FIXED: “AppName” wants to use the “name” keychain

Tired of seeing this window pop up, and having to enter your password every time you use an app? But don’t want to open up all your apps for use?

Here’s a nice and easy fix for you, launch the Keychain Access application (/Applications/Utilities/Keychain Utility) locate the entry relating to the application you want to always allow. In this case, it’s Microsoft Messenger for Mac, double click on the entry to bring up the details window:

Now, select the “Allow all applications to access this item.” click on the save changes button, and enter your password when prompted. You should now find you will no longer be prompted to enter your password when using this application.

NB: The above method comes with it own pit falls, obviously this will now allow anything to have access to this keychain data without prompting you. Bear this in mind when you are authorising items.

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FIXED: Do you want the application “iTunes.app” to accept incoming network connections?

If you are a keen believer in protected device usage (which you should be) and you employ a strict security regime including a strict firewall policy, you may find yourself constantly having to allow access to stock applications such as iTunes. This is because these applications are ‘codesigned’ to ensure the firewall only lets them through if, they have not been modified in anyway. So if you have installed any iTunes plugins, or modified iTunes in anyway, you will find this pop up will appear each time despite which option you choose.

To stop this for coming up, you will either need to reverse the modifications to iTunes or obtain a self sign certificate and sign it yourself.

If you’d rather reverse the modifications (Recommended) launch a terminal window (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and type in the following:

This will return one of the following results:

(Which actually suggests iTunes has not been modified, so if you get this at this stage – this tutorial will not help you)

Or you will get the following (particular files may vary):

So as you can see, the codesign application suggests the signed version of iTunes has been modified, therefore it’s no longer ‘signed’

To resolve this issue, launch a finder window location iTunes in your Applications folder, right click on it and click show contents. Now remove each of the files listed in the terminal window. It’s worth noting that removing the wrong files from this folder may well prevent iTunes from working all together. So you may want to either back them up somewhere or simply leave them in the ‘Trash’ until you are happy.

If you would prefer to leave iTunes in it’s modified state, then you will need to follow the Code Signing Guide over at Apples website

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MacUpdate Desktop 5.0

MacUpdate Desktop 5.0 is essentially an automatic update application which covers over 30,000 Mac applications. Desktop 5.0 has a really simple easy to use interface. Almost instantly displaying a list of all the apps installed on your Mac, and shows you which (if any) currently have updates available for them. But wait! It doesn’t stop there, simply by clicking on the out of app gives you the option to download and install the update without even leaving the application! This is ideal if you have a large collection of apps which are regularly updated. There’s even an option to update all out of date applications at the click of a button!

Not only does desktop cover your apps, but it’s also capable of checking for and downloading updates for widgets, screen savers and preference pane apps.
Once you have downloaded and installed your updates the view switches to enable you to quickly confirm all updates have been installed successfully.
The application also supports watchlists (see picture to the left) which enables you to group together your applications, so that you can perform updates on only one category of application at a time. Handy if you are short on time, but want to update all of your regular use apps at once!
MacUpdate Desktop 5.0 is a subscription based service which is $20 per year, however for that you get some additional member only benefits:
  • Website watch lists – the website watch lists enable MacUpdate Desktop 5.0 to monitor and auto-sync watch lists from MacUpdate.com
  • Daily Newsletter – Members get the added benefit of receiving a daily email featuring all the new software titles released that day
  • Customisable Layout – As a member you receive access to an additional three different layout designs to choose from
  • Email update notifications – If you don’t want the pain of having to run the update check each time, you can sign up to be notified of new updates matching keywords of your choice
  • Hide banner ads – As a member, you also get the option of switching off the banner ad’s that the application displays
  • and more
MacUpdate Desktop 5.0 is also available as a 10 day free trial, so what are you waiting for!! 

Download Now

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Run Windows apps on your Mac

As a recent windows to mac convert, I quickly realised there was some applications which as of yet had not been ported to Mac OS X. An these where the things which I was really starting to miss! 

I have previously used many various Linux Distro’s so was fully away of the Wine Project, however I was having problems with some of my windows apps. So I decided the only way to go was a virtual machine with windows installed. For this I used Sun’s Virtual Box. This filled the gap nicely. However, it was a little processor intensive to run some of the smaller apps.
Luckily for me (and you) a new wrapper for Wine has been released. WineBottler manages and wraps your windows based applications into Mac OS X apps. 
So – once downloaded and installed, WineBottler will keep an eye out for any Windows files (with .exe extensions) and offer to kindly wrap them for you in a wine based OS X app.
WineBottler even comes with the ability to download pre-wrapped Windows applications, apps such as Amazon’s Kindle, BusPro 8.1, Diva-GlS, Filzip, Guild Wars, Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8, K-Melson, Steam, Tech2000, Textpad, Total Commander, Winzip and WixEdit.
I have yet to install and test Wine, but I have read on other blogs that it works pretty well!
In the meantime, why not download your copy and see what you can wrap!

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More MacUpdate Freebies!

The ever so nice chaps over at MacUpdate are offering a nice winter bonus.. For a limited time they have reduced the price of two of their popular software offerings. 

Both applications have been reduced from $35 to a fantastic completely free of charge!! 
Firstly – videobox, which is an excellent application for extracting and downloading flash video’s from all of the popular web hosting sites. Once downloaded it converts it into a native movie format which can then be copied and played on apple devices such as your mac, iPod, iPhone and in iTunes. If you are interested and would like a copy, click on the TV screen above to download.
Next up for the FOC treatment is the equally brilliant MainMenu. MainMenu groups together some of the Mac’s popular menu options into one simple easy to use toolbar based app. Clicking on the app’s icon provides you with simple menu options to rebuild the spotlight library, repair permissions, clean your application cache and even some of the more advanced features. If you are interested and would like a copy, click on the MainMenu icon above to download.
I would also recommend signing up for the MacUpdate newsletter, they release some pretty nifty software which is always worth a look!

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