Syncables has released Syncables Desktop Premium 5.1 (US $50), software that can sync data between Mac, Windows, and Linux computers, as well as share data and stream music and video between computers. Syncables Desktop Premium can sync files, bookmarks (Internet Explorer and Firefox), music, and photos. It can also sync email message between Outlook and Windows Mail on Windows and Thunderbird on Mac OS X. Syncing options include two-way syncing and one-way migration of data.

Syncables can also stream music and video from one computer to be viewed on another over a local network. Users can also view files located on another computer. Cross-platform file sharing comes with password protection.

For Internet sharing, Syncables can upload and playback content to Facebook, YouTube and SmugMug from within the application.

Syncables Desktop Premium is the version that supports Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Syncables Desktop (US $30) supports any one of these operating systems. A free trial version is also available.

Simon Blanco verified a previously report fix for problems installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3):

Thanks a lot your excellent report titled TIP: Workaround for Boot Camp insufficient drive space issue (or, How to install XP SP3 in Boot Camp). It just let me install fine the SP3. Yours is the only solution in the whole web that really works.

DataViz has release Documents To Go for iPhone (US $5) on the Apple App Store. The software enables iPhone users to create and edit and Microsoft Word files (.doc and .docx). DataViz also offers a version with support for Exchange email attachments (US $10), which enables users to send, receive and edit attachments on their iPhones. Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and other attachment types can be viewed as well as attached to new e-mails sent from within Documents To Go. The software also comes with software for two-way synchronizing with Windows and Mac OS X.

Documents to Go for iPhone supports cut/copy/paste, text selection, predictive text entry, bulleted and numbered lists, bold, italics, underline, embedded pictures, tables, word count, password-protected files and the ability to edit in landscape view. All original file formatting is retained once a file has been edited and forwarded on.

Two readers found two different methods of getting around the problem of Mac OS X 10.5.7 not recognizing network attached storage (NAS).

Michael FitzGibbon altered his login items list:

I have a LaCie NAS that has shown this behavior. I had added the share to my login items under the Accounts preference pane so that it would mount on boot. It worked for a while, then it stopped working. I deleted the share from the login items and re-added it, thereby placing the share at the end of the items that started up at boot time...

Read entire story here

Sun VirtualBox 3.0 looks to multi-CPU server virtualization

Dennis Christopher can't get a VNC remote control to work on a Cisco virtual private network connection using Mac OS X 10.5.7:

I'm having a problem getting VNC to work thru the Cisco VPN client. I am running 10.5.7 and have downloaded the latest Mac client from Cisco. We have a Mac server at work that I can VNC into from the Finder, and it works fine. When I try it from my home environment (10.5.7), theconnection fails.

If you've seen this problem

RealVNC has released VNC Enterprise Edition 4.5 (US $50), a new version of the cross-platform, secure, remote control/desktop sharing software aimed at large organizations. The software is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux/Unix. The new version now supports remote printing from one computer to another running VNC Viewer, even when running different operating systems on each computer. VNC Enterprise 4.5 also supports cross-platform VNC chat between Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux or Unix. Previous versions only support VNC chat between Windows machines.

Group Logic has released MassTransit hotfix 6.0.2x18, a patch for the cross-platform file transfer and workflow software. The hotfix enables support of Unicode text in file and folder names. A knowledgebase article provides configuration information and some limitations with the Unicode support. MassTransit owners can download the hotfix here.

Cory Siansky has the problem with the Mac OS X 10.5.7 update not being able to see network attached storage (NAS storage); But, Siansky can get it mounted using Connect to Server:

I have a WD World Book 1.5TB NAS. My Mac mini identifies this NAS as an SMB share and is configured to mount it as a login item on boot. Up until I upgraded to 10.5.7, this worked flawlessly. Since I upgraded to 10.5.7, I receive a message during the boot sequence indicating that the device could not be found...Read entire story here

Kerio Technologies has released Kerio MailServer Virtual Appliance for Parallels, a virtual machine for running in Parallels Desktop and Parallels Server for Mac OS X. The virtual machine includes a preconfigured copy of CentOS 5.3 Linux as the guest OS, and a preconfigured copy of Kerio Server, the company's groupware solution for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Kerio also has a virtual appliance for VMware software.

Kerio offers a version of Kerio Mailserver directly for Mac OS X, but the Virtual Appliance for Parallels release is meant to take advantage of the benefits of virtualization, such as more efficient use of hardware resources and easy deployment. Kerio Mailserver has similar functionality to Microsoft Exchange Server, but is focused on small-to-medium business enterprises. Kerio MailServer works with multiple Microsoft and Apple desktop clients including Microsoft Outlook and Entourage, Apple Mail, Address Book, and iCal, as well as smartphones.

Three readers sent their reports about the new CrossOver 8.0, software that enables some Windows software to run on Mac OS X, without Windows. Two of those readers report problems with Internet Explorer that they did not see with CrossOver 7.

Eric Ahnell is happy with it:

CrossOver 8.0 is brilliant - it runs all 3 Windows apps I use regularly perfectly! Those are Winamp (2.95, an older version), Silence Remover (an audio processing program) and Castles of Adventure (a game).

Eric La Fleur sees an Internet Explorer issue... Read entire story here

We have more reader reports about Windows crashing in Boot Camp on MacBook Pros with multi-touch trackpads. Jon Mojica has a theory:

The reason why this is occurring to the user is because the chipset from older MacBook to newer MacBook Pro is significantly different to cause the blue screen. The user can try to uninstall the various drivers for the chipset, graphics, and networking hardware of the Boot Camp load first before transplanting the image of the drive to the new MacBook Pro...Read entire story here

Two readers commented on a previous report of the Mac OS X 10.5.7 update causing Windows to crash in Parallels Desktop.

Steve Smith sees the problem:

I have recently experienced the same issue, although haven't downgraded Leopard to try and fix it. The machine worked fine for a couple of weeks after the 10.5.7 update, but now whenever it boots, it gets as far as loading the default apps, but then a short time later, blue screens... Read entire story here

VMware has released VMware Fusion 2.0.5, a maintenance update of the virtualization software for Intel Mac. The company says that the update fixes 80 bugs, and reduces CPU usage when a guest operating system is idle.

Also new is the ability to run Mac OS X Server as a guest operating systems on Macs with Intel Xeon 5500 and 3500 Series processors (based on Nehalem micro-architecture). The release notes also mention "experimental" support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server as a guest operating system, the previous version also supported Snow Leopard Server. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard client is supported as a host operating system (32-bit only). The update also now supports Ubuntu 9.04 as a guest operating system, including features the VMware Tools pre-built modules.

See also VMware Tips and Reports. If you've seen tried VMware Fusion 2.0.5

Mediafour's MacDrive 7.2.9 is a maintenance update to the software that enables Windows to read and write Mac-formatted storage media MacDrive also enables Boot Camp users to access the Mac partition from within Windows. The update fixes a problem with Boot Camp and Windows Vista 64-bit where drive letters were not being assigned to Mac drives. It also fixed a problem where no drive letters were assigned to GPT disks modified by iPartition.

Amy McVay verified a workaround for the Leopard/Virtual PC incompatibility where Windows can't see the internal drive:

I just wanted to let you know that adding an external drive worked great for me. Third party software is installing right now.

Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac is a discontinued Intel emulator for running Windows on PowerPC Macs. (See also Virtual PC 7 Tips and Reports.)

Long-time MacWindows contributor Peter Kloss believes an application on Exchange Server causes the problem of plus (+) symbol in email messages causing Entourage to not syncing with Exchange Server 2007. Kloss reports:

Emails not syncing from Exchange to Entourage because there is a '+' in the subject line are usually because the application URLScan has been installed on the Exchange Server to improve the security of IIS. By default it blocks certain characters in URLs including the '+' sign that could be used to construct malicious...

...Read entire story here

Chris Hansen responded to a previous report about Macs dropping off of Active Directory every 15 days. Hansen believes it is due to the use of Faronics' Deep Freeze, software that takes a snapshot of the state of a Mac and returns the Mac to that state every time it boots. He also offered a solution:

In our case, the only Macs that dropped off the AD after 15 days were those in our school labs. On those, we use Deep Freeze for Mac, and the machines would request and receive a new machine password after 15 days. After rebooting, all changes are lost to the Mac (great for keeping a lab pristine) but not to the AD. So the Macs would use the previous password, and the Network Accounts would stay unavailable, seen in the login window as a Red Light.

If this is your situation, in Terminal:

Dsconfigad -passinterval n

Where n = number of days before the machine password expires. O will set it to never, 365 will set it to a year, etc. The default from Apple is 15 days, and it is not a problem for us with unfrozen machines.

I first saw reference to this at this blog.

If you've seen this issue with or without Deep Freeze, or tried this approach,

Andrew Ariotti reports having a problem we reported two years ago about Macs that won't start up when clients are configured to connect to both Microsoft Active Directory and Apple Open Directory. Ariotti is using Mac OS X 10.5.7, and found that our two-year-old solution worked.

Like Brad and Justin I am having this issue as well. I'm running the latest 10.5.7 version of Leopard. I've been tinkering with the AD and OpenDirectory authentication integration in OSX for the past few days and things have been working great until this morning. I came in and was greeted with my Mac Pro not wanting to boot. I did some investigation and found a Crash Report that was looping and never stopping no matter how long I waited. The crash report was for the Directory Services process and it was trying to run but then would crash. With the help of a co-worker we were able to find your site and use Brad's solution above and it worked like a charm. It'd be nice to know what causes this to happen.

If you've seen tried this approach

Surendra Perera of Sydney, Australia, reports that binding to Active Directory prevents NFS file sharing from working. She said that Thursby Software ADmitMac fixes the problem:

One of the problems I am facing with the Macs is that while using mobile accounts and bound to the Active Directory (Windows Server 2003 R2), via Apple's AD Plug-in, I am unable to browse/write to NFS mounts (Netapp Filer) with permissions 750 or 770 through Finder. In the terminal I am able to with no issue...

...Read entire story here

Randall Araquistain verified a previous report that ADmitMac fixed a Leopard SMB file share issue caused by migrating from Windows Server 2003 to 2008:

We have been trying to get Mac computers with OS X to authenticate to a Windows 2008 server with no luck. I found this solution at MacWindows and it works great. Very easy solution and the SMB client included in ADminMac works great with Windows Server 2008. Shame on Apple for not fixing a simple and required function for any computer in a corporate environment with Leopard.

Ozgun Ataman confirms a previously reported problem with the Cisco VPN Mac client access to certificates:

I wanted the confirm the following problem: Although all certificates are visible under the keychain and the Cisco client itself, I cannot select them from the pull-down menu in the connection setup.

If you've seen this problem

CodeWeavers yesterday released CrossOver 8.0, a major new version of the software that enables Mac OS X and Linux to run Windows applications natively, without the use of the Windows operating system. The new version adds support for more Windows applications and improves the performance of Outlook and Microsoft Office 2007 running natively on Mac OS X and Linux. The company said that users can now install Service Pack 1, and that Outlook users with large offline data files should see noticeable speed increases... ... Read entire story here

Derman Enterprises released Sync'Em 1.30, an update to the Mac software for syncing iCal and Address Book with Microsoft Exchange and Google Gmail and calendars and contacts. The new version works around an Exchange Server issue and a limitation with Google contacts. Sync'Em 1.30 also includes a new, simplified setup assistant that helps everyone easily use the full power of advanced Sync'Em setups.

Sync'Em can sync multiple configurations, each involving multiple information sources with each syncing bidirectionally or unidirectionally. Sync'Em has its own sync engine that syncs non-Apple sources directly, enabling it to sync Exchange-to-Exchange, Exchange-to-Google and Google-to-Google, as well as syncing these sources with Apple iCal and Address Book. Sync'Em can also perform multi-source conflict resolutions in one interaction.

Two readers responded to Monday's report about a problem with Entourage 2008 not being able to sync with Exchange Server's inbox.

Mike McCallum found a fix that involved editing the Windows Registry on the server:

We had been fighting this for a number of weeks and after many hours with Microsoft Tech Support, our Windows engineers resolved using the solution listed below.

As discussed find the below commands which helped in resolving this issue...

... Read entire story here