Articles posted in October, 2012

Apple Support Communities: Logging in takes you back to home page

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012 • 1:20 pm

This is a constant annoyance and something that Apple does not appear to be aware of. I am a registered user of the Apple Support Communities (formerly Apple Discussions) web site. Apple’s site is designed (presumably for technical reasons) so that it does not keep you logged in for very long. This means that you […]

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PowerPoint 2011: Editing charts in Excel is a maddening process

Sunday, October 28th, 2012 • 3:37 pm

Editing PowerPoint slides with PowerPoint 2011 is absolutely maddening. As a professional translator, I sometimes have no choice but to work directly in PowerPoint, and each time I end up exceeding my frustration quota because of PowerPoint 2011’s sheer crappiness. I’ve already written about PowerPoint flaws in the past. Each time I use the application, […]

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OS X 10.8.2: Hot corners not so hot with dual monitor setup

Friday, October 26th, 2012 • 8:46 am

Among other glitches that I have noticed with the latest version of Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8.2), there is the fact that the “Hot Corners” feature accessible via the Screen Saver preference pane in System Preferences no longer works reliably. I use hot corners to put my displays to sleep. I have two 30″ monitors […]

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Fusion Drive Tech Note: Not too reassuring

Thursday, October 25th, 2012 • 3:51 pm

As someone who has been enjoying the benefits of using an SSD drive as my startup volume for a year now, I am of course intrigued by Apple’s announcement of the new Fusion Drive technology. However, the fact that Apple has already released a tech note about the new technology with a series of warnings […]

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OS X 10.8.2: Safari windows restored without drop shadow

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 • 8:34 am

Last week, I wrote about a number of outstanding glitches in OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion). Here’s another one, which I forgot to mention at the time: The problem is fairly obvious: When Safari is launched and proceeds to restore its windows (for example, after an application crash, which is what happened in this particular […]

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OS X 10.8.2: Event-handling bug and other glitches

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012 • 8:48 am

Apart from the kernel panics, OS X 10.8.2 is a fine release (it fixes the most outrageous flaw in Mountain Lion, which was the crazy behaviour of the Save As architecture). But it sure feels rather glitchy to me. I’ve already talked about the selection highlighting issues after hiding background applications. The problem is on-going. […]

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First kernel panic since installing OS X 10.8.2 Supplemental Update

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012 • 8:53 am

Last week, I wrote that the OS X 10.8.2 Supplemental Update released by Apple contained a modified IOPCIFamily.kext file, which led me to speculate that the update might contain a fix for the kernel panics that have been dogging me and other users with Mac Pro computers featuring multiple NVIDIA GT 120 video cards with […]

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iCloud for former MobileMe subscribers: Extension is now official

Tuesday, October 9th, 2012 • 10:00 am

Last week, I wrote about the confusion induced by what happened on Oct. 1 when the deadline for former MobileMe subscribers and the free offer of 20 GB of extra storage on iCloud expired. Well, Apple has now made things official by sending e-mails such as this one: When you moved your MobileMe account to […]

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Mac OS X 10.8.2 Supplemental Update: Updates IOPCIFamily.kext

Friday, October 5th, 2012 • 9:30 am

Apple has just released a small system update called “OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 Supplemental Update”. While the information provided on the release’s page makes no mention of the kernel panic issue or a possible fix, I have proceeded with the installation of the update and it does indeed modify one of the “IO” files […]

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First kernel panic since hacking 10.8.2

Friday, October 5th, 2012 • 8:02 am

I really thought my hack provided a temporary fix for the problem with kernel panics introduced by the 10.8.2 update. Well, I guess I was wrong. Last night, I had another kernel panic. Same symptoms, same contents in the kernel panic log. So replacing the IOGraphicsFamily.kext file with an older version does not entirely fix […]

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Macworld advertising… Samsung laptops

Thursday, October 4th, 2012 • 2:54 pm

I know that Macworld is part of a larger conglomerate (IDG) and I probably did sign up for some kind of membership at some point that leaves me exposed to receiving computer-related advertising by e-mail. But this is a bit much: So, Macworld, now you want me to “rethink my loyalties” and ditch my Mac […]

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iCloud for former MobileMe subscribers: Confusion!

Monday, October 1st, 2012 • 2:34 pm

I am now totally confused by the situation in Apple’s iCloud for former MobileMe subscribers like me. In the past couple of weeks, there have been a number of reports about the impending expiry of the “bonus offer” of an additional 20 GB of iCloud storage for free for MobileMe customers at the end of […]

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