Computer^News^FAQ: AirPlay

How To Fix a Mac That Won’t Wake Up

8:54:00 PM

We've heard reports of Macs falling asleep and having trouble waking up after an install of Lion. It might sound like something out of Sleeping Beauty, except without the Prince to kiss your Mac and wake it up. If you're having problems waking up your Mac, try troubleshooting it with these suggestions below.

1. Try the keyboard or power button

Sometimes, you Mac may not respond to clicks on the mouse or taps on the trackpad. This can occur for varying reasons, and seems to happen more frequently with Lion. When giving your mouse a tap doesn’t wake up your Mac, try pressing a key on the keyboard.

You can also try pressing the power button (but not holding the button down) on your Mac. Sometimes these two things will be enough to wake your Mac out of a coma.

2. Perform a hard shut down

Sometimes the only way to fix your Mac is to perform a hard shut down by pressing and holding the power button until the Mac, well, shuts down. You should only use this technique when your Mac is completely unruly, however, as doing this often could damage or corrupt files on your Mac. Once your Mac has shut down, wait a few seconds, and then boot it up regularly.

3. Reset the PRAM and NVRAM

Sometimes on a Mac, the PRAM (parameter RAM) and NVRAM (non-volatile RAM) can become corrupt and cause various problems. These two memory areas store settings and information that is not cleared whenever you turn off your Mac’s power.

To reset the PRAM and NVRAM, we’ll do the following for Intel-based Macs:

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

4. Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)

The System Management Controller (SMC) on a Mac can sometimes cause unusual system behavior, such as:

Fans

The computer's fans run at high speed although the computer is not experiencing heavy usage and is properly ventilated.

Lights

- The keyboard backlight appears to behave incorrectly (on Mac computers that have this feature).

- The Status Indicator Light (SIL) appears to behave incorrectly (on Mac computers that have an SIL).

- Battery indicator lights, if present, appear to behave incorrectly (on portables that use non-removable batteries).

- The display backlight doesn't respond correctly to ambient light changes on Mac computers that have this feature.

Power

- The computer doesn't respond to the power button when pressed.

- A portable Mac doesn't appear to respond properly when you close or open the lid.

- The computer sleeps or shuts down unexpectedly.

- The battery does not appear to be charging properly.

- The MagSafe power adaptor LED doesn't appear to indicate the correct activity.

System Performance

- The computer is running unusually slowly although it is not experiencing abnormally high CPU utilization.
Video

- A computer that supports target display mode does not switch into or out of target display mode as expected.

-A computer that supports target display mode switches into or out of target display mode at unexpected times.

To reset the SMC on a portable Mac with a removable battery, complete the following steps:

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Disconnect the MagSafe power adapter from the computer, if it's connected.
3. Remove the battery.
4. Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
5. Release the power button.
6. Reconnect the battery and MagSafe power adapter.
7. Press the power button to turn on the computer.

To reset the SMC on a portable Mac without a removable battery, complete these steps instead:

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
3. On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
4. Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
5. Press the power button to turn on the computer.

Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.

To reset the SMC on a desktop Mac only, complete these steps:

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the computer's power cord.
3. Wait fifteen seconds.
4. Attach the computer's power cord.
5. Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.

If you are still having problems after completing these steps, you may wish to call AppleCare or take your Mac into an Apple Store so that your Mac can be looked at more closely.

AirPlay

How to SSH to an iPhone (or iPad)

7:50:00 PM

You may know already that iOS has the same underlying unix architecture as Mac OS X, and because of this you can SSH into an iPhone or iPad just like you would connect to any other Mac or unix based machine.

As it turns out for us nerdier users, this ability is disabled without a jailbreak, so in order to SSH into your iOS device you will need to jailbreak first. How to do this varies on what version of iOS your hardware is using, but you can find our jailbreak info hereor just look for the appropriate version of redsn0w .

To clarify, this is a guide on how to setup the ability to SSH into your iPhone or iPad from another machine, if you are just looking for an SSH client for the iPhone or iPad, Prompt on the iOS App Store is by far the best, and costs $7.99.

How to Setup SSH and then Connect with SSH to an iPhone or iPad

As previously mentioned, the first thing you need to do is jailbreak, that is out of the scope of this article but it’s easy to do. After your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is jailbroken, proceed with the following:

Step 1) From the iOS Device:

· Launch Cydia and search for and install OpenSSH (it’s in the networking section on Cydia) – you won’t see anything on your Springboard because this runs in the background

· After OpenSSH is downloaded and installed, tap onto “Settings” and then onto “Wi-Fi”

· Tap on the arrow next to the WiFi router you are connected to, this will bring up the wireless network settings

· Make note of the IP Address visible on the first screen, as an example we’ll say it’s 192.168.1.103

Step 2) SSH from your Mac or Windows PC:

· Launch the Terminal in Mac OS X, or PuTTY for Windows users

· Type the following at the command line:

ssh root@192.168.1.103

Remember to use the IP address you found in the prior step on your iPhone

· Wait a minute or two while the SSH encryption keys are generated, accept them when (if) asked – this delay only occurs the first time you ssh from a computer to the iOS device

· When asked for a password, use “alpine” but without the quotes, this is the default password for all iOS devices

Step 3) Change the Default iOS Passwords:

You will now be connected to your iPhone or iPad via SSH. The first thing you’re going to want to do is change the default passwords, otherwise anyone on the network could theoretically connect to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This is just a matter of typing the following command:

passwd

Provide a new password and then confirm it when asked.

Now you’ll want to change the ‘mobile’ ID password to be safe, this is basically the same procedure:

passwd mobile

Enter a new password and confirm it.

If you plan on connecting to your iOS device frequently, you may want to set a manual DHCP IP address so that it doesn’t change on you, and then setup an SSH alias so you don’t have to type the entire connection string again.

SSH into your iPhone from the iPhone (or iPad to itself, etc) ie: Connect to localhost:
For connecting to localhost from your iOS device, you just need to have an SSH or Terminal client on the iPhone itself. Again, I’ll suggest Prompt from iOS App Store, but there are other options out there.

SFTP to the iPhone or iPad:
Transferring files to the iPhone or iPad is just a matter of using SFTP after OpenSSH has been installed and is running. You’ll use the same IP address, login, and password as connecting with SSH, just from an ftp client instead of the Terminal. A few good free FTP clients are CyberDuck for Mac, or Filezilla for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

AirPlay

AirPlay Mirroring Could be the Most Exciting Feature in iOS 5

11:50:00 PM

Computer^News^FAQ

How to update iOS 5 on iPad 2

How to Restart iPad 2

How To Fix a Mac That Won’t Wake Up

1. Try the keyboard or power button

2. Perform a hard shut down

3. Reset the PRAM and NVRAM

4. Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)

How to SSH to an iPhone (or iPad)

How to Setup SSH and then Connect with SSH to an iPhone or iPad

AirPlay Mirroring Could be the Most Exciting Feature in iOS 5

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Computer^News^FAQ

How to update iOS 5 on iPad 2

How to Restart iPad 2

How To Fix a Mac That Won’t Wake Up

1. Try the keyboard or power button

2. Perform a hard shut down

3. Reset the PRAM and NVRAM

4. Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)

How to SSH to an iPhone (or iPad)

How to Setup SSH and then Connect with SSH to an iPhone or iPad

AirPlay Mirroring Could be the Most Exciting Feature in iOS 5

About me

Follow Us

Press

recent posts

Text Widget

Subscribe To

Pages

PCWorld How-To's and Tips

PCWorld Latest Technology Reviews

Like us on Facebook

Flickr Images