Computer Technicians Guide To The Apple Mac Boot Shortcuts

 

In this article you will learn all the most important boot shortcuts on a Mac. We’ve all been there. The client is there, you boot their computer and the screen just hangs there. No OS. You sometimes see the grey apple logo, sometimes it’s all white and sometimes you see nothing at all. You absolutely need to know which key to press in order to repair the Mac. Enter the Apple Mac boot shortcuts.

First of all, you don’t have to use an Apple Keyboard to do these. Any regular USB PC keyboard will work as long as you keep in mind the following:
Option = ALT Key
Command = Windows Key

To make these boot shortcuts work, the computer needs to be shutdown and you need to press/hold these keys while booting the computer.

C

Sometimes, the Mac is not programmed to automatically boot from a CD. This allows you to boot directly from the CD.

Option

By far, the most useful shortcut that will tell if the computer has a hard drive failure or a motherboard corruption. When you hold option at start, it will detect all the bootable devices in the Mac such as the CD, Hard Drive, External USB and External FireWire. You can then choose which devices you want to boot from. This is perfect if you want to boot from an external USB/FireWire.

 

D

All Apple Computers come with an Hardware Test CD. When you hold D, the cd needs to be already inserted. It will boot Apple Hardware Test which is an incredible powerful tool that will make a precise diagnostic on your client’s computer about any form of hardware failure: RAM, hard drive, motherboard etc.

 

Option – Command – P – R

This combination will reset the NVRAM and PRAM of your client’s computer. What does it mean? It will reset all the default settings on the motherboard or built in features including: Serial Port Configuration, Clock, Volume, Double-Click time, Virtual Memory, RAM disk, Mouse Speed, Application Font, Alarm Clock, Monitor Color Depth, Startup Disk and Serial Printer location. This is often done if your client’s machine boots into a weird pink color. To do this NVRAM/PRAM reset, your need to hold the keys when you boot your client’s Mac. Hold down the keys until the computer restarts with the startup sound the second time.
Hold the mouse or trackpad button

This will eject all the removable media plugged to your Mac. (Cd, USB, Firewire etc.) This is perfect if the CD is stuck inside and the keyboard is not working or if the Mac tries to boot from an unknown external device.

Command-S

This will boot the machine in Single-User mode. It is a UNIX-like interface where you can enter many simple commands to troubleshoot the machine. This is mainly popular with the use of “fsck ” to check the computer disk permission.

Command-V

This starts the Mac in Verbose Mode. You will see all the descriptive text of all the boot steps, similar to Windows’s Safe Mode. If the computer freezes on startup, you can see where it will freeze.

T

This puts the Mac in Target Mode. It will transform the Mac into a giant Firewire external drive. You can access the files from another computer. Perfect if you need to repair a corrupted hard drive or backup files.

Shift

This will start the Mac on a safe boot. It will disable all the login items, all the non-default fonts, disable all the cache and it will force a directory check.

If you are still unable to enter the system or at least see the grey Apple logo at the beginning after using these shortcuts, the problem is most likely going to be a motherboard corruption.

Guest Post by Marco Rodi: Marco Rodi owns an IT Engineering university degree. He has his own computer repair business that mainly does Apple Support (OrdiRodi – http://www.ordirodi.com) located in Montreal. He works for Transat as an application support Engineer where he has to maintain all the software that makes the airplanes fly. He’s also an active bassist. (http://www.marcorodi.com)

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Autoruns

 

There are few things more frustrating that an unwanted program that launches every time you start your computer, especially when the normal means of preventing this from happening--like checking for it in the Startup folder--don't work. What's worse is when numerous unneeded and invisible processes launch, slowing down both start-up and your computer's performance as a whole. AutoRuns is a simple program that lets users view--and disable--everything that runs on startup, saving both time and irritation.

The program's interface is a little cluttered, with 17 tabs that display the various programs and processes that run on startup. These are separated into categories, such as Print Monitors, Codecs, Windows Explorer, and so on, and there's also a tab that shows everything. Disabling an unwanted process is as simple as unchecking the box next to it. AutoRuns lets users optionally hide Windows entries or Windows and Microsoft entries, helping to prevent users from disabling critical processes. For the most part the program was quite easy to use, but novices may feel a little nervous about messing around with unfamiliar processes. We had hoped that the program's Help file would provide some guidance on this front, but we were disappointed to find that although there is a built-in Help file, none of its contents would load. This is the only significant drawback to AutoRuns, and users who are already comfortable in this arena should find that AutoRuns meets their needs just fine. Beginners will likely want to do some research before they start making too many changes.

AutoRuns comes as a ZIP file and is accessible after extraction with no need for installation. We recommend this program to all users.

Download Link:

http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Autoruns.zip

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WebBrowserPassView – Recover Passwords from Web Browsers

WebBrowserPassView is a small, portable and freeware utility designed to recover passwords from:

•  Internet Explorer (Version 4.0 – 9.0)

• Mozilla Firefox (All Versions)

• Google Chrome

• Opera

Once WebBrowserPassView has gathered all the passwords from the various browsers, it displays them in a single table with the URL the password was saved for, what browser it was saved in and of course the username and password.

From there, you can save it as a TXT file, export the table as HTML and more. This product was created by Nirsoft and in true Nirsoft fashion, the application is very easy to incorporate into scripts due to its excellent command line support.

This utility works on any version of Windows, starting from Windows 2000, and up to Windows 7, including 64-bit systems.

Note: Due to the hacking/password revealing nature of this application. Some antivirus products will detect it as malware or a hacking tool. You can view the VirusTotal.com report here.

credits to Bryce Whitty

Download Link:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/web_browser_password.html

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Nero Burning ROM 10.5.10300 with Keygen

Award-Winning Nero Burning ROM is the Only Burning Software You’ll Need! Nero Burning ROM offers you the most advanced disc burning solution. Nero Burning ROM - Leading CD, DVD and Blu-ray Disc burning and copying technology. When it comes to burning, accept nothing less than the industry’s best. Award-winning Nero Burning ROM is known for reliable, high-quality CD, DVD and Blu-ray Disc burning and copying. Loaded with advanced features that go beyond just burning, it also features SecurDisc technology for the ultimate in data readability and protection.
 It’s the only program you’ll need to save and share your files. Nero Burning ROM gives you full, customized control of your burning projects. You can - among other things - define the file system, the length of the file name and the character set; you can also change the disc label. And of course, you can also customize the Nero Burning ROM toolbar and change the keyboard shortcuts.

 Highlights:
- High quality disc burning and copying for superior quality playback
- Easy drag-and-drop burning to CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs
- Split oversized files to burn onto multiple discs at one time
- Ensure data readability regardless of scratches, age or deterioration
- Enhance security levels with personal passwords and encryption

 Despite its wide range of features, Nero Burning ROM has remained an easy-to-use burning program that creates discs in just a few steps. You select the disc type to be burned (CD/DVD/Blu-ray), define the project type, add the required data and then start burning.

Using Nero Burning ROM you can save audio files from an Audio CD to the hard drive. In the process, the files are encoded, i.e. converted into a format that the computer can read. The Audio CD can be automatically identified with Gracenote. So called metadata such as title, genre, and track title are accessed by the Gracenote Media Database and associated to the tracks. That way you have audio files that are accurately and fully named after the encoding process.

Nero Burning ROM – Leading disc burning technology Features:
 - Customized Burning and Copying Options Burn and copy to CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs or save disc images to hard drives, networks, and USB devices or span oversized files to multiple discs and different disc types.
 - Advanced Disc Data Protection Add state-of-the-art SecurDisc protection to your burned discs with personal passwords, encryption options and digital signatures. Get alerts before disc data deteriorates, allowing for time to back up.
 - Long-Lasting Disc Data Readability and Content Quality Ensure that burned data is readable regardless of scratches, age, or deterioration with cutting-edge SecurDisc technology.
 - Convenient Features That Do More Than Just Burning Go beyond just burning and erase rewritable discs with the option to effectively retrieve data, convert audio files into other formats or rip Audio CDs directly with album cover, song titles and artists names.

 Nero Burning ROM – Applications Included:
- Nero Burning ROM - Leading, reliable CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc burning and copying software featuring SecurDisc technology for long-lasting burns and advanced security features.
- Nero ControlCenter - Manage and update your Nero products and serial numbers.
- Nero BurnRights - Allow users without administrative rights to burn discs by allowing system administrators to set up user accounts with exclusive burn rights for Nero.

 Supported media for burning:
- CD-R
- CD-RW
- DVD±R
- DVD±RW
- DVD-RAM
- DVD±R DL
- BD-R
- BD-RE
- BD-R DL
- BD-RE DL

 Supported disc formats:
- Data CD (ISO, UDF, ISO/UDF)
- Data DVD (ISO, UDF, ISO/UDF)
- Blu-ray data disc (ISO)
- SecurDisc CD/DVD/Blu-ray Disc
- Audio CD
- Mixed Mode CD
- CD EXTRA
- DVD-Video
- Nero Image (NRG)
- CUE-Image [Import only]
- ISO Image
- AVCHD video
- BDMV video
- Nero DiscSpan (UDF)

 Supported audio formats and codecs:
- AAC elementary stream (AAC) - not ripping
- Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF, AIF)
- Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDA) - not encoding
- Dolby Digital (AC3) - only source format in compilations
- MP3 / mp3PRO (MP3)
- Nero AAC Codec, Nero Digital (MP4)
- Ogg Vorbis (OGG, OGM)
- PCM WAV file, ADPCM Wav file (WAV, WAVE)
- Windows Media Audio (WMA) - not ripping
- Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)

 Supported video formats and codecs:
- Advanced Streaming Format (ASF)
- Audio Video Interleave (AVI)
- Digital Video (DV)
- Moving Picture Experts Group-2 (MPG, MPEG, DAT, M2T)
- Nero AAC Codec, Nero Digital (MP4)
- QuickTime Movie (MOV)
- Video Object (VOB)

 Supported image formats:
- Bitmap (BMP)
- Device Independent Bitmaps (DIB)
- Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)
- Icon Image File (ICO)
- JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF)
- Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG, JPG, JPE)
- Picture Exchange (PCX)
- Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
- Portable Pixel Map (PPM)
- Targa Image File (TGA)
- Tagged Image File Format (TIFF, TIF)
- Windows Media File (WMF)

 Supported formats for playlists:
- Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 Uniform Resource Locator/MP3 URL (M3U)
- Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 Uniform Resource Locator/MP3 URL + UTF-8 (M3U8)
- Playlists File Format (PLS)

 Nero Burning ROM – System Requirements
 Minimum system requirements for Nero Burning ROM:
- Windows XP SP3 (32-bit), Windows Vista SP1 (32 and 64-bit), Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate (32 and 64-bit) - 2 GHz AMD or Intel processor - 512 MB RAM (1 GB RAM for Windows Vista or Windows 7) - 500 MB hard drive space for a typical installation of all components (including temporary disk space) - CD disc drive for installation - CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Disc recordable or rewritable drive for burning and video authoring - Third party components such as Microsoft Windows Installer 4.5 and Microsoft Silverlight 3 are shipped with the product or automated download if not included in the package - For some services an Internet connection is required (DSL-1000 and higher recommended). Internet connection charges are the user's responsibility

 Note:
- On 64-bit operating systems, applications run in 32-bit emulation mode.
- The devices must be correctly installed and recognized by the operating system for the product to work properly.
- Installation of the latest WHQL certified device drivers is strongly recommended.

 Special/Minimum requirements for LightScribe and Labelflash:
- LightScribe compatible recorder and medium.
- LightScribe host software must be installed.
- Labelflash compatible recorder and medium.

Installation notes:

 1. Disconnect internet during installation, and/or make sure to BLOCK the program from accessing internet (block unwanted traffic by using e.g. a firewall).
2. Register with serial: 9X0C-004C-AXCP-797C-7ET6-C723-1ALK-2UTP
3 . Installing the Nero Update feature might as well be disabled by choosing Custom Installation (to avoid updating).
 4. After installation, when at the 'Register at Nero' window, uncheck all boxes and close the window. Done!

Important notes:

* Block internet access for the program by using e.g. a firewall:
> Block internet access through 'Program Control' from your firewall.
> Or set 'Program Control' from your firewall to 'Ask what to do/Decide yourself'.

 * Make sure to block internet access for e.g.: C:\Program Files\Nero\Nero 10\Nero Burning ROM\nero.exe (Permanently block any attempt of Nero to connect to internet.)
 * Do NOT update the program (do NOT check for program updates)!
 * If available, uncheck/disable the option 'Check for updates automatically'.

credits to hcier16 of PINOYDEN

Download Link:

http://www.wupload.com/file/128459056/Nero.Burning.ROM.10.5.10300+serial&tut.rar

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WinAmp Pro 5.621.3173

Winamp is more than just a player. It’s your window to the multimedia world. From MP3s to streaming video, Winamp is the one place you go to feed your audio/video habit. Winamp was born as a very basic media player and has slowly but consistently improving for many years. Its main purpose was to be completely customizable and through the years, many people have contributed to a library that now consists of 20,000 skins and 461 plug-ins.

The player supports a wide range of file formats, and because the program is small and simple, it works quickly on almost all computers. Have a look through the available plug-ins and you will also find that you can hook up your iPod and manage its music library.

System Requirement:

Minimum

• 500MHz Pentium III or comparable
• 128MB RAM
• 15MB Hard Disk Space
• 16bit Sound Card
• Windows 2000 or later
•  Internet Explorer 5.01 or higher (for Online Services)
• 1x speed or greater CD Burner (Required for Burning)
• 2x speed or greater CDROM (Required for Ripping)

Recommended

• 1.5 GHz Pentium IV or comparable    512MB RAM or greater
• 30MB Hard Disk Space
• 24bit Sound Card
• Windows 2000 sp4, Windows XP sp3, or later
• Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher (for all Online Services features)
• 8x speed or greater CD Burner (Required for Burning)
• 16x speed or greater CDROM (Required for Ripping)

Download Link:

http://www.free-codecs.com/Winamp_download.htm

Serial Key
Name : Symbianize
Serial Key : NL4B86FYM5SDWRJZC776

WinAmp Skins Download Here

credits to abgel_maui of SYMBIANIZE

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Driver Reviver

Driver Reviver is the most comprehensive and complete driver update utility available for Windows. Having up-to-date drivers is essential for maximum PC performance. Driver Reviver uses industry-leading technology with the largest driver database to quickly identify out of date drivers and easily updates them with a few mouse clicks! Why are out of date drivers a concern? Out of date and faulty drivers cause a variety of problems: * Computer errors, slow PC performance and even Computer crashes * Peripherals not working at all, or performing with limited intended features and functionality * Lost productivity while you try and get peripherals working How Will Driver Reviver Help? * Stop wasting hours of your valuable time trying to tweak your Computer with drivers you find at random sites on the Internet, which could be the wrong drivers or worse yet may be infected with spyware and viruses * Fix driver bugs and keep your peripherals running at maximum performance with full features and functionality * Driver Reviver automatically downloads the latest driver and software updates straight from the manufacturers website * Never worry again about installing an incorrect or out-of-date driver * Update all of your Computers drivers in minutes, with a few simple mouse clicks Restore maximum performance to your PC today with the multi award-winning Driver Reviver now. Free Scan!

Download Link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?6vxsqr7xbwdf7rf

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Microsoft Hacked!!!

Its now 3 days, an official sum domain of Microsoft,Microsoft FUSE Labs(fuse.microsoft.com), has been hacked, till last hour i could see the hacked page, but now if you open that hacked page then it will redirect you to another subdomain of microsoft.

On the defused page it was written that its hacked by someone called Hmei7, with a taunt, which you can see by urself, here is the screenshot.

Although its not the first time when 'Hmei7' hacked any site, previously he has hacked some more well known sites like IBM, TPD media etc. Some sources says "Hmei7 doesn't qualify as a professional hacker, because he doesn't seek to do permanent damage to a site, but rather cause a nuisance." while other sources says 'He hacks website not to harm but only to warn about their vulnerabilities  '.

'Hmei7' is a user of Zone-H, where he posts mirror of websites defaced by him. According to zone-h, he has notified about  41,865 defacements. check all defacemnets mirror by him here.

Hmei7 got into microsoft through the SQL injection, which is pronounced "sequel
injection". As now microsoft has changed its login page of Fuse labs, so probably now they have removed this loop hole.

Here is the screenshot of their previous page:

Hacked page link: fuse.microsoft.com

credits to Surbhi

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