How to mount an AirPort Extreme USB hard disk volume in Mac OS X and Windows

This article explains how to mount an AirPort Extreme USB hard disk volume in Mac OS X and Windows.

Typically, when a USB disk is connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n), it will automatically become available to users of the network. However, if that option is disabled in AirPort Disk Utility (Mac OS X) or AirPort Disks (Windows), or the network user declines, it can still be accessed using any of appropriate steps below. By default, a user can access the AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n) over IP by entering the IP address 10.0.1.1. 

If you are unsure of the IP address of your AirPort Extreme (802.11n), use AirPort Utility (Mac OS X) or AirPort Disks (Windows) to select your base station. You will see its IP address in the main window.

Note: AirPort Disk Utility is located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder on a Mac; AirPort Disks is located in Start > All Programs > AirPort on a computer using Microsoft Windows. Open it, or click the AirPort Disk menu bar icon () in Mac OS X, then select the AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n) to which the USB hard drive is connected.

Mac OS X

Automatically mounting hard disks

1. From the main window of AirPort Disk Utility enable "Show AirPort Disks in the menu bar".
2. Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s).

Manually mounting hard disks using the AirPort Disk menu bar item

1. Click the AirPort Disk menu bar icon () and select the Base Station with desired USB hard drive.
2. Select the desired hard disk(s) (AirPort Disk).
3. Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s).

Manually mounting Mac OS Extended (HFS+) volumes

1. From the Finder's Go menu choose Connect to Server.
2. Enter the AirPort Extreme Base Station's LAN IP address (by default 10.0.1.1).
3. Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s).
4. Select the desired AirPort Disk(s) from the available Volumes.

Manually mounting FAT16/FAT32 volumes

1. From the Finder's Go menu choose Connect to Server.
2. Enter the AirPort Extreme Base Station's LAN IP address preceded by smb:// (for example, smb://10.0.1.1 )
3. Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s). Leave the Workgroup field empty unless you have assigned one in AirPort Utility.
4. Select the desired AirPort Disk from the available CIFS (Common Internet File System) volumes

Windows XP and Vista

Note: With AirPort Base Station Update 2007-002 or later, AirPort Disk Agent has been renamed to AirPort Base Station Agent. If you have not installed this update yet, substitute AirPort Disk Agent for AirPort Base Station Agent in the steps below.

Mounting using AirPort Base Station Agent

1. Launch the AirPort Base Station Agent from C:\\Program Files\AirPort\
2. Ensure that the task bar menu is enabled from AirPort Disks
3. Click the AirPort Base Station Agent icon in the Taskbar
4. Enter the user name and password

Mounting by mapping a Network Drive

1. Go to My Computer (Start > My Computer)
2. From the menu, pull down Tools and select "Map Network Drive"
3. Enter a drive letter that is not in use (for example, "Z")
4. Enter the path to the drive. This is formatted as: \\IPaddress\drivename (for example, \\10.0.1.1\mydrive)

Mounting using Server Connection

1. Select Start > Run and enter the IP address of the AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n). (by default \\10.0.1.1)
2. When prompted, enter a username and password
3. A window will open containing folders for each hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n)

Important: Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute Apple’s recommendation or endorsement. Please contact the vendor for additional information.

Ref: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT1331

Find My Mac include Activation Lock

Find My iPhone Activation Lock

Find My iPhone includes a feature called Activation Lock that is designed to prevent anyone else from using your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch if it's ever lost or stolen. Activation Lock is enabled automatically when you turn on Find My iPhone on a device using iOS 7 or later.

With Find My iPhone Activation Lock, your Apple ID and password will be required before anyone can:

• Turn off Find My iPhone on your device
• Erase your device
• Reactivate and use your device

This can help you keep your device secure, even if it's in the wrong hands, and can improve your chances of recovering it. Even if you erase your device remotely, Activation Lock can continue to deter anyone from reactivating your device without your permission. All you need to do is keep Find My iPhone turned on, and remember your Apple ID and password.

Here are answers to frequently asked questions about Find My iPhone Activation Lock.

How does Activation Lock work?

When you enable Find My iPhone on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, your Apple ID is securely stored on Apple’s activation servers and linked to your device. From that point on, your password will be required before anyone can turn off Find My iPhone on your device, erase your device, or reactivate and use your device.

Activation Lock is enabled automatically when you use Find My iPhone on a device using iOS 7 or later.

To turn on Find My iPhone on your device:

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap iCloud.
3. Sign in with your Apple ID, if necessary.
4. Turn on Find My iPhone.

What steps should I take if I misplace my device?

If you ever misplace your device—whether it’s just lost or you think it may have been stolen—you should put it into Lost Mode immediately using Find My iPhone.

Lost Mode locks your screen with a four-digit passcode and lets you display a custom message with your phone number to help you get it back. You can also remotely erase your device if needed, and your custom message will continue to display even after the device is erased.

While Activation Lock works in the background to make it more difficult for someone to use or sell your missing device, Lost Mode clearly indicates to anyone who finds your device that it still belongs to you and can’t be reactivated without your password.

To put a device into Lost Mode, sign in to icloud.com/find from a Mac or PC or use the Find My iPhone iOS app.

For more information, read what to do if your device is lost or stolen. 

Do I need to turn off Find My iPhone before giving away my device?

Yes. Before giving your device to someone else, always turn off Find My iPhone to ensure that the other person will be able to activate and use the device normally. The best way to do this is to erase all content and settings from your device before handing it over. This will completely erase your device, turn off Find My iPhone, and remove the device from your iCloud account. On your iOS device, go to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.

For more information, read what to do before selling or giving away your device.

Do I need to turn off Find My iPhone before having my device serviced?

Yes. If Find My iPhone isn't turned off, technicians may not be able to perform service on your device.

What if I forget my Apple ID password?

If you forget your password, you can reset it at My Apple ID (appleid.apple.com) or by contacting Apple Support and verifying your identity.

If you forget your password and cannot reset it, you will lose access to your Apple ID and may be unable to use or reactivate your device. To help prevent this, visit My Apple ID periodically to review and update your account information.

What if I purchase a device that is still linked to the previous owner's account?

Contact the previous owner as soon as possible and ask them to erase the device and remove it from their account. Learn how to remove a device from a previous owner's account.

How do I check for Activation Lock before purchasing a used device?

When purchasing an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from someone other than Apple or an authorized Apple reseller, it is up to you to ensure that the device has been erased and is no longer linked to the previous owner’s account.

You can check the current Activation Lock status of a device by visiting icloud.com/activationlock from any Mac or PC.

Or you can follow the steps below to make sure that you can use the device you purchase:

1. Turn the device on and slide to unlock.
2. If the passcode lock screen or the Home screen appears, the device hasn't been erased. Ask the seller to completely erase the device by going to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. Don't take ownership of any used iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch until it's been erased.
3. Begin the device setup process.
4. After choosing a language, choosing a country, and connecting to a network, the device will begin activation. If you're asked for the previous owner’s Apple ID and password, the device is still linked to their account. Hand the device back to the seller and ask them to enter their password. If the previous owner isn't present, they can remove the device from their account by signing in to icloud.com/find. Don't take ownership of any used iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch until it has been removed from the previous owner’s account.

You will know that a device is ready for you to use when you're asked to “Set up your iPhone," “Set up your iPad," or “Set up your iPod” during the device setup process.

Does Find My Mac include Activation Lock?

Activation Lock works only with iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch devices using iOS 7 or later.

How to Make a bootable Mavericks Install Drive

Please Backup your Data Before you start Installing Mavericks. Once you’ve downloaded Mavericks, find the installer on your Mac. It’s called Install OS X Mavericks.app and it should have been downloaded to your main Applications folder (/Applications). Right-click (or Control+click) the installer, and choose Show Package Contents from the resulting contextual menu. In the folder that appears, open Contents, then open Shared Support; you’ll see a disk image file called InstallESD.dmg. Double-click InstallESD.dmg in the Finder to mount its volume. That volume will appear in the Finder as OS X Install ESD. The file you want to get to is actually another disk image inside OS X Install ESD called BaseSystem.dmg. Unfortunately, BaseSystem.dmg is invisible, and because this is a read-only volume, you can’t make BaseSystem.dmg visible. Instead, you’ll mount it using Terminal, which makes it visible in Disk Utility. Open the Terminal app (in /Application/Utilities), and then type open /Volumes/OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/BaseSystem.dmg and press Return. Launch Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities). You'll see both InstallESD.dmg (with its mounted volume, OS X Install ESD, below it) and BaseSystem.dmg (with its mounted volume, OS X Base System, below it) in the volumes list on the left. Select BaseSystem.dmg (not OS X Base System) in Disk Utility’s sidebar, and then click the Restore button in the main part of the window. Drag the BaseSystem.dmg icon into the Source field on the right (if it isn’t already there). Connect to your Mac the properly formatted hard drive or flash drive you want to use for your bootable Mavericks installer. In Disk Utility, find this destination drive in the left sidebar. You may see a couple partitions under the drive: one named EFI and another with the actual drive name. Drag the latter—the one with the drive name—into the Destination field on the right. (If the destination drive has additional partitions, just drag the partition you want to use as your bootable installer volume.) Warning: This step will erase the destination drive or partition, so make sure it doesn’t contain any valuable data. Click Restore, and then click Erase in the dialog box that appears; if prompted, enter an admin-level username and password. Wait for the restore procedure to finish, which should take just a few minutes. In Disk Utility, select BaseSystem.dmg on the left (not OS X Base System) and click the Eject button in the toolbar. This action unmounts the disk image named OS X Base System. (If you don’t do this, you have two mounted volumes named OS X Base System—the mounted disk image and your destination drive—which makes the next step more confusing.) Open the destination drive—the one you’re using for your bootable install drive, which has been renamed OS X Base System. Inside that drive, open the System folder, and then open the Installation folder. You’ll see an alias called Packages. Delete that alias. Open the mounted OS X Install ESD volume, and you’ll see only a folder called Packages. Drag that folder into the Installation folder on your destination drive. (You're basically replacing the deleted Packages alias with this Packages folder.) The folder is about 4.8GB in size, so the copy will take a bit of time, especially if you’re copying to a slow thumb drive. Eject the OS X Install ESD volume.

iOS 7

iOS 7 is free and comes with every new iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. iOS 6 can easily update by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Devices that are compatible with iOS 7 iPhone: iPhone4,iPhone4s,iPhone5,iPhone5c,iPhone5s iPod Touch: iPod Touch 5th Generation 16GB,32GB,64GB iPad: iPad2, iPad with Retina Display, iPad Mini Some of features i had looked over. Control Centre Control Centre makes it easy to access the controls and apps from any screen with just one swipe,quickly turn on or off Airplane mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Do Not Disturb. can also access their flashlight, timer, calculator and camera and even be connect to an AirPlay-enabled device and lock the screen orientation. Notification Centre We can swipe down from any screen—including the Lock screen—to access notifications like missed calls, emails and more. The Today feature shows summary of the day, birthday reminders and calendar events. what tomorrow looks like. And can use Missed view to see notifications that haven't addressed in the last 24 hours. Multitasking Multitasking in iOS 7 makes switching between apps quick and easy. With the new thumbnail view, Preview open apps and close them with just a swipe. Multitasking to use apps and updates app content before opening it. Camera Camera in iOS 7 has four shooting formats—still, panorama, video and square—and with just a swipe, switch between formats to capture photos and can use the all-new built-in filters to add effects to the still and square pictures, right in the Camera app. Photos Photos in iOS 7 gives a new way to see pictures and videos based on time and place. Photos creates smart groupings of pictures and videos called Moments, Collections and Years so it’s easy to find photos. And with iCloud Photo Sharing, share photos and videos with friends and family who have an iOS device—and friends and family can leave comments right in the Photos app or add their own photos and videos to the shared stream. AirDrop With AirDrop for iOS, share anything with one person or a group from any app with a Share button. AirDrop detects nearby iOS devices so send pictures, documents, or links with no network or setup required. And can make themselves visible to friends only, or everyone around them.(sharing is between iOS Device). Safari Safari makes browsing the web fast and intuitive. Safari in iOS 7 hides navigation buttons and bars until more content appears on the screen. Browse the web using new gestures—swipe left to go forward and right to go back. The new smart search field combines both search queries and URLs and with tab view, switch between open web pages. Shared Links shows web pages shared by people on Twitter. Siri In iOS 7, Siri has a new look and a more natural-sounding female or male voice and can do even more. Now Siri is integrated with popular search engines and social media like Bing, Wikipedia and Twitter, so when you ask Siri a question, they see more results from more sources. Siri can also help you with more tasks, like returning calls or playing voicemail. App Store The App Store has more than 900,000 apps worldwide, so there's almost no limit to what iPhone and iPad can do. The Apps Near Me feature in iOS 7 helps find apps relevant to their location.

How do I adjust the resolution of my Retina display?

If you need to adjust the display resolution choose System Preferences from the Apple () menu. Choose Display. The Retina display offers scaled resolutions that allow you to have text and objects appear larger on screen, or to make them appear smaller which provides more space on screen. Note: Scaled resolutions do not offer the same visual quality as the Retina setting. Scaled resolutions may also impact graphics performance depending on which applications you are using. Your MacBook Pro with Retina display has 2880 x 1800 pixels and starts up in its native Retina mode, which is the recommended resolution for use on this computer.

Cursor issue when playing full-screen games on Windows 7 via Boot Camp-MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)

When using Windows 7 with Boot Camp on your MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), mouse or trackpad clicks may not seem to respond correctly when you play full-screen games. Disable display scaling on HiDPI settings to correct this issue. *Right click the game application's icon. This brings up a Properties dialog box. *Click on the Compatibility tab. *Place a checkmark in the checkbox for "Disable display scaling on high DPI." *Click OK.

Calibrate the battery of Apple Macbookpro/MacBook Air

For any MacBook Pro/MacBook Air user, especially those who travel, a long battery life and top notch battery health are vital. The tips below will help ensure you get the most out of your MacBook Pro/MacBook Air’s battery over its lifetime.

1) Calibrate the battery once ever 1-3 months
Finally, if your battery is showing signs of shorter run times, you may want to calibrate the battery (once every 1-3 months). To calibrate the battery, follow these instructions:

a) Fully charge your MacBook Pro/MacBook Air.
b) Once fully charged, leave it plugged in for at least another 2 hours.
c) Remove the MagSafe power adapter, and use your computer until you get the battery level warning message.
d) Ignore that message and keep running your notebook.
e) Eventually the machine will go to sleep.
f) Do NOT plug it in. Instead, let it sleep for at least 5 hours.
g) After the time has passed, plug it back in, and let it fully charge.
h) Once fully charged, your battery has been properly calibrated.

2) Turn off AirPort Wireless
If you do not require the Internet and if there are no WiFi networks within range, turning off AirPort will considerably save your computer’s battery life. It is also wiser to use an Ethernet cable over wireless if the option exists.

3) Turn off Bluetooth
Once again, if there is no need for a Bluetooth device, the best thing to do is to turn off the Bluetooth feature of your MacBook Pro/MacBook Air.
 
4) Minimize use of iSight Camera
The iSight camera uses plenty of battery power. Keeps its use down to a minimum if trying to extend battery life.
 
5) Remember to eject discs from the DVD drive 
The motor in the optical drive required to spin DVDs and CDs can use a lot of power. Thus, eject your discs to maximize battery life. If you insist on watching DVDs, say on a long journey, rip them to your hard drive first instead.
 
6) Reduce screen brightness
Turn down the brightness of the screen to as low as you can comfortably work, and your battery life will significantly rise. The brighter the screen, the shorter your battery life.
 
7) Turn down/off the backlit keyboard
Similar to the brightness of the screen, keeping your backlit keyboard (if you have one) at its lowest or off will save plenty of battery juice.
 
8) Turn down volume or use headphones
Loud volume on your MacBook Pro/MacBook Air requires more energy. It is more energy efficient to plug in headphones instead if you fancy listening to loud audio/music.

9) Run fewer applications at once/turn off unneeded applications
By running less applications simultaneously, or installing more RAM, you reduce your risks of having unused parts of your memory being called for tasks, thus saving battery life.
 
10) Do NOT disable a CPU core
For all MacBook Pro/MacBook Airs with more than one CPU core, disabling a core is NOT wise. Your MacBook Pro/MacBook Airs chips were designed to run most efficiently with multiple cores active. Disabling one not only requires more power, but also generates more heat. Some users have reported losing up to 40 minutes of battery life by turning off a core!