Mac 911

Archiving items via a keyboard shortcut

Christopher Breen — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:50:00 -0700

When Leopard appeared, the ability to assign a keyboard shortcut to the Archive command disappeared. Here's a workaround.

iMac and the constantly ejected CDs

Christopher Breen — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:19:00 -0700

Your Mac has a habit of ingesting and then immediately rejecting CDs and DVDs? Here are the possible solutions.

Bugs & Fixes: Tying up loose ends

Ted Landau — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:05:00 -0700

Ted Landau revisits recent Bugs & Fixes columns to see if there are updates for troubles involving the Apple TV and iPhone.

Cataloging Mail by date

Christopher Breen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:51:00 -0700

If you miss Entourage's Saved Searches when you move to Apple's Mail, put Mail's smart mailboxes to good use.

Mac 911 Lightning Round

Christopher Breen — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:39:00 -0700

Quick answers to short questions.

Bugs & Fixes: iPhone 3GS signal strength oddities

Ted Landau — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:07:00 -0700

Ted Landau noticed his new iPhone 3GS seemed to spend more time connected to the EDGE network than did his old iPhone 3G. So he did a little digging to find out why.

Securely wipe your hard drive

Christopher Breen — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:41:00 -0700

You say you have a hard drive full of sensitive data that you'd like to see gone, gone gone? Here's how (with bonus ultra-violent erasure technique).

Capturing Internet audio

Christopher Breen — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:06:00 -0700

You have an audio editor and Internet audio you'd like to capture. How? Like so.

Bugs & Fixes: Apple TV deletes files

Ted Landau — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:27:00 -0700

Has iTunes started unexpectedly copying several hundred files to your Apple TV when you try syncing your set-top box? It's happened to Ted Landau, so he does some digging to find out the cause.

Splitting and archiving iPhoto libraries

Christopher Breen — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:00:00 -0700

You say your iPhoto library is unwieldy? Here's how to split it into smaller libraries.

Resolving iPhoto library size discrepancy

Christopher Breen — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:26:00 -0700

iPhoto indicates you have 2GB of images yet the iPhoto Library item is 6GB. Why?

Bugs & Fixes: Fixes for iLife problems

Ted Landau — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:40:00 -0700

Ted Landau looks at solutions to a pair of potential problems Apple has identified with the iLife suite.

Leopard's upgrade options

Christopher Breen — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:03:00 -0700

Reader Lois is ready to upgrade to Leopard and is concerned that her beloved copy of AppleWorks might not survive the process.

The Button as last resort

Christopher Breen — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:58:00 -0700

When a device has given up the ghost, the press of a couple of key buttons could put things right.

Bugs & Fixes: Solving Twitter problems

Ted Landau — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:17:00 -0700

Ted Landau looks at a trio of problems you might have run into if you use the popular microblogging service Twitter.

Reposition Mail's preview pane

Christopher Breen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:17:00 -0700

Care to take advantage of your expansive wide monitor by moving Mail's preview pane to the side? Here's how.

Animating the Desktop

Christopher Breen — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:01:00 -0700

Tired of a static Desktop? Here are a few ways to put it in motion.

Bugs & Fixes: Winning the clone wars

Ted Landau — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:27:00 -0700

Making a clone backup of your startup drive is a good ideal, but it can lead to hassles if some software on your drive is unable to figure out that the startup drive and its clone are two different volumes. Ted Landau works his way through one such hassle.

Bugs & Fixes: Solving a mysterious plug-in crash

Ted Landau — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:06:00 -0700

Ted Landau uses Leopard's improved crash message, the Console utility, and a little bit of luck to find out what was causing some software on his Mac to crash.

Formatting a flash drive

Christopher Breen — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:15:00 -0700

You've got a fistful of USB flash drives that you'd like to reformat and use for your own purposes. Here's how.

Bugs & Fixes: OS X 10.5.7's ups and downs

Ted Landau — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:11:00 -0700

As you might expect, this week's OS X 10.5.7 included an assortment of bug fixes. But finding out the specifics of those fixes can be a daunting task.

iCal, iPhone, and the disappearing senior citizens

Christopher Breen — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:26:00 -0700

Are the birthdays of your well-seasoned friends and relatives refusing to sync with your iPhone? Here's why and how to work around it.

Add enhanced audio track to iMovie

Christopher Breen — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:51:00 -0700

I've told you how to extract audio files from iMovie projects. Here's the way to put them back.

Bugs & Fixes: Crash and relaunch doesn't work as expected

Ted Landau — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:15:00 -0700

Ted Landau notes a difference with how Mac OS X Leopard behaves when an app unexpectedly quits.

Capturing video over HDMI

Christopher Breen — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:38:00 -0700

You say you'd like to capture uncompressed HD video from your camera or camcorder? With a card, a Mac Pro, and a disk array, you can.

Common cures for a slowzy Mozy

Christopher Breen — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:18:00 -0700

Mozy seems to have forgotten that it's already backed up my data. A Twitter gripe brings helpful advice.

Bugs & Fixes: APC battery backups and Intel Macs with Leopard

Ted Landau — Fri, 01 May 2009 05:42:00 -0700

If you own an Intel-based Mac running a recent version of Mac OS X 10.5, battery backups from American Power Conversion could give you grief. Ted Landau has the details.

Remotely fixing the family printer

Christopher Breen — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:09:00 -0700

You've been there. Your mother/father/son/daughter/second-cousin-twice-removed has a computer problem. It's your job to fix it because you can.

iMovie and the uncooperative camera

Christopher Breen — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:04:00 -0700

You've just purchased a spiffy new HD camcorder yet iMovie ’09 refuses to see its footage. Here are hints for finding and importing it.

Bugs & Fixes: Save As bugs in Safari 4 beta

Ted Landau — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:42:00 -0700

Every beta has bugs. But there's a bug with the Safari 4 beta's Save As command that's so annoying, Ted Landau can't ignore it.

Managing an iWeb site from multiple Macs

Christopher Breen — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:49:00 -0700

You have two Macs and one iWeb site. How do you update the site from each Mac and keep the two in sync? Like so.

Setting up an AirPort disk

Christopher Breen — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:41:00 -0700

You have an AirPort Extreme Base Station and a USB hard drive. Now what?

Bugs & Fixes: Locate missing sound files in GarageBand

Ted Landau — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:15:00 -0700

If you're getting "Audio file... not found" error messages in GarageBand, Ted Landau has a delightfully simple way to solve the problem.

Preventing regrettable e-mail messages

Christopher Breen — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:30:00 -0700

Our reader, like you, has sent The Regrettable Message. Here are tips for avoiding doing so in the future.

Filling in PDF forms

Christopher Breen — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:25:00 -0700

It's tax time and you've got a load of tax forms in PDF format to fill in. What's the best way? Not Pages.