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.

Release the keys.

OS X Tip: Enable User Library Folders In OS X 10.7

In the new version of OS X, 10.7 Lion, Apple has decided to hide the user's Library folders. To enable them, use the below Terminal command.

cd Library

open .

It is important that you do not forget the period in the command.

OS X Error 0 While Copying Files

If you receive an error 0 while copying files to an external hard drive in OS X, the issue is most likely due to the file format of the drive.  Most external hard drives are pre-formated as FAT32 which cannot handle files 4GB or larger.

CAUTION: Any data on the drive will be lost during this process. Remember to backup your data first!!!

To reformat the drive, launch Disk Utility and click on your external drive on the left hand side.  In the Format Tab, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name the drive if you like. Now click erase and your drive will be ready.

Solved - Shuttle SN25P Gigabit NIC Issue

Ever since I bought my Shuttle SN25P computer years ago, I have not been successful with gigabit in Windows. Apparently nVidia has (or had) poor driver support in regards to it's nForce chipset.

Whenever I would attempt to utilize my gigabit connection to its full potential, I would immediately get notified by Windows that my network cable was unplugged. It would then reinitialize, and go out. This was identified as suspend/resume.

If I would switch to 10/100, I would have no problems. As soon as I connect a 1GBPS, any heavy network traffic would cause my NIC to flatline.

Last night I started researching this again, to see if maybe there were any breakthroughs or new drivers. I did find a driver from 2008. After updating the driver for the NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator then NVIDIA nForce 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet, my gigabit connection was still having problems. I had remember reading to disable Checksum Offload through device manager. Upon doing so, I attempted to upload to my FreeNAS machine.

This was it! I had 0 problems and I was able to sustain 340 Mbps uploading with my NIC!

SO, if you have a Shuttle SN25P (or any other nForce chipset/NIC), try updating your drivers and disabling Checksum Offload. Maybe it'll bring you to the 21st century with reliable 1 Gbps speeds.

OS X Error -36 While Copying Files

If you receive error -36 while copying files from one hard drive to another, the source drive is probably going bad and should be replaced ASAP. I received this error while backing up my iTunes and iPhoto libraries.  For both libraries, I needed to backup chucks of the library until I found the corrupt files.

You can confirm hard drive issues by downloading Smart Utility of OS X.

iPod Tip: Enable Diagnostic Mode On 6th Generation iPod Nano

Here is how you enable diagnostic mode on the 6th Generation iPod nano.

• Reset the unit by holding down the sleep and volume down buttons until the Apple logo appears.


• Hold down all 3 hardware buttons while the nano resets.


• The phrase iTerm will display briefly

If you need to put your nano into disk mode so you can restore it, just hold down the 2 volume buttons during reset.

Repair iTunes error 13010

If you receive error 13010 while opening iTunes in OS X, your Genius library may be corrupt.  To correct this, browse to Music ->iTunes ->iTunes Library Genius.itdb under your user profile.  Move the file iTunes Library Genius.itdb to a safe location and restart iTunes.  If Genius was corrput, the issue should be resolved.

Fix OS X Trash Issues

Recently, I lost the ability to move files to the trash on my iMac running OS 10.6. At first I thought this might be a win, but the idea of accidentally deleting important files quickly filled my mind.  To rebuild the trash folder, run the below terminal command. The first command is for your main admin account and the second one is for another user with the user's short name replacing "user_name" in the command.

Main Admin account: sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash

User account: sudo rm -rf /Users/user_name/.Trash

If you are running this for the same account you are logged into, you will need to log off after running the command.