Safari and iTunes will not update from App Store on OS X and are not updating properly

My issue was that the OS X App Store on my MacBook was showing Updates available for both iTunes and Safari. I would click UPDATE and they would download and then say installing. But after supposedly installing, the new version was not available. When I ran Safari or iTunes it was still the old version. And then within a short period of time, they would both appear in the App Store again as an available Update.

So not sure what is causing the issue, but for whatever reason the updates are not being installed properly. So after going thru the update process several times I finally decided to look for another solution.

I found another way to do updates is to use the command line in Terminal.

First you can type this to get a list of available downloads (NOTE: that is a dash then a lower case L which stands for list):

 softwareupdate -v -l

This may take awhile, but will eventually return a list (if any) of available updates. Mine came back with this:

 Finding available software
  Software Update found the following new or updated software:
   * iTunesX-12.3
   iTunes (12.3), 238528K [recommended]

Now to install any specific update from the list you can type:

softwareupdate -v -i iTunesX-12.3

Or to install all the updates you can type:

softwareupdate -v -i -a

With the method above I was succesful at getting Safari to upgrade, but iTunes was still giving me a really hard time, and would not upgrade. You can not just delete iTunes and re-install it either as it is a protected file. But we can delete it from Terminal if we need to and then try re-installing it.

To Delete iTunes, type this in Terminal:

cd /Applications/

Then type the following (and enter your admin password if it asks):

sudo rm -rf iTunes.app/

Once you have deleted it, use the softwareupdate command above and try it again!

Moodle Quick Enrol plugin for enrolling user to multiple courses

The Quick Enrol plugin for Moodle let’s you enrol a user into multiple courses at once, and makes enrolling much easier.

Based on the Quick Enrollment plugin by Adrien Jamot which is no longer supported.

Click here to DOWNLOAD Quick Enrol plugin v1.0

INSTALLATION

v1.0 currently works with Moodle 2.8 and 2.9. It may work with other versions but I not tested it yet.

Download and unzip the quickenrol folder.

Place the entire quickenrol folder in the /moodle/blocks/ folder.

Login as administrator and go to admin notifications. It should ask you to “upgrade database” to install. Note that this plugin does not add to or modify the database at all on installation (it will however add entries to databse when you enrol a student in a course).

Once installed, add the Quick Enrol block to your front page.

Click the “Enrol user in courses”, then choose the user and choose the courses you want them to be enrolled in (hold down CTRL on Windows or CMD on Mac to select multiple courses) and click SUBMIT … it’s that easy

Click here to DOWNLOAD Quick Enrol plugin v1.0

Samsung Galaxy External SD Card Issue Will Not Scan or Find Music

Okay so after several hours of messing around trying to figure out why my Samsung Galaxy S3 used to play the music I had on my SD Card, but now suddenly did not want to recognize it all, I found a solution.

STEP 1
Backup any music or other data you have on your SD Card.

STEP 2
Using My Files or any other file app (like ES File Explorer) copy one music file (only one) from your external sd card into your device Music folder.

STEP 3
Go to SETTINGS > MORE > STORAGE and choose FORMAT SD CARD. **** WARNING: This will delete everything on your SD Card. Make sure you backed it up before doing this. ****

STEP 4
Once it is formatted, choose UNMOUNT SD CARD.

STEP 5
Once it unmounts, choose MOUNT SD CARD.

STEP 6
Go back to My Files (or ES File Explorer) and copy the device Music folder to the root of your external SD Card. Do not individually copy stuff inside the Music folder, but choose the entire Music folder itself. When you copy the folder to the root of your external SD Card, this means that a new Music folder will appear alongside the Android folder.

STEP 7
Go to music app and you should now see two copies of the one file you copied over in Step 2.

STEP 8
Delete this file from your device Music folder and leave it in your SD Card Music folder.

STEP 9
Go to music app and there should now only be one copy.

STEP 10
Put all your music and data back on the SD Card now, but be careful NOT to copy any hidden files that were on the old SD Card. Only copy over .mp3 files or the specific data files you need.

Hope this helps!

 

Convert eSword Bible modules to MySword Bible modules

I now have a Galaxy S3 running Android and although I love eSword, it is not available on Android, so instead I have been using MySword instead.

There are tons of free resources for eSword available and I thought it would be great if I could convert them to use with MySword.

It turns out that the file formats (for unlocked modules) are identical. So you simply need to change the extension name to get them to work.

Simply change the .bblx extension of the eSword Bible module to .bbl.mybible to make it a MySword Bible module.

That’s it!!

Thanks to Peter Pellerin at the following post for pointing it out:
http://www.biblesupport.com/topic/1415-instructions-for-making-your-own-mysword-modules/?p=4629

 

Samsung Galaxy S3 wifi connection problems: Will not find any Wi-Fi networks when Scanning

My wife and I both have Samsung Galaxy S3’s and we love them. However, my wife’s phone suddenly started having wifi connection problems, and stopped showing any wi-fi networks when it scans for them.When you enter the Wi-Fi settings page and it says scanning, nothing will appear. I tried the following solutions, none of which worked:

– Under wifi settings, go to advanced wifi settings and try “Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep”. I tried both Always and Never. Did not work.

– Dial *#0011# and go to wifi menu and try “WIFI Power Save Mode”. I tried both ON and OFF. Did not work.

– Under wifi settings, I used long tap to “forget” each network. It would continue to scan but networks would not re-appear in list. Did not work.

– Tried turning wifi off then back on. Did not work.

– Tried turning phone off then back on after doing each of the items above. Did not work.

My phone works without any issues and can pickup all the networks wherever we go. Even in our house with our own router and wifi connection, if we “forget” the network on both of our phones, my phone will say “scanning” and it will immediately show back up in the list, but her phone will say “scanning” and nothing shows up.

I spent hours trying all the different solutions that I could find (except for resetting the phone), and none of them worked. But I did find the following work around so she can see available networks and connect to them…

SOLUTION
I installed a program called WiFi Finder by JIWIRE INC.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jiwire.android

Start the program (you do not need to enable location for this app), then choose Wi-Fi Scanner, then choose LIST.

Tap on the network you want to connect to, enter the network password if required, tap Connect and you should be good to go!

Please leave a comment if this helped you.

Apple Security Flaw in Application Loader app

There is a security flaw in Apple’s Application Loader app, an app which is used by developers to upload their iOS and Mac binaries for review before they are released in the App Store.

This flaw has been in previous versions of the software, and in the current version as well (2.9.1).

The security flaw is that once you enter Apple ID developer credentials, it will then remember them automatically and there is no way to remove them without entering a different (and valid) set of credentials. This leaves the possibility of somebody possibly having access to something they should not.

There should be a Remember Password checkbox option so that the app will not remember your password, and it would force you to re-enter your password each time you start the app.

Here is the bug report filed on https://bugreport.apple.com

Bug# 16290347
Application Loader remembers Apple ID and Password when you quit

Summary:
I want to know how I can set Application Loader to NOT remember my login credentials each time I quit the application. Currently when I quit Application Loader and start it up again, it has remembered the last Apple ID and Password I used, but I do not want it to remember them. I believe this is Security issue. There should be an option to select whether or not you want it to remember or not.

Steps to Reproduce:
Start Application Loader.
Login using Apple ID and Password.
Quit Application Loader.
Restart Application Loader.
Last used Apple ID and Password are remembered and can be used right away without having to re-enter them.

Expected Results:
I expect an option to let me choose whether or not it remembers my id and password. Would like it to require password everytime I restart the application.

Actual Results:
Does not give me any options, and always remembers the password whether I want it to or not.

Version:
Application Loader 2.9.1
Xcode 5.0.2
OS X 10.8.5

Additional Note:
As additional note, I can go into Keychain Access app and delete iTunes Producer Application Password to remove the credentials, however this does not solve the issue where there should be a Remember Password check box in Application Loader itself.