Constant Google popups

If you constantly get a popup that says, "To view this page, you must log in to this area on mail.google.com:443:" when logging into your Google account, follow the instructions below the illustration

open Keychain Access (Applications => Utilities => Keychain Access) Select Passwords on the left.
Delete your Gmail keychain.  Also, if you have any Google related extensions (Google Toolbar, Google Notifier, etc) and your password gets deleted, you may get this popup.

If you not want this behavior, delete your Google add-on.  If you have the Google toolbar installed, open your preferences in Safari and click on Extensions.  Click on Apps on the left and uncheck Gmail

Completely reset Safari to fix problems

If you are constantly having problems with Safari hanging or it just refuses to quit, as was in my case, you'll want to do a FULL reset.  You will be deleting a bunch of preference files, but don't worry, Safari will recreate all these files.  Just follow the instructions below:

Open Terminal - follow this path: Applications => Utilities => Terminal  and paste the commands following the screen shot then hit return.  These commands will save your Safari folder with a date stamp on your Desktop and delete several files.

mv ~/Library/Safari ~/Desktop/Safari-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.LSSharedFileList.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebFoundation.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginHost.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/PubSub/Database; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Safari.savedState

Change the default save location in Mountain Lion

The default save location for TextEdit (and other apps that can store documents on iCloud) is iCloud. It takes a few clicks if you want to expand the save dialog and save a file locally. There is no way to change this in the GUI, but if you run the following command in Terminal, this will set the default save location to On My Mac for all iCloud-compatible apps:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false

To change this back to the default, run this command: 

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool true

Update: you can also accomplish this through the Secrets preference pane

Click here to download the preference pane

Icons galore!

If you are looking for the perfect icon for your Mac then look no further than your CoreServices folder.  This folder holds every imaginable icon your Mac has to offer, and depending on which version Max OS X you're using, you will be able find 2000+!  My folder, for example, has 2,370 icons!  To get to all these icons all you have to do is:

• launch Preview
• Go to your MacintoshHD folder (this is your startup drive and you may have renamed it).
• Double-click the System folder
• Double-click the LIbrary folder
• Now look for the CoreServices folder

• Now drag that folder on top of the Preview icon that's on the Dock

As you can see, you may get presented with 2,300+ icons, which is great for getting the perfect icon.  Now you'll want to select the icon by enabling the Edit Toolbar, if it's not already.

• click on your View menu
• Now click on Show Edit Toolbar

Now select any selection tool you wish, Lasso Selection, for example on the left side of the Edit toolbar.

• Now drag your selection tool around the icon.  

Mac compatibility

I recently came across a great site for checking for compatibility of applications for new releases of the Mac operating system (Lion, Mountain Lion to even future versions).  The site in question is RoaringApps and recently added Devices section, in which you can check which of your (many) Apple computers will run the latest versions of OS X and iOS.

You can also update your Mac's firmware to make it more compatible and functional by clicking here.  My laptop's firmware, for instance, would be here.  Another example would be an an iMac I recently upgraded.

Microsoft Windows has an equivalent in a software download and you can download it here

Easily find your Mac's model number

Last week I was asked if there was an easier way to find your Mac's model.  There is, in fact, a very easy way.  Just follow these simple instructions:

• Locate the Apple Menu and option click About This Mac so it reads System Information...
• In the Hardware section, look for Model Identifier.

• Head on over to everymac.com and scroll down and make sure the By Identifier tab is open and click on Model Identifier.
• Now look for your Identifier in the list.  My iMac, for example, would be iMac12,1.  A friend I know has a laptop with an identifier of MacBookPro2,2

Note: you may have a version of MacOS X that has System Profiler instead of System Information.

You can also download an application equivalent of EveryMac.com called MacTracker. 

If you are on a Windows system, the utility you want is msinfo32.  Just click the Start menu and immediately type msinfo32.  After you press return, the utility will show up

Profile Watcher relentlessness

Scammers are all over the place and often relentless, as is the scammer who posted the following:

"WOW I cant believe that you can see who is viewing your Profile!
I just saw My Top 10 Profile and Photo Peekers and I am SHOCKED!!
You can also see WHO VIEWED YOUR PROFILE here -->"

This message has been seen on Facebook and as soon as the scammers see that they block the URL, they change it.  I just recently posted a different scam below.

Marketing Scams

Just got a SMS from (312) 508-3521 which reads BestBuy Cust #72568 You have won the $1000 Best Buy Card! Claim your prize Today www.tinyurl.com/9xrpjts. This is a scam! NEVER go to a site with a top level domain (after the www.) that doesn't specify the company name

more on this:

http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/BestBuy-Com/Free-1-000-Best-Buy-GiftCard/td-p/273442/page/4

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-1-000-Best-Buy-Giftcard-Scams-Served-Via-SMS-275817.shtml

You can even search the internet on this topic

Repair manuals galore!

Ifixit.com is a the wikipedia.com equivalent of repair manuals.  This website has thousands of manuals and it's one of this site's purposes is to empower you to fix just about anything yourself.  The step-by-step illustrations are very crisp and clear.  To help you get the job done, the even sell tools and parts!

I recently had to blow out my MacBook Pro's left fan because it was making grinding noises and was dusty.  This website walked me all the the way through.  It even told me what size tools I needed!

Every Mac spec

There is a website called everymac.com that lists all the specifications of every mac ever made. It also has specs to every iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac clone in the world, with technical, configuration, and pricing info. Get specs on every Mac, answer your Mac questions, compare Macs side-by-side, lookup Macs, and more!