Ask Jacob

As you probably know now, it can cause many serious issues when you adjust Mac file permissions in bulk. Many files in your 20″ iMac needs special permissions to function properly in the operating system. Only adjust file permissions if you have a specific need to do so, and only on one file at a time.

As for restoring your applications to their original state. Often the OS discs that come with new Macs have the ability to install the included applications. On the Mac OS X Install Disc 1, sometimes contained in a “Optional Installs” folder, that is the installer you need. Double-click “Install Mac OS X and Bundled Software” and follow the onscreen instructions.

That should get you back to the version of iLife that shipped with your system.

- Jacob

You should have no problem reinstalling OS X 10.3 over the old 10.3 via an Archive and Install, but you will have to Trash the Previous System folder after you have finished the install. After the folder is removed, you should have about the same amount of free space on your hard drive. OS 9’s System Folder should not be affected by this process.

You may even be able to skip the install and just reset the Admin users password via the Reset Password Utility on the Mac OS Install disc. Jump to the last part of this article to get info on the process:

After you have Admin access to the computer, just make a new Admin user account with the name you want to use and login to it. After you login, delete the old admin account.
Jacob

Well there are plenty of options for you. We have a business sales team that uses a product called Daylite to manage contacts and it works well for the mobile sales force.

Take a look at the product and try the Demo. It could be more than what you are looking for but it would solve the problem you are having and help you in other areas.

Other than that, consider a MobileMe account. That will let you keep many things in sync without needing to rely on none-Apple software.

- Jacob

Automator is a good program for creating workflows but it has its limits. For more advanced work, look at the Applescript program or even bash shell scripts. However I am sure that Automator can do what you want, and I emailed you a test workflow you can save as a mini application. All you need to do is change the “Myapplication” to whatever you will be copying over and change the destination “USB-STICK” to whatever your usb drives will call themselves. Then select Save as from the Automator’s File menu and save it as an application.

This sample is just two elements from the “Actions” list: “Find Finder Items” and “Copy Finder Items.” You can keep stacking different functions as you need them. Keep playing with Automator, it will save you tons of time.

- Jacob

Apple prevents the installation of System Restore software on any hardware except the models that those DVDs shipped with. It is the only protection Apple uses on their operating system to prevent piracy. A retail copy of Leopard can be be installed on an endless amount of compatible Macs, without any errors. Apple just trusts that you will buy a copy for each system.

You can bypass the Apple block on restore DVDs by putting your MacBook into Target Disk mode. Boot up your MacBook holding down the [T] key will place it in Target Disk mode. Then connect the Macbook to the iMac via a FireWire cable. Now put the Restore DVD into the iMacs optical drive and double click on the OS X installer. After the iMac boots up off the OS X restore DVD go through the install process but select the MacBook’s hard drive as the install destination, instead of the iMacs internal hard drive.

After the install process has finished, you can restart both computers and they both will have Leopard.
Jacob

Intuit has developed a new version of Quicken for the Mac called “Quicken® Mac 2007“, but that was less than the full Quicken® application. They plan to release a full version of Quicken® in February 2010.

It also does look like the new Mac version will import Windows data into the new software, although this is no true for Quicken® Mac 2007. The Quicken Online product is an option for you.

This has always been my complaint with Intuit, they have historically treated their Mac division as if it were an unrelated company. Features and versions do not match up between operating systems, leaving users confused. It is unfortunate, but let’s hope the new application lives up to the billing.

- Jacob

Handbrake is specialized for converting your DVDs to iPod friendly formats but it should ultimately work for you. When it matures, you may want to try Videomonkey to convey your video files to something iMovie will easily accept. Currently it is iPod focused but has plans to convert to other formats.

For general video converting you should have both VLC and Perian installed on your Mac to make extra video formats usable. Even if you don’t need them, both these applications are a must for the modern Mac wanting to work with video.

In Handbrake, make sure the checkbox for “Use iPod/iTunes friendly (.m4v) file extension is for MP4″ is unchecked. Then you should be able to export into a MP4 format and it will use the “.mp4″ extension on the end. After Handbrake is finished, use the Import/Movies… option from the iMovie File menu. It should import without any issues.

- Jacob

When booting up from the Windows install disc, the first thing you need to do is format the partition you created with the boot-camp utility in the Mac OS. What you need to do is format the available
empty space on the windows partition with a NTFS or FAT32 file system. Only after you format the partition, will the Windows installer have a place to put the Windows XP files. Here is some info from the
Microsoft install documentation.
• At the Welcome to Setup page, press ENTER.
• Press F8 to accept the Windows XP Licensing Agreement.
• All existing partitions and non-partitioned spaces are listed for each physical hard disk. Use the ARROW keys to create a new partition by selecting the non-partitioned space. You can also press C to create a new partition using non-partitioned
• To create the partition with the maximum size, press ENTER.
• If you want to create additional partitions, repeat steps g. and h.
• Use the ARROW keys to select the new partition where you want to install Windows XP, and then press ENTER.
• Select the format option that you want to use to format the partition. You can select from the following options:
• Format the partition by using the NTFS file system (Quick)
• Format the partition by using the FAT file system (Quick)
• Format the partition by using the NTFS file system
• Format the partition by using the FAT file system
• Leave the current file system intact (no changes)

Notes
• If the selected partition is a new partition, the option to leave the current file system intact is not available.
• If the selected partition is larger than 32 gigabytes (GB), the FAT file system option is not available.
• If the selected partition is larger than 2 GB, the Windows Setup program uses the FAT32 file system (you must press ENTER to confirm).
• If the partition is smaller than 2 GB, the Windows Setup program uses the FAT16 file system.
• If you deleted and created a new System partition, but you are installing Windows XP on a different partition, you are prompted to select a file system for both the System and Startup partitions.
• Press ENTER.
• After the Windows Setup program formats the partition, follow the instructions that appear on the screen to install Windows XP.

I cleaned up the Microsoft documentation to help you read through it easier. Hope that helps,

- Jacob

Last time I installed the Macromedia Studio MX software, I recall that there were two serial numbers in the set. One was for the PC version, and the other was for the Mac version. It is possible that you have the two serial numbers switched. Now that Macromedia is part of Adobe, you may be able to use whatever serial number you have to upgrade to the Adobe version of the software. If you contact Adobe directly they can help you find the proper upgrade path, even if you only have the Window serial number.

- Jacob

Well some sites are focused only on PC systems and do not recognize the Mac browsers. Firefox would be your best option, it is based on what was left of Netscape. Microsoft stopped making a Mac version of Internet Explorer many years ago and so that would not be the best option. Here is a link to FireFox: http://getfirefox.com

For the most part your Mac is safe from the worms and viruses that plague the PC world. Mostly this is due to the incompatibility of the two operating systems. Most evil people do not bother writing two versions of the same virus for each platform. The main thing is, be careful of what you install on your Mac (only software from trusted places) and run the Mac Software Update often.

- Jacob

Windows is a fickle beast and especially in virtualization. It could be that a change or update to Parallels has cased a driver conflict in your copy of Windows. Follow these instructions from kb.parallels.com to remove and then reinstall the Parallels Tools.

1. Start Windows in Safe Mode (Press F8 key during the boot-up process and choose Safe Mode from the list).

2. Uninstall Parallels Tools
   • From the Windows Start menu, choose Control Panel > Add or remove programs.
   • Select Parallels Tools and click Remove.

3. Restart the Windows guest OS.

4. While Windows is running, install Parallels Tools again:
   • From the Parallels Desktop menubar, choose Actions > Install Parallels Tools. The Parallels Tools installation wizard appears in the guest OS window.
   • Follow the wizard instructions to complete installation.

5. Restart the Windows guest OS again.

- Jacob

This should not be a problem as long as you both have computers that are always on the same network. The first thing to do is relocate that “Active Clients” folder to a good location on your hard drive for sharing. The “Shared” folder in your Macintosh HD/Users/ folder is a good choice. Now we need to enable network access for that Shared folder. Go to your computer’s System Preferences and select Sharing. Mark the check box next to the File Sharing option. Now with Mac OS X 10.5 you have many file sharing features that will let you specifically select the folders you want to share and who has access to them. If you have that version of the Mac OS you can Select the shared folder and add a access account for your Boss With the [+] button  
under users.

If you are using Mac OS 10.4, then you can just move over to your Boss’ computer and click on the Desktop. Then mouse over to the Go menu and down to “Connect To server.” The Server Address will be afp://your.computer’s.IP.address and you can find your computers IP address from the Network section of your computer’s System Preferences (it will look like 10.0.0.2). After you have entered the server address, click on the [Connect] button. You will be prompted for a Username and password. Enter your computer’s user name and login password or if you setup a account for your Boss, enter it there.

Before you click the [Connect] button again, mark the checkbox for “Remember this password in my keychain. You will be asked what Volume you want to mount, Select the “Shared” folder if it is presented or select your hard drive. Once you have a connection to your computer from your Boss’ computer, you will then want to make a shortcut to the  ”Active Clients” folder. Navigate to where the folder is located. Control click on it and Select “Make Alias.” Then drag the alias to the desktop of your Boss’ computer.

Back at your computer, go the the Shared folder and move the alias for the “Active Clients” folder to your desktop. Now you both have an alias on your desktop for the same folder. If all that looked Like a big mess of convoluted steps, there is a shareware program that will save you some headache. Look at SlingShot 2.0 to keep your folder in sync, without the networking hoops to jump  
through. There is a free trial so at least give it a look.

- Jacob

Well if you still have AppleWorks 6 installed on the iBook, you can continue to run the program on a new MacBook. Migration assistant will run when you first setup your new Mac and pull over your old programs, documents, and settings. You will then want to delete your imported Apple Works preferences, but after that you can continue to use AppleWorks.

To delete the preferences, you will want to Trash the folder “Macintosh HD/Users/(YOUR USER NAME)/Library/Preferences/AppleWorks” and the file “Macintosh HD/Users/(YOUR USER NAME)/Library/Preferences/com.apple.appleworks.plist. Then start using Apple works as normal. You can then use the 30-Day trial version of iWork to see if you can import your AppleWorks documents. You may have to use AppleWorks to save the file as a Text only document.

- Jacob

There most certainly is a way to make a simple DVD directly from your camcorder. It is called an “OneStep DVD” When you open iDVD, and are asked to pick an action, chose OneStep DVD. You will then be asked to connect your Camcorder via FireWire and then Click OK. Just insert a blank DVD and walk away, letting your Mac do the rest.

Jacob

There are two places a name and email address could be stored on a basic Mac computer setup. The main place those messages get stored are in the Address Book application. In the application every contact you have saved is on a separate card. If you want to remove a person’s card you can just select the card and use the [delete] key on your keyboard to remove the entry permanently. If you want to edit the card’s data, click on the edit button bellow the displayed card.

The other location peoples’ name and email addresses are kept is in the Mail program. Mail keeps a running list of your correspondents and saves them for your quick reuse. You can edit this list by opening the Mail application and going to the Window menu. Then mouse down to “Previous Recipients.” The Previous Recipients window will contain a long list of people you have emailed. There is a Search box to help you find the one record you are looking for. Then click on the entry to highlight the name and address. Finally use the “Remove From List” button to erase the name and address.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

Apple has some nice tips on moving your iTunes library off an old computer or relocating the library to another drive.

For your needs you just want to be able to transfer your files over to the new computer. Perhaps the simplest way would be to use Target Disk mode. It sounds as if just the original hard drive is showing up in Target Disk mode. You may have to set up your 120 GB hard drive as the master drive. You can do this by moving the plug on the ribbon cable, attached the original drive, over to the larger drive. Then you will need to change the pinning on the drive to “master” from “slave.” Here is a link to the pinning instructions for your drive.

Once you have the big drive set as master, you can now boot the G4 computer into Target Disk mode (boot the G4 with the [T] key held down). The 120 GB hard drive will now appear on the iMac’s desktop when you connect the two computers with a firewire cable.

You can then use the Add to Library feature to import your old iTunes library or one of the suggestions from the Apple page above.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

You have started with some good first step by replacing the PRAM battery and resetting the PMU in your Apple computer. You will now need to look at your RAM. If you have multiple sticks of RAM in your G4 iMac you should turn off your computer and remove one RAM stick. Use your computer without that one stick for a while. If it locks up on you again, you should remove another stick of RAM and put the one you pulled first, back in. Start up the computer and use it, each time it locks up, swap out another stick of RAM until you have cycled thorough all the RAM. If it locks up with every RAM configuration then you will need to look at another cause.

The next step would be to do an Archive and install of your Mac OS X. An Archive and install will replace your System folder with a clean copy of the Mac OS while leaving your software and personal files intact. You can do an Archive and install of any OS X install DVD. If the Archive and Install fails to change anything it will most likely need to be taken into an Apple Authorized service center for further diagnostics.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

This is erroneous disk full message has occurred for a few Word users. It is basically attributed to a Disk Permissions problem. If you boot your used Mac off the OS X install DVD that came with the computer, you can use Disk Utility from the Utilities menu to repair Disk Permissions on your hard drive. After that Word saving abilities should be fixed, at least according to others that have experienced the same Disk is Full errors you received.

Hope this helps
Jacob

Any Mirrored Drive Door G4 will support OS X 10.5 Leopard, as long as it has more than 512MB of RAM. I would encourage you to buy extra RAM to achieve 1GB of RAM for good operation. Other than that it should be a good entry level Leopard Mac.

Jacob

There is no real reason that Parallels must be installed to share your Mac computer system with Windows. I use an iMac that has Vista installed Via Boot Camp without Parallels, but in the past I had used Parallels to Run XP on the same system before I uninstalled it. You can run Windows on your Mac via Boot Camp, Parallels, or VMware. You can even mix and match Parallels and Boot Camp, allowing you to use the same installation of Windows two different ways. That said, for the best experience I would recommend Parallels alone. Repartitioning your hard drive is risky business and locks you into a particular configuration. Parallels lets you experiment with different configurations and a variety of x86 operating systems. It is also easier to uninstall Parallels from your system when you are done with Windows.

If you want to use Boot Camp for the maximum system performance (i.e. gaming), then don’t limit your self to 32GB. You can have larger Boot Camp partitions but it will need to be formatted as a NTFS disk from the Windows installer. The only draw back to a NTFS formatted disk is that the Mac OS will not be able to write to it, only read items from it.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

Well this is a new one for me, but I suspect that it has something to do with how OS X identified your keyboard. You can try to reset your keyboard’s identification by deleting the file that stores information about your keyboard. The file is called “com.apple.keyboardtype.plist” and it is located in the Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/ Folder. Find the file and drag it to the trash. Restart your computer and see if that fixes your “H” problem. If the keyboard assistant opens, just close it with the little red button on the upper left hand corner of the window.

If you are still having issues typing “H,” then try switching fonts. It could be a problem with the default font you are using. Open the Text Edit Application and use the [Command] + [T] key combination to open the Fonts window and try typing H in different fonts. If you find H to be working in other Fonts, then you may need to reinstall your default System fonts.

If the “H” is persistently displayed incorrectly regardless of font, I would next recommend you try using a different USB keyboard. It does not need to be a Mac keyboard, you can use a Windows USB keyboard to test with. See if the problem is identical on the other keyboard, if it isn’t, you may want a new keyboard.

I hope one of these things will work for you.
Jacob

Photoshop and iPhoto are not directly comparable applications, although they share some features in common. First and foremost iPhoto (which comes standard with Apple’s excellent iLife package) is a photo organizer. It lets you sift through your thousands of photos and organize, print, and adjust them. You can do some basic color correction and cropping with iPhoto, and you can also retouch small blemishes and red-eye, but that’s your limit.

Photoshop, on the other hand, is focus on manipulation of your images. You can composite multiple images together or transform the image far beyond its original elements. Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are for people who need to create new images form their photos. If you’re just interested in sprucing up your photos, then the built in iPhoto editing tools will work well. The best part of the two application’s differences is that you can use them together. Instead of using iPhoto’s built-in photo editing tools you can designate Photoshop to be your editor of choice. Import photos into iPhoto, edit the photo in Photoshop, and send it back to iPhoto to store and print it. The best of both worlds.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

I have long felt that the iMac was a good alternative to the full-blown Mac Pro workstation. I do believe this still to be the case, but I do not want to mislead you into thinking it will be a limitless computer. The iMac will constrain some of your capabilities. It would not be an ideal computer for HD Video or After Effects work on the production level. The iMac will certainly handle most graphic design work but so to would your G5. The new CS4 requires an Intel chip due to only half the software included in the bundle. Photoshop and Illustrator, for example, will work on a dual G5 processor system.

If you are looking to focus on 2D still graphics, with some light instructional video demonstrations, then the iMac should work well for you. Bump up the RAM and hard drive on the 24″ iMac and you should have decent machine. You should also pick up a DVI to mini-DVI adapter to use your current DVI display as a second monitor on the iMac.

Hope that helps,

Jacob

You should check the Audio tab in the Skype preferences and make sure that it is referencing the same input / output. It may also be advisable to upgrade your Skype version to 2.7 which should run on your system.

If all the above fails, you may need to try an Archive and Install of the Mac OS to remove any problem USB audio drivers causing a conflict.

Hope this helps,
Jacob

In this case it may be easier to get a Floppy Drive for your G5 iMac, opposed to trying to connect your used Mac to this newer one. Fortunately Floppy drives are relatively cheap and will work for transferring files from the old system, in addition to allowing you to install this older application. I have been fond of the LaCie USB floppy drive and think you will like it as well.

Hope this helps
Jacob

Well my friend, you are not alone in desiring a Jacobimize feature in OS X. The problem is that Apple does not share that opinion and does not even include it as part of its Human Interface Guidelines. OS X has a Zoom button that has many different functions based on the application. It is the little [+] button on top of most windows (Depending on your preferences, it may be Green). This is often used as a toggle between the default window size and the User specified window size. Full screen is only possible if the Application programmers decided to include it. This is one of the reasons I use WriteRoom for composition of long form text.

All the solutions that others have engineered to Jacobimize windows will work most of the time, but not universally as you have found. Unless Apple changes the way the Apple computers Mac OS functions you will have to make do with the lack of a true universal Jacobimize feature. There is hope from an unlikely place though. If the iPhone can be any indication on the direction Apple is taking the OS interface, we may soon see a desktop OS without windows. Just buttons and a navigation dock.

Sorry I do not have better news for you,
Jacob

You most certainly can share Word documents between PC and Mac versions of the program. The interface looks different but the document types are cross compatible.

Jacob

You may have a received a corrupt download because the disk image is not complete, and therefore not mountable on the Desktop. Also you may have an issue installing Firefox 3 on your system, as it requires OS X 10.4 Tiger or newer. You should download Firefox 2 instead.

Thunderbird 2 should run fine on your system though. Make sure you are downloading each separately as the combo installer will not work with your system. It comes with Firefox 3.

Hope this helps,
Jacob

To change the “Start Page” in Safari you will need to go the “Preferences…” under the Safari menu. In preferences select the General tab on the top bar of the Apple Mac window. You can then type your preferred start page address in the in the address box to the right of “Home Page:” If you were already on the web page you want to see on starting Safari, then you just need to click on the Set to Current Page button under the Home Page address box.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

SuperDocker does not actually replace the Dock application itself but instead contains some scripts that replace visual elements and edits the preference file for the dock. The easiest way to restore your Apple computer dock to normal is with the SuperDocker application. At the bottom right side of the SuperDocker Application window, is a “Restore Dock Settings.” Clicking this will get your Dock back to the way it looks when you first logged into OS X. All your Added items will remain the same but if you had it on the right or left hand sides of your screen, then you will have to use the Dock System Preferences to restore that position.

After that you can trash the SuperDocker application again.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

In my experience, most Mac antivirus programs cause more problems than they prevent. Removing your recent installation of Symantec would be a good first step in troubleshooting this problem. You may also have to do an Archive and Install of the Mac OS after you remove Symantec Antivirus. If the problem continues after you do these two repairs, then I would next look at your PRAM battery. A low voltage PRAM battery will cause many sleep and waking issues. Also you could notice other problems starting up but that is not always a symptom.

In some rare instances, a Power Mac G5 can have problems with SATA drives. I have seen some Seagate drives cause booting and other issues in G5s. These drives were of the Barracuda 7200.10 family. This has not been a problem for many years but it is worth a look if all else fails to solve your problem.

I honestly recommend running a Mac without any Antivirus software. Most times placing a Mac behind a NAT Router is sufficient to protect you from attack. It is a good idea to have a router in between your ISP’s modem and your computer, even if you are the only user of the connection. A NAT Router will take one public IP address and translate that into another internal group of secret IP addresses. This translation makes it very difficult for malicious people to see your computer on the internet and that makes you more safe than having protective software on your system.

You may consider having Antivirus Software installed in your Windows XP virtual machine to protect it from attack but as long as you only use it for a select group of websites you trust and non-networked software, it will probably be safe.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

Any time you want to print a picture of exactly what you see on screen you should take a screen shot first. Use the Grab application in the Utilities folder. From the Capture menu select “Window.” You will then have the option to get the Web browser window to look just as you want it to when printed. Then go back to the Grab application and click on the Choose Window button. The pointer will turn into a camera and the next window you click on will be captured as an image. You can print that image and also save it in digital form.

You can also use Apple (Command) Key + Shift+3, which will allow you to capture the entire screen.

Apple (Command) Key + Shift+4 gives you a cross hair with which you can capture a select portion of your screen by dragging the cross hair over the image you’re interested in capturing.

To switch windows while in capture mode press the spacebar.

It is certainly possible for Safari, or its preferences, to become corrupted over time. The first bit of troubleshooting would be to trash the preference files for Safari. The file is located at:
Macintosh HD/Users/[Your User Name]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist. Quit Safari and drag the preference file to the trash. Then open Safari and see if you still get the spinning beach ball. If you are still having issues, try downloading a new copy of Safari.

If you are still getting issues after reinstalling Safari, you can try another browser, FireFox is a good second browser.

If the problem occurs in FireFox as well, then it is probably a network configuration error on your system. That will take some troubleshooting with your ISP and router. If the problem does not occur in FireFox, you may want to consider an Archive and Install of the Mac OS to replace the failing components of the Operating System that Safari relies on.

Running Adobe CS on a G4 400 is a “could / should” question. You “could” run CS 3 on a G4 400 MHz computer with over 512 MB of RAM but you probably “should” not. According to the minimum required hardware specifications all you need is a 512 RAM, the latest version of 10.4 Tiger and enough hard drive space to install everything. Those three things plus a G4, G5 or Intel processor will be enough to let you install the CS suite of software. However, being that low on the requirement scale, CS applications would probably open on your Mac computer but soon after that everything would slow to molasses speed.

If you need to start using CS 3 applications, it would save you a ton of time and headache to get a newer system. Something in the GHz processor range, not the MHz range.

I am not sure your Quicksilver problems are entirely related to the Apple computer Logic board. It could also be a power-supply issue or a PMU/PRAM battery issue. Check out Apple’s info on resetting the PMU and also remove the PRAM battery and check its voltage. It must be 3.6 Volts or higher.

Another possible cause could be a faulty power button on the front of Apple computers or the display. Try using a different display on the computer and test whether it happens again.

Installing Leopard onto a 1 GHz DP Quicksilver should be an easy process as long as you also have 9 GB of available drive space and at least 512MB of RAM. Make sure you are using a black-labeled version of Leopard. Gray labeled versions will only work on the specific model of Macs it shipped with.

I am unsure exactly what system you have because the used MacBooks range from 1.83GHz to 2.4GHz processor speeds. Whatever MacBook or used MacBook pro you own will be fine for audio recording. More RAM is always a good upgrade; 2GB is the new entry level for serious work these days. You will want to get a USB or FireWire audio interface to connect the instruments to Garageband. The M-Audio Fast Track Pro is a popular choice.

On most apple computers you can switch between iPhoto Libraries by holding down the [Option] key when starting up the iPhoto application. Next click “Choose Library” and select the library on the external drive. Click Open and your external library will open on your Apple Mac.

I am glad to help you move over to the Mac computer community. In general, GarageBand will run perfectly on any of the Intel Macs with at least 1GB of RAM. Although GarageBand is a good application, it is geared to simplicity and may leave you wanting more musical options. It is still powerful and you can start with GarageBand and upgrade your projects to Logic Express later.

Depending on what kind of equipment you plan on buying you could get by with a MacBook and not the MacBook Pro. Any of the plastic-cased MacBooks would work for what you are doing, but stay away from the Aluminum MacBooks as they lack FireWire and that is a good interface for studio equipment.

If your budget can afford it, the new Unibody MacBook Pro is an easy choice. In my opinion it is one of the best designs laptops Apple has ever made.

The basic specs of this unit are more than enough power for your audio work at any level, even studio work.

New Mac computers (and some used Macs) come with the application iPhoto pre-installed, and this would be the perfect way for you to import and organize your photos. The fastest way to bring your photos into iPhoto is to first open the iPhoto application. Then insert the photo CD and select the photos you want to move. Hold down the shift key to select large groups of photos. With the photos highlighted, drag them over to the iPhoto application running on the Dock. The iPhoto icon should darken when you are in the right spot. Let go of the mouse button and iPhoto will start importing the photos into the application.

You can also choose “Import to Library” from the “File” menu from within iPhoto. You will need to navigate to the CD and select the photos you want from within the import window.

The files you watch via Quicktime or Windows Media Player are often different file types than the ones you are watching online. Most TV channel, in-browser, content is Adobe Flash format. This has been a sore subject with Mac users for many years. Flash playback on Mac computers has historically been a resource hog, quickly driving up the system fans and stealing system performance from other applications. Just recently Adobe has released a new version of Flash for the Mac that tries to address these performance issues. In my most recent testing I have found the performance of Flash 10 to be much better and more reliable. It is particularly better during the downloading phase of the process – that is where you’re experiencing the greatest issue of choppy video. Your computer is having issue caching the content from the website and trying to play that same video back to you. I would recommend that you update your copy of Flash here.

If that fails to help, or the site you are watching video from is not using Flash, then you may just need to pause the video playback and wait a few minutes until the video has fully cached in the browser. There is often a secondary progress bar indicating the amount of video downloaded.

Both are great questions. It is my recommendation to spread your RAM configuration out to fill as many slots as possible without restricting your future upgrade needs. Filling the first four RAM slots evenly is a good idea. If your budget is geared to 4GB of total RAM, then four 1GB sticks is the way to go. Later you can put four 2GB sticks in the system and move the 1GB sticks to the higher slots. Here is a link to Apple’s Mac Pro RAM compatibility chart.

A Mac computers RAM setup is a lesser issue than the Graphics card. You need that bigger card for Motion. In some tests of the 2600 XT vs. the 8800 GT card, the 8800 GT card is nearly twice as fast. It will be the best $150.00 upgrade you could buy and a necessity for your graphics work.

Looking through Automator, I did not see a good way to export from Pages a MS document attached to an email. You could probably use an Applescript to achieve this but I am not a big user of Applescript, so that is not a definite yes.

Apple includes the built-in Automator function that will let you email a PDF of your document from the print screen. To access this feature, select “Print” from your File menu and then click on the PDF button. The drop-down menu will have a “Mail PDF” option. Select that option and Mail will open up a new document with that PDF attached.

Boy, those both sound like messy problems. Your problems in Apple Mail sound like a classic “Envelope Index” issues. The solution for that is to close mail and delete the Envelope Index file in your /Users/[your-user-account]/Library/Mail/ folder. Then restart mail and it should re-index from your saved mail.

The Microsoft office issue could be more difficult to deal with. When you removed Office did you use the official “Remove Office” application? It is located here: /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Additional Tools/Remove Office/Remove Office.app and is the best way to remove an Office install. After you uninstall Office, make sure that you look through the /Users/[your-user-account]/Library/Preferences/ folder for left over Office settings that could also be corrupt. Then, once again, install office.

What you describe sounds like it could be a Video RAM issue or an LCD screen defect. When the lines appear on the photos shown on screen those same lines do not print on the image, do they? As long as the lines stay on the screen you can be confident it is a video issue of some sort. The difficult thing with the iMac design is that most do not have “Video Cards.” Part of being an All-in-One design is combining the video card and logic board into one unit. It saves on space but it will require replacing the whole logic board, which is costly. It may also be a problem with the cable that runs through the neck of the G4 iMacs, this can wear out and may need to be replaced. The whole neck has to be replaced but that would probably be cheaper than a logic board.

Both repairs should be done through an Apple authorized service center.

You would want to use Office 2008 for Mac which includes PowerPoint.

You can also purchase Microsoft PowerPoint:Mac 2008 by itself – but for the money it may be better to buy the whole Office suite of applications.

There are other options for making PowerPoint compatible projects but they are not exactly the same. There is the Apple iWork application suite, which has Keynote, a PowerPoint-like application. Keynote will also open PowerPoint presentations, and is generally much easier to work with (as most equivalent apps are to their Microsoft counterparts).

I believe that your friend’s issue is with the image attachment resize option in new versions of Apple Mail. Look at the bottom of the new message window. When an image is attached, the Message size is displayed on the left and a popup menu is on the right. This is the same for new and forwarded emails. From the popup menu you can select one of four options: Small, Medium, Large, and Actual Size. Selecting any of the first three options will change the image to an email-friendly size. Attachments over 2MB can be considered too large by some email applications.

I suspect that when your friend forwards these emails, that popup menu is set to “Small”. If he selects “Actual Size” from the menu, before he sends it, it will come through to the recipient just as he sees it on his computer.

I looked around to see if there is a way to add a delete button to Preview but it would take major editing of the Preview application to add that. Fortunately there is a keyboard combination that could effectively do what you want. In Preview, when you are viewing the image you want to send to the trash, you only need to press the [command] key and [delete] key together. The image will then be sent to the trash.

There is no way to uninstall a Mac OS. In most cases you can do an Archive and install of the older OS. This is an install option when booted off the Install Disc and it will move the previous OS to an archive and install a fresh operating system.
To go back to OS 9, you may have to format/erase the drive first. If you do not have personally-created info on the drive, than there is not problem. If you have documents you want to save you should back them up to a CD or other storage device before formatting the drive.

Photo Booth is a simple application, built into most new Macs, that lets you use an iSight camera as a snapshot camera to take your picture. It does let you add crazy effects to the pictures but only before you take the picture. Kids love it, I often forget its there. The more useful application, iPhoto, is included on new Macs or can be bought in the “iLife” package. This lets you mange a large photo library and make adjustments to your photos to correct small imperfections.

Not all text editors support the full range of characters available. Your friend needs to make sure they are typing in an application and font that supports a full Unicode (UTF-8) character set. It may be the application is misunderstanding the Unicode representation of the symbol being inserted. If possible, try a different font.

There are software packages that can prevent your system from sleeping, even when the lid is closed. Two common ones I have know people to use are InsomniaX and SleepLess

Always use caution with this kind of modification as it can affect the stability of your system.

It is true that many new Macs have an optical audio in/out port. This is activated by the use of a special cable that has a plastic headphone jack on one end and a Toslink connector on the other end. It's called a Mini to Optical Toslink cable.

You can tell if you have this feature by looking in your System Profiler utility. In the audio section look for a S/P-DIF in and out notation. If you have that, then you can use the above cable.

As for file sharing to the whole hard drive, you need to make sure that you are logging in as an Administrator on the box you are connecting to or you can use a utility to give full access to any user account on the system. The application is called SharePoints.

From your description, it sounds like your computer rebooted into another User account. Do you have multiple user accounts? Try checking the “Accounts” section of your System Preferences to see if you have two accounts. Then change the “Automatic Login” to the proper account in the “Login Options” Section. Enter your password and restart the computer.

This is most likely what has happened. I hope this helps. And stick with the Mac. The additional problems you'd have with a PC will have this small issue pale by comparison.

When your iPhoto 6, or newer, library becomes damaged there is a way to auto-rebuild the library file.

Follow these six steps:

• → Quit iPhoto if it is open.
• → Hold down the Command and Option keys on the keyboard.
• → Open iPhoto.
• → Keep the keys held down until you are prompted to rebuild the library.
• → A dialog will appear with rebuild options. Select the options you want to use.
• → Click Rebuild to begin the rebuild process. This may take a few minutes to complete.

  More information on this can be found by checking out Apple's support page for rebuilding the iPhoto library.

I do not put too much faith in most hardware testing software. The software I do use most is provided by Apple for their authorized service techs to use, and is not freely available to the public. You can however use a simpler version of the same software called Apple Hardware Test (AHT). Most people do not know this but for many years Apple has been including the AHT software on the gray-labeled software install disc that come with new Macs. Insert the disc that contains the AHT software (often it is the first one), and restart the computer holding the [Option] key. On newer Macs you boot up the computer holding down the [D] key to start AHT.

This is the only hardware testing application I would recommend using. Even with that recommendation, I would not trust it to find every error or be beyond giving false positives. AHT is just one step in trouble-shooting hardware.

Sorry to say, AppleCare is only offered on New and Apple Refurbished products. PowerMax Pre-owned will have our 90-day PowerMax warranty, and we do have an option to extent that to six months.

The slowness you are experiencing is the product of your computer's limited processor and RAM, as well as your internal hard drive being full.
The hard drive is the only thing left to upgrade, and it is something you will have to take into an Apple Authorized Service center. A 120GB PowerBook hard drive can be installed into your iBook to replace your current internal drive. You may have to pay extra to the service department to move the data over, but you could also clone your drive using Carbon Copy Cloner and your external drive.

Almost all your problems stem from your internal hard drive (aka Startup drive) being full. In general, you need to have twice the available hard drive space as RAM installed in the system. For you, that would mean having 640 MB X 2 empty space on your hard drive at all times. You can delete the old “System Folder” used by classic and the “Applications (OS 9)” folder if you do not use Classic applications. That may be a good starting point.

Your PC seems newer, and by processor power it probably is over twice the speed of your Mac, but the Windows OS does slow down a system if it's not well maintained, so your actual benefit from switching to the PC could be lost.

The Migration Assistant that first runs on new Macs can be configured to grab user files, settings, and applications. It also can sometimes skip some of the data, which could have happened during your migration. If you are sure that all the items were selected for the migration, try using the Spotlight search to find some of those application files. Perhaps they are in a unexpected place. If you can’t find those files then try reinstalling the full Final Cut Studio on the Mac Pro and see if you can find your FCP project files from within the applications. Even if the applications were not moved over, your preferences and media most likely did make it over.

If you find that nothing moved over as you expected, you could always rerun the Migration Assistant from your Utilities folder.

While it’s possible for some networks to block the use of Apple’s software updates, it’s not too likely. It’s also possible that you have a software error that is causing the problem, but I also think this is unlikely. It is far more likely that Apple is having a server error and that is causing your problem. If you have been able to use Software Update before and only now it is giving you this error, then it is probably not a problem on your end. Try downloading the file you want directly from the Apple downloads page.

There are a few others who have had similar issues as documented in this Apple Forum discussion thread.

Resetting the PMU is a good first step in trying to resolve a system sleep issue. Here is the link to the Apple’s support site PMU reset procedure for most of the PowerPC Mac towers.

If resetting the PMU fails to resolve your problems you should then remove any added PCI cards you have installed. Some USB/Firewire cards will prevent a computer from sleeping properly. If you still have issues with your system sleeping, try removing all non-Apple RAM and peripherals, as this may interfere with the system’s ability to go into the low power mode of sleep.

It’s not certain that you have a hardware failure that would require a new logic board. You could just as easily have a operating system issue that can be fixed. If you have a Mac OS install CD, then you can boot up off of that and see if the Disk First-aid can fix your boot drive. Also a reinstall of the OS could help resolve your issue. It is a safe bet that if you computer will not startup from a Mac OS X CD that it is a hardware failure. At that point you will need to find a new system that supports PCI cards so that you can move your drive over to the new system. You will need to determine what kind of interface your SCSI drive uses.This Adaptec SCSI card has both types of connectors but it may be more than what you need.I have never used this Startech SCSI card before but it could be an economical solution.Unfortunately I do not know of a good USB/FireWire SCSI drive adapter. Internal is probably your best option.

As I understand your network, you have a Westell 2200 DSL modem plugged in through Ethernet to your Time Capsule router/Drive’s WAN port. Your PC is connected by Ethernet to the Time Capsule’s LAN port and your iMac connects wirelessly to the Time Capsule.

The problem you have is that the iMac is too far away from the Time Capsule to get a good signal. The best option for you would be an added Airport Express. You can wirelessly link your Time Capsule to the new Airport Express Via the WDS feature of Airport. This will let you place your new Airport Express halfway between your Time Capsule and iMac to create that boosted network range you wanted.

It is always possible to get a computer virus from any form of writable media, whether it is a download or a Zip disk. In-fact the first viruses were transmitted via floppy disk. That being said, it is highly unlikely that the disk is infected, being that most modern viruses are made for the Windows OS. It is very difficult for a Mac computer to get a virus without the user intentionally installing a malicious program. Make sure that you open any file on the Zip disk via the application you are going to use it with, don’t just double click on the file on the disk. Also do not enter your system password unless you are intentionally installing something or editing your settings.

Some DSL accounts require you to use special PPPoE settings to activate the DSL Modem’s connection to your ISP. With a PPPoE connection you have to enter in a user name and password into your Network System Preferences. Here are Apple’s instructions on adding your PPPoE settings.

Don’t worry, there is a lot of common confusion as to what Wi-Fi is.

It may be helpful to think of Wi-Fi as a drinking glass. Your Comcast Internet connection is similar to the water connection to your house. If you want to drink it you have to fill your glass with water. You could drink right from the garden hose but it will not reach everywhere you want to go. A glass lets you drink water everywhere in your house without having to install new plumbing throughout your house. So, similar to the glass, Wi-Fi lets you get your Comcast Internet connection any place in your house. You still have to pay Comcast for the Internet connection if you have Wi-Fi, the same as paying the water bill even if you don’t have a drinking glass.

One more consideration is that you need to have a Wi-Fi adapter on both ends of your connection. The iMac has one built-in but not all Comcast modems have Wi-Fi adapters built-in. You need to call Comcast and ask if your Modem has Wi-Fi. If it does not, you can buy one to add to your modem. Apple calls its Wi-Fi connections “Airport” and you can buy an Apple Airport base station to get your Comcast connection turned into a Wi-Fi connection. Think of an Airport Base Station as a special faucet for your drinking glass.

The Airport Express Base Station is a good budget option and it is easy to use with your Mac.

A G4 will work fine for most audio editing projects, as long as you keep the number of tracks reasonable, and budget for some extra wait time while working on the Pro Tools / Logic projects. A dual processor MDD G4 would be a good choice with its full 2GB limit of RAM. Also consider two extra drives in a RAID 1 configuration to store your project files on. If this is work for a paying client, you”re going to want to make sure it”s backed up.

There is a known issue with the DVD play specification that has to do with the 99-image limit. Although the newer iDVD lets you make larger slideshow DVDs, not all players can play back more then 99 images.

Here are two links talking about the problem you have experienced:
iDVD ‘08: Slideshow audio playback briefly drops out after 99 images

iDVD ‘08 After 99 images in a slideshow, set-top DVD player will reset to chapter 1

Leopard will import from a Time Machine backup. After you install Leopard on the drive, you will be asked if you want to import the data from an old Mac or a Time Machine backup. It is nice and clean way of moving your data to a new drive or computer.

Rest assured, a person can’t know what they don’t know, so your question is as fair as they get.

Unfortunately for your Skype ambitions, no Mac computer tower, including the Mac mini, comes with a built-in microphone. You will need a USB headset or desktop microphone for your G5, of which we sell a wide variety. Only the iMacs and Mac laptops come with the built-in microphones. The good news is that practically any USB microphone will work on your Mac without extra software. You just have to select it in the System Preferences upon install.

This problem has all the tell-tale signs of an interrupted copy.

Sometimes in the process moving files, the device connection is broken or interfered with, and only filenames are imported as empty placeholders. Whenever you move files from one source to another, double-check that all the files are accessible at the new location.

Using photo management software, and not the Finder, to move the files is probably your safest method for this kind of work. That is the value of Apple’s Aperture and even iPhoto. The simple act of organizing the photos gives you validation that the pictures are intact.

It sounds like investing in some photo management software might keep you from jeopardizing your client projects.

When is comes to misplaced Admin Passwords, there are some steps outlined on Apple’s support site:

Lost Firmware Password

If the Firmware password is lost, follow these steps. This procedure works on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macintosh computers.

Important: ESD Precautions – To avoid damaging components, be sure to follow Electrostatic Discharge (ESD)-safe repair practices.

• Shut down the computer.
• Gain access to the computer’s RAM slots.
  (Detailed instructions by product are available from the CIP page)
• Add or remove a RAM DIMM to change the total amount of installed RAM.
  For example: If the computer has two RAM DIMMs (128 MB DIMM and 64 MB DIMM) for a total of 192 MB of memory, remove the 64 MB DIMM. This changes the total memory of the computer to 128 MB RAM. If the computer has a single RAM DIMM, you can change the total memory by adding a DIMM of any compatible size.
  Note: Removing a computer’s only DIMM is not an option and will prevent the computer from starting up.
• Turn on the computer and immediately reset PRAM by holding the Command-Option-P-R key combination. Press the keys until you’ve heard two successive startup sounds.
• Open Firmware password protection is now disabled. Shut down the computer and return it to its original RAM configuration.

Then use the Password reset utility when booted from the OS X install DVD and reset your admin password.

Yes, there is a easy way to convert DVDs into iPod-ready formats. Handbrake is a perfect tool for what you want to do.

Make sure to only download the appropriate version for the OS you are using. There is an OS X 10.5 version and an older 10.4 version. It is simple to use and free.

There can be a few things at the root of a slow loading applications problem, some of which may be more difficult to hunt down than it’s worth.

First, you should examine the hidden applications that start up behind the scenes of the Mac OS. Start in the “Accounts” System Preference, and look in your user account’s “Login Items.” Make note of what they are and try removing them one at a time. Restart each time after you delete one item. If the problem persists, use Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder to examine all the processes running after you first start up. Look for processor or hard drive hungry applications.

You can also try booting up in Safe Mode by holding down the Shift key on startup. If applications launch fast in Safe Mode, then it is probably a non-Apple software conflict. Finally, the most thorough way to fully resolve this kind of issue by doing an Archive and Install of OS X. This should replace all the system software, without harming your user info and applications.

The solution is easier than they make it seem.

With the disc in the drive, restart the iMac and hold down the “C” during the start up of the computer. That tells your Mac to boot up off any bootable disc in the CD drive. After you get to the installer, one of the menu items along the top will contain the reset password utility.

This is often caused by an inadvertent selection of the “remember Password in Keychain option.” Also .Mac supports Keychain syncing, so if you had one computer’s Keychain remember the password, both computers will have the same info. The fix should be simple. Go to the application “Keychain Access” in your Utilities folder. Search for your disk image’s name or just browse through the “All Items” category. After you find your password for the disk image, select it and then delete it. You will then be prompted for the password again when mounting the disk image. You may have to repeat this process on all your computers to avoid the password being recovered from .Mac syncing.

There is a little command you can type into the Terminal that will restart your dock. Anything that is minimized on it will be kicked off. First, open the Terminal application, it is in your Utilities folder that is in the Applications folder. When Terminal is open, type this text: “killall Dock” without the quotation marks. Press the return key and your Dock should disappear for a moment. When it comes back up you should have nothing on it except saved shortcuts, the trash, and applications.

Uninstalling a program on a Mac can be as simple as dragging an application to the trash, but it’s not always the case. One of the great advancements of OS X was in how it compacted the Applications into one location. This is done by a little user interface trickery. An application, in the Applications folder, is really a folder not a file. If you right click on an application, you can select “Show Package Contents.” This will reveal a secret folder listing of the files that make up the application. When you double click on the application’s icon, it sends a shortcut call the the executable file inside the folder that then starts the application running in the OS. So when you drag an application to the Trash, you are actually dragging a folder of files to the trash.

Now most every application will also have a preference file each user that starts the program. This is not a part of the application but it is created by the application to track the individual changes you make to the application. These are not removed when you delete an program from your Mac. They are small harmless text files, and do not need to removed.

Just because an application contains most of its internal resources in the hidden folder, does not mean that that is all that gets installed. Some applications need to install drivers or helper programs. These programs are much harder to install and a good software engineer will include an uninstaller script to run. This is often part of the disk image or included on the Install disc. If an uninstaller is not included, then you can often find all the pieces by searching in the Finder for the program’s name and the company name that released it. Then you can drag those found files to the trash, but be carful and wait a week before you empty the Trash.

A good way to figure out what you need to do when removing a program is remember how you installed it. If you just dragged a file from a disc to the Applications folder to install it, then dragging that same application to the Trash will delete. If you used an Installer, you will want to look for additional installed pieces of that application.

This is a common problem for Aperture users. Almost every aspect of this program depends on a good graphics card. Unfortunately because of the shift to Intel-based systems, with their PCI-e Graphics, the PowerMac G5 owners are being shorted on upgrade options. Video card Makers are just not focusing on AGP video cards. You still have an option though. The ATI 9600 Pro 256MB is on the Aperture recommendation list and is still available for your AGP based computer.

http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/h79810

http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs/

You might also think about upgrading to Aperture 2.0— a much snappier program. A worthwhile upgrade.

I have fond memories of both beige systems. In theory, the G3 Desktop should be faster than the 7300/200 Power Mac. It’s possible that the 7300 had a processor upgrade over the years. That could easily make it faster than an un-upgraded G3 Desktop. Look at the System Profiler under the Apple menu to see what processor speed you have.

The 7300 could support 1GB of RAM via 8 128MB chips. It is probably OK to aim instead for 512MB via 8 64MB chips.
http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/r-d-64

This RAM for the 7300 is different than the RAM in the G3 Desktop. The beige G3 Power Macs used PC66 SDRAM and would only support 768MB total RAM via 3 256MB chips.
http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/r-g3-256

This is a common problem between switching from one OS to another. The problem stems from how Windows XP uses the computer’s internal clock. OS X always stores the time as the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in the Mac’s internal clock. Adjustments to the time displayed in the Mac OS are made based on location and Daylight Savings Time settings. With the Windows OS, time is stored as local time. People who live in the GMT zone are the only ones unaffected by this difference in time storage.

Really the best way to compensate for the time difference, is for each OS to manage its time over internet. Both the Mac OS and the Windows OS can manage time based on network time servers. There will be occasional delays between clock updates, because the OS only checks the time server a few times a day. If you can stand to have the Windows OS displaying GMT, then I would disable network time synchronization in Windows and let the Mac OS have the correct time.

We have two staff picks that will do the job and recover your lost tunes.

First there is iPod Access:
www.findleydesigns.com/ipodaccess/

and then we have iPodRip:
www.thelittleappfactory.com/application.php?app=iPodRip

Both should help you out but give them each a try and see which one you want to keep around… for the next time you need it.

The Leopard upgrade is often smooth, having done it on a dozen or so systems myself I can attest to that. I would, however, recommend that you buy an external drive and clone your system onto it. Use carbon Copy Cloner to make your clone.

www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

After you have a good clone of your computer’s hard drive, you can then upgrade your system to Leopard. If you encounter any problems, format the internal hard drive and install Leopard on the empty drive. Then use the Migration Assistant -which runs when you first start up Leopard- to pull the data from the cloned system you made on the external drive. Once you have everything running smoothly, you can format that external drive and turn it into your Time Machine drive.

Hope that helps… and you are going to love Leopard.

Something for you to try is resetting your printing system. You do this by opening the Printer Setup Utility: it’s in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder. Then under the Printer Setup Utility Menu, select “Reset Printing System.” That will take your system back to square one, in terms of printers, but then all you’ll need to do is add the printer again. You should not need to reinstall the Epson software. You may want to restart the computer in between resetting the printing system and adding your printer.

The types of drives suitable for Time Machine use have varied over the Leopard development process. Figuring out what may work in the future is tricky. If you have multiple internal drives, you can designate one of them as a Time Machine drive. Any FireWire or USB 2.0 drive can also work as a Time Machine drive. The one prerequisite for stable performance is that a Time Machine drive should be formatted as a Mac OS Extended volume, with a compatible partition table. The type of partition scheme you need to use changes based on the processor type. If it is an Intel-based Mac, then the drive should be a GUID partitioned drive. If you have an older PowerPC Mac, those drives should use the Apple Partition Map. The partition scheme is selected from the Options button in the Partition Tab of Disk Utility.

Because of the partitioning of those drives, it can be difficult to get them to work with other computer platforms (i.e. Windows). In most cases it’s best to keep a Time Machine drive dedicated to backup work. You can, however, have many computers use the same Time Machine drive. You can also do that sharing over a network, wired or wireless. The first step is to designate one Mac to connect to the Time Machine drive. This can be FireWire, USB 2.0, or an internal drive.

Set up the drive as a Time Machine drive via the Time Machine section of the System Preferences. Then go to the Sharing System preference and enable File Sharing. In the File Sharing’ details section, click on the “+” button under the Shared Folders section. Select your Time Machine drive and you will then see it on the list of shared items. From your other computers on the network you can connect to the shared Time Machine drive; the same as you would any other network drive. Make sure you save the user name and password in the keychain when you connect. Then you can use the System Preferences on that computer to designate the shared drive as a Time Machine drive.

This is a great solution for people with desktop and laptop Macs or a household of Macs. It may not be the solution that you need, because it will require at least two Macs running Leopard, but I hope it helps.

I understand the trepidation in using that free email account from your ISP. I have changed ISPs dozens of times over the last decade and would have hated to change my email address each time. I have friends that I hear from only every other year and they should always be able to find me, regardless of what ISP I have. So yes a Yahoo or Google account would be a great choice for a permanent email address. I prefer a Google GMail account because they allow you free POP mail access. The POP mail feature lets you use the Apple Mail program to check and send email, so all the iLife applications should work well with Gmail. Go to www.gmail.com and get a Gmail account. Once you are logged into your gmail account click on Settings in the upper right corner. Then go to the Forwarding and POP tab and enable the POP mail for all your email. After that, you change the “When messages are accessed with POP” to “archive Gmail’s copy.” After that you never need to log into Gmail through a web browser. You will use Apple Mail to access your gmail account.

Google has a very helpful web page that can walk you through setting up Apple Mail to connect to Gmail.

mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13275

The “.pps” file extension indicates that it’s a PowerPoint presentation and that would be readable by Microsoft Office. It will also be readable by Apple’s Keynote application. Keynote is included in the iWork package, which costs far less than MS Office.

www.powermax.com/parts/show/s-ma790z__a

You can also get a free 30 Day trial version of iWork to see if it will do what you need it to do.

www.apple.com/iwork/trial/

For free, there is always OpenOffice which is an open-source project to recreate and improve on the functions in MS Office. It is a little harder to use but once you have it working, it may be just what you need.

porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/index.html

Missing items from the list view when those items are still on your computer is a strange problem. I have seen the Mac OS fail to draw all items in a list but that will always leave a big white space where the items are supposed to be. That problem is often fixed by using the scroll-bar on the right to move the blank space in and out of view. You may have to shrink the window so that only a portion of the list is visible. Then you can scroll up and down.

It sounds like you are having a different problem than what I have described above. In your case I would expect that it could be a file permissions problem. To fix file permissions go to Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. Select your hard drive and then click on the Repair Disk Permissions button under the First Aid tab. After it is done running, restart your Mac and see if you still have the same problems.

After that, if some items are still missing, make sure that you have not inadvertently moved your missing applications to a folder inside the Applications folder. I have seen some cases were half the applications were in the Office 2004 folder and a turned down triangle in one view would show everything but in another window the folder was not expanded to show everything.

The cause of the problem may be hard to pin down but here is something to try. You can take the identifier number that is reported by FSCK and track down the affected files. When you run fsck, it should report both the inode number of the file, and its name. If the inode number is nnnnn, follow these steps to get the pathname to the file:

Open Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities.

Type:

sudo -s

Press Return and you will be prompted for your administrative password, the one you chose when you installed Mac OS X.

Type:

find / -inum nnnnn -print

Replacing “nnnnn” with the inode number and if the reported inode number has a letter at the end, only use the numbers.

This should give you the path to the affected files. If all the files are associated with the same function of your Mac (i.e. all Safari Cache files), then you can assume that it is related to a bug in that application. If you find that they are all random files, then I would have you completely erase your drive.

If you have an external drive that will fit the full contents of your drive, I would recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner to backup your entire drive.

After you have an exact copy of your drive, insert the grey restore DVD that came with your Mac. Restart your computer and hold down the “C” key to boot up from that disc. Once booted from the Disc, go to the Utilities menu and select Disk Utility. Now select your internal hard drive and go to the Erase tab. Click on the Security Options button and then select the option to write zeros over the drive. One pass will do, because you are just trying to make sure that the drive is in good condition. This could take many hours so don’t be in a rush when you start this process.

After it is done writing zeros you should do one more step. Click on the Partition tab. You must have the internal hard drive, and not the volume, selected in the left column for the Partition tab to be visible. Change the Volume Scheme popup menu from “Current” to “1 Partition.” Next click on the Partition button. With all this drive formatting work done you can quit Disk Utility and install a clean copy of OS X 10.4 on your Mac. Once the installation is done, start moving through the setup screens. When you are asked if you want to move files over from another Mac, answer yes and connect the external drive you cloned your old System onto. It will treat that like an old Mac and move over all your important files and applications.

That should fix your drive problems if it was a formatting error. If you still have problems after doing all of the above, then it may be a hardware problem. An Apple Authorized service center can help you if it is hardware related.

Versions of Microsoft Office for OS X will work well on a new MacBook, but you may have a problem installing it. If the upgrade CD you have requires the OS 9 version of MS Word or MS Office to be installed before it lets you upgrade it, then you are going to have a problem. Older OS 9 programs will not install onto an Intel Mac like the MacBook. However, you have a easy way of moving over your OS X applications and files. Included on all 10.4 and higher Macs is a utility that will import your data from your old Mac. This will work as long as you have a 6-Pin to 6-Pin Firewire cable, and a Mac with a factory original FireWire port (except the B&W G3 tower). When you start up your new Mac it will walk you through connecting both computers and it will move all your files to the proper place. This same process can also bring over applications, if you instruct it to. It is called the Migration Assistant, and although it runs the first time you start the computer, it can also be used at any time; it’s found in your new Mac’s Utilities folder.

Also of note is that Microsoft still makes Word and the other Office suite of programs for the Mac. Microsoft Word 2008 is due to come out in a few months but if you buy a current version now, you can update for just $10 when the 2008 version is available with the Microsoft Office 2008 Guarantee form.

The Mac world has changed considerably over the years, but the switch to Intel processors has probably had the most impact. Intel-based Macs can run Windows, Linux, and OS X in a variety of ways.

Boot Camp lets you decide what OS you want to run when you start up your computer. When you choose to run Windows via Boot Camp, your Mac is just like any other PC. You also have most of the problems of Windows, but it lets you run heavy-duty Windows applications at incredible speeds. You can then restart the computer into the Mac OS to do everything else, in a safe and productive environment. This solution works well for people who do only a few tasks in Windows for a set amount of time.

For the people who have to use a Windows application many times a day, restarting the computer is going to be a time waster. For that reason the best way of running Windows on an Intel Mac is with a program like Parallels. Parallels lets you run the Windows OS and the Mac OS at the same time, side-by-side. You can even set it up so that the few Windows programs you use will appear to be part of your Mac OS. Both Booth Camp and Parallels require you to by a copy of Windows to install on your Mac. If you have a copy of Windows XP SP 2 already, you can reuse that on your Mac.

With regards to hardware, you are locked into Intel-based Macs if you want to run Windows in the above ways. PowerPC Macs will not work, meaning that any Mac with a G3, G4, or G5 processor is not going to do what you want. You will have to buy a MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Intel Mac mini or Intel iMac. The good news is that all the Intel Macs will also run the new Mac OS, Leopard, perfectly.

I hope this helps and as a side note: I’m an Evergreen graduate and drank many a night in your Fish Tail Brew Pub. I do miss the seasonal cider. Keep up your good work!

Most external hard drives will come formatted as a FAT32 drive. They do this because it is a drive format that will be readable by Macs, Windows PCs, and Linux PCs. If you share the drive between any two of those operating systems, I would suggest that you keep it formatted as a FAT32 drive. However, if you are only using that drive with a Mac OS computer, then reformatting it as a HFS+ Journaled (AKA Mac OS Extended Journaled) is the best thing to do. FAT32 is an old drive format with size limits and other issues that will make it less usable in OS X. HFS+ Journaled drives support large sizes and more efficient use of storage space. Also it has features that protect against data loss due to accidental drive removal, or any write failure. That feature alone makes it a useful format for a removable drive.

I think a reformat is a good idea, I hope that helps.

In most cases I have had great success running my older applications in Classic. Classic is an OS 9 emulator that runs in OS X. Unfortunately, Classic only works on PowerPC Macs with an OS of 10.4.x or lower. The new Leopard OS will not support Classic and Intel Macs will not support it in any OS. An iMac G4 or iMac G5 would be a great computer to run both new programs and older programs.

If you had your heart set on a new Intel Mac, then there are ways to get older applications to run on the latest Apple hardware, but they take a little effort to get running. I like Mini vMac.

minivmac.sourceforge.net

Microsoft discontinued Internet Explorer (IE) for the Mac several years ago. Although the Mac version was similar to the Windows version, it did not possess the capabilities that most sites want when they ask for IE. Microsoft integrated some portions of its Windows Operating system into its Windows version of the IE web browser, in order to make websites more capable. The technology was called ActiveX. Because the browser and OS work together, web programmers could include more application-like behavior on their web pages. Also, malicious web programmers could take control of your system and cause all sorts of unwanted behaviors. The result was a security nightmare that plagued IE users for many years. Eventually Microsoft found a way to secure ActiveX use in IE. Often, banks or other financial institutions still use the ActiveX for added account-managing features. Most sites are opting to rewrite their sites for a common cross platform browser, like FireFox. FireFox can run similarly on many different kinds of computers.If you have to use the Windows version of IE for that one website, then you will want to use an Intel-based Mac running a virtual copy of Windows XP via Parallels.http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/s-50245Parallels will let you run any number of Windows applications right next to your Mac applications. Unfortunately, this will only work on Intel-based Macs. Hope that helped.

Folder level security is a frequently requested feature. Although there are third party utilities that help you do this, OS X will provide you with free tools that will work for you. If you are looking for a low security way to drop files into a lockbox folder, you can do that with Folder Permissions. Create a folder and click on it once to highlight it. Then Hold down the Command key and “I” key to get the “Info” window. Go to the Permissions section and change all the popup menus to “Write only (Drop-Box).” You may have to unlock the permissions popup menus by clicking on the little padlock icon and entering the Admin password. The folder method is flawed. First, to open the folder you have to change the permissions to Read-Write before you can use it and then change it back when you are done. Second, anyone with the Admin password for your Mac can unlock the folder. So the security is light, and the use is kludgy (can you tell I do not like it?).The best way of securing files on your hard drive is not with a folder, but an encrypted disk image. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder, it’s found inside the Applications folder. In Disk Utility, go to the File menu and down to the “New” submenu. There select “New Blank Image.” Give it a name and select the place to save it. Now you will need to set a volume size. This will take some thought because you can’t change the size later. Additionally, the image will use the same amount of hard drive space whether empty or full; so don’t make it too large. The last change to make here is to set the Encryption popup menu to “128-bit AES” encryption. Click the create button and you will soon be prompted to enter a Password. Make it a good password but know there is no way to open it without the password, so you can’t forget it. The last thing to do is uncheck the “Remember Password in Keychain” checkbox. It could take a long time to create the image, depending on how large you made it.When using this disk image, make sure that the password is never remembered in the Keychain. There will often be a checkbox when entering your password, just don’t mark the checkbox. Otherwise, everyone will be able to mount the disk image without the password. Now all you have to do to work with the secret files is double-click on the disk image and enter your password. When you are done, just eject the mounted disk. It is a simple and rock-solid security solution.

Well you are on the right track to securing your Mom’s Mac. Although it is called Parental Controls, this is the best way to administer a novice user on a Mac. The main thing is to have two user accounts on the computer. One account is going to be your administrator account and should be named Admin. Give the Admin user account a good password that you will remember but is hard to guess. This account will practically never get used. This is mostly there so you can run software update and install application when needed. Give this account information to your brother or any person willing to be the dissuasion-maker in regards to this computer. If you give this account info to your mom, then it will defeat the purpose of locking down the second account.

The second account is going to be a standard account with all your mother’s information. When you are logged into your admin account, create a new account by going to the System Preferences and selection “Accounts.” Click on the Padlock icon and enter your password. Now click on the “+” button under the Account List window. In the dropdown window enter your mom’s name, and give her a simple password. Do not mark the checkbox next to “Allow this user to administer this computer.” Now that this account is created you can click on the Parental Controls tab. Mark the check box for “Finder.app & System,” then click on the configure button.

Restricting the Finder and System is where you should do all of your work on an adult’s account. As you mentioned, Simple Finder is too simple and not the best option for anyone over the age of seven. The “Some Limits” option should be selected and under that only mark the check boxes for “Burn CDs and DVDs” and “Allow supporting programs.” You could also mark the checkbox for “This user can only use these application:” but I do not think that is a good option for protecting your mom from herself. If you were there everyday to adjust the settings, then it would be OK, but this will often cause you more tech call than it will save you from. Once you click the OK button you only have to set her account as the one that the computer boots up into. This is done in the in the Login Options section near where you found the “+” button before. Click on Login Options and then mark the checkbox next to “Automatically login as:” From the pop up menu select your mom’s user account and enter her password.

Now you should restart the computer and make sure that everything works as you expect. Your brother will have to login as the Admin user to setup the printer or you will have to do that prior to shipping everything.

Hope that all works out.

There certainly is a way to import the audio from your tapes onto the Mac. If you have a stereo tape deck you can use a cable like this one to connect its output to your iMac’s line-in plug.

Click Here

It is then just a matter of recording the audio coming into your Mac. You can do this with Garageband, but that’s sometimes a little more application than you need. There is a free, open-source, program called Audacity that should do the trick.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Just set your audio input source as the Line-In from the Sound section in System Preferences. Then open Audacity, start the tape playing, and hit the record button in Audacity. You will have to manually start and stop the recordings and tape, but that should get the tapes digitized. Then just export them from Audacity into ..aiff files. Drag those files into iTunes and you are done.I hope that works for you.

You do not need to be worried if your hard drive disappears off the Desktop. You can set the computer to not show your hard drive or other items on the Desktop, and that same setting can bring it back. Click once on your desktop and then select Preferences from the Finder menu. Under the general section you will see three checkboxes under the “Show these items on the Desktop:” Mark all three of them and see if that brings back your hard drive.Hope that helps, let me know.

I am asked this question often and it is always hard because my answer does not really answer the question. I do not recommend any virus or spyware protection software on a modern Mac. There are just not any credible threats to the Mac in this area. This type of protection software, at least the ones that I have seen, is damaging to a Mac’s performance. Use a good password, connect your Mac to the internet through a router, and be suspicious of things you download. Doing those three things will help you stay in good working order. If you are interested in what your Mac may be up to after installing something. I would recommend a program called Little Snitch (http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html).I hope that helps

Because your problem happens to many different applications, I think it is a bigger problem than a faulty application. Any time you have a widespread problem like this one, and you have not updated to the most recent point version of the OS, I would recommend running Software Update to bring your OS to the latest version. If the problem continues past upgrading to Mac OS X 10.2.8, then I would create a second user account with which to test. Make the user account an Administrator account, and then log out of your main account. Next, log into your new test account and see if you get the same problems. If you do not have the same problems, then it is some setting in your main User account’s preferences. Go through your main account’s Preferences folder in the user’s Library folder and remove anything having to do with networking or Internet connectivity. Keep testing as you remove each item.

If the problem occurs in both accounts, then it is probably a system problem. Upgrading to OS 10.3 or 10.4 via an “Archive and Install” will often help resolve those issues. You can also do an Archive and Install in OS 10.2, if you have the system discs. Here is a link to Archive and Install instructions and further info.

Click here for Install instructions and more.

The great thing about using Parallels for Mac is that you can run any version of Windows or Linux you want on your Mac.

You just have to tell Parallels what you want to do before you install the non-Mac OS into a Parallels Virtual machine. Some versions of Windows Vista are not licensed for installation on virtual hardware like Parallels. You will want to use the Ultimate version of Windows Vista to comply with the Microsoft license. Also, you will want to run the Service Pack 2 version of Windows XP. This is only for security and is not about licensing. You can install any version of XP, but I recommend that you immediately upgrade it to the SP2 version, in order to prevent getting a virus on the PC side of your Mac.

You don’t need anything fancy from your version of Windows when you run it in Parallels. Just get a version that will work best for what you are doing. In most cases, XP Home will serve you perfectly.