Category Archives: Mac OS

Content related to Mac OS.

Repair Your Hard Disk with Disk First Aid

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How to launch Disk Utility so you can use its First Aid features on your internal hard disk.

Note: This article is an update of one I wrote way back when Mac OS X 10.3 Panther was released. The instructions here apply to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and will likely apply to most future versions of Mac OS.

Disk Utility IconMac OS X includes a utility called Disk Utility, which can be found in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder. This program offers features for verifying and repairing permissions and disks, erasing and partitioning volumes, creating and working with disk images, and using RAID.

Disk First Aid

Of this bunch, the First Aid features of Disk Utility are something you might want to check out if you haven’t already. I like to use this feature to clean up file permissions and repair minor directory damage on my hard disks on a regular basis. The trouble is, to use the disk repair features on your startup disk, you can’t start up from that disk or run the software from that disk.

And therein lies the problem: how do you repair your hard disk with Disk Utility if you can’t access the repair feature when you start it from your hard disk?

The answer is on your Mac OS X installation DVD. That disc, which includes the Disk Utility software, can be used to start your computer.

Those of you who have above average knowledge of the installation discs may be scratching your heads. You know that when you start a computer with a Mac OS X installation disc, the Installer application automatically runs. When you use the Installer’s Quit Installer command, the Finder does not appear. Instead, the installer tells you it will restart your computer. So how do you launch Disk Utility?

I’ll tell you.

First of all, you know how to restart your computer from a bootable DVD, right? Insert the DVD and then do one of the following:

  • Use the Startup Disk pane of the System Preferences application to identify the disc as your startup disk.
  • Restart your computer with the Option key held down, select the DVD when the startup disk icons appear, and press Return.
  • Restart your computer with the C key held down.

Wait for your computer to restart from the DVD. Then:

  1. In the first dialog that appears, select your language and click the forward arrow button.
  2. Wait while the installer prepares the installation. Don’t worry; it’s not changing anything on your hard disk.
  3. When the menu bar appears, choose Utilities > Disk Utility.

Disk Utility opens. You can then use its First Air features on your internal hard disk.

When you’re finished:

  1. Choose Disk Utility > Quit Disk Utility or press Command-Q to quit.
  2. When the installer appears, choose Utilities > Startup Disk.
  3. When Startup Disk appears, select your hard disk icon and click Restart.
  4. Click Restart in the confirmation dialog that appears.

Your computer restarts from your hard disk.

It’s in the Book!

Snow Leopard Book CoverYou can find more information about hard disks and using Disk Utility with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide.:

  • Storage Media is covered in Chapter 6, pages 97-126.
  • Mac OS Utilities is covered in Chapter 24, pages 569-594.

Switching to the Mini Player in iTunes 9

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Don’t you hate it when they change the way something works?

I updated to iTunes 9 while on the road. This afternoon, as I prepare to get some work done in my hotel room, I fired up iTunes on my MacBook Pro for a little background music. I only have about 900 songs on this computer, but that’s enough to keep me satisfied while I work.

I started up iTunes, clicked OK when it told me it couldn’t connect to the iTunes Store, and started up the music. I then clicked on the zoom button in the title bar to get the mini player window.

But the window zoomed, like any other window. No mini player window.

iTunes Mini Player

In iTunes, clicking the green zoom button always toggled the window between a regular iTunes window and the mini player. For years. I clicked it about six times, thinking I was missing something. I wasn’t.

The yellow minimize button didn’t display it either. No big surprise there. I didn’t bother clicking the red close button.

I then spent the next three minutes hunting down the setting that would get me the mini player window. I checked the obvious places — well, obvious to me, anyway — including the Window menu and preferences. I finally found it and its shortcut key listed under the view menu: Switch to Mini Player or Shift-Command-M.

Problem solved.

But don’t you hate it when they change the way things work?

September 22, 2009 Update: I don’t know if it’s my imagination or not, but with the release of the iTunes 9.0.1 update, this “problem” seems to have gone away. The green zoom button now works just like it used to. That’s got me wondering: did Apple “fix” it because they realized it was “broken” or did they change it back because so many people were whining about it?

Mac OS: Ejecting a Disc So You Can Start from Another

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Eject a disc so you can insert the disc you want to start from.

Here’s the scenario:

You want to install Snow Leopard on your Mac but, for whatever reason, there’s a bootable CD or DVD in your computer’s optical drive. If you hold down C while starting up, it’ll boot from that disc. If you don’t hold down anything while starting up, it’ll boot from whatever disk it last started from or the disk set in the Startup Disk preferences pane. If you repeatedly press the Eject Media key while starting up, it may or may not eject the disc you don’t want to start from — in any case, it’ll likely start before you can insert the correct disc.

Sound far-fetched? It isn’t. It happened to me the other day.

My iMac’s hard disk was feeling ill and simply wouldn’t boot. I’d last started it with my old Leopard install disc inserted. When I got my Snow Leopard Install disc, I decided to run its Disk Utility First Aid routine on the sickly hard disk. Trouble was, I’d shut down the computer with the Leopard disc inserted.

Here’s how to eject a disc so you can insert another disc for startup. (The “screenshots” here were created with my digital camera, since it’s impossible to create a screenshot from within Mac OS X before the computer has completed its startup process.)

  1. Hold down the Option key while starting your Mac. Keep the key held down until a screen with startup disk icons appears.
    Fig1
  2. Click the icon for the disc you want to eject to select it.
  3. Press the Eject Media button on the keyboard. The disk comes out and its icon disappears from the screen.
    Fig2
  4. Insert the disc you want to start from. Its icon appears onscreen.
    Fig3
  5. Click the disc icon to select it.
  6. Press Return. The computer completes the startup process, using the disc you selected.

As you may already know (or should have realized after reading this), if you hold down the Option key at startup, you can choose your startup disk on the fly. You might find this useful if, for some reason, you have multiple bootable disks on your computer.

It’s in the Book!

Snow Leopard Book CoverYou can find more information about hard disks and using Disk Utility with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide.:

  • Storage Media is covered in Chapter 6, pages 97-126.
  • Mac OS Utilities is covered in Chapter 24, pages 569-594.

Snow Leopard: Five Tips in Five Days

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On Peachpit.com.

Snow Leopard Book CoverIn the crazy days before the release of Snow Leopard, Peachpit asked me to pull five Snow Leopard tips from Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide for release on their Web site over a five day period. The tips began appearing on August 31 and they’re now all available.

Here are links for your convenience:

Using an HP LaserJet 2100TN with Snow Leopard

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When Mac OS can’t connect to the printer.

Snow Leopard is the first version of Mac OS that doesn’t support AppleTalk. While that shouldn’t be an issue for most folks, if you’re like me and have an ancient printer that uses Ethernet and AppleTalk to connect to your computer, you might have a problem.

With me, the printer is an HP LaserJet 2100TN manufactured in 1999. Yes, I’m using 10-year-old laser printer. It works fine — or at least it did on all versions of Mac OS through Leopard. But when I upgraded to Snow Leopard the other day, my Mac suddenly couldn’t see the printer.

I’ve been wanting a duplex laser printer for some time now, and I simply haven’t been able to justify the cost. With this sudden incompatibility issue, it looked like I had a good excuse to buy a new printer. But what to do with the old one? My husband is very happy with my previous printer, an HP LaserJet 4MP. And wouldn’t it be better if I could just get it to work?

So I went online. I soon discovered that the good folks at HP have written a support article all about using HP printers with Snow Leopard. I highly recommend reading this article if you’re having any trouble at all connecting an HP laser printer to your Mac under Snow Leopard. It provides steps that I will not duplicate here.

I read the article carefully. It told me two things:

  • My HP LaserJet 2100TN should work with Snow Leopard, even though AppleTalk was no longer an option. It provided complete instructions for connecting.
  • My HP Color LaserJet 2600n would not work with Snow Leopard.

Wow. Was this screwed up. You see, when I couldn’t get the 2100TN to work, I reinstalled the drivers for my 2600n (from the HP Web site) and successfully set it up. So HP was wrong: it would work with Snow Leopard. And no matter how many times I tried to follow the instructions for setting up my LaserJet 2100TN, I was unable to get it to work.

Now the 2100TN is a network printer that uses Enternet connected to a JetDirect device that’s installed on the side of the machine. I recalled having a problem with setup years ago, when I had a static IP address. Back then, I’d had to manually assign an IP address to the printer to get it to work. I really don’t recall why or how I did this, but since it continued to work despite many connection changes, I didn’t change anything.

I pressed the only two buttons on top of the machine simultaneously to get two pages of self-test and configuration information. It told me my IP address was the unlikely 65.101.62.77. I tried repeatedly to use this information with setup, but could not successfully print. Perhaps I had to go back to the default settings?

I found this article on PrinterTechs.com that explained how to do a factory reset of just about any HP LaserJet printer, including mine. I followed the instructions. Then I printed another configuration sheet. Now my IP address was the even more unlikely 0.0.0.0. Of course, this wouldn’t work either.

I powered down the printer, waited a minute or two, and turned it on again. I printed another configuration sheet. Now my IP address was 192.0.0.192. Ah, now we were getting somewhere. But when I used that address, it still wouldn’t work.

I opened the Network preferences pane and saw that Ethernet had a self-assigned IP address. I chose Using DHCP with manual address from the Configure IPv4 pop-up menu and entered 192.0.0.191 (why not?) in the IP address field. I clicked Apply. Then I tried to add the printer again. This time it connected. And when I went back to the Network preferences pane, it showed that Ethernet was connected.

Ethernet Connection

I tried to print and succeeded.

Is this the “right” way to fix this problem? Who knows? All I know is that it works. And you know what they say: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

So it looks like I won’t be buying a new duplex printer after all. I just don’t need it.

And, for the record, the configuration page also told me that I’d printed 35,200 pages during the 10 or so years I’ve had the printer. Sadly, that number was reset along with the IP address.

It’s in the Book!

Snow Leopard Book CoverYou can find more information about setting up printers for use with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide.:

  • Printing & Faxing is covered in Chapter 17, pages 361-388.
  • Networking is covered in Chapter 20, pages 445-486.

Snow Leopard and Rosetta

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What you need to know.

Have you upgraded to Lion? Then you probably want to read this instead.

Yes, most older Mac OS applications are compatible with Snow Leopard. But perhaps not the way Snow Leopard is normally installed. It might need Rosetta.

Who?

Simply put, Rosetta is a special part of Mac OS that enables older software to run on newer Macs with Snow Leopard. Trouble is, Rosetta isn’t installed as part of a standard Mac OS installation. Instead, your Mac offers to install it for you the first time you need it.

So today, when I opened Quicken 2007 for the first time after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, I saw the following dialog:

Install Rosetta?

The options are pretty straightforward:

  • Not Now doesn’t install Rosetta. That means you can’t open the program that needed it — in my case, Quicken.
  • Install uses your Internet connection (you do have one, don’t you?) to download Rosetta from Apple’s server. It then installs Rosetta on your Mac. You’ll see a dialog like this while it works:
    Installing Rosetta

Once Rosetta is installed, try opening the application again. It should work.

I can’t think of any reason not to install Rosetta.

I can think of plenty of reasons to keep your software updated. The first reason is that you can avoid having to install additional software like Rosetta for compatibility. Unfortunately, a newer version of Quicken simply isn’t available. Yet.

If you know you need to install Rosetta, you can avoid this whole process by installing it when installing Snow Leopard. You do this by customizing the installation; no Internet connection is required:

Custom Snow Leopard Installation

It’s in the Book!

Snow Leopard Book CoverYou can find more information about installing Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, including how to customize an installation in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide.

Installing Mac OS X 10.6 is covered on pages 2-5.

Word 2004 Does Not Like Mac OS X 10.5.8

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It may be time to update Office.

I just started work on a new book revision. The project requires me to take relatively lengthy, style-laden Word documents, turn on the Track Changes feature, and edit like crazy. It wasn’t long before I was pulling my hair out.

You see, the other day, I updated my iMac from 10.5.7 to 10.5.8. I suspect that something in that update just didn’t sit well with Word 2004, which I was still running on that computer. After all, the iMac has an Intel dual core processor. Office 2004 was written for the old PowerPC processor that came in older Macs. Whether the problem was Mac OS X’s inability to run the old PowerPC application or Word’s inability to run on the 10.5.8 update is a mystery to me. All I know is what I experienced: text editing so slow that I could type faster than Word could display the characters.

Revisions, RevisionsAt first I thought it might be the document itself. It’s 40 pages of text that utilizes about 20 styles and fields for automatically numbering figures and illustrations. The document was originally created about 10 years ago and has been revised and saved periodically for every edition of this book. It pops from my Mac to an editor’s PC and back at least five times during each revision process. I thought it might have some internal problems. So I used the Save As command to create a new version of the document. The new file was about 5% smaller in size, but had the same symptoms as the original.

Next I sent it over my network to my new 13-inch MacBook Pro. That computer’s processor isn’t as quick as my iMac’s and it has the same amount of RAM. The software on that computer was different, though. I had a developer preview version of Snow Leopard installed and, in preparation for a Microsoft Office 2008 project I’ll be starting in the fall, I’d installed Office 2008 with both major updates. I opened the file on that machine and it worked just fine. Great editing and scrolling speed. Exactly what I needed.

So I bit the bullet and installed Office 2008 on my iMac. And the two major updates. And two smaller updates that became available on August 5. It took hours — the updates totaled over 400 MB of downloads and I’m connected to the internet on a horrible 600-800 Kbps connection that likes to drop. (I’m living in a motel right now, traveling for my helicopter business.)

The result: All the performance issues are gone. Word is snappy yet again on my iMac.

You might ask why a person who writes about Microsoft Office applications had not yet upgraded to Office 2008. This all goes back to last year’s revision on this project. I actually did upgrade but then I downgraded. It was mostly because I needed the macro feature of Word, which wasn’t available on Word 2008. I’d upgraded my iMac last year, but when I decided to reformat my hard disk to ward off computer issues I was having (which were apparently caused by a bad logic board), I reinstalled Office 2004 instead of 2008. You see, I liked the old version better.

But it’s obvious to me now that I need to keep moving forward with the rest of my technology if I want it to perform as designed. Everything must be in sync. If I want to keep using Word 2004, I should use it on a computer that has the system software available during Word 2004′s lifespan. My old 12-inch PowerBook would be a good example. It has a G4 processor and runs Tiger. That’s as advanced as it will ever get. Office 2004 is a perfect match for it.

If there’s a moral to be taken away from this story, it’s simply that if you want your hardware and system software to be new or up-to-date, there will come a time when you’ll have to update the applications that run on it. Bite the bullet and do what you have to. It’ll be worth it.

Why I Can’t Just Enjoy My New 13-inch MacBook Pro

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It really is a business expense.

13" MacBook ProLast week, I finally broke down and ordered a new MacBook Pro. I’d been wanting a computer like the 13″ MacBook for a while, but what I really wanted was a Mac netbook. When Apple unveiled the 13″ MacBook Pro at the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference earlier this month, I finally stopped denying the truth: that there would be no Mac netbook in my immediate future. Instead, I saw the new 13″ MacBook Pro as a reward for my patience. Not only did it have more features than the MacBook I’d been looking at, but it would cost less money.

Apple also announced some new features in Snow Leopard. While I’m not prepared (because of NDA stuff) to write publicly about Snow Leopard, I am in the middle of a revision to my Mac OS Visual QuickStart Guide for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. One of the hurdles I was facing was not being able to show and discuss features of Mac OS X that work on the new MacBooks. About two years ago, I bought a 15-inch MacBook Pro to use as my “test mule” for writing about Leopard. That computer simply doesn’t have the bells and whistles of the newer models I need to write about.

It looked as if I’d have to buy a new MacBook Pro so I could write about it for my book.

This is both good and bad:

  • Good because having to buy a new computer for work means I can deduct the cost of it from my taxes. (I use my computers for all of my various business endeavors — I don’t play games on my computers. If I’m not working, I’m out having fun somewhere or sleeping.) And let’s face it: it’s always nice to have a computer with the latest technology.
  • Bad because having to buy a new computer means having to come up with the money to pay for it. Just because I can deduct it as a business expense doesn’t mean it’s free. (So many people don’t understand this simple fact: you still have to pay for business expenses; it’s just like being able to buy them at a discount equal to your tax bracket percentage.) In this case, the final price tag came to just under $2K. Ouch.

It’s also bad because I never seem able to buy a new computer and just enjoy it like a normal person.

Believe it or not, this is my first “unboxing” video. Let’s just say it doesn’t completely suck. The weird noises you hear in the background are coming from Alex the Bird.

Most folks buy a computer, open the box, fire it up, and start exploring. I, on the other hand, buy a computer, open the box, fire it up, erase the hard disk, and install beta operating system software on it. I then get to spend several weeks exploring the minutiae of the operating system’s elements, including every single window and dialog that might appear to the average user. I take screen shots of everything I see and write about it in an unbelievable level of detail.

So right now, as I type this, I’m waiting for the Developer Preview of Snow Leopard to install on my brand new, just-out-of-the-box 13″ MacBook Pro’s freshly erased hard disk. I’ll put some sample files on it, set it down on my workspace table beside my 24-inch iMac, get them talking to each other via AirPort network, and start exploring the current topic I’m writing about, which is the Dashboard and Widgets. I’ll put my old 15-inch MacBook Pro away in its case and set it atop the Dell laptop I’ve also brought along with me this summer to revise another book for another publisher.

When I get back to Arizona, if I’m not too busy doing other things, I’ll use the discs that came with the 13″ MacBook Pro to restore it to its factory hard drive configuration. Then maybe — just maybe — I’ll put it back in the box and have a reopening, trying my best to pretend it’s brand new again.

Back to Basics with my 12-inch PowerBook

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Who needs a netbook? I got this old clunker.

PowerBookYears ago, I bought a 12″ PowerBook. I was attracted to its small size and great power. Back when it was first released, you may remember, it was considered a tiny marvel. While other people flocked to the 17″ PowerBook, I wanted sheer portability and the 12″ was my dream laptop.

Time marches on. A G4 processor operating with 640 MB of RAM isn’t anyone’s dream machine anymore. Hell, when I tried to install Leopard on it last year, it was so slow I had to rebuild the hard disk with Tiger on it.

And I think that’s when I fell out of love with it.

You see, in the meantime, I’d bought a 15″ MacBook Pro. Not one of the new ones — this one is about two years old now. I’d bought it as a test mule — a computer to run software on while I write about the software. But when I finished my Leopard book in September 2007, I began using the MacBook Pro more and more. And when I couldn’t get Leopard to run on the 12″, I realized that it was silly to use an old laptop when I had a newer one. The 12″ wound up on the shelf.

But this morning I pulled it out and dusted it off and fired it up. I let it update Microsoft Office 2004 and various Apple software. I updated my ecto database to pull in all the blog entries I’d written over the past year. And I started writing this.

The sad part about this PowerBook is that the battery is so toasted that it won’t hold a charge for more than 20 minutes of operations. So as a portable computer for use in coffee shops, etc., it fails miserably. But plug it in and sit at the kitchen table and it does everything it’s supposed to.

I want a netbook. I’m sorely tempted by the Dell Mini 9. A buddy of mine says he can transform it into a Hackintosh for me. But I’m also hoping that Apple comes out with their own netbook. If they price it reasonably — and I’m talking about well under $1,000 — I’ll be the first on line to buy one.

And frankly, I don’t give a damn about the so-called “Apple Tax.” Dan Miller of Macworld.com was right in his article, “The Microsoft Discount.” He could be speaking for me when he says:

But for the benefit of my Windows-using friends, I will say for the record: I don’t use a Mac because it’s cool. I use it because it works better for me. I use it because it doesn’t stink.

I’ve got a hopped-up Windows laptop that’s way faster than this little old PowerBook. But when it came time to do a little blogging this morning, I left it gathering dust on the shelf.

Back it Up or Lose It

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What’s your backup strategy?

This morning, on Twitter, I read a tweet from one of the folks I follow, @SeeTTL :

RT @JCDean: PSA: Please back up your computer! My wife just went to console a friend who may have lost EVERY pic of her kids.

This sad story really hit home with me. No, not because I have kids. And not because I’ve lost the contents of a hard drive forever — despite the fact that I’ve suffered three total hard disk crashes since 1989. But because I could imagine how badly I’d feel if I’d trusted my hard disk to hold the only copies of all my photos.

As a computer user, the data you create is the only thing that can’t be replaced when lost. I’m talking about photos, diaries, accounting records, address books, original manuscripts, and more. Sure, a lot of this stuff can be recreated with some effort, but some of it can’t. Like all those photos.

The only way to protect this data from loss is to create reliable backups and, whenever possible, store them offsite, away from the computer.

Mac users have a few options for automated backups:

  • Time Machine is truly transparent. It goes to work in the background to faithfully duplicate what it finds on your hard disk. You can use it with its default settings or customize settings to limit what’s backed up. All you need is an attached hard disk or Time Machine-compatible network disk. Time Machine does the rest. Best of all, it will even keep copies of stuff you deleted by accident — at least for a while — so you can get it back. With external hard disk prices so low right now and Time Machine free with Leopard, why not take advantage of it?
  • Backup is backup software that comes with Mac OS X. It’s highly configurable and can be used to back up to a hard disk, optical media such as CDs or DVDs, and a MobileMe account. This last option is probably the best because it automates off-site storage. I wrote about using Backup in “Save Yourself (and Your Data) with .Mac Backup,” which I wrote for Peachpit.com in 2006. It might be dated, but I’m sure you’ll find some good tidbits of information there.
  • iDisk SynciDisk is part of a MobileMe account. You might not think of it as a backup solution, but it can be. First, you can simply drag and drop the things you want to back up to your iDisk to copy it to your MobileMe storage space. That’s an offline storage solution for you. But what you might find easier is to enable iDisk syncing so a copy of your iDisk space is available on your computer’s desktop. Then simply store data in it. The data is automatically copied to your iDisk space on MobileMe when synced. Not only that, but if you more than one Mac, all of them can share the same iDisk. That means the documents you copy there are available with you on all of your computers.
  • Third party backup solutions are also available to you. There are quite a few out there and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not up to speed on them. I haven’t needed them. I have a very good backup strategy without them.
  • Fetch and iCal can also be used together to create an automated offsite backup solution. I wrote about that in ““Creating an Automated Backup Plan with Fetch and iCal”,” in 2007.

CDs and DVDs can always be used to back up data to. This is what some people seem to forget. And it’s what probably could have saved the woman referenced above a lot of grief.

Last week, I wrote a blog post for my personal blog that outlined my workflow for geotagging images. In it, I included Step 4: Backup. That’s the step where I copy all of my images from my hard disk to a CD or DVD before erasing the camera’s data card. I have dozens of these discs, nicely labeled, in my office. I’d be smarter to have them offsite. But at least I have them. Anyone who makes a lot of digital images and does not perform this step is looking for trouble. Don’t say a hard disk crash won’t happen to you. It will. It’s just a matter of time.

Heck, it happened to me three times already.

My Geotagging Workflow

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How I add GPS coordinates to my photos.

A while back, I decided I wanted to include the GPS coordinates in the EXIF data for my photos. Because my cameras (a Nikon D80 and a Nikon CoolPix something-or-other) don’t have built-in GPS features or communicate via bluetooth (or any other method) with a GPS, I have to manually attach the GPS coordinates to the photos.

I say manually, but I do this with software that automates the process. (I’m not a complete idiot.) Still, there’s a slightly convoluted workflow to get this all together. I thought I’d outline it here for two reasons:

  • Some blog readers might be genuinely interested. I’m not the only photo-snapping geek around.
  • By documenting this, I can look back, years from now, and see yet another example of how technology changes to make things easier and how I solved a “problem.”

So here’s the workflow rundown. I skipped the nitty gritty details to keep it short. (I read somewhere that people don’t like to read long blog posts.)

Step 1: Acquire the Photos

GlobalSat BT-335Bluetooth GPS w/ ChargersWhen I go out to do photography, I take minimal equipment. I don’t like to carry a bunch of stuff. But one of the things I do take with me (other than my camera) is a GPS data logger. I bought a GlobalSat BT-335 Bluetooth GPS Data Logger. I made my choice after lots of research, including this excellent review on bioneural.net. Three things sold me:

  • Price. It’s $69.95 on Amazon.com.
  • Size. It’s small and lightweight.
  • Connectivity. It’s Bluetooth, so I don’t have to deal with cables. (I hate cables.)

As an added bonus, when paired with my MacBook Pro, it puts live GPS data on my computer. Which is kind of cool, even though I currently have no use for this capability.

I’m not saying you should go out and buy this. I’m just saying that I did and I’m very satisfied. And while I certainly welcome comments that suggest other models, my choice has been made, so please don’t try to sell me on your solution.

A GPS data logger like the BT-335 does one thing, and it does it well. It keeps track of where you’ve been by recording GPS coordinates and corresponding times. It stores all this data inside itself with virtually no user interface. I attach it with a wrist strap I bought at a camera store to my camera’s shoulder strap. Before I start shooting photos, I turn it on and it does its thing. I basically forget all about it.

So when I go out to do photography, I turn on my GPS data logger and use my camera to take pictures. Pretty simply stuff, no?

It’s important to note here that the time on my camera must be right — at least within 10-20 seconds (if I’m on the move) or 1 to 2 minutes (if I’m moving more slowly). I check it against my computer’s clock (which is set by atomic clock) and adjust it a few times a year. The GPS data logger gets its date/time information from the GPS satellites.

Step 2: Get the Data and Photos on the Computer

The next step is to get all of the GPS data and the photos onto my computer.

LoadMyTracksAlthough GlobalSat has a perfectly fine utility for getting the data off its unit and onto a Mac, I use the freeware application, Load My Tracks. I tell it I’m using a GlobalSat DG-100 and because the unit is paired to my computer, it finds it. I can then download tracks into either GPX (which I need) or KML format. I download both — heck, why not? — into the folder where I’ll soon be downloading the photos. I then erase the data logger so I don’t have extra track points in it the next time I use it.

Next, I use a card reader with Image Capture, which comes with Mac OS X, to download all photos from my camera into the folder where I saved the track logs. They don’t have to be in the same folder, but I like it that way. Nice and neat. And it makes it easy to back up the logs with the photos.

Now I’ve got the GPS data and photos on my computer.

Step 3: Match GPS Coordinates to Photos

Next, I launch GPSPhotoLinker, another freeware application. I use the Load Tracks button to load up the GPX data file for the photo shoot. Then I use the Load Photos button to load all the photos I took during the shoot. I go into batch mode, which has my settings saved from the last session, and click Batch Save to Photos.

GPSPhotoLinker uses my settings and the data to write the GPS coordinates, including altitude, to each photo. It displays a progress bar as it works. When it’s done, the Latitude and Longitude for each photo appears in the appropriate columns in the list of photos. Here’s what it looks like while it’s working. (Yes, I took pictures of very big, red rocks.)

GPSPhotoLinker In Action

As for the big, red rocks, you can find them here. (But it seems to be off by a 10-20 feet; maybe it’s time to adjust the camera time again.)

Step 4: Backup

After losing a hard disk for the third time two years ago, I have become fanatical about backing up my data. After importing photos and linking the GPS data to them, I burn them onto a CD or DVD (depending on the capacity needed). When the burn is done, I check the CD or DVD to make sure it functions properly. Then I apply a label with the date and some descriptive information and file the CD or DVD in a box with a bunch of others.

I format the memory card for my camera in my camera to clear it out completely.

I then feel good about deleting photos off my hard disk, adding them to iPhoto, or modifying them in Photoshop or some other image editing too.

Sounds Like a Lot of Work?

It really isn’t a lot of work. It’s a whole workflow thing. Do it enough times and you can do it quickly. Steps 2 through 4 take about 15 minutes from start to finish.

That’s my flow for geotagging. What’s yours? Got a camera with a GPS or GPS connectivity built in? Please do brag about it by adding a comment here. I’d love to learn more.

Welcome to Macintosh

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A movie review.

Welcome to MacintoshThe other night, I watched Welcome to Macintosh, a new documentary by filmmakers Robert Baca and Josh RIzzo.

Here’s the review I just entered on Netflix, where I gave it 3 out of 5 stars:

I’m one of the “Mac faithful” and have been for years. I found this documentary mildly interesting — especially parts discussing trivia, such as how startup tones came about. In general, however, I found it to be a rather amateurish production, with far too much time spent on various collections of old Macs. The cutaway scenes with Mac models decorating the landscape was reminiscent of the “How It’s Made” television series and rather silly. I would like to have seen more interviews with Mac users, movers, and shakers, as well as some of those old Macs running some of the software from the early days.

This movie will appeal to any Mac fan interested in Apple’s history. But Apple haters will hate this movie; it comes across as real Apple “fanboy” material.

You can read another take on the movie from its premier on the Unofficial Apple Weblog: “TUAW On Scene: from the premiere of Welcome to Macintosh.”

MobileMe

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A replacement for .Mac.

This week, Apple released its new online service, MobileMe. At the same time, it discontinued its old service, .Mac.

My Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard book provides some coverage of the features of .Mac. I have not yet had time to work with and develop new material covering MobileMe. I expect to be writing new articles and creating new videos about MobileMe soon. You’ll find them here as I release them.

In the meantime, if you’re a .Mac user, I highly recommend that you read Apple’s support document, “.Mac to MobileMe transition FAQ.” It will provide you the basic information you need to make the transition from the old service to the new one.

If you have specific questions about using MobileMe features, please use the comments link or form for this article. Although I can’t guarantee an answer, I will use the questions I receive here to write new articles about MobileMe for this site. Just keep in mind that I can’t provide technical support for connection and compatibility problems. For that kind of help, please turn to Apple Support.

MacJury

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A great new podcast.

MacJury LogoYesterday afternoon, I had the honor of being one of the “jurists” in the new MacJury podcast created and moderated by Chuck Joiner. Chuck’s responsible for a number of podcasts aimed at Mac users, including MacVoices and MacNotables.

From MacJury’s About page:

Designed to be entertaining, informative and thought-provoking, The MacJury will pass judgment on news, issues, products and more. Each show will feature a different panel of personalities from the Mac universe in a freewheeling discussion that will interest Mac users of all expertise and experience levels.

I was invited to be one of the jurists for the third podcast of the series. Chuck was joined by me, Nancy Gravley, Joe Kissell, and Don McAllister. Through the miracle of the Internet (specifically, Skype), the five of us, located in the U.S. and Europe, were joined together for a good discussion of the pros and cons of .Mac and the new Mac clones. You can download the 54-minute MP3 file containing our discussion from the MacJury #803 page.

Or, better yet, subscribe to the podcast. If you’re a Mac user interested in current topics that affect you and your Mac, I think you’ll get a lot out of it.

How to Add RAM to a MacBook Pro

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It’s easier than you might think.

I bought a 15-inch MacBook Pro about a year ago. I use it primarily as my “test mule” — the computer I run software on when I’m writing about the software. But recently, I signed a contract to create a video training course for macPro Video. I’d record the video on my MacBook Pro using some high-end recording hardware. The hardware’s install guide requires a minimum of 1 GB of RAM, which my MacBook Pro had. But it also recommended 2 GB of RAM. More RAM is always better than less, so I looked into upgrading.

I found compatible RAM on the 4AllMemory.com Web site. LIke most RAM suppliers, 4AllMemory makes it easy to find the right RAM for your computer by letting you tell it exactly which computer you have. In my case, I have a MacBook Pro 2.16GHz 15.4-inch computer. The page for that computer offered a bunch of options.

I was shocked by the price. And, as usual, I must digress to explain why.

Back in 1989, when I bought my first Mac — a Mac IIcx — I upgraded the RAM from the 1 MB (not a typo) on board to 2 MB (not a typo) by installing four 256 K (not a typo) RAM SIMMs. The cost for that upgrade: $750 (not a typo).

The single 1 GB SO-DIMM I needed for my MacBook Pro would cost me $29.99 with free shipping.

As discussed in “MacBook Pro: How to install memory” on Apple’s Web site, RAM is very easy to install. The only thing you need is a size 0 or 00 Phillips screwdriver. The instructions on that page are step-by-step, with diagrams that show you each step. While I recommend that document as required reading before a memory installation, I took some photos this morning to supplement those steps.

Here’s how I did the job.

First, I shut down the computer. Then I laid out a dishtowel on my kitchen table and put the closed computer upside down on the towel (to protect its footless top from scratching). The bottom of the computer looks like this:

Bottom of MacBook Pro

Next, I removed the battery by pushing up on the two sliding latches that hold it in place and pulling the battery out. That exposed the three small screws that hold the RAM cover in place. I removed the three screws with the Phillips screwdriver. In this photo, two of the screws have already been removed:

RAM Cover

Inside the ComputerWith all screws removed, I lifted the RAM cover off, exposing the RAM slots. As you can see here, there are two slots; one is filled with a 1 GB SO-DIMM and the other is empty. A diagram illustrates how the slots work. Basically, the DIMMs slide in at an angle and then get pushed down parallel to the computer’s body.

I lined up the new DIMM’s pins and notch with the slot on the computer and firmly pushed in into place. Sorry about the bad focus in this shot:

Inserted DIMM

Then I pushed the entire DIMM down until it locked right above the other DIMM:

Pushed Down DIMM

About this MacAfter that, it was just a matter of screwing the RAM compartment cover back on and replacing the battery. When I started up the computer, a quick peek at About This Mac confirmed that the computer recognized the new RAM.

Total time elapsed: 5 minutes. But that’s because I stopped to take pictures.

One Back to My Mac Solution

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I finally get it to work.

It’s almost embarrassing to admit: I wrote a book about Leopard and I could never get Back to My Mac (BTMM) to work for me. I thought it was a problem with Leopard. Many others seemed to, too. I figured I’d wait for a fix.

But now I find that I need BTMM functionality. So I spent the better part of two days troubleshooting the problem. The result: I’ve found a solution for my situation. If you’ve been having BTMM problems, maybe this will fix you up, too.

What Is Back to My Mac?

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a quick review.

BTMM is a Leopard feature that works with a .Mac account. With it properly configured and enabled (the tricky part), it enables you to connect to your Mac for file sharing or screen sharing from another Mac on the Internet. This gives you secure access to your computer’s hard disk contents from virtually anywhere in the world. But it also gives you access to applications on a Mac. So, for example, I could use screen sharing from my MacBook Pro in Washington to open a Word document on my iMac in Arizona and use the iMac’s faxmodem to fax that document anywhere I like.

As you can imagine, this can be very useful if you’re away from your home or office Mac — especially for an extended period of time. Since I’ll be away from my iMac from the end of May through the middle of September this year, I was highly motivated to make this work.

My Problem — Well, the One with BTMM, Anyway

My problem was that when I was at a remote location, I could see the icon for my iMac, but I could not connect to it for either file sharing or screen sharing. In other words, BTMM simply wasn’t able to connect, despite the fact that it “saw” the computer I wanted to connect to.

What really annoyed me was that I had BTMM set up according to the Back to My Mac Guide provided by Apple. I’d RTFM — why wasn’t it working?

I won’t go into details on basic BTMM configuration options. I wrote about them in “Going Back to Your Mac in Mac OS X Leopard” — which is even more embarrassing. These instructions should work for most BTMM users — unless you have a double-NAT problem. I suspect that the majority of Mac users who can’t get this to work have that problem. I did.

But, as it turned out, my problem was even weirder.

Drat, Drat, that Double-NAT!

I’m not a networking expert and I really don’t want to be. Here’s what I understand about NAT as it relates to BTMM.

For BTMM to work, you must have a NAT-enabled router. That includes any AirPort Extreme base station or AirPort Express. It also includes a wide variety of other routers that you may use. Basically, if it’s relatively new — within a few years or so — it probably supports NAT. Both the Back to My Mac guide and my article (referenced above) explain how to enable NAT on an AirPort base station.

But if the cablemodem or other device provided by your ISP also has NAT enabled, you have double-NAT. This possibility is discussed in a good amount of detail in the Apple technical note titled “Back to My Mac: ‘Double-NAT’ Configurations may prevent Back to My Mac connections.”

You can’t have double-NAT. That means you have to turn one of the NAT setups off. In the double-NAT article, Apple recommends turning off NAT on your cablemodem, which is usually possible via a logon with a Web browser. If you can’t do that for some reason, you can set Connection Sharing to Off (Bridge mode) on your AirPort base station. The article explains exactly how to do it.

Either technique should resolve the problem for 90% of the people who have followed all the basic instructions and still can’t get BTMM to work.

But it didn’t resolve my problem.

I’m Special

Unfortunately, life at the edge of nowhere means you often have to settle for non-standard services. That pretty much describes my Internet service, which is provided by Chandler, AZ-based Bluewire.

There’s no cable television or fiber-optic telephone lines where I live and work. If I want something faster than dial-up — let’s get real here: who can live with dial-up these days? — I had to resort to a wireless Internet connection. No, it’s not dial-up networking (DUN), which I have in my Treo for when I’m in the middle of nowhere. It’s an antenna on the roof of my house. It points at an antenna on an AM radio tower about 2 miles away. That antenna points to an antenna on a water tower in downtown Wickenburg. That’s connected to a router that’s connected to a T1 connection.

I’m not the only person using that T1. Anyone in Wickenburg who’s outside of the range of cable and DSL who is willing to spend $39.99 a month for something faster than dial-up is sucking Internet off the same system. The router at the water tower has NAT enabled and distributes IP addresses to all of us.

But because the router is centralized, I can’t reconfigure it. According to Apple’s double-NAT article, setting Connection Sharing to Off (Bridge Mode) should do the trick. But it didn’t. The Apple support guy I talked to, Daniel in Austin, says that’s because I’m not getting a 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x IP address from my ISP’s router. This is confusing the system to the point that I completely lose my Internet connection when Bridge mode is enabled.

I needed another solution.

Give Me Some Static!

Ira, at my ISP explained that if I had a static IP address, NAT would be disabled for my connection to his system. He gave me a static IP address to try.

Guess what? When everything was properly configured, it worked!

(That static IP address will cost me an extra $7/month. Hey Ira, how about forgetting to add that to the billing system? Aren’t I already paying enough? Have pity for me! I live in Wickenburg!)

Here’s the fix that worked for me. Remember, I’m using an AirPort Extreme base station. If you’re using a different router, these exact instructions won’t apply.

  1. Open AirPort Utility and click the icon for your base station.
  2. Click the Internet button in the toolbar and then click the Internet Connection button in the main window.
  3. Choose Manually from the Configure IPv4 pop-up menu.
  4. Enter the IP address, Subnet Mask, Router Address, and DNS Servers provided by your ISP in the appropriate boxes.
  5. Make sure Connection Sharing is set to Share a public IP address. At this point, it should look something like this, but with real IP addresses:

    Airport Utility

  6. Click the NAT button to display NAT options.
  7. Make sure the check box for Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol is turned on.
  8. Click Update.
  9. Wait while your AirPort base station is updated.

When the base station’s icon reappears in the AirPort utility window, you’re ready to test your Internet connection. Do this right away by checking your e-mail or opening a Web browser page that isn’t cached.

You shouldn’t have to change anything in your Network preferences pane. It should just take the IP address your AirPort base station sends it. So should all the other computers on the network.

Now go to another network and try accessing your computer via BTMM. In my case, the easiest way to do this was to create a DUN connection from my MacBook Pro’s Bluetooth connection to my Treo. (That sure doesn’t sound very easy, does it?) I was able to connect just like Steve Jobs said I should. Whew!

As soon as this is posted, I’ll head over to the local library and give it a try from their WiFi network. Cross your fingers for me!

I hope some of this information helps you fix your BTMM problems. Good luck!

4:00 PM Update: Just got back from a trip into town. Although BTMM would not work via the library’s WiFi connection, it did work from a nearby restaurant’s open WiFi connection that I latched onto from a parking space out front. (I must have looked pretty silly driving around town in my Jeep, parking in front of likely locations, and opening my MacBook Pro to search for WiFi.) I’m going to conclude that the library’s WiFi setup is somehow weird and different — which I wouldn’t doubt, since it was set up by the Town’s computer consultant who is also a bit weird and different. I’m going to call this a complete success. Best of luck to those of you still having problems.

Mounting Hard Disks

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Clarification for a reader.

Product ImageReader Mike writes about my Tiger book:

On page 63 the mounting of storage media is covered. In the first paragraph it mentions Hard Discs, which may or not be Hard Drives (the description is a little vague), but then it does not cover how to mount them (if they are in fact Hard Drives). I know there is a “look at the documentation that came with the device” disclaimer for all devices not specifically dealt with, but considering the popularity of Hard Drives I hope future editions (maybe they do already!) will describe the basic process of mounting them.

I guess the reason I didn’t get specific about mounting a hard disk in my Tiger book is because there’s really nothing to it. (I do discuss it in some detail on page 104 of my Leopard book, which expands my discussion of storage media considerably.) When you attach an external hard disk to a Mac and power it up, it’s automatically mounted. In other words, its icon appears on the desktop or in the sidebar of Finder windows so you can access it.

External hard disks are normally connected via Firewire or USB. Either cable can be connected to your Mac while it is running. Just connect the device and turn it on. Some portable hard disks are powered through Firewire or USB and don’t even have a power switch. When you plug them into a running computer, they’re automatically powered up and mounted.

The one thing you must remember is to unmount an external device before disconnecting it. This is similar to ejecting removable media. The most straightforward way to do this is to drag its icon to the trash. I cover this in both my Leopard and Tiger books.

Learn More

Product ImageYou can learn more about using different kinds of storage media with your Macintosh in Chapter 6 of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide. That’s where you can find discussions covering mounting and ejecting disks, burning CDs and DVDs, setting CD and DVD preferences, using Disk Utility, and setting up and using Time Machine.

How to Add a Second Display to Your Mac

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Some tips on getting the job done without pulling out your hair.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of adding a second display to my 24-in iMac setup. In this quick article, I’ll explain why I did this and provide some tips for how you can do it, too.

Why Two displays?

First of all, you need to understand how having a second display on your computer can work. Basically, you can use the second display two ways:

  • Use the second display to mirror the main display. You’d use this primarily when doing a presentation and you need a larger or second display to display to your audience. This is pretty common if you do a presentation from a laptop; you’d connect it to a projector which acts as a second display, then turn on mirroring.
  • Use the second display to add screen space to your computer setup. So instead of having the space on one display screen, you also have the space from the second display screen. The joined pair of screenshots below illustrate how this could work. This is how I use the second display.

The following example shows how I use my two displays. The one on the left is my 24-inch iMac display. This is my main display, which includes the menu bar, Dock (when displayed), and desktop icons. The one on the right is my new 22-inch Samsung DVI-D display. I’ve positioned them side by side, so when my mouse pointer is on the right side of the left display screen and I move the mouse to the right, it moves into the right display screen.

Two Monitors on a Mac

You may wonder why, with 24 inches of screen real estate set to its highest resolution (1920 x 1200 pixels), I wanted to add another display to my setup. There are two reasons:

  • I could. High resolution digital displays are surprisingly affordable these days (with the exception of those made by Apple and a number of other high-end makers). The new display cost just $309 in Best Buy; and yes, I’m sure I could have gotten a better deal elsewhere, if I were willing to spend days/weeks/months researching and shopping.
  • I felt that I could be more productive if I could move my online applications — Mail, Twitterrific, Skype, iChat — into a second display where they’d be visible but I wouldn’t have to switch to them. (Yes, I’ve tried Spaces and I’m very sorry to say that I just couldn’t make it work the way I needed it to with all my apps.)

I would like to mention here that although I bought a Samsung display and it works fine with my iMac, I’m not necessarily recommending it. The picture is okay and it worked right out of the box without installing any drivers. But the picture quality is not anywhere near as good as the incredible picture on my iMac — even my husband commented on it at first glance. So if you work with graphics or have problems with your eyesight and you’re not on a budget, I recommend that you check out an Apple display first. It might just be worth the $900 (for 23 inches) or $1800 (for 30 inches) price tag for you. Personally, I couldn’t justify the additional expense.

Set Up Tips

Once you decide to add a second display, consider these things:

  • Can your computer support a second display? This is a biggie. If the answer is no, forget it. You can find out if your Mac can support a second display by visiting the Apple store and chatting with someone working the floor. If that’s not an option, try checking Apple’s Web site for technical specifications on your computer model. (Here’s the specs for mine.) If you’re really confused and your Mac is a currently available model, you can try giving the Apple Store a call at 1-800-MY-APPLE (in the U.S.) and asking. (Please don’t use this phone number to get technical support — it’s a sales number and the person who answers will not be able to help you.)
  • What’s the maximum resolution your computer will support for the second display? This is also information you can get from the above sources. You need to know this so you don’t buy a display that’s too big for what your computer can support. My 22-inch Samsung has a lower resolution than what my computer can support.
  • What cable will you need for your display? Before you answer this question, either know which display you plan to buy or buy the display. If you’re like me, no matter how many cables and adapters you have in your home or office, you will not have the one you need.

To make sure I got the right adapter, I looked at the description on the display box, examined the DVI-D cable that came with the display, checked the pictures here, called the Apple Store to ask, and looked up the adapter on the Apple Store’s Web site.

Do I sound paranoid? I live 50 miles from the closest Apple Store and there’s nothing more frustrating than getting the wrong cable or adapter. The Apple Web site is full of bad reviews by buyers who bought the wrong adapter; I didn’t want to make the same mistake.

I sent a link to the Apple Store Web page for the adapter to my husband at work in Phoenix and told him to print it and bring it with him to the Apple Store. He walked into the Biltmore store, flashed the printout, and got the right adapter. The cost: $19.

Remember that the adapter I bought works for me with my computer and my second display; it might not work for you. Do your homework and don’t blame me if you buy the wrong one.

Setting Options

Once you’ve got the second display connected and powered up, your Mac should automatically recognize it. Although you may not need to configure it at all, you can. Here’s what the configuration looks like with my Leopard setup.

Open System Preferences and click the Displays icon. Two Displays preferences panes should appear — one on each screen.

iMac Display PanelSamsung Display PanelHere’s the Display panel of the Display preferences pane on each display. I won’t go into detail on the usual settings; I cover all that in my Leopard book. Instead, note the Gather Windows button. Clicking this button moves all the open windows to that display. You might find this handy if you have a second display connected and you don’t want to power it up. What I’ve discovered is that your Mac will remember where an application’s windows were the last time you ran the application and will reopen the windows there. The Gather Windows button moves those windows to the display you click the button on.

You might also notice a Rotate button on the SyncMaster window for my Samsung display. That’s a weird little feature that enables me to rotate the display’s image in 90° increments. (The larger display actually has a rotating base.)

Display ArrangementTo set up the positioning of the displays, click the Arrangement button on the main display’s Display preferences pane. The Arrangement panel, shown here, displays the two displays as they are arranged. In my setup, the two displays are physically side by side with the Samsung a little lower than the iMac. You can drag the boxes to reposition the displays and I highly recommend that you do so if you need to. For example, if your second display is on the left, drag its box to the left of the main display. This way the mouse behaves logically when you drag it from one screen to another. (This, by the way, would be a great practical joke to play on a friend with two displays; just switch the boxes around to drive him nuts!)

If you decide you want the menu bar on the other display, just drag it over there. That’ll move the menu bar, Dock, and volume icons that appear on the desktop.

If you want to mirror the displays, as discussed at the beginning of this article, turn on the Mirror Displays check box. This is also where you’d disable this feature if it happened to be turned on by default.

But Wait! There’s More!

Displays MenuOf course, you can set many of the Options in the Displays preferences pane if you turn on the Displays menu. Here’s what my Displays menu looks like with both displays connected. As you can see, I can enable/disable mirroring, set resolution for either display, or open Display preferences. Saves the bother of going into the Displays preferences pane for making minor adjustments.

Learn More

Product ImageYou can learn more about options in the Displays preferences pane on pages 553-554 of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide.

And if you’d prefer to stick with one monitor, be sure to check out pages 179-183 of the book to learn more about Spaces.

Tips for Connecting to Shared Computers with Leopard

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What you might see when you connect.

One of the things that threw me for a loop when I started using Leopard on my computers was the way Leopard identified folders on shared disks when a shared computer is set up to synchronize with an iDisk. Here are two examples.

In this first example, I’ve connected to my PowerBook, which happens to be running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. (As I explain here, although my 12-in Powerbook met the minimum requirements for running Leopard, it didn’t run it as well as I liked, so I downgraded it back to Tiger.) The PowerBook’s hard drive is a bit too small for me to turn on iDisk syncing, which basically copies the contents of your iDisk to your hard disk. So iDisk synching is disabled on this computer.

Home DirectoryNote that connecting to the computer using my user account on that computer offers only two options: mlanger (my home folder) and On the Go (the computer’s hard disk). Because I’m logged in with my regular user account on that computer, I have full access to the entire hard disk.

Home as GuestIf I connect to that same computer as a guest, I get only one option: mlanger. Selecting that folder offers access to just the public folder on my Home folder on that computer, with a Drop Box for incoming files. This is the default guest setup on a computer running Mac OS X Tiger.

In this next example, I’ve connected to my iMac computer, which is running Leopard and has two user accounts: mlanger (or Maria Langer) and captvideo (or Capt Video). iDisk synching is enabled, so a network volume icon containing the contents of my iDisk appears on my iMac’s desktop.

When I’m connected to the computer with my regular user account, I have access to numerous items:

  • Home DirectoryCapt Video’s Pubic Folder and Maria Langer’s Public Folder are the public folders for the two accounts on the computer. Selecting one of these would display the contents of the appropriate public folder, along with the Drop Box folder within it. In addition, if I logged in as a guest, only these two folders would be listed for the shared computer.
  • mlanger is my iDisk. Unfortunately, my .Mac account name is the same as the account name on my computer — and yes, the passwords are different — so there’s a bit of confusion there sometimes.
  • mlanger_HomeDir is my home folder on the iMac. You can see the contents in the screenshot here; I’ve added a few folders to customize it a bit.
  • Thinking Big is my hard disk on the iMac.

Of course, the more user accounts or shared items there are on a shared computer, the more items will be listed. Your access to items is limited based on your privileges set up on the computer on which they reside.

Chapter References

Product ImageYou can learn more about related topics in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide:

  • Networking and File Sharing, Chapter 20
  • Multiple Users, Chapter 21

Leopard 10.5.2 Adds More Support for Routers

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Makes Back to My Mac feature accessible to more Leopard users.

The release notes for the Mac OS X 10.5.2 update mentions, almost in passing, that the update “adds support for more third-party routers” for the Back to My Mac feature. It then provides a link to a support document titled, ” Back to My Mac: Supported router devices (Mac OS X 10.5).”

Back To My MacThe article indicates that Back to My Mac should work with all AirPort Express and AirPort Extreme base stations. It provides additional links to information for configuring a base station to work with Back to My Mac.

The article also lists third-party manufacturers whose routers work with Back to My Mac.

If you’re struggling to get Back to My Mac working on your setup, the support document is a good place to start your troubleshooting process.

Page References

Product ImageYou can learn more about enabling the Back to My Mac feature of Mac OS X on page 460 of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide.

You can also find more detailed how-to information in an article I wrote for Peachpit Press’s Web site, “Going Back to Your Mac in Mac OS X Leopard.”