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August 29th, 2007

iLife ‘08 Updates as of August 29, 2007

Information from Software Update.

The following iLife ’08 Updates have been made available as of August 29, 2007:

iWeb Update 2.0.1 addresses issues with upgrading and publishing iWeb 1.x websites. iPhoto Update 7.0.2 addresses issues associated with publishing to .Mac Web Gallery, rebuilding thumbnails, and editing books. It also addresses a number of other

Continue reading iLife ‘08 Updates as of August 29, 2007

August 28th, 2007

Web Site Redesign: Fitting in My Photos

With 90+ photos appearing randomly in my old site’s header, I wasn’t about to leave them behind.

One of the reasons I chose the Cutline 3 Column Right theme for my site’s redesign is because I wanted a three column layout that was wider than my old site. Studies — including stats from all

Continue reading Web Site Redesign: Fitting in My Photos

August 28th, 2007

WordPress 2.3 Beta I Now Available

A rough cut, for serious beta testers.

WordPress 2.3 Beta I is now available for testing. From the announcement post:

Some of the features of 2.3 include plugin and core update notification, built-in tags support, faster javascript, and SEO-friendly URL redirection….However all of the new functionality is still very rough, so only test the

Continue reading WordPress 2.3 Beta I Now Available

August 27th, 2007

Web Tools: Color Wizard

An online tool helps a non-designer pick a color scheme for a new blog.

I am not color blind. I know I’m not. I see colors and I know when certain colors look good together. But I can’t, for the life of me, come up with a color scheme on my own.

Color, of

Continue reading Web Tools: Color Wizard

August 26th, 2007

Fixing Post By E-Mail In WordPress 2.2

And some other information you might find useful.

I finally upgraded my personal blog to the latest version of WordPress, which is version 2.2.2 (as I write this). In addition to breaking a handful of my plugins — not a big deal, since I was able to replace just about all of them with

Continue reading Fixing Post By E-Mail In WordPress 2.2

August 21st, 2007

Peachpit Launches New Web Site

And offers 40% discounts on books purchased online.

Just a quick note to pass along some info I got in e-mail from Peachpit Press, one of my publishers.

Over the last several months, you’ve been talking and now it’s our chance to show you that we’ve been listening. You told us you wanted better

Continue reading Peachpit Launches New Web Site

August 21st, 2007

Beware of the Latest Scam

Confirmation e-mails from sites you never joined.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail message that went something like this:

From: [omitted] Subject: Member Confirm Date: August 20, 2007 9:05:49 PM MST To: [omitted]

Welcome,

Thank You for Joining Web Cooking.

Confirmation Number: 769799922 Temorary Login: user4129 Password ID: qb371

Your temporary Login Info will expire

Continue reading Beware of the Latest Scam

August 18th, 2007

Changing the Order of Menu Icons in Mac OS X

Put them in any order you like.

Here’s a quick tip from my Tiger book that I didn’t remember until I stumbled on it today. More proof that writing a book about something doesn’t mean you remember everything in it.

You can change the order of the icon menus on the far right end

Continue reading Changing the Order of Menu Icons in Mac OS X

August 14th, 2007

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.7 Update

Information from the Microsoft Web Site.

This update fixes a vulnerability that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code. For more information about this update, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article (KB940763).

System requirements

Before you install this update, make sure that the Microsoft Office 2004

Continue reading Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.7 Update

August 14th, 2007

Boot Camp and Partitioned Disks

“This startup disk is not supported.”

I just learned that Boot Camp cannot be installed on a Mac with a partitioned hard disk.

The error message I got was:

I wasted close to an hour trying to troubleshoot this problem before I found the answer hidden away in the documentation. (Duh-uh.)

From the

Continue reading Boot Camp and Partitioned Disks

August 13th, 2007

Why I Use a Test Mule

One good reason not to load beta operating system software on a computer with real data on it.

Today, while working with a certain beta operating system, I managed to lock myself out of my user account.

Well, I didn’t do the locking. The computer did. An error occurred as I was logging in,

Continue reading Why I Use a Test Mule

August 13th, 2007

Choosing Your Mac OS Startup Disk on the Fly

For folks who have two operating systems installed on their computer.

My “test mule” these days is a MacBook Pro. (I use the term “test mule” to identify the computer I use to run software on when I’m writing books and articles.) In preparation for writing a book about Leopard while I still had

Continue reading Choosing Your Mac OS Startup Disk on the Fly

August 10th, 2007

Ten Dashboard Widgets I Can’t Live Without

What’s on my Mac.

Continue reading Ten Dashboard Widgets I Can’t Live Without

August 6th, 2007

Mail Stop Working? Here’s a Fix.

What to do if your ISP blocks Port 25.

A few months ago, I was suddenly unable to send e-mail from my computer. And I hadn’t changed a thing.

The problem wasn’t just my desktop computer. It was also my laptop and my husband’s laptop. The computers could receive e-mail. And they could access

Continue reading Mail Stop Working? Here’s a Fix.

August 4th, 2007

Mac OS X Fonts: Some Good Reference Material

More reading material for Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard Users.

I’ve been hard at work on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide these past few days and I see at least a month more of work ahead of me. The book’s a complete rewrite of the Tiger edition and I’m eager

Continue reading Mac OS X Fonts: Some Good Reference Material

August 2nd, 2007

iTunes 7.3.2 Now Available

Information from Software Update.

With iTunes 7.3, you can now activate iPhone service and sync it with your music, TV shows, movies and more. Also, you can now wirelessly share and enjoy your favorite digital photos from any computer in your home with Apple TV.

iTunes 7.3.2 provides bug fixes to improve stability and performance.

August 2nd, 2007

Twit This

A service that makes it easy to post links on Twitter.

I recently found Twit This, a Web site that enables you to post any URL to Twitter as a tweet.

Here’s How It Works

When you browse to a Web page you want to share with your Twitter followers, you invoke Twit This.

Continue reading Twit This

August 1st, 2007

300 Mac Tips

Miraz makes a milestone.

Just a quick note to you Mac OS users out there…

Miraz Jordan, who co-authored WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide with me last year, has just released the 300th issue of her Mac Tips newsletter. In case you’re wondering how long it takes to issue 300 Mac Tips, Miraz has

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August 1st, 2007

Can YOUR Mouse Last 18 Years?

Jo’s did.

The call came early this morning. It was Jo, at the radio station.

“I was working on invoices on my Mac,” she told me. “And my mouse just died. Do you have a spare one?”

Jo’s Mac is a Mac IIci. We’re talking a circa 1989 computer. She still uses it every

Continue reading Can YOUR Mouse Last 18 Years?

August 1st, 2007

Security Update 2007-007 Now Available

Information from Software Update

Security Update 2007-007 is recommended for all users and improves the security of the following components:

bzip2 CFNetwork Core Audio cscope gnuzip Kerberos mDNSResponder PDFKit PHP Quartz Composer samba WebKit WebCore

Security Update 2007-006 has been incorporated into this security update.

For detailed information on this update, please visit

Continue reading Security Update 2007-007 Now Available