Category Archives: mac
HOWTO make readline and history work with irb and rails console on OS X Yosemite
Here’s how to make readline (including control-R reverse search) and command history work with both irb and the Rails console with rbenv and OS X Yosemite (10.10.4). You need to install Readline first, as OS X ships with libedit instead. … Continue reading
HOWTO set up IMAP email for Yahoo
A few weeks ago, I was helping my cousins set up their new iMac. Once everything was up and running, she inquired about adding their Yahoo account to Mail. The conventional wisdom says you can’t do this. Yahoo charges for … Continue reading
Fixing iChat Google Talk login failures
I was helping a friend set up her new iBook MacBook yesterday, and we were unable to get iChat to log in to her Google Talk account. We kept seeing this error: iChat can’t log in to talk.google.com because your … Continue reading
Dear Adobe: please don’t crash while logging
I recently upgraded my copy of Creative Suite to CS5. When you install CS5 Design Premium, you don’t just get Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and the like. You also get a ton of other bits, like Adobe Help (despite the existence … Continue reading
Understanding Disk Utility’s “Could not restore – Device not configured” error
On Mac OS X, if you attempt to use Disk Utility to restore one volume to another (such as a DVD to a USB drive), you may get this error: Could not restore – Device not configured This means you … Continue reading
HOWTO fix Photoshop’s missing Application Support files error
Sometimes you launch Photoshop and get this error: One or more files in the Adobe Application Support folder, necessary for running Photoshop, are missing. Please run the Photoshop installer and re-install Photoshop. This is the dialog of four lies: Lie … Continue reading
Apple’s new PR boilerplate signals change in direction
I just noticed this today, but it happened a couple of months ago. There’s no more “Apple ignited the personal computer revolution,” which had been there since at least 1998. Here’s the new boilerplate, which first appeared on June 28, … Continue reading
When to buy a refurbished Mac
No, I’m not going to tell you when during the year to buy a Mac (“not the week before WWDC”), but I am going to share a neat trick. Tragedy of the commons, here we go. Apple’s online store has … Continue reading