Apple miscellaneous

Summary

This page gives miscellaneous guidance related to OS X

Apple

Some useful pages on Apple's website

• Managing my Apple ID

• My Support Profile

• Check Your Service and Support Coverage

• Check Activation Lock Status of an iPhone, iPad or iPod

OS X

Not version specific

This OSXDefaults script shows many default preferences. You can copy and paste preference settings you want to set in a terminal window or create a script of your own based on this one. You may want to check the actual value of a preference on your system before changing it so you can reverse the change if you need to.

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard is no longer maintained, but some security fixes have been published independently:

• NTP update

• Bash update

OS X 10.10 Yosemite

Yosemite's continuity features (Handoff, Instant Hotspot, and the New Airdrop) require Bluetooth 4.0 to be activated. Not all Macs have Bluetooth 4.0 hardware. Some of these Yosemite features can be activated in earlier Macs either by using an external dongle or by replacing the internal Airport card with compatible hardware. In some instances an activation patching software is also needed.

• The Continuity Activation Tool web page maintains a chart listing the compatibility of most Macs and what hardware and/or tool are needed to activate the continuity features.

• This Korean webpage shows step-by-step how to replace the Airport card in a MacBook Air 2000 model. Here's the Google translation.

Macs

Booting Linux

The Mac Linux USB Loader is as its name suggests a USB boot loader for running Linux from a USB key on a Mac.