Sporkers Helping Sporkers

Hmm. I guess I'm about to encounter the same issue. I'm about to repurpose a MacBook Air for my son; I'd like to remove the App Store apps, de-authorize the computer (it's #5 for me, and I need to authorize a new machine), and then repurchase some of the apps with a new Apple ID. Guess I can't do that, huh? What a pain. Like JW, I really don't want to wipe the drive and reinstall Snow Leopard, then Lion. What a pain.

Edit: Or maybe it's not an issue at all? From Macworld:

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Mac App Store apps aren’t wrapped in digital-rights management software, really. In fact, copy protection is not mandatory on Mac App Store apps. Developers can add an identity check if they want, though. The way that identity check works is, the app itself (not the Mac App Store App) sees if it's got authorization to run. If it doesn't, it asks for your Apple ID and password and then verifies that information with Apple. Once it gets the OK from Apple’s servers, it saves that authorization and continues running.

That’s it. There’s no authorizing or deauthorizing of Macs, like you do with iTunes media. There’s no five-Mac limit, or device limit of any kind. If you are a Mac hoarder who has 55 different Macs at your house, all running OS X 10.6.6, you can fly that Guns of Icarus Zeppelin on every single one of them.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2012 12:30PM by Jeff Cooper.

So my wife has to enter my 32-digit gibberish password to update apps on HER computer, just because I had them installed at one point. I don't WANT her to know my password. That's kind of what passwords are about! And because it is gibberish, and because she won't use a password manager, she'll type it into a text file and save it on her hard disk. WTF? A strong disincentive for me to buy apps that one day my wife might want her own copies of.

Agreed. That's stupid.

And this is the reason Apple and I are going through a Trial Separation period right now.

I didn't bring any Apple products on our trip last week. I had a Windows Phone, an Android Tablet and a Chromebook.

If I have to endure a paradigm shift, I'm going to take my time evaluating which evil I plan to embrace. I expect to settle on a... uh... final solution around the Dec/Jan timeframe. Apple is essentially out of the running at this point.

CS, that was on your camping trip? You had to figure out which technology to triple-fist on a camping trip?

Now, if there were a mosquito-repeller app... .

ddt

Didn't realise the perils of this app store shenanigans. Does that mean an app I've bought won't work if another user logs in on the same machine?

Physical DVD-ROMs and serial numbers are starting to look very appealing again...

Only two nights were camping. There was also the time spent at the cabin.

Actually, the Android tablet never even came out of the bag.

Speaking of the cabin, my step-father just got high speed Internet there. I was surprised that he was able to get ANY Internet there that wasn't either dialup or satellite since he's 30 miles from the nearest city. 10 miles to the nearest gas station.

I was absolutely STUNNED when I found out that it was fiber. He gets 20Mbit down and 8Mbit up.

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Tony Leggett
Didn't realise the perils of this app store shenanigans. Does that mean an app I've bought won't work if another user logs in on the same machine?

Physical DVD-ROMs and serial numbers are starting to look very appealing again...

No, any user on the machine can use any app bought by any other user of the machine. But only somebody who knows the original purchaser's Apple ID and password can update it. Or replace it if it is deleted for any reason.

Just got back from trip to Florida Keys. I think every other person on the planet has an Apple device now. Or I just run with the rich people. (not)

Is it still possible to buy Snow Leopard server anywhere other than eBay? I'd like a Parallels install with Rosetta, for when I want to run my older software. I realize that I'm about 2 years late getting to this...

Developer download maybe?

The dev version you have to re-register with a new serial number from ADC every ninety days. I don't think they still do that for Snow Leopard and, as I recall, I had to re-install the OS everytime I wanted to do this. (This was a long time ago, Panther or Tiger server, but I'm pretty sure the re-serializing is still required.)

Ok, so I decided to dig for a moment.

What am I missing here? http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC588Z/A

Oh. Crap. Sorry. I assumed that Apple wasn't selling it any more. The more fool I. I also assumed that it would be cheaper. Well, I haven't made an ass out of you, but I made one of me. Apologies for the waste of bandwidth and time.

And OMG you can still buy regular Snow Leopard for $29

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MAC_OS_X_SNGL

Currently, Snow Leopard is the only upgrade path from Leopard to Lion, isn't it? Can't cut that lifeline.

Is there a cross-platform equivalent to an OSX encrypted read/write disk image? I don't want to put things like tax returns 'in the cloud' without some form of protection, but GPG'd zip files aren't very convenient - you have to extract the whole thing for one file.

Any Sporkers have POTS experience? (As opposed to POTUS experience.) I've got this fancy new (no longer manufactured, but purchased new) Telebouncer 1000 screening my calls. It is supposed to pass accepted calls to the phone and unaccepted to the answering machine. It does this, but after the answering machine answers the TB hangs up the call during the greeting, rather than allowing a message to be left. The TB has this problem when using the answering machine built into my phone, as well as an independent answering machine.

There is nothing on the web specific to the TB 1000, but I found this for a generic "answering machine hangs up during greeting" complaint:

this problem is cause by excessive loop current from telco. the answer to this is to put a 600 ohm resistor in series with either tip or ring to the cable which feeds the answering machine. excessive loop current related issues can be the toughest problems to troubleshoot

Does this mean busting out the soldering iron? Or is there some kind of amplifier/resistor/whatever that I can plug into the RJ-11 ports on the TB, answering machine, or the line from the wall? Do you think that a different answering machine might help?

yeah. just solder in the needed resistor. I still have my weller from when I was like 9. I rigged up mercury switch in all our phones that turned on a tape recorder. I lowered it using an inline resistor like that, then used a 741 op-amp to re-boost the signal to the recorder. Too low for the fon company to know I was attached. Fairly easy stuff. Now, will it fix this issue? I have no clue what is triggering the drop; regardless of what they say there.

Yeah, I haven't soldered anything in 25 years. And back when I did, components were... larger. And belonged to somebody else. Without being positive that it would fix the problem, I hesitate to unleash my inner hardware engineer.