Microsoft NTFS for Mac Screenshot
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How to both WRITE to and read from PC [NTFS] Drives on macOS

A file system is the component that allows an OS (operating system) read from and write to files on your devices storage. Every OS has its own file system, some of which are more compatible across platforms than others. For example, Mac computers used exclusively HFS+, while the current versions of Windows uses NTFS (New Technology File System). When you connect a storage device formatted in NTFS to a Mac, it is recognized and read alright, but you can’t modify it by any CRUD operation i.e. Create, Read, Update, Delete any files on it  – unless you have some 3rd party add-ons installed and configured, and you can learn about them in this article to ultimately enable Mac to write onto NTFS drives.

Although the inability to write to NTFS on the Mac might become quite an issue for Mac newbies, be them first-time computer users or switchers from PC, the solution which is was invented as early 2000s, has evolved over the years as macOS (X) has been updated. The Mac operating system formerly called OS X – last year renamed macOS – can always read & write to PC disks and hard drive volumes formatted in FAT32 – a format which is not quite used any more due to its limitations of 4 GB maximum file size and 2 TB for maximum storage volume, whereas NTFS, free of these limitations, is readable not just by Macs since day 1, but by almost all non Windows-PC systems as well. However NTFS is not writable by default outside Windows due to a restriction brought on by Microsoft. As mentioned, there already are a few 3rd party solutions and workarounds to remove this restriction.

With the release of macOS High Sierra which introduced Apple’s new file system called APFS to be used by newer SSD-based Macs replacing the legacy HFS+, bringing on the ability to write to NTFS formatted volumes has become a little more complicated. Since my article titled Ability to write to NTFS volumes on the Mac published back in 2008 has become fairly obsolete so that the suggested workaround(s) in it are now very difficult if not impossible to apply, in this new, 2018 article, I’ll be explaining some of the best solutions for the need to write to PC volumes a.k.a. NTFS drives as an assertive old-timer. I’ve been using Apple computers since 1985 and have been doing computing cross-platform computing since 1993, and have been using Bootcamp since the year it came out and cross-platform working is at the heart of most of my digital activity.

Read on to find out about free and paid solutions to be able to write to NTFS disks and other storage devices mounted on the Mac.[Read more]

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How to easily open UIF disk images on the Mac and convert to .iso format

UIF2ISO MacPopular among Windows PC users .Uif is an alternative disk image format to others like .iso.img and .bin-.cue couples.

You can open and convert UIF disk images on Mac OS X using one of the following disk image utilities:

  1. Uif2iso which is a cross-platform command-line tool developed by Luigi Auriemma.
  2. Uif2iso4mac a GUI application by Torsten Curdt . Uif2iso4mac is built upon  Luigi Auriemma’s uif2iso command line utility with a Mac graphic user interface adding basic functionalities of a real Mac app like drag-and-drop and a menu bar i.e. choosing an image using the File > Open menu.

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5 CHM viewers for the Mac

CHM stands for Compiled HTML, and it’s used by Microsoft Windows for help files, documentation, magazines and eBooks.
There are a lot of eBooks – some Mac-related – in .chm format while Mac OS X does not come with any built-in .chm viewer.

There are some 3rd party CHM file viewers for the Mac, though, and some of them are absolutely free:
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All About VNC

Vnc_logo

What is VNC?

VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing, and it is a desktop sharing system with a graphic user interface which allows you to connect and control a remote computer over a network or the Internet. Thanks to the RFB (Remote Frame Buffer) protocol it’s using, VNC applications send the keyboard and mouse events to a remote computer on the network (or the Internet) who’s screen is being shared, and it relays back the updates.

RFB (Remote FrameBuffer) is a simple protocol and since operates at the framebuffer level, it can be used on all operating systems with a GUI including Windows, Macintosh (Mac OS X) and Linux. Although RFB started as a very simple protocol used by VNC and its derivatives, it has been improved so as to support file sharing, advanced compression and security techniques in its development cycle.

Why VNC is used and How

With VNC you can display the screen of a remote computer on your own computer in a window or in full screen mode, and using your own keyboard and mouse on this screen, you can control that remote computer as if you are sitting in front of it. All actions taken on the view of the remote desktop on your computer are performed actually on the remote computer itself.

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Play DivX and Whatever Video format on Your Mac

This page features all the essential software you need to install on your Mac enabling you to play all major video formats including DivX, XviD, Windows Media Format (wmv), mkv, flv, etc.

Flip4Mac WMV Components for QuickTime

Flip4Mac WMV ComponentsFlip4Mac WMV Components allow you to import, export and play Windows Media video and audio files on your Mac. Flip4Mac WMV plug-ins can be used with most QuickTime based applications, including QuickTime Player, iMovie ’06, Final Cut Pro and more.

Optimized for High-Definition Playback

Windows Media® Components for QuickTime has been highly optimized for Power Mac G4 and G5 and Intel computers and supports playback of high-definition Windows Media video files.

Upgrade to Advanced Features

Windows Media playback is provided free of charge. By purchasing an upgrade directly from Flip4Mac, you can import Windows Media files for editing and create Windows Media files for distribution. To learn more about these advanced features, visit the Flip4Mac Web site.

System Requirements

  • Mac OS X version 10.3.9 or later
  • QuickTime version 7.0 or later (7.1.6 or higher recommended)

Download Link: Windows Media Components for QuickTime by Flip4Mac (357 downloads)

Perian

PerianPerian is an open source plug-in which enables QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X. It is largely based on the FFmpeg project, as it uses libavcodec and libavformat. It also uses liba52 and libmatroska.
Perian aims at providing a single package to provide all your playback needs. It is a collection of QuickTime components incorporating several libraries:

  • libavcodec, from the ffmpeg project, along with code from the old FFusion component:
  • MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2
  • DivX
  • 3ivX
  • H.264
  • FLV1
  • FSV1
  • VP6
  • H263I
  • VP3
  • HuffYUV
  • ffvhuff
  • MPEG-1 & 2 video
  • FRAPS
  • Windows Media Audio v1 & v2
  • Flash ADPCM
  • Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska)
  • MPEG Layer II Audio
  • libavformat, from the ffmpeg project. along with AVIImporter.component:
  • AVI file format
  • FLV file format
  • libmatroska, along with matroska-qt.component:
  • MKV file format
  • Subtitle parsing
  • SSA
  • SRT
  • liba52, via A52Codec
  • AC3 audio

Download Link: Perian (273 downloads)

VLC Media Player Box

VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player is the ultimate cross-platform software, yet open-source and free, which enables playing of all major video and audio formats including MPEG-4, Flash video (.flv), MPEG-2,  H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, and AAC, as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

It also can be used as a streming video server as well as a video format conversion utility.

Mac OS X version can be downloaded from the following link: VLC Media Player for Mac OS X (universal binary) (224 downloads) (28 MB)

The Project’s web site featuring more info and downloads for other platforms such as Windows and Linux can be reached from here.