Here is the solution that I got from messing around the system for a day.

I have a Mac Mini which was running Mac OS X Tiger with MAMP server installed. Today the electricity just went out without warning, and my box got shutdown when the MySQL transaction was in progress.

When the server got back up and running a few minutes later, the MAMP MySQL module can’t seem to connect to the MySQL server due to access denied for user ‘root@localhost’.

I couldn’t even change the password or create a new user using Terminal. Tried all the suggestions found on the net, and no luck.

The solution is simple.

Open:

/Applications/MAMP/db/mysql/mysql/user.MYD using TextEdit.app

If your password was ‘root’ then the MD5 encryption is 81F5E21E35407D884A6CD4A731AEBFB6AF209E1B

See if the encrypted password was there. Mine was having an extra ‘+’ after the last ‘B’. Delete the ‘+’ and restart MAMP. Boom! Everything back to normal.

If your password was something else, try using an online MD5 encryption to find out what your MD5 encryption is and compare it againts the one in your user.MYD file.

DON’T FORGET TO BACKUP YOUR FILE(S) BEFORE DOING THIS

A lot of my clients are asking this question.

When you are doing a software update from the  > Software Update menu, the package file will be stored inside your Mac HD/Library/Receipt. But this location stores only the application updates, not the security updates or the OS updates. Where are they?

This is a tricky one.

When you update the OS, the file will be temporarily stored inside your Mac HD/Library/Updates/xxxxxx-xxxx/

Those files will be gone as soon as you restart your Mac to complete the updates.

So, if you need to copy those file, be quick and do that before the OS asking you to restart your Mac to complete the update.

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For those who are looking for an answer to connect your old Macbook Pro to a new Cinema Display with Mini Display port.

It appears that Atlona has come up with the solution. Price is USD 149.

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If you are connecting to shared/remote folder often enough, you’d better make an alias for those drives and tick the “Remember this password on my keychain” so, the next time you want to access the drive, just click on the alias and you won’t be asked for your name and password.

Here is how:

• Connect to the shared folder of your choice, enter name and password if it’s asked for, tick the “Remember this password on my keychain”
• Navigate to the folder you want to access next time
• Make an alias by holding the Option + Command and drag  it to your sidebar
• Rename the alias if you want to

Next time you want to access the remote drive, just click the shortcut on the sidebar.

When your Mac and PC won’t see each other in the same network, that’s because you are not in the same group.

Try to change the group name, so you’re both in the same ‘room’, here is how:

Go to your System Preference > Network > Click the connection you are on > Advanced…

Go to WINS tab and type the group name that the PC is on and click OK.

Now, the PC icon will be shown on your Shared folder in the Finder sidebar.

But, make sure you share the folder on your PC and let the PC firewall open its door. (How to deal with firewall? I’ll cover this in the next subject)

Yesterday, we got a client who couldn’t empty his trash bin. He could put files and folders in trash, but can’t flush them and in fact all files were not locked.

He told us that he was updating the security update online and got disconnected! He had done reinstalling the security update and the problem was still there.

It turned out that the solution is so simple.

We looked at the hidden .Trash folder from the terminal, and the folder was look like ?.?Trash, so the solution is to rename it to .Trash.

Here is how: Go to terminal.app, make sure you are in your home directory:

1. type: pwd <enter> This should print your current directory such /Users/<yourhomefolder>, if you are not there,  just type cd ~ <enter> to be in your home folder.

2. type: mv ?.?Trash .Trash <enter>

3. Done.

In Snow Leopard with iPhoto 09, the original image folder is somewhat hidden, you can go to this folder by right clicking the iPhoto Library > Show Package Content > Original.

If you need an access to this folder often enough, just create an alias (Command + L), or if you don’t want the system to add the word alias in it, just press Command + Option and drag the folder outside the original folder, don’t worry, you still know this one is an alias by looking at the tiny arrow at the bottom left-hand corner of it’s icon.

If you’re sharing your Mac with the whole family, you probably want to share the iTunes libary with the whole family.

Here is the quick tips to do that,

Move your iTunes library in ~/Music To /Users/Shared folder.

Go to iTunes Preferences > Advanced and click the change button and select the relocated iTunes music folder in the Shared folder

Now, any user logs in to the Mac can enjoy the same iTunes library

Well, as long as you have not turned on the FileFault, you will be okay. But, if the FileFault is turned on, and you forgot your password, then the files will be locked forever. FileFault will do the oneway encryption, so there is no option to do the reverse enginering.

If you are the user (not the administrator) you can just as the Administrator to reset your password. But, if you are the Administrator, then:

1. Have your DVD installer ready.
2. Insert the DVD to the tray
3. Restart and press down the letter ‘C’. It will load the installer DVD
4. On the first screen, select Installer > Reset Password
5. Select your account and make up a new password.
6. Reboot