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Category Archives: Apple Mac News

NBN uploading killing your Internet

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News

With the introduction of much faster uploads with NBN business clients are telling me the internet is really slow when they are uploading.

The reason is you’re overloading your upload which doesn’t leave anything left over for other devices on the network. When your browser tries to get a page it sends a request for that page (upload) and then starts receiving data. As the page comes in parts it must then send (upload) verification of data received.

The easiest solution is to throttle your upload. I use Network Link Conditioner to cap the upload to about 85% of maximum, sometimes less if the office is full.

There are many programs that will let you throttle an application. Install a browser you won’t use as your primary, in my case Firefox as I use Chrome, and throttle it. That way you can still use your primary browser without being throttled and upload 24/7 if you want without any interruption in service for any device in your home.

Apple Is Bullying a Security Company with a Dangerous DMCA Lawsuit

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News

Couldn’t buy the Company’s virtual iPhone software for developers to test their apps without a physical device so Apple are suing them. Apple STOP!! before you completely destroy all credibility.

Couldn't buy the Company's virtual iPhone software for developers to test their apps without a physical device so Apple are seeing them. Apple STOP!! before you completely destroy all credibility.

Posted by Martyn Ford on Tuesday, 7 January 2020

NBN and the irony of the what we call Telecommunications Companies in Australia

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News

NBN and the irony of the what we call Telecommunications Companies in Australia when
these greedy “so and sos” couldn’t communicate a “Party in A Brewery”

We at UDS have been on Optus cable for 20+ years, its been our rock and without fibre to the door there is no way in hell that NBN matches up with HFC (Cable) from what I can see. When NBN came to our door I asked questions they could not answer and gave me their bosses number before I cased them away. I rang the boss who was only a part timer working from home that could not find the paperwork on what speeds I would get.

The unacceptable problems I have had with Telecommunications Companies and the amount of times I have had to contact the Ombudsman and have lost business, really indicates that a royal commission is well overdue in line with recent inquires. Especially when a Telecommunication company will deliberately break the law and face a 5 million dollar fine because they made more money. If you were a conspiracy theorist you could say the industry has dragged its feet along with all the big multinationals so that small business can’t get it foot in the door (disruptive technologies such as Uber) so that Big Business has a chance to organise and dominate. The Telecommunications Industry needs to be called out on their Shitfuckery (urban dictionary definition Shitfuckery: 1. An extreme degree of nonsense, especially when coming from an authoritative figure. 2. Bullshit), resulting in the same bad behaviours the Banks got away with while making a killing.

The good news is NBN technology does not use (Optus/Telstra) cable at all, it uses less copper. So you can keep your Optus account going for as long as they keep it switched on and get the NBN to run in a cable and get set up completely separately. Once the NBN is connected and you find your one of the thousands that get disconnected every week then you can fight canceling the Optus/Telstra cable till they fix it.

Did you know that some suburbs had such bad copper telephone infrastructure that the NBN put fibre to the door, such as Yarraville. There is no such thing as internet equality in Australia.
A very interesting a disturbing article about a cable provider
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/optus-threatens-disconnection-to-sign-up-nbn-customers-and-fasttrack-hfc-cable-shutdown-20170310-guv5ek.html

Optus Sued By ACCC
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/accc-sues-optus-for-rushing-users-onto-nbn-479920

Apple Has Been Sued by Australia’s Consumer Watchdog for ‘Bricking’ iPhones

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News

Apple Has Been Sued by Australia’s Consumer Watchdog for ‘Bricking’ iPhones

Reuters
Apr 06, 2017
 
 

Australia’s consumer watchdog has sued Apple (AAPL, -0.28%) alleging it used a software update to disable iPhones which had cracked screens fixed by third parties.

The U.S. technology giant “bricked”—or disabled with a software update—hundreds of smartphones and tablet devices, and then refused to unlock them on the grounds that customers had had the devices serviced by non-Apple repairers, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said in a court filing.

 

“Consumer guarantee rights under the Australian Consumer Law exist independently of any manufacturer’s warranty and are not extinguished simply because a consumer has goods repaired by a third party,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said in a statement.

An Apple spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

The regulator said that between September 2014 and February 2016, Apple customers who downloaded software updates then connected their devices to their computers received a message saying the device “could not be restored and the device had stopped functioning”.

Customers then asked Apple to fix their devices, only to be told by the company that “no Apple entity … was required to, or would, provide a remedy” for free, the documents added.

Apple engaged in “misleading or deceptive conduct and made false or misleading representations to consumers” about its software updates and customers’ rights to have their products repaired by the company, the commission said.

As well as fines, the ACCC said it was seeking injunctions, declarations, compliance program orders, corrective notices, and costs.

The lawsuit was filed late on Wednesday, a week after the consumer watchdog granted Apple a win by denying Australia’s banks the right to introduce a mobile payment system to rival its Apple Wallet.

OSX El Captain disaster letter from customer

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News, iMac, Mac, Mac Pro, MacBook, Service, Software, The Future

Hi UDS,

Yesterday, after several months hesitation, I went to Upgrade from OSX 10.9.5 to the El Capitan OSX 10.11.3

Basically, it’s been one disaster after another. I’ve had several Apple Support ‘Chat’ assistants, several on-phone Tech Assistants via Screen Sharing etc, and each time I deal with them, either in Chat or direct via phone, one or another issue keeps happening.

I’ve spent all of yesterday, from about 11am to 9pm, going through support / d’load updates etc, and again from 9am – 7:30pm today.

It appears that the OSX has been corrupted (they say) or some such.
Although it does say it’s installed in ‘About This Mac’ and I am able to setup my Dock and other settings, there is a problem with the settings not saving properly.

Although it’s not the only issue, one of the most basic of these is that I use a Trackpad, but when I go in and choose the functions I want in Trackpad settings, and then exit it, those settings are not applied. At least 3 or 4 Apple people have looked at this on Chat and phone, but it’s still not saving.

The problem is that I don’t even know whether or not this means that other functions aren’t working correctly.

I’ve just got off the phone for the 4th or 5th time today, and the guy was saying that I’ll need to do a complete ‘Clean Install’ and that I need to take it to an Apple shop. I said that if I was to do that, I’d expect it to be fixed at no charge, as the issues only happened due to the OSX upgrade. He said this wouldn’t happen. That I’d be charged for it.

Before this OSX upgrade, my entire system was working fine. I have it setup for music production, and have many pro software suites from Native Instruments, Akai, Logic Pro etc etc installed on it. I’d been monitoring other peoples issues with El Capitan on various music software User Forums, and didn’t upgrade until I saw that others were happy with the upgrade.

When I initiated the OSX upgrade / d’load, I was given no warning that I’d need to do a Time Machine backup, which apparently is needed for a ‘clean install’ or even for me to back grade to OSX 10.9.5. (I was perfectly happy with it btw)

I see no point in contacting Ape support again. Most of them have been as helpful as they can, but none have resolved the overall issues.
I am at a brick wall with this, and am talked dry with Apple support.

I need to get it back up and running asap, as I have work to do with it. I’d appreciate your advice.
Could we please get in touch as soon as possible, and discuss my options, with a view to me dropping in to your shop.

Cheers,

 

Dear Mac User,

 

This problem was solved by running a maintenance application that did a permissions fix, yes that simple but because Apple has seen it fit to remove permission fix from Disk utility even their Geniuses* couldn’t fix it. I call shenanigans on whoever decision to remove permission fix.

El Crapitan is the way it is being described by other users on the internet for many reasons, your not alone.

The press like most of the modern media are a bunch of gutless, spineless creeps the haven’t a clue as to what users need or want or the means to test the OS thoroughly and like most politicians have some sort of conflicting monetary issue with the truth. So all the reviews I have seen are glowing because all they use the machine for is Word Prosessing but if you look into the comments you find the real truth.

Here is the truth from a Professional Photographer Loyd Chambers http://macperformanceguide.com/AppleCoreRot-intro.html and everything he knows about photography here http://diglloyd.com/index-free.html an his serving of AppleCoreRot.

With increased security in 10.11 called SIP’s it is slower to boot (although this is now harder to confirm because you only get a progress bar on startup and not a winding clock like icon that you could count the cycles) and has been a headache for UDS from the start.
It has been one of the first OSX updates to actually either not install or complete make a machine freeze on boot up so I can say I am not surprised and I have been in touch with Apple dev support which don’t have a number to call and did very little to help. Lights ON but know one home just like other IT companies you may know.
El Capitain truths:
1. There is certain 3rd party software that will not work with 10.11 and can be located in folders as rare as System/Library/Extensions
2. There is no significant gain on older machines that I can see and if you don’t already own a Solid State Drive things are going to be very slow.
3. Users out there have refrained from updating more so than any other previous update see recent articles at MacDailyNews
4. You pay peanuts and you get as you say Ape support (not sure if that was a typo or a Freudian slip)
5. The download of OSX is so slow it took UDS over 12 hours and many resumes to download a recent system upgrade 10.10 for a client on 20mbit cable account and this slowness alone is causing corruptions in the installer just as bad or if not worse than the day of the CD-rom with disk scratches or drives not working
6. Apple also put in so many more bridges because people out there are trying to install OSX on Pc’s (hackintosh) that these become obstacles for genuine users. So software like Diskmaker X that allows you to create USB installers are now failing to work.
7. Apples choice of overly expensive Retina screens, PCI-E flash cards 3x the price of SSD and on top of that the Aussie dollar is making the Mac unaffordable, making you think your on the cutting edge of technology but many finding themselves on the bleeding edge of technology.
So the question I must ask, why did you upgrade?
Sounds familiar the system has updated some aspect of your system, trackpad, but not others, your stuck between 2 systems with a user home folder permissions not working.
For you the problem is you did not download Yosemite when it was available because 3 months after El Captain or the new OSX arrived Apple deletes the last OSX out of the Apple store which is just another measure to ensure Hackintosh users don’t download the software. This would have been a far better choice but Apple did not give you this choice.
One of the biggest and most idiotic things I have ever seen in an OSX release is to get rid of permission fix which is one of the problems your having right now.
Which car manufacturer would decide too: in the name of minimalism take out the spare tyre/jack (Permission Fix) rip out the brake light (Active S.M.A.R.T for hard drives or SSD’s), not have a dashboard (red/Write to HD, CPU %, Memory Usage, Rx Tx of internet) and change the configuration of the gears first gear not being Top Left for first gear for right hand drive (change the direction a mouse wheel scrolls) ??? Most of these things can be fixed but you need professional support not ToysRus.
I have the tools to correct this issue as I have seen and dealt with it before on 10.11.

Unique Design Systems Pty. Ltd.
Oakleigh, Victoria   3166
Melbourne, Australia
Technical Support Services
www.uds-online.com

Phone: +613 9569 6426

Web Hosting with a personal touch

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News, Service

UDS Online Web and Email Hosting

Domain Name Pick Pockets

Most of our clients will have been sent a notice that their Domain is due, which is a LIE as most are due in 2017.

This ridiculous system allows big companies, mostly overseas to legal fish for clients from any Domain Registry company as the contact email address are accessible. Because of this transferring Domains to Australia or between Domain Name Registrars has now become even more difficult as Domain Registry Companies look to lock down transfers. If your domain is due you will get an invoice from UDS which will state when its due and if we have any issue with a due date you will be called or the domain automatically re registered, we have your back always.

Did you know the server you are on is a Blaze VPS and was voted one of Australia’s most innovative products in the Anthill Smart 100?

The blaze was the first scalable Cloud Server with guaranteed performance, last year we added additional ram and Disk Space. There is no down time for maintenance as your service is running on multiple servers, so think twice about cheaper offers or graphic designers wanting to use their cheap USA server as it will never be as fast as it is here in Australia.

High-Availability

SolidFire SSD Storage

Scalable Performance

We do IMAP Email hosting when many now don’t.

When most Web Hoster’s are heading away from email hosting we have embraced the fact that most businesses want more control over email. With the flexibility of IMAP allowing clients to have some email accounts on more than one machine (synchronised) allows for better organisation. All this without the need to give all their intellectual property and confidential information to Google.

This does come with the expense of disk space which we have not been too precious about although but to guarantee the continuation of this service I will have to set some limits which mean you need to Archive older email at your end. More about how to do this.

Happy New Business Year

From the team at UDS Hosting we wish you the best for 2016 and look forward to supporting you needs in the year to come.

El Capitan 10.11.1 update can stop your SSD from Booting

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News, Software

Customers cannot boot after install 10.11.1 update

Non of the magic fixes listed on forums so far have helped with booting 10.11.1 on a Samsung 850 EVO 500gb or 250gb 1TB Solid State Drives. Only taking it back to 10.11 or cloning onto a Hard Drive solved the boot issue. This was on iMacs and MacBooks a Mac Mini managed to boot but Applications quit and lagged, failed and became unusable.

I cant believe Apple engineers have not tried replicating this but it was always going to end up with a problem like this because Apple Developers short-sightedness and Apples need to push the latest “Bleeding Edge Update to OSX” and not allow clients to choose a safer previous update has created this trap.

Apple will be very busy at the moment because 10.11 from what is being said in the forums is very disappointing, from simple extensions now stopping the OS from booting (a first in OSX history), too applications that don’t work or seem to be slower than normal.
Part of the problem is due to new Apple-enforced code signature restrictions, making lots of applications not compatible with the OS X 10.11.
Although the restriction is similar, this is not directly related to 10.11’s “System Integrity Protection” (SIP, aka “rootless”)
feature and disabling SIP has no effect. Unless Apple makes the signature restriction optional, it is not clear that some apps in their present form can ever be
made compatible with OS X 10.11.
Also with the latest lag in broadband in Australia because of Netflix being oversold and issues with Apple update servers it has come to my attention that some larger downloads are corrupting.
We can offer you any OSX 10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9 10.10 and 10.11 on a USB drive so you can install without waiting an hour + for download

El Capitan – some Apps that will never work on OSX again

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News

I have always said “If it aint broken then don’t try fixing it” or “Sometimes being on the cutting edge of technology only ends up being the bleeding edge of technology” and “Let everyone else find the bugs and only update when you have too and only when there is a x.x.3 or greater update”.

Due to new Apple-enforced code signature restrictions, applications like MenuMeters are not compatible with the OS X 10.11 “El Capitan”. Although the restriction is similar, this is not directly related to 10.11’s “System Integrity Protection” (SIP, aka “rootless”) feature and disabling SIP has no effect on MenuMeters.

Unless Apple makes the signature restriction optional, it is not clear that MenuMeters in its present form can ever be made compatible with OS X 10.11.

In the meantime I can only suggest that you do not install 10.11 if you wish to use MenuMeters.

Here is a list of other software either completely broken which could stop your machine from booting, does not work or seems laggy (runs slower than normal).

Adobe Bridge V5.0.2 (CS6) will no longer recognize some Cameras
Ableton Live
Anything that requires Java 6
Brother Printer – Control Center
Capture One Pro 8 and earlier
Carbon Copy Cloner
CleanmyMac
Cocktail
CopyClip
EyeTV (performance issues when switching a channel)
Filemaker Pro 14
Final Cut Pro
Fitbit (no longer able to find the USB Dongle)
Firefox 38.5 (will not install)
Firefox 39b3 beta (will not install)
Flash CS6 does not work
Google Drive (it syncs data, but there is no icon on menu bar)
Google Chrome & Canary (Severe performance issues)
iWork ’09 (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) problems with the new pencil color picker (in 10.11.1)
Illustrator CC
LaCie Raid Manager
Little Snitch
LogMeIn
Logitech Control Center (Devices won’t pair)
Logic Pro
MenuMeters
Microsoft Remote Desktop (works for some)
Microsoft Outlook Preview 2016 (very buggy with exchange account)
Mincraft (java issues may need to launch via Terminal)
Movie Magic Budgeting
Private Internet Access
Quicken
Quickbooks
Skype
Spotify
SuperDuper
SyncMate (can stop boot)
SwitchResX (doesn’t work with custom resolutions)
Toast
VMWare Horizon Client
Virtual Box (can stop boot)
Word 2011
Winclone
USB Overdrive

USB Known Issues
USB storage devices, including internal SD card readers, may become unavailable after system sleep and require either re-plug or restart to recover.
USB input devices may become non-functional on some Macs after several days.
USB 1.0, 1.1 and older 2.0 devices may not function.

Several minor bugs in Photoshop CC in 10.11
Parts of the text on the loading image are missing
Moving layers in the layers list does not display the line that shows where the layer will be placed
Holding the button any of the tools that open a subtool menu (for example, Lasso Tool/Polygonal Lasso/Magnetic Lasso) does not open that menu as it should, but only after you release the button

Congested Internet in Australia

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News

Optus​ Cable are blaming congestion, for less than ADSL speeds and give the usual we are updating equipment line like I see many others have got all year.
The last time this happen was when the Liberals got in and all those fence sitters went out and got cable because the sure as hell where now not getting fiber.

I have 4 things Aussies need to ponder about thier Internet.

1. Are Optus (or other ISP’s) service level agreements being broken?
2. Is the free Netflix Bandwidth Special impacting on productivity already?
3. Is Meta Data recording slowing our network down and will it in the future?
4. Are VPN’s that are now more widely being used to blame for congestion?

my Answers:

1. I am not paying more than $30 this month out of the $99 I usually spend if this continues
2. Yes I have 2 Apple Macs to update tonight and I can’t get a 295mb file to update in less than 6 hours
3. I don’t know the answer to this but know there will be a shit storm if it does come out that it will slow it down (a question for parliament)
4. I have tested a number of VPN’s and they are slower but is it slowing everyone else’s traffic?, maybe yes for torrents as there are more hops.

New Interview with Tim Cook

Posted on by Posted in Apple Mac News

Published on May 14, 2015

Stepping in as successor to one of the most successful CEOs in history is no easy ‘job’, but with a range of successful product launches under his belt, including the latest iWatch, Tim Cook has certainly proven himself up for the challenge in the post-Jobs era.

A couple of days ago, Cook sat down with CCTV in an exclusive interview, where he revealed details about the relationship between himself and Steve Jobs, including the moment he tried to offer his ailing friend a portion of his liver.

The surprising part of Cook’s four-day journey to China is that he didn’t come to sell electronic products, but to plant trees. In his first post to his newly made microblog Weibo account, Cook announced optimism for innovative environmental programs, such as how to manage sustainable forests and expand efforts in renewable energy.

During the interview, he told CCTV his company plans to build a 40 megawatt electric solar facility in China’s Sichuan Province that will be used to power all of their stores, headquarters and offices.

In the first quarter of 2015, more iPhones were sold in China than in the U.S., grabbing the top spot with nearly 15 percent of the market. The company’s focus on China continues to grow as the firm captures more and more of the world’s largest smartphone market. Cook said that China is very important for Apple in every facet, from sales to supply.

 

 

 

 

Older Apple CEO on challenge of keeping company cutting edge

Steve Jobs’ hand-picked successor, current Apple CEO Tim Cook, talks exclusively to Rock Center Anchor and Managing Editor Brian Williams about Apple’s battle with Samsung, glitches with their maps app, the prospect of Apple TV and the challenge of keeping Apple cutting edge.

Originally aired on December 7, 2012 on NBC