Time Sync between OSX and Windows

Through Boot Camp, we can install a dedicated Windows instance with OSX in the same mac computer. Due to the different time models, you may see that the time is not right while booting into another system.

Reason:

  • OSX, as well as other unix-like system, setting UTC to hardware time, convert to local time dynamically while displaying;
  • Windows use LOCAL TIME as hardware time directly.

You may not realized this because one of these reasons below:

  • You are in England, or other countries in Time Zone 0 (GMT);
  • Your computer system, both OSX and Windows has a client of NTP, which will get the right time from internet server very soon after booting. Certainly, the related computer should have an active internet connection.

How to fix it:

I didn’t find a way to change the time model of OSX. But we can do that in Windows.

  1. Start Regedit;
  2. Nav to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation;
  3. Create a new DWORD named as RealTimeIsUniversal, and set it value to 1.

Fix “Open With” menu of OSX

After removing and re-installing some software, there may be some of obsoleted or duplicated item in osx “Open With” menu of right-click mouse menu. In that case, you need to run this code in terminal to rebuild that menu.

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain user; killall Finder

As you seen, after rebuild menu, Finder will be killed and restart also.

Alternatively, you may want to save that code as a shortcut by this:

  1. Start Teminal;
  2. nano .bash_profile
  3. write this text below and save that file:
    alais FixOpenWithMenu = '/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain user; killall Finder'

After doing that, you will only need to type FixOpenWithMenu in terminal window instead of that long command.

 

Fix: Boot Camp Assistant stuck on Partitioning

Yesterday, when I was removing Windows partition through Boot Camp Assistant, it got stuck on partitioning:

Status: Partitioning Disk

I’m lucky to fix it manually. There are my steps:

1 Command+Q to quit the Boot Camp Assistant.

2 Open Disk Utility, select the harddisk, go to tab Partition.

3 I see there is some free space after my osx partition. Simply, I extend my osx partition and click Apply.

4 An error message is given to me. Due to some error within my osx partition, this operation cannot be done.

5 Reboot computer with Option key down, and select Recovery.

6 Use Disk Utility to repair the osx partition.

7 Do not try to extend partition here. You cannot make it successfully.

8 Reboot to osx normally.

9 Open Disk Utility again to extend osx partition. It can be done now.

10 Start Boot Camp Assistant if you need to re-install another Windows instance.

 

That’s my story.

Environment:

OSX 10.8

Windows to remove: Win7 with single partition, created by Boot Camp Assistant of OSX 10.8.

 

PS, Windows 8 works great. Except there is a bug on current version of Boot Camp. You can only back to OSX by holding Option button down while powering up, not able to do that with the menu command within Boot Camp.

OSX: Disable automount on specific partitions (disks)

We know that when a new hard drive inserted to a mac, OSX will mount all partitions in it. In some situation, we may not want to mount some partitions. In that case, we need to adjust fstab manually.

Skills need:
1 OSX simply operations, and
2 vi operations.

Step:
1 mount the partitions / disks in question. If you want to adjust more than one, do them all at the same time or make them into several batches as you wish.
2 Remember the names or Universal Unique Identifiers of partitions. You can see the names as the text of the specific tree nodes within the left panel of Disk Utility. Universal Unique Identifiers can be found in the pop-up window shown after click the Info button. You can choose to remember names or Universal Unique Identifiers. If you choose to use name, all partitions with the same name will be affected in the same way.
3 Unmount the partitions / disks.
4 Open Terminal.
5 sudo -s
6 vi /etc/fstab
add lines one by one like this (choose one format below):

LABEL=name none ntfs ro,noauto 0 0
UUID=51C9C66D-B850-3285-884E-D48B9F616809 none msdos ro,noauto 0 0

You can check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fstab for more detailed information.
Save that file.

Now these partitions will not be mounted unless you do it manually.

IPhone缺陷

目前发现的有:

VPN会在屏幕锁定后自动断开,且不会自动恢复。导致一些Exchange PushMail由于连接至企业的VPN被断开而无效果。

自带的Google Maps我没有找到绑定自己Google Account的位置,无法更新自己的位置以及查看好友的位置。