Some Sage Advice

There is a huge list of incompatible applications that won’t work properly under Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on the MacRumors site. So before you try to run Quark 6 on your new Intel Mac with Leopard, check to see what won’t work properly!

If your new Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Mac won’t make an AFP connection to a Windows 2000/2003 Server running File Services for Macintosh, it’s because Leopard no longer allows sending passwords in clear text to a file server. This is an undocumented new “feature” from Apple. And to make matters worse, the option to allow sending passwords in clear text has been removed from the Connect to Server dialog box!

There are two ways to fix this. The first way involves using terminal to edit the com.apple.AppleShareClient.plist file which lives in the User… Library… Preferences folder. The second way uses a text editor (like the free TextWrangler) to edit the same file. (Note! Do not use TextEdit to make changes to the plist file! Apple’s built-in Text Edit can not save files in the proper format and will corrupt the plist file! You must use a plain text editor or use the terminal command outlined below.)

Method 1 Using Terminal

With no AFP connection active, open Terminal (in the Applications… Utilities folder)
Type the following commands hitting enter after each line:

defaults write com.apple.AppleShareClient “afp_cleartext_allow” -bool YES
defaults write com.apple.AppleShareClient “afp_cleartext_warn” -bool YES

Reboot the Mac.

Method 2 Using TextWrangler

1. With no AFP connection active, open TextWrangler. Navigate to the User… Library… Preferences folder and find the file named com.apple.AppleShareClient.
2. Drag this file onto TextWrangler to open it.
3. Change the value of the item called “afp_cleartext_allow” from FALSE to TRUE.
4. Change the value of the item called “afp_cleartext_warn” from FALSE to TRUE.
5. Save the file.
6. Restart your Mac.

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 A number of users are reporting incredibly slow launch times (up to several minutes) for Office 2008 applications under Mac OS X 10.5.2. Some MacFixIt readers report that Apple and Microsoft have both identified this as a known issue.

For some users, the following fix has proven mildly successful: In Word, turn off WYSIWYG fonts and “Show Project Gallery at Startup” in (go the “Word” menu, then Preferences > General). Quit any Office apps. Next delete the files:

• HOME/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/Normal.dotm
• HOME/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.plist
• HOME/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008

and restart.

Apple is aware of the problem and they claim there is a conflict with Office 2008 and Leopard 10.5.2. No word on when a fix will be available.

This is a little off-topic but it is important enough that I need to share it with you. A close friend of my wife had sort of disappeared for a while so she was surprised when her friend called out of the blue. She asked where she had been and she explained that she had spent the past several weeks on the phone everyday trying to get her life back—she had been the victim of identity theft.

The thieves had done a great job. They had ordered credit cards in her name, somehow convinced Verizon to transfer her phone calls to a house in New Jersey, and had racked up $30,000 in credit card bills in a short amount of time.

This phone call came coincidentally the same day I had called my insurance agent and asked her about my identity theft protection. I had purchased it last year as part of my “golden blanket” protection from Nationwide. For $45/year, I was covered. However, the coverage would only help me straighten out my credit. If someone hacked into my bank account, that money would be lost.

So, I immediately signed up for LifeLock. Lifelock is a service that not only monitors your credit, but they will cover you for up to $1,000,000 in damages and they will hire the best people they can find to straighten out your credit and to get your identity back. For $10/month or $99/year, you are covered. They are so sure of their service, that the CEO of the company has posted his own social security on their website. If you are concerned about this very serious issue, I would urge you to take a look.