doc_Babad's Macintosh Tips - A Macintosh Tip or Three… By Harry {doc} Babad
Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies

This month I continue sharing my occasional tip related finds with you. Most, but not all of the Tips I share come from — Paul Taylor’s Hints&Tips column at http://www.mac-hints-tips.com and are used with his permission. Where I use any tips for this column, I acknowledge both their source and their contributors.

Oh, I almost forgot! Unless otherwise noted, all the tips and tidbits I share, where appropriate, work on my computer. If I don’t own the software, but the tip sounds interesting, I’ll so note.

The software related tips were tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under Macintosh OS X OS X 10.4.5.

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Dodgy Discs from PC-using Friends

Q: I routinely receive large files on CDs that were created on a Windows PC, and those discs fail to mount on my Mac. What instructions can I give those Windows users so that the discs they send me will mount on my Mac? ~ Gregory Payne

A: Politely ask your PC pals to stop using Roxio’s DirectCD or Drag-to-Disc utilities to burn their discs. These programs support packet writing, which allows you to burn files to a CD-R or CD-RW multiple times using a file format called UDF (Universal Disc Format).

This format is a convenient way to append files to a disc designed as write-once, but discs produced using it are not Mac-compatible. Discs made by other means on the PC will almost certainly be burned in the ISO 9660 format, which the Mac understands completely. If the disc format doesn’t appear to be the problem, check the kind of media people are sending you. The Mac loves CD-R media, but can act finicky with CD-RW discs. Chris Breen’s Mac 911 via The Finder, Mid-Columbia MUG, Kennewick, WA http://mac-hints-tips.com/mar2006_tips.htm

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Reindex Spotlight

Q: How can I make Spotlight start over with its indexing, or at least force it to reindex a particular volume, without reinstalling Tiger? - Steve Osborn

A: If you can’t find what you’re looking for when you search with Spotlight, you may want to create a new index of your hard disk. But try a couple of things first: use Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities) to repair your file permissions, in case mucked-up permissions are the problem. (Launch the program, select the disk from the list, and click on Repair Disk Permissions.) Also, if you’ve recently indexed the drive, wait another day or so. Spotlight might not have finished indexing the drive even though you’ve been able to use it. If your searches still don’t work, then try this: Open the Spotlight preference pane, click on the Privacy tab, click on the plus sign (+), and add the volume you want to reindex. Wait about five minutes, select the volume in the Privacy list, and click on the minus sign (–) to remove it. Spotlight will index the volume again from the ground up.www.macworld.com

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Cursing the Cursor

Q:  I just purchased my first Mac after using Windows for many years. I would like to replace my arrow cursor with something bigger and perhaps with a different picture. How do I do this? - Joe Robertson

A:  Joe, better that I break it to you, than a passing stranger in a Wi-Fi coffee shop: most Mac users would no more replace Apple’s elegant black arrow cursor with some pixelated sparkler than we would slap rouge and lipstick on the Venus de Milo.

But que será, será. You can change your Mac’s cursor with the help of Unsanity’s Mighty Mouse ($10; macworld.com/0900; http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/mightymouse). This haxie, or small bit of code written to tweak OS X, allows you to customize the Mac’s built-in cursors, turning your wait cursor into a wiggling mermaid or a purple bouncing alien, for instance. Mighty Mouse lets you choose additional cursor images from sites such as ResExcellence (resexcellence.com/cursors). You can even import cursors designed for Windows XP (macworld.com/0901).

If, after reflection, all you want is a big cursor, change it by going to the Universal Access preference pane, clicking on Mouse, and adjusting the Cursor Size slider. Christopher Breen Mac 911, Macworld, February 2006 www.macworld.com

Folks, I use Mighty Mouse, it’s a great Unsanity Haxie — doc.

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Different Audio CD Formats and Quality

Anyone who has ripped an audio CD (that is, converted and imported its contents) in iTunes, knows what a simple process it can be. Insert the CD, wait for iTunes to download track information from the Internet, click on the Import button, and go about your business while iTunes does its business. What you may not know is that you have a choice when it comes to the format in which iTunes imports that CD. iTunes and the iPod support four audio formats — AIFF, WAV, MP3, and AAC. AIFF and WAV files are uncompressed and consume about   of hard-drive space for each minute of stereo audio. MP3 files are compressed (stripped of audio data considered to be less detectable to the human ear). With iTunes 4, Apple added a new audio-compression format: Dolby Laboratories’ Advanced Audio Coding (AAC).

By default, iTunes 4 rips CD audio files at 128 Kbps to about 7 percent of the original file size. But if you’re willing to trade hard-drive space for better sound quality, you may want to change iTunes’ default import settings. To do so, select Preferences from the iTunes menu and click on the Importing tab. Selecting  AIFF Encoder or  WAV Encoder from the Import Using pop-up menu provides you with full-quality, uncompressed music tracks — useful for purists — but these files will take up a load of space on your Mac or iPod. A better compromise is to leave AAC Encoder selected and bump up the resolution. To do this, select Custom from the Setting pop-up menu beneath AAC Encoder, and choose a higher bit rate from the Stereo Bit Rate pop-up menu. Apple Pickers MUG, Indianapolis, IN http://mac-hints-tips.com/mar2006_tips.htm

Also Check out From:  Just Say No To Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think by Tony Bove. No Starch Press http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/159327064X/ Chapter 6, Pages 128-131, for more details. As noted above, you will want to decide which encoder and settings to use before ripping (importing) CDs into music files. Your choice depends on the type of music, the source of the recording, and other factors, such as whether you plan to copy the songs to an iPod or burn an audio or MP3 CD. doc_Babad

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MS PowerPoint — Quite a Character

Q: I just upgraded to Microsoft PowerPoint 2004, and now, when I launch the program, I see an alert that displays what appear to be Asian characters and a message that claims this font is unavailable on my computer. My presentations don’t use this font, so why the substitution? ~ Ken Chupp

A: PowerPoint 2004 displays this error message when it’s missing an Asian font that is installed with OS X or a font that Microsoft Office installs when it first runs. The missing Apple font is likely to be Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro, and the Microsoft font is MS PMincho.

At this point, you have a couple of options. You can enable the fonts (or install them if they’re missing), or you can tell PowerPoint to live without them.

To instruct PowerPoint to proceed without certain fonts, open your PowerPoint presentation and choose Format: Replace Fonts. Select the Asian font in the Replace pop-up menu, choose something more appropriate in the With field (Times, for example), and click on Replace. The new font you’ve selected will replace all instances of the old one.

With luck, these fonts may still be on your Mac. To find out, launch Panther’s Font Book, select All Fonts from the Collection column, and peer into the Font column. If one or both fonts are disabled, select them and click on Enable.

If the Hiragino font is missing, you could get it back by reinstalling Mac OS X, but there’s an easier way. Download Charles Srstka’s $20 shareware utility Pacifist, and use it to extract the font from the Panther installer disc(s). You’ll find the font by following this path: Contents of OSInstall.mkpkg/Contents of EssentialSystemSoftware.mkpkg/Contents of Essentials.pkg! System/Library/Fonts.

Note that the font’s name includes a series of Japanese characters that you might not be able to read. The font you want has a name that ends with Pro W4.otf, and it weighs in at 9.6 MB. It normally lives in the Fonts folder within the System folder — a folder for which you lack permissions. If you’d rather not change those permissions, simply add the font to your user account’s Font folder (your user folder/Library/Fonts).

If the Microsoft font is missing, insert your Office 2004 disc, open the Microsoft Office 2004 folder, the Office folder therein, and then the Fonts folder inside that folder. Copy the MS PMincho font to your user account’s Fonts folder.  Chris Breen’s Mac 911 via TMUG Insider, Pleasanton, CA  March 2006 Hints & Tips 03/07/2006 12:18 PM http://mac-hints-tips.com/mar2006_tips.htm

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A Fix for shadowClipboard 2.0.4 and Tiger OS X  10.4.4

Q: I Upgraded to Tiger OS X 10.4.4 and shadowClipboard is broken. But first for our macC readers — shadowClipboard is a clipboard enhancer that remembers a user-definable number of items copied to the clipboard. It manages multiple clipboards in a convenient, unobtrusive way. It has a means of collecting items you want to reuse often as a separate collection within its main window. Great stuff for addresses, logos, and other items you need over and over again. It’s straightforward: copy something to the clipboard (Command C) while you working and shadowClipboard stores it for you. Click its icon in the Finder menu bar click on what you want to paste and there you be.

I have been a longtime user of the product. My work requires its use 5-30X a day. (See the macC review July 2005, Volume 3 Issue 7.) I had no problems with the product until I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4.4 Tiger. After the system update install (and reboot) [shadowClipboard is a startup item] shadowClipboard 2.0.4 disappeared from Finder Menu Bar. On attempting to reopen the application, the usual revolving beach ball starts and then disappears — a no starter. Deleting the application and doing a reinstall did not even allow me to reenter my password before the application blinked out of my menu bar. Deleting the .plst file or deleting and reinstalling the software did not help. Ben, can you help?

I've by now tested almost every multiple clipboard application that works in OS X and yours is the only one that I like. I'd hate to have to start using an inferior alternate product or, forgive the blasphemy, the office clipboard.

An email containing a fix arrived from Ben a day later:

A: I cannot verify your problem, as on our test systems the application does not produce said symptoms. However judging from your attached log entries a corrupted data file might be the problem. Please move the following items to a folder on your hard disk and try to launch shadowClipboard again. — Ben.

~/Library/Application Support/stupidFish23/shadowClipboard ~/Library/Preferences/com.stupidfish23.shadowclipboard.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.appsc.data.plist

The fix worked but of course wiped out my clipboard entries. But in a few days, I’d replaced them so I was in business again.

(Benjamin Salanki, StupidFish 23 Software, fish23@stupidfish23.com)

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Working With Locked Acrobat Files - PDF Skeleton Key

Q: How can I print or edit password-protected PDFs?

A: That depends on what exactly the password is protecting. If the PDF is locked so tight that you need a password to even open it, then sorry, no dice. If it’s simply locked against editing or printing, you can use PDFKey Pro www.pdfkey.tk create an identical, but copy of your PDF. This utility costs about $12 at press time.

MacAddict Magazine        http://mac-hints-tips.com/mar2006_tips.htm

Note I’ll be reviewing this product in an upcoming macCompanion so keep an eye out for it. Doc.

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It’s All About Those Caches Files Your System Installs, and Installs and… — So Cache Out

Mac OS X attempts to make your Mac more efficient by saving (or caching) frequently used data to keep it readily available. This is a great idea, and generally caching works quite well. However, like anything, data in the caches can become stale after a while, causing the as to stumble a bit. So clearing your caches out can be a good thing - as long as you're careful. The two main cache folders used by Mac OS X are Library/Caches and username/Library/Caches. Delete the contents of these folders (but not the folders themselves!) and reboot to rebuild them with fresh new data.

By deleting the contents of Mac OS X's cache folders. You can help clear out any old or erroneous data from the OS. — MacAddict October 2005. [I think this was the 911 Column – doc.]

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