Doc_Babad’s Macintosh Tips – A Macintosh Tip
or Three…
April 2009
Edition
By
Harry {doc} Babad ©
2009 |
|
Product
and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of
their respective companies.
Reviews were carried out on my iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
with 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM running Mac OS X version 10.5.6. |
Disclaimer
and Boiler Plate:
When briefly reviewing share-freeware I will often use the developers’
product, functions and features descriptions. All other comments are strictly
my own and based on testing. Why
need I rewrite the developers’ narratives, if they are clearly written? |
Acknowledgements
— As the occasion warrants, some of the Tips I share come from Paul
Taylor's Hints & Tips column http://www.mac-hints-tips.com/, and are used with his permission. If you
have tips to share send them to Paul — paul@mac-hints-tips.com. I also use user group published tips with
their consent if I can make the contact with the appropriate officer. Where I use any one else’s tips for
this column, I acknowledge both their source and their contributors. Yes, I do
write down and share some of the tips I’ve discovered while Macin’ around. If a
tip or hint comes from a more traditional commercial source, I both
acknowledged that fact and almost always modify the tip to personalize it for
our readers
Where
a sentence or paragraph is italicized, it’s my contribution unless other wise
noted. 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
if the tip sounds interesting, I'll so note that information at the end of that
specific write-up.
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Tips
I’ve provided this month, as always in a random order, include:
- Find Out How To Do; Do Whatever on Your Macintosh
- Google—An Inadvertent
Wild Card Spelling Checker and Dictionary
- Causes of Hard Drive
Failures
- Change Graphics
Formats Easily
- Use Email Aliases to
Avoid Spam
- Why You Don’t Want to
Use Any Old Ink in Your Inkjet Printer
- De-Cluttering Your Physical
US Mailbox
- A File Selection Trick for
Finder windows
- Converting JPG Image Collections to a single PDF “Book”
- Displaying the Date on the Macintosh’s Menu Bar
- Using a Backup Versus Cloning Your Drives
- Checking Combined File Sizes
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Find Out How To Do; Whatever on Your Macintosh
While a
good book is arguably the best medium for learning new things about your Mac,
it can be good to have easily accessible, bite-sized pieces of information that
provide an illustrated introduction to various
topics. Apple has recently consolidated its copious and varied tutorial
materials, both text and video, in a website at www.apple.com/findouthow. So if a retail store and the genius bar are
not available, don’t fear Apple’s still here.
Note: In browsing the introductory “Basics” page with
its many links below the main graphic, don’t overlook the fact that there are
links to other main sections of the site (Photos, Movies, Web, Music etc.)
above that graphic. Each page on the site has considerable depth; so don’t
forget to scroll down as you browse.
It
would certainly take quite a while to chew through all that’s there. Just be
mindful of your download allowance if you enjoy the videos!
AUSOM News, Melbourne,
Australia
Courtesy:
Paul Taylor Hints & Tips February 2009
paul@mac-hints-tips.com
Google—An
Inadvertent Wild Card Spelling Checker and Dictionary
Do you
ever find yourself in the following circumstances?
§
A word you spelled so badly that
none of your spell checkers can handle it?
§ A
foreign language phase that you can’t quite spell correctly?
§ An
exotic ingredient in a recipe that you can’t identify or find a substitute?
Play a
wild card — Google it! It
works for me most of the time. For misspelled words or phrases, you usually get
a did you mean alternative that is usually correct. It’s much faster
than trial and error in a dictionary or thesaurus.
At
times, for recipe ingredients, Google provides the description/definition
either as a Wikipedia link or in a link to a cooking dictionary or glossary.
This beats the heck out of sequentially checking the 26 Food Dictionary, Cooking Glossary, Culinary Terms & Cooking
Definitions sites I’ve bookmarked. On the
other hand, as an aside when indeed to do conversion in a recipe from metric to
English units, I still use a Cooking Conversions—Cooking Calculator. Standard calculators, even the one in Google are too much
fuss. For example, rösti is a Swedish Latke, potato pancake or Frittata; Aubergine, or brinjal are
eggplants, and a Courgette is a zucchini.
As far as the foreign language names and phases, that taking
potluck — but better than any alternative I found. [joi de vivre is spelled
Joie De Vivre (Joy of Life)] and [Bistecche alla Pizzaiola are Sicilian Sirloin
Steaks in Tomato Caper & Olive Sauce.]
Harry {doc} Babad
www.macCompanion.com
Causes of Hard Drive
Failures
An article in the Proceedings of the 5th USENIX
Conference on File and Storage Technologies this month offers perhaps the most
in-depth study of hard drive failures to date.
Google uses hundreds of thousands of hard drives to
store its data, and a sample of one hundred thousand of Google’s drives was
studied for five years to determine common causes of failure. Since this very
interesting article is a little dense to read in its entirety, I thought you
would enjoy reading some highlights.
Going against conventional thought, the study
determined that increased temperature and/or activity had little or no
correlation to failure rate. By extension, it was found that drives spinning up
and spinning down most often had the highest failure rates. This means it’s
best to uncheck the “Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible” box in Energy
Saver — at least in terms of hard drive health.
Some SMART (self monitoring and reporting
technology) parameters are excellent indicators of impending mechanical
failure. Among failed drives, a good chunk gave no warning by SMART, even
though SMART- monitored parameters were to blame for failure.
For this reason, SMART is most useful as a
statistical predictor of failure for a population of drives rather than on
individual devices. With that in mind, if your drive reports SMART errors you
should at the very least immediately perform a full backup.
About 3% of drives failed in the first three
months, 1.8% in the first 6 months, and 1.7% in the first year. From there,
failure rates jump to approximately 8% in the second year, 9% in the third
year, fall to 6% in the fourth year, and jump back to 7% in the fifth year. The
whole article can be read at:
Matt Klein Small Dog Electronics
http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf
Courtesy:
Paul Taylor November 2008
paul@mac-hints-tips.com
Change Graphics Formats
Easily
If you want to change the format of almost any
graphic, drop it on the icon of Preview in the Dock. Pull down Preview’s File
menu to Save As, and you will see options to change the format to TIFF, JPEG,
Photoshop and several others. Various other options will appear below the
Format: item, depending on which format you chose for your image.
Doc Sez — I prefer to use my old standby,
Lemke Software’s Shareware GraphicConverter, now version 6.4. http://www.lemkesoft.com/content/193/key-features.html In addition to graphic format
conversions, it has as my rich features for graphics manipulation as Adobe’s
Photoshop Elements
Phil Russell
Mouse Droppings, Corvallis OR
Use Email Aliases to
Avoid Spam
For quite a while now the .Mac service has allowed
you to create aliases for your email account. This means that you can create up
to five alternative email addresses that all forward the mail they receive to
your main .Mac email address inbox.
The greatest benefit of these aliases is their
ability to protect your main address from spam. For example, you can use an
alias to sign up to websites, forums, and newsletters. If the alias becomes
flooded with junk mail, it is easy to just delete it and create a new one.
Mail 2.0 (bundled with Mac OS X) provides a simple
way to manage your email aliases. In Mail, click on the Mail menu and choose
Preferences (Command/comma (,)). In the Accounts tab select your .Mac account
and click on “Edit Email Aliases.” This will open up the .Mac Webmail
preferences. (You may be prompted for your .Mac password.) Scroll down to the
bottom where you can add e-mail aliases and change their colors.
After you save the settings here, messages sent to
the aliases will be forwarded to your .Mac inbox. Moreover, when composing
messages in Mail, you have the ability to send messages from these aliases by
selecting the relevant alias from the drop down menu.
macosxhints.com
via MacCHUG Line, Macintosh Chico UG, Oroville CA
Courtesy: Paul Taylor
— November
2008
paul@mac-hints-tips.com
Why You Don’t Want to
Use Any Old Ink in Your Inkjet Printer
Inkjet is NOT merely spraying “paint” like painting
a house, where any wood will take any paint.
Inkjet printing is based on a complex chemical bond,
wherein the ink itself (which is either dye-based or pigment based) is
chemically designed to adhere best to a substrate, which has a complimentary
chemical surface coating.
Think of it as glue, if need be. We all know that
some glues are for wood; some are for plastic; and some are for fabrics, and
some are for metal.
Yes, you can glue two pieces of metal together with
wood glue. If it holds at all, however, the bond will be weaker and less
durable than if you’d used the proper metal glue.
There is nothing stopping you
from using one glue where another is recommended, just as there is nothing
stopping you from using one set of inks with a different set of papers.
But if you want durable, long-lasting results,
you’ll choose the proper combination of inks and papers: They are chemically
designed to go together.
For more information, visit either the Epson or
Canon site, or go to www.wilhelm-research.com.
Incidentally, those little “snapshot” printers, usually
limited to 4 x 6 prints, are the worst when it comes to longevity. If you want prints to pass to your
grandkids, choose a better printer.
TechX 18 by Tracy Valleau
Mouse
Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea, OH
Courtesy: Paul Taylor
— November
2008
paul@mac-hints-tips.com
De-Cluttering
Your Physical US Mailbox
Remember when going
through the mail was a thrill? These days Americans get an average of 18 pieces
of junk mail for every personal letter. From catalogs to credit card
solicitations, our mailboxes are increasingly clogged with clutter. Dealing
with unwanted mail not only wastes our time (eight months over the average
lifespan) but also bears environmental costs. Paper spam eats up an estimated
100 million trees each year, with 44% of junk mail ending up--unopened--in
landfills.
To address the
problem, Forest Ethics, a San Francisco--based environmental group, has
launched a national Do Not Mail campaign, modeled on the successful Do Not Call
Registry. So far, 19 states have debated Do Not Mail proposals. But none has
passed--and who knows if any ever will. Will Craven, a spokesman for Forest
Ethics, says that's partly because marketers pour millions of dollars--and
lobbying savvy into manipulating our mail: "We now have a runaway supply
of junk in the face
of shrinking and even resentful demand.
For
example, the city of Denver has a stamp out junk mail program. Specifically Denver Recycles
offers a free Junk Mail Reduction Kit to Denver residents. The kit is now a
series of pre-addressed letters to the largest direct mail companies in the
United States. Check out http://www.denvergov.org/recnew/JunkMailKit/tabid/425971/Default.aspx
One reason
politicians may be unlikely to declare war on direct mail is that it yields an
estimated $646 billion a year in sales. (The magazine industry, including TIME
Inc., which publishes TIME, makes frequent use of direct mail.) "Mail
works," says Don McKenzie, CEO of Direct Group, a direct-marketing
company. "It's one of the best advertising methods out there." Which
means that free-market solutions are likely to remain your best ally in
combating mailbox mess.
A
slew of new services aim to give you at least some control over what mail you
receive. One of the most popular, CatalogChoice.org focuses on ridding your
mailbox of unwanted catalogs. You tell the nonprofit which ones you want to
stop getting, and the site will contact mailers on your behalf. More than a
million people have signed up since the free service was launched last year,
and it has no doubt lightened many a mailbox. But the site isn't perfect. For
starters, some companies simply ignore its entreaties. Others beg you to let
them send at least one catalog a year.
Junk
mail — it won't go away on its own. Marketing organizations are experts
at finding you and sending you the catalogs, offers, and promotional mailings
that clog your mailbox. Odds are good that if you do nothing, your junk mail
pile — and recycling bin — will continue to grow.
That's why
there is MailStopper, [http://mailstopper.tonic.com/] the leading junk mail
reduction service. MailStopper service. For $20 a year, combines an in-depth
knowledge of the direct marketing industry, effective partnerships and proven
processes into a comprehensive solution that gets rid of your junk mail, once
and for all.
Jeremy
Caplan notes if $20 seems like a lot of green, ProQuo.com is the most
comprehensive free service. Type in your name and address, and the site lets
you opt out of credit-card solicitations, catalogs, Valpak coupons, sweepstakes
announcements and other postal plaque. In addition to eliminating unwanted
mail, the company plans to generate ad revenue by letting consumers specify the
kind of offers they actually want to receive. What a novel concept.
P.S.
Doc
found one blogger has an even more interesting simple solution. “Just Say No: I have a
secondary strategy to rid our family of excess mailings now that I feel freedom
is in sight. I just printed up a bunch of quick notes to send in the
postage-paid envelopes that are often enclosed with junk mailings. Feel free to
copy the text of the note below. You’ll notice that it’s a bit snarly, but
sometimes that’s what it takes to get off the list!” http://greenbabyguide.com/2008/03/
By Jeremy Caplan — Thursday, Dec. 04,
2008
Excepted, In Part, from Time Magazine
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1864428,00.html
A
File Selection Trick for Finder windows
Here’s
a simple hint (that many long-time Mac users may already know) for navigating
Finder windows in anything other than Column View mode. As you’re probably
aware, you can use the Finder’s View -> Show View Options menu to control
the sort order for Finder windows. If you’re working in a client’s folder, for
example, you might want to sort by date, so that the client’s newest files
appear at the top of the file list.
But
when working in such a view, what do you do if you want to find a file that may
be named similarly to one near the top of the list? Perhaps you keep multiple
copies of design variations, for instance. Sure, you could reach for the mouse
or use the arrow keys to move through the files one by one, but that’s time
consuming.
Instead, try this trick: just press the Tab key.
When
you press Tab, the Finder will automatically select the next file in the
current folder based on sorting by name, regardless of what sort order you’ve
applied to that folder. If you press Shift-Tab, the Finder will select the
previous file based on sorting by name. (You can also use the first few letters
of a file’s name to select it, of course, but that won’t let you easily browse
all the files in the folder in name order.) Each time you press Tab (or
Shift-Tab) again, the Finder jumps to the next (or previous) file, again using
a name-based sort. (In column view windows, the Tab key won’t work in this
manner.)
If you
remember this simple technique, you can keep key folders sorted the way you
wish, and yet still have a relatively easy way to browse the folder’s contents
based on filenames.
By Rob Griffiths May 29, 2008 —
Macworld.com
Converting JPG Image Collections to a single PDF “Book” — Let’s get it all together.
Wayne
LeFevre of macC recently asked: “I'm trying to take a bunch of JPGs and turn
them into a PDF type book. Any suggestions? I have a bunch of old
magazines that I have only the articles of interests saved in a jpg per page
format. I would like to put them all together into one PDF. Sort of a best
of the bunch type collection.“
Our
jonhoyle@mac.com responded — You could paste each image into a Word
document, placing page breaks between them, and then print to PDF. Alternatively, you could place all your
images inside a folder, open GraphicConverter and select "Print Folder"
and the Print to PDF.
Doc_Babad
noted — Batch convert them using Adobe Acrobat 8 or 9 Pro. After that you can use the software to
Pro trim, page-by-page unfortunately, any unneeded material from the new
consolidated PDF. {Acrobat 8 or 9 > File Menu > Create PDF > From
Multiple Files.}
There are
a number of shareware tools that will also do this but I've not checked them
out Just check out the MacUpdate web site after searching PDF.
Macupdate.com
Harry, aka
doc Babad
macCompanion Staff
Displaying the Date on the Macintosh’s Menu Bar
The date can appear in your menu bar without
installing another piece of software. It can be added manually in System
Preferences although it is not an obvious checkbox or dropdown option. Follow
these step-by-step instructions:
1. Open System
Preferences (located under the Apple Menu at the upper left)
2. Open International
(under the Personal section)
3. Click on the Formats
tab.
4. In the Dates row,
click on Customize.
5. Arrange your date in
the format you want to appear on your menu bar by rearranging each item within
the blue box. Use the down arrows on each element to choose between formats
(January, Jan, 01,1, etc.)
6. Select the entire
date format within the blue box (CMD + A) and copy it to your clipboard (CMD +
C). Click OK.
7. In the Times row,
click the Customize button.
8. Next to Show: using
the up/down arrows, choose “Medium.”
9. Paste the date format
(CMD + V) next to the time format, and click OK. Your date will now appear next
to the time in your menu bar.
It works!
QuadStar — A Broadview
Heights, Ohio, company
Courtesy: Paul Taylor Hints &
Tips — October 2008
paul@mac-hints-tips.com
Using a Backup Versus Cloning Your Drives — To Do or What to do?
When
you clone a hard drive, you are making an exact duplicate. Since this new
duplicate is like the original in every way, you can use it just like the
original. All of your files, the operating system, and applications will be
exactly where you expect to find them. In most cases, your drive clone is
bootable as well, so you can use it in place of the original if you need to.
Carbon
Copy Cloner, from Bombich Software, is one application that can handle drive
cloning without any problem. If CCC isn’t your style, another nice option is
SuperDuper, from shirt-pocket software.
Backup in simple terms — Backing up involves
duplicating critical files so that if the originals are lost or damaged, the
copies are available to take their place. If you aren’t following a regular and
reliable backup routine, you will lose important files. It’s only a matter of
time.
While a cloned hard drive does make a perfectly fine
backup, it’s usually more efficient to copy only the files that have changed
since your last backup. That’s where backup applications come in handy: They
track your changed files and back them up on a regular basis so you don’t have
to remember to do it yourself.
Both
Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper offer data backup options along with their
cloning features. Mac users can also take advantage of Apple’s Backup
application — it has been serving me well for some time. After installing
Leopard,
Time
Machine is an option, too. — My
personal routine includes nightly backups to an external hard drive, weekly
backups to my Mac account, and twice-monthly backups to DVD. I don’t like to lose
data.
Making
sure you have extra copies of your important files, either through backing up
or cloning, needs to be a regular part of your computing routine. Even though
things tend to go smoothly when installing new versions of Mac OS X, it’s a
really good idea to backup the files you can’t afford to lose — you never
know when something unexpected will happen and things go horribly wrong.
The
moral of this story: Backup your files or lose them.
Jeff Garnet — The Mac Observer via
Mouse Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea, OH
Courtesy: Paul Taylor Hints & Tips — October 2008
paul@mac-hints-tips.com
Checking Combined File Sizes
Let’s
say you have several files on your desktop, and before you copy them all onto
your jump drive, you want to find out their combined size.
Here’s how it’s done: Select all the files for which you
want the combined size, then press Command/Option/I, which brings up the Multiple
Item Info dialog, complete with a list of how many files are selected and their
combined size.
TechX 18 via Mouse Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea,
OH
Courtesy: Paul Taylor Hints & Tips — October 2008
paul@mac-hints-tips.com
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That’s
all folks…
Harry {doc} Babad
