It’s been 4 years since I wrote my post “Ability to write to NTFS volumes on the Mac” which presented a free solution to solve the problem to writing to PC drives (or deleting files from them) with NTFS-3G and MacFuse. However, after the release of Mac OS X Lion, and then OS X Mountain Lion shortly thereafter, the suggested free solution became obsolete as the development of the MacFuse driver has been halted, and there’s no longer any official support for newer versions of Mac OS X. A new piece of open-source software called OSXFuse driver was thought to come to the rescue, however even with OSXFuse, NTFS-3G does not function properly in Lion and Mountain Lion; you will still get mounting errors every time your computer boots. So you risk to corrupt your hard drive / SSD and end up with possible data loss.

Why can’t you write to some volumes on the Mac which you also use (read & write) on the PC?

Mac OS X uses a file system called HFS+, whereas Windows uses the FAT32 and NTFS formats (which stands for NT File System) for its drives used for storage. While Mac OS X can read files on NTFS volumes, it can’t write or copy files to them – this includes the Bootcamp partition on your Mac’s hard drive (or SSD), although it can both read & write on FAT32 disks and drives. FAT32 is heading toward its end of life cycle due to its limitations such as that you cannot format a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB in size, and it cannot hold a single file larger than 4 GB. USB-memory drives with a storage capacity smaller than or equal to 4 GB are ideally formatted FAT32 with which you must be doing just fine on your Mac. However those that are larger have no choice but to have NTFS as their file system with which you’re gonna have this problem of writing on them on Mac OS X.

Fortunately, you can enable your Mac to write to NTFS writing on Mac OS X with relatively little trouble. Read more to find out about the low-cost solution which addresses the problem on Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion (aka Mac OS X 10.8).

Enter Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X

Paragon NTFS for Mac solves definitely the problem of mounting NTFS volumes as well as bringing the ability to read and write to those volumes flawlessly. A $19.95-solution from Paragon Software,  it is all you need in order to create, delete or modify any files on Windows NTFS drives (including your Bootcamp partition on your Mac if you installed Windows Vista or Windows 7 or later using the Bootcamp Utility) – and you won’t even remember there was ever a problem. Remove the barriers between NTFS and HFS with ease and confidence and no more worries about corrupting volumes and losing data.

Paragon NTFS has also been the first solution to support Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

Paragon NTFS for Mac Screenshot

Key Features of Paragon NTFS for Mac

• Unprecedented high NTFS performance. The transfer rate is the same as with the native HFS file system!
• Full read/write/delete access to NTFS.
• Support for Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard (32 and 64 bit), Lion and Mountain Lion
• Easy to install with a user-friendly installation wizard
• Easy to use. Mount any NTFS partition like a native one – no need to perform special commands to get access; just attach a disk or other media with NTFS partition and use it as you wish
• Create and repair NTFS partitions under Mac the same way you usually do with HFS/HFS+
• Support for Non-Roman characters and languages. File and folder names in national languages, including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian and Turkish
  
• No limitation to maximum file/partition size (within Mac® OS X and NTFS specifications)
• Full-Support for NTFS features

• All NTFS versions are supported (from Windows NT 3.1 to Windows 7)
• Compressed files and folders
• Sparse files
• Files and folders with security permissions
• Additional utilities

• Format NTFS utility – formats any partition as NTFS under Mac OS X 10.5 and higher
• Check NTFS utility – checks NTFS partition integrity and fixes errors, creates and displays a status report about the NTFS file system
• Control NTFS utility – allows a user to control NTFS for Mac driver behavior

» Get Paragon NTFS for Mac here

Related posts:

1. Ability to write to NTFS volumes on the Mac
2. Download Bootcamp (Windows) drivers for Macs shipped with Mountain Lion
3. How to Easily Transfer and Share files between your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch even PC and Android devices
4. How I resolved my Apple Magic Mouse problem on Bootcamp Windows 7
5. Download Safari for Windows here

Since the new Macs no longer ship with any software installation discs, everything is downloaded from the Internet inlcluding OS X software as well as Bootcamp support (Windows driver software for Mac hardware). As a loyal Mac OS X Snow Leopard user who has been resisting to upgrade to (Mountain) Lion for a long time, with my new Retina MacBook Pro, I had no choice, but to get used to working on Mountain Lion. This includes the Bootcamp utility Mountain Lion edition (as I call it) which requires to download the Bootcamp (Windows support) drivers online (and on the fly) while setting up Bootcamp on the Mac.

In my experience, downloading the Bootcamp drivers from some Apple server took more than half a day. In order to avoid such a time loss (or any possible new Apple madness) next time  I’d set up Bootcamp, I backed up the downloaded the Bootcamp drivers, and then I decided I’d share the near-1-GB folder zipped in a single file with the rest of the world for download via my web site which is hosted on reasonably fast servers with high bandwidth (courtesy of Ozar.net).

You can download the Bootcamp drivers here.

Disclaimer: I have not tested these drivers on any other Mac, but the 15″ Retina MacBook Pro. So use them at your own risk – I accept no responsibility for whatever happens from the use or the misuse of this piece of software.

Related posts:

1. How I resolved my Apple Magic Mouse problem on Bootcamp Windows 7
2. Write and Delete Files from (NTFS-formatted) USB drives connected to your Mac
3. Windows 7 Comes to the Rescue
4. Download Safari for Windows here
5. How to Install Java (and JDK) on Mac OS X Lion

There’s no direct link to download Safari for Windows from Apple’s web site either, so I decided to make it easy for those who would rather download it from here.

Safari for the Windows PCs is still a cool browser with some nifty features such as HTML 5 support, fast page rendering, advanced security and privacy options, 3D top sites view showing the most frequently visited sites, history viewing with page snapshots as cover flow, the ability to search through history as well as bookmarks, a robust web page elements inspector, a sleek RSS reader where you can adjust the feed length with a slider bar, an optional developer (tools) menu, and many more.

Related posts:

1. How to maximize Safari windows to full-screen on the Mac? * updated *
2. Download Bootcamp (Windows) drivers for Macs shipped with Mountain Lion
3. How I resolved my Apple Magic Mouse problem on Bootcamp Windows 7
4. Download Google Chrome for Mac here *** Updated

The Problem

I’ve had a problem using Apple Magic Mouse on a 64-bit Windows 7 on my new iMac‘s Bootcamp partition. It was that I couldn’t use the Magic Mouse in Windows installed on iMac. As a matter of fact the magic mouse was not even showing up in Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers in the beginning. In my case I’m using Mac OS X Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) and Windows 7 (x64) Ultimate on the Bootcamp partition.

In Windows 7, to add a Bluetooth device, you simply click Add a Device  and then Windows should automatically recognize the device and show an icon representing it in the Devices window then allowing you to select it to be installed (i.e. its drivers).

I also have an Apple Wireless Keyboard which functions just fine on Windows 7, but the Magic Mouse used not to until I figured out the following:

Somehow when the Apple Magic Mouse is paired with your Mac first, it may become impossible to make it usable with Windows 7 on the same machine when started up from the Bootcamp partition. Even if you manage to locate it in devices and select it for installation, you may see a message like “Connecting to the device…” forever, but no progress.

The Solution

If you are suffering the same problem of not being able to use your Apple Magic Mouse in Windows (Bootcamp) on your Mac follow these steps:

1. Boot up your Mac from Mac OS X
2. Open System Preferences > Bluetooth
3. Remove the Apple  Magic Mouse (or whatever you had named it)  from the list (you can click the small button with a minus (-) sign to do this)
4. Boot your Mac from the Windows (Bootcamp) partition
5. Right-click the tiny Bluetooth icon in the System tray and select “Add a device…” from the pop-up menu.
6. If your magic mouse does not show up in the windows showcasing the devices, use the little switch under it to turn it off and on.
7. Select it as soon as it appears and click Next
8. Allow Windows to take its time to install its drivers (possibly in the background)

In my case I had to go over steps 5-8 three times to make it finally work (probably because I interrupted Windows automatic driver installation process somehow by accident in the first place)

But now my Apple magic mouse works just fine on Windows, so I can now remove the back-up PC mouse from the USB port (until needed again

Any comments as well as sharing of your own experiences is appreciated.

Related posts:

1. Download Bootcamp (Windows) drivers for Macs shipped with Mountain Lion
2. Write and Delete Files from (NTFS-formatted) USB drives connected to your Mac
3. Ability to write to NTFS volumes on the Mac
4. How to Easily Transfer and Share files between your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch even PC and Android devices
5. Windows 7 Comes to the Rescue

Dropbox comes to the rescue. Thanks to Dropbox, once you put any file in it whether you are on your computer, or your mobile device, it will store them in the cloud and sync it to all of your devices such as your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch even devices running on Android, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry and  Linux. What’s more, you can use Dropbox not only for personal synchronization needs, but also for sharing files with others and collaboration in real-time. Dropbox offers both free and paid services.

Why DropBox?

There are dozens of other applications either as SaaS or PaaS and all claiming to get the same job done. Among all, Dropbox was and still the best and painless (even Apple attempted to buy Dropbox before their iCloud venture – an argument for another post) I’ve ever used. It’s fast, easy-to-use, practical – the only downside of it is on mobile devices where it doesn’t push the content unlike iCloud, you need to be connected to Internet to access all your files except for the one or two which once you access it on your mobile device is/are cached for offline viewing.

Dropbox replaces

• Emailing file attachments to yourself and other people
• Using USB drives to move files between computers
• Renaming files to keep a history of previous versions
• Complicated backup software and hardware

How Dropbox works

Here’s a short video explaining how it works:

How do I get Dropbox for free?

For a starter you can sign up for a free 2 GB account (if you use my referral code, you will get an additional 250 MB)

Related posts:

1. Play Commodore 64 / Amiga Games on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch
2. iPad HD aka iPad 3
3. Setting Up Mail and Calendar Accounts in iPhone
4. Write and Delete Files from (NTFS-formatted) USB drives connected to your Mac
5. How I resolved my Apple Magic Mouse problem on Bootcamp Windows 7

Apple, the world’s now most valuable company, will hold a product event on March 7 in San Francisco, where it’s said to be releasing the third generation of its best-selling iPad tablet computer.

“We have something you really have to see. And touch,”

Apple said today in an invitation, which features a picture of an iPad 3 HD screen.

- "Moses, meet Steve. He's gonna upgrade your tablets"

After pioneering the tablet market two years ago, Apple is counting on the new model to beat back competition from newer devices running Google Inc.’s Android software. The company has sold more than 55 million iPads, generating at least $US34.5 billion in revenue. Amazon.’s Kindle Fire, which uses Android, emerged as the iPad’s biggest rival over the holiday shopping season last year.

What to expect from iPad HD / iPad3

The iPad 3 comes with the long-awaited Retina display with an increased resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels, a better (8-megapixel) camera, 4G LTE and an A6 or A5X chip. My personal opinion is that Siri will be among the highlighted features of the new iPad HD although there are also rumors that Siri could be made available to all iOS devices capable of running iOS 5.

Apple has something we really have to see... and touch!

Although people have an idea of what to expect in the iPad HD (iPad3)  already, and there have been rumors floating around for quite some time now, it is always nice to see design concepts from creative developers around the globe. One such design concept has been showcased by Aatma Studio, and many are saying it is one of the best ever seen.

iPad 3 concept design

The new iPad 3 / iPad HD – What not to expect from it

Despite all the concept designs and raves, the overall size, shape and dimensions of the iPad HD  are not likely to change. There is a very sizable ecosystem of accessories (covers, cases, docks, stands and so on) that will all become incompatible if the size and shape changes drastically.

The operating system is definitely iOS 5 – at least for the time being it will start shipping with iOS5 , so it will have access to the thousands of iPad-specific apps on the App Store. What’s not clear, however, is how the existing apps will handle the increased resolution, although Apple always forewarns developers in advance to upgrade their apps to comply with the unreleased specs through early-access SDKs (software development kits).

iPad 3 (HD) Infographic

Related posts:

1. Apple’s Announcement of January 27th featuring the iPad
2. Apple’s new Tablet Device iPad Unveiled
3. Play Commodore 64 / Amiga Games on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch
4. How to Easily Transfer and Share files between your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch even PC and Android devices
5. All the mysteries of Apple’s Tablet Unlocked: Ladies & Gentlemen, the iPad

There’s a trick to making things faster, one that never fails to work. Open Terminal and run the following command:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index vacuum

This command basically cleans old and discarded crud out of the database that Mail
uses to keep track of messages. When old messages are deleted, Mail unfortunately
keeps some information about them around, and that’s what you’re nuking from orbit.
Here’s an example on my machine that shows the before and after

$ cd ~/Library/Mail
$ ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 maclord staff 61M Feb 15 23:14 Envelope Index
$ sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index vacuum
$ ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 maclord staff 33M Feb 16 18:35 Envelope Index

If you would run it often on the Terminal, make an alias for it, either in .bashrc or
.bash_aliases

alias vacuummail=‘sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index vacuum’

If you’re really feeling ambitious, you could create an Automator action that would shut
down Mail, run the command, and start Mail back up. You could even make it an iCal Alarm and set it to
run once a week, and you will guarantee that Mail runs lean and mean. Or, if you don’t
like Automator, use a tool like Lingon to run the command for you at a set time.

P.S. These methods have been tested with Mac OS X (10.6) Snow Leopard – untested with Lion (OS X 10.7)

Related posts:

1. How to Bounce Mail Messages in Mac OS X Lion * Updated *
2. Start Using Hotmail with Microsoft Entourage or Apple Mail

With MacOS X Lion, however, Java does not come out-of-the-box and you have to download and install it manually (or via the Apple Software Update) – except in rare cases where you upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion.

The first package of Java 6 for Mac OS X Lion for download & manual installation can be found on the following link: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1421
The download size is about 62.5 MB and gets you Java SE version 1.6.0_26 (64-bit of course). Although this one is not be the most up-to-date version, once you have it on your system, you would be prompted to upgrade automatically next time Apple Software Update is run.

As for JDK 7 for Mac, it will be available directly from Oracle, maybe even through the App Store – no official announcement on the latter, though, so far, but stay tuned for good news!

If you are a Java developer who wants to do Java development on Mac OS X 10.7, here are a few not-so-tricky steps to follow to get going:

1. Go to http://connect.apple.com and sign in with your Apple ID (developer account may be required – it’s free).
2. From the list titled “Downloads for Apple Developers”, select the item labeled “Java for Mac OS X 10.7 Update 1 Developer Package” (release date Nov 8, 2011) then download and install the package.
3. The JDK will be installed into a different location then previous. This will result in IDEs (such as Eclipse) being unable to locate source code and java docs.
4. At the time of writing the JDK ended up here:
   /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0_26-b03-383.jdk/Contents/Home
5. Open up Eclipse preferences and go to Java > Installed JREs page
6. Rather than use the “JVM Contents (MacOS X Default) we will need to use the JDK location
7. At the time of writing Search is not aware of the new JDK location; we we will need to click on the Add button
8. From the Add JRE wizard choose “MacOS X VM” for the JRE Type
9. For the JRE Definition Page we need to fill in the following:
   JRE Home: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0_26-b03-383.jdk/Contents/Home
10. The other fields will now auto fill, with the default JRE name being “Home”. You can quickly correct this to something more meaningful such as:
    JRE name: System JDK
11. Finish the wizard and return to the Installed JREs page
12. Choose “System JDK” from the list
13. You can now develop normally with:

• javadocs correctly shown for base classes
• source code correctly shown when debugging

Why Java no longer pre-installed on Macs?

What has happened is Apple has quit mangling their own JDK into the OS and delegating responsibility to Oracle to supply a JDK for OSX going forward. It isn’t installed by default, but after the fact just like on every other platform other than Solaris. Arguably this will be a good thing, as the Apple JDK usually lagged like 6 months behind the official Sun/Oracle one.

Original Press Release

As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is deprecated. This means that the Apple-produced runtime will not be maintained at the same level, and may be removed from future versions of Mac OS X. The Java runtime shipping in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, will continue to be supported and maintained through the standard support cycles of those products.

Mac OS X Lion For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Mac OS X Lion: The Missing Manual

Related posts:

1. How to Bounce Mail Messages in Mac OS X Lion * Updated *
2. Download Bootcamp (Windows) drivers for Macs shipped with Mountain Lion
3. Write and Delete Files from (NTFS-formatted) USB drives connected to your Mac

There are ongoing debates whether this feature was useful (so as to help fight spam) or not – even totally unnecessary (since many spammers do not use real or valid e-mail addresses, there’s no address to bounce back the junk mail) – the latter probably being Apple’s motive to remove the feature.

For those of you, who need to restore this functionality, there’s good news for intermediate to advanced Mac OS X users who can manage to create an Automator service that will feature an AppleScript to run — at least by following a short simple series of instructions. (See also the screen recording video tutorial below)

Here are the step by step instructions to do so:

1. Launch Automator from your Applications folder
2. Create a new service.
3. At the top of the editing (workflow) pane, select “no input” pull-down menu item just following the label “Service receives”, and select “Mail.app” from the second pull-down menu. The setting should appear like “Service receives no input in Mail.app”
4. Locate “Get Selected Mail items” from the actions list on the left, and then drag it to the editing pane (that is the Workflow)
5. Locate “Run AppleScript” from the actions, and drag it to the workflow.
6. Edit the script so as to look as the following:
   on run {input, parameters}
   tell application "Mail"
      repeat with eachMessage in input
         bounce eachMessage
         delete eachMessage
      end repeat
   end tell
end run
7.  Save your Automator workflow with a name like “Bounce Mail”
8. In Mail(.app) select the message(s) you want to bounce, then under the “Mail” application menu, select “Services > Bounce Mail (or whatever you named when saving the service) menu item

Related posts:

1. How to make Apple Mail Faster
2. Start Using Hotmail with Microsoft Entourage or Apple Mail
3. Setting Up Mail and Calendar Accounts in iPhone

Manomio is in the course of some legal procedures to license the required intellectual property and is also working with individual developers to bring popular Amiga titles to Apple’s App Store.
The following demonstration video shows a collection of 10 classic Amiga games such as Defender of the Crown, Battle Squadron, International Karate Plus, R-Type, R-Type II, Speedball, Stunt Car Racer, Shadow of the Beast, Virus, and Xenon 2: Megablast:

Related posts:

1. How to Easily Transfer and Share files between your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch even PC and Android devices
2. Silverlight instead of Flash on iPhone?
3. iPad HD aka iPad 3