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Charles Clark is the President |
July/August 2008
General meetings. There will be no general meetings in July and August. However, the Learning Center will be staffed with no change in hours, and most of the classes will continue. Check the newsletter and the club web site for more details.
Mac OS X 10.5.3 update. I had one problem with updating an old flat-panel iMac to the latest OS X update. The download and installation proceeded without problems. My problem began when the iMac restarted. The screen would not proceed from the revolving 'gear wheel' officially known as the Indeterminate Progress Indicator. Many troubleshooting tips are available on the web to solve problems. One tip for software installations is to disconnect the USB or FireWire cables to your printer and/or external hard drive. My malcontent iMac was connected to a very complicated HP all-in-one printer. I disconnected the printer cable and proceeded to restart. The iMac completed the install process and displayed a normal Finder window. Finally!
Oddball email problem. A member complained that he could not receive email and requested I take a look at the problem. I opened Mail Preferences... and reviewed the Account Information data. All was well. I then opened the Advanced tab. There I found the checkbox was not checked for 'Remove copy from server after retrieving a message.' What this meant was that all incoming email collected by his ISP, say West Coast Internet, would remain on their mail server until you remove it or ask them to remove it. If you do not remove the old mail, eventually the email storage space allocated to your account fills up. In this case, the mail server was full and could not function. I corrected the situation by adding the missing check mark and clicking the 'Remove know' button. Since there were over three megabytes of data on the mail server, the erasure took some time. West Coast Internet has pleaded to me that you set your Advanced with the 'Remove copy...' pop-up button to read 'Right away.' No harm in that. All your email will be transferred to your Mac, and the mail server will have space to collect new mail.
June 2008
New Vice-President. Broadband Services has installed in the Mac Learning Center a coaxialcable connection in the wall near the copy machine, a Linksys router, and a Motorola cable modem in order to provide Internet access to the Mac Learning Center. We will no longer be sharing our Internet connection with the PC Club s Workshop and Learning Center. We just had to ask.
At home. One of my DVR’s, Digital Video Recorders, recently had a hard drive hiccup. I could not play back any recorded shows. Before taking the box to the Broadband Services folks, I Google-searched for troubleshooting tips on the Motorola DCT6416 and came upon a short two-paragraph instruction on how to reformat the hard drive. Five key presses on the remote were required. It worked and yes, I lost the recorded shows.
My use of the DVR is such that I prefer not to watch live shows but instead watch the recorded playback. I discovered many other tips about the Motorola DVR and the Universal remote. I found a programing tip on how to fast-forward in 15 second jumps past the ads. Four quick consecutive presses on my customized button setting gets me back to the show. Saves time and increases enjoyment. Your homework assignment to to search for this topic.
This site explains why “The Wall Street Journal’s Web site is already (secretly) free”: http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/03/21/wsj/index.html. You must use the Firefox browser and install their referrer tool “refspoof.” All the instructions are at the machinist site referenced above. What is happening is that you are telling the WSJ web site that you are coming from the digg.com website. The WSJ has been set up to allow subscription-free access for digg readers. Why? I do not know, but it may be related to web metrics such as page counts.
May 2008
New Vice-President. Wim Vermolen was unanimously elected by the Board to be the new Vice-President replacing Ned Read, recently resigned. Wim is a long-time enthusiastic Mac user. Ned will continue to help me set up and take attendance at the general meetings.
Faster Internet? Work is under way to add a cable modem and router to each of the three computer rooms at the Community Center. Our cable modem and router will be located next to the copy machine. Broadband Services has to run coaxial cable to our wall outlet before service can begin.
Memory. Computer memory chips inventories are plentiful and prices are at new lows. This is a good time to do your Mac a favor and give it a performance boost. I recommend Leopard Macs have a minimum of 1GB of memory, and more is better. I recently installed one 2GB memory chip that cost only $49. In 2000, a 1GB chip cost $931.
A puzzle for you. One of our members had a “printer won’t print” problem. Earlier, the member had bought a new printer and asked a friend to setup the new printer. The friend removed the old printer and a power adapter and placed it a cardboard box. After I installed the print drivers from the vendor's CD, all was well with the new printer. As I was packing my bag, my customer said, "My Mail does not work."
Mail objected that the password was not correct. A few rounds of playing "What's My Password," Mail remained offline. A quick check of the Network System Preference told me there was no Internet connection. I quickly picked up the cable modem. There were no lights. Further inspection revealed no power cord for the modem. A search for the power adapter commenced. Under the desk I went, looking for a thin black cord. Next to the desk was a couch. Behind the couch, I spotted the power strip with all sorts of adapters. I leaned over the back of the couch and pulled the power strip into daylight. No cable power adapter but I found two printer power adapters. One attached to the new printer and one not attached. Within a few seconds, I knew where the cable power adapter was. Can you guess?
The cable modem power adapter was in the cardboard box with the discarded printer. I inserted the cable modem power adapter in the power strip and the power cord into the cable modem. The modem lit up instantly. Mail service commenced downloading 150 messages, mostly junk. Oh well, he's got mail!
April 2008
New Volunteers. Metche Franke has joined the Board as a Mac Board Assistant or MBA. Metche is also helping out in our classes as an instructor assistant. Metche decided on her own to be more active in club matters. Perhaps you, gentle reader, can do the same. Dennis McGovern will be our Friday morning Supervisor starting this month. Dennis raised his hand when I asked for new volunteers at a monthly meeting. Dennis has many years of computing experience and has an interest in video. Bob Payne will continue an alternate supervisor.
Art Posters in the Learning Center. I recently asked Louise Dawson, our Apple Ambassador, to see if she could obtain new Apple product posters or banners. She informed me that our celebrity series posters in the Mac Learning Center were worth about $250 each. I thought this art was worth protecting and asked John Hansen to investigate framing the posters. His first idea was to build frames in his woodshop, but it was too time consuming. John purchased professional poster frames instead.
The next step was to remove the posters, which were secured only with masking tape, from the wall. John fitted the posters under glass in the new frames. The posters look great. John painted one frame, displaying Amelia Earhart, red. Nice touch. All frames were hung using a laser level. John even touched up the wall paint with a matching color.
Please visit our new art gallery in the Mac Learning Center.
New Color Laser Printer. We added an HP color laser printer in the Learning Center. Patrons can print their color photos. The printer is networked and can be used by any Mac in the Learning Center. Printer installation was easy using Apple’s zero-configuration technology called Bonjour. Prints are fifty cents per page.
March 2008
Board Matters. Ned Read, long-time member, former instructor and former club president has resigned his Vice-President's position in order to pursue his singing interests with the Laguna Woods Village Chorale. Our board meeting and his chorale meet at the same time. The good news is that he is still a member and still a big help to me setting up the general meeting room, taking attendance, and acting as ’lighting director.’
Leopard OS 10.5. Last month Anne and I installed Leopard on our iMacs. Before the Leopard install I deleted all third-party System Preferences. A ’control-click’ on the system preference icon will remove it. Guess what? The wheels did not fly off. Anne ’loves’ her new pet. I like the spotted cat also. Meanwhile, the four new iMacs in the Learning Center have Leopard installed.
Time Machine. Time Machine is Leopard software that automatically backs up your data ever hour to another hard drive. Anne and I are using Time Machine with a newly purchased external 500 GB hard drive. We alternate the use of the drive so that we can back up our files. The only visible sign of backup activity is the little rotating Time Machine icon in the menu bar or the external hard drive’s blinking status light. It just works.
Brief Encounter with the OLPC. OLPC stands for “One Laptop per Child,” a scheme to provide $100 laptops to children of the developing world. The $100 price point has not been reached yet. The OLPC sells for about $180. One of our members took advantage of the offer to buy two laptops for $400. One laptop was sent off overseas and one was sent to the member. On a recent home visit, I saw a small green and white laptop in the corner. It looks like something that Fisher-Price would make. The OLPC sure is cute and perhaps one day I will be able to take another peek. You may Google-search 'olpc' for more information.
February 2008
Board Members 2008. Last month I introduced two new Board members. I failed to mention that the Board elected officers for the 2008 term. No news here. The current officers were asked to serve another year. All agreed.
2008 Membership Renewal. The membership renewal process ended with the end of the grace period on January 31. If you did not renew, I urge you to do so. Members are the club. The roster had nearly 500 names before the February 1 cutoff. After the February 1 cutoff, I expect the active membership to be in the mid-300's.
Get Well Soon. Anne and Shell both had hospital stays in December. Anne has cancelled her January classes but will be teaching the Email/Internet class again beginning February 7. Shell plans to return to his Wednesday Supervisor shift this month. Thanks for your good wishes.
Leopard and me. I recently installed Leopard on an iMac G5 with 512MB memory. After reading many tips on the Internet, I decided to choose the 'Archive #amp; Install' feature with 'Preserve user and network settings' option. Before I started, I preformed Repair Disk Permissions, Disk Repair, and DiskWarrior checks. All went well. I did notice that the install DVD checks itself before beginning the install process. This 'pre-flight' check took 50 minutes on this Mac. There is a 'Cancel' button available which I may use next time. Michael Moore has long considered the DVD disc check procedure unnecessary. The time for the actual installation was short.
Warning: Geek stuff. The software engine or 'kernel' in OS X is Mach, hidden and invisible. Mach coordinates the microprocessor and memory transactions within the computer. Twenty years ago the programmers went to lunch and were pondering the name of their newly revised UNIX kernel. After stepping around mud puddles in-route to lunch, MUCK was suggested as a acronym for "Multiprocessor Universal Communication Kernel." The acronym was passed to an Italian colleague who pronounced MUCK as "Mach". The name stuck.
January 2008
2008 Board and Club Officers. In November the club Board elected Ed Fuller to the Board to take effect immediately. Ruth Williams was elected to the Board effective January 1, 2008. Ed Fuller is performing superior service handling the Pealings newsletter mailings with the Lake Forest and Laguna Hills post offices. When Ed and the Post Office click, your postal copy of the Pealings will arrive the next day.
Ruth Williams is our Librarian, and all of you who have overdue books have heard from her. Our books are lent out to members for two weeks, one book at a time. The Library is located in our Learning Center. Louise Dawson and Linda Lee are the primary providers of new books from vendors, usually at no cost.
New iMacs in the Learning Center. We have four new iMacs installed in the Learning Center. You cannot miss them--they are black and have 24-inch diagonal displays. The video is gorgeous. We also have two iMacs that have the new Leopard operating system installed. Try Leopard, you may like it.
House call surprise. I recently visited a member’s home to install a new printer. “Oh, by the way, the Internet is down,” the member said. I looked at the cable modem under the desk. It was turned upside down. I am tempted to stop the story here and let you figure out the cause of the connection stoppage. However, there is a good lesson here. On top of the cable modem, top being the normal position, there is an ’on/off’ toggle button. When the modem was placed upside down, the toggle button was depressed, turning off the cable modem and the Internet connection. I righted the modem and depressed the button. Internet access came on instantly.
December 2007
Macworld Expo. December is the beginning of longer daylight hours and the anticipation of Macworld. Macworld Conference & Expo is extending special user group pricing for the 2008 Macworld Expo, to be held January 14-18 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Learn more at the web site macworldexpo.com.
Leopard. I assisted several members with their Leopard installations. One Mac worked flawlessly after the installation. Two Macs had a minor Keychain error that was solved by following the suggestion in the error dialog box. Another member transferred Mac OS 9 documents to a new MacBook. The applications in the MacBook opened the ’ancient’ OS 9 documents with ease. You can use ’target disk mode’ to install Leopard on machines that Apple says are ’too slow,’ say a 667 MHz G4. Wink Wink, nudge nudge. Anyone want to be first on their block? Read about ’target disk mode’ by searching for article number 58583 at the Apple Support web site.
Renaming Files, Take Two. Murray Massin has reminded me about this tip more than once: When renaming files in Finder, click on the file, press Enter to bring up the rename input box, then, while holding down the Option key, press the right arrow key. This will bring you to the end of the filename, but before the dot extension. Similarly, Option and left arrow brings you to the beginning. Just a little hint that may save some time while renaming.
Lost and Found. Have you seen an alert from your web browser that the web page you requested could not be found? You should review your Internet system preference settings. Recently I have found that faulty Ethernet cables can block the data flow. Also, I found a loose coaxial cable connection and a bent or coiled coaxial cable will disable your network. First principles: Check your cables.
There will be no general meeting in December. The Learning Center is closed December 24 through January 1. Happy holidays.
November 2007
Membership Renewals. The 2008 membership renewal campaign is launched and members are responding. One easy way to renew is to fill out the form in the October newsletter or visit our Learning Center and fill out an application form, or fill out the online form at www.TheMacClub.org/form.html" and mail it as indicated. The application form is important because it helps us keep current with email and address changes and your choice of newsletter delivery.
Help is at hand. When you want to do something on your Mac, Help is only a mouse click away. I mean Help as a menu item in the application you are working in. Very complex applications such as Microsoft Word or Excel, and they are complex, have tutorials and extensive help topics. Sometimes I do not have a clue, but a visit to Help improves my skills. This is the best single help advice I can give, ever. Visit the Help menu.
Or you can visit our Learning Center. Remember it’s about ’Learning.’ We have two shelves of books on Mac topics. Most are paperback books, but some are eBooks with topical subjects. eBooks are compact discs with complete Adobe Reader documents. The discs are located on the book shelf. Want to read up on backing up your files? Read what the experts have to say. Members may take home one book or disc at a time with a two week return time.
We also have a wall rack filled with help topics free for the taking. Shell Weinberg produces these documents and keeps them fresh. This is an excellent source for beginners.
Our popular continuing series of classes on email, digital photos, web browsing, Mac basis, OS X topics, iMovie, and slide show production are scheduled every month at the Learning Center located on the third floor of the Community Center. ’Mac Room’ signs are posted to help first-time visitors. Class schedules are published on our web site, themacclub.org, and in our newsletter.
Have a happy Thanksgiving holiday. The Learning Center is closed November 22 and 23. Happy shopping.
October 2007
Membership Renewals. We have started accepting membership renewals for 2008. New members joining now will have their memberships extend through the end of 2008. The number of nonresident members are subject to a quota, maximum of 10% of total membership.
If you are a current nonresident member, please be aware that nonresident renewals will be processed only during October on a first-come, first-served basis until the quota is filled. Please renew during October or your renewal may not be accepted due to a full quota.
If you would like to join but are not a current member and not a Laguna Woods Village resident, you may apply for membership beginning November 1, also subject to our quota. Read the fine print under "Non Resident yearly Dues" in the enclosed membership form.
Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) is due out this month. Here are the release dates of previous OS X versions:
- OS X version 10.0 - Cheetah - released March 24, 2001
- OS X version 10.1 - Puma - released September 29, 2001
- OS X version 10.2 - Jaguar - released August 23, 2002
- OS X version 10.3 - Panther - released October 24,2003
- OS X version 10.4 - Tiger - released April 29, 2005
More printer problems. I ran into these printer problems recently: A power strip with a dead outlet. A paper jam hard to see, hidden under the top cover. Printer cable plugged into the cable modem. My favorite: power strip plug inserted into the power strip. First principles: Use your eyes, check your cables.
Speed up printing. Are you experiencing long delays before printing starts? Try this: Open Printer Setup Utility. Once you are in the printer list, double-click the printer name to bring up the jobs window. Click on the Completed tab to see a list of old, completed print jobs. Delete the list by going to the Jobs menu and selecting Clear Completed Jobs List.
September 2007
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is scheduled to be released next month. To run Leopard, your Mac must have an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 (800 MHz or faster) or G5 processor. If you have a G3 Mac or a slower G4 Mac, Leopard will not install. If your old Mac cannot handle Leopard, you must decide to either keep what you have or upgrade to a new Apple computer. Macs sold after Leopard is released will have Leopard installed.
Assuming you have a zippy Mac, it should fulfill the remaining Leopard system requirements: a DVD drive to run the software, built-in Firewire, and at least 512 MB of RAM. Your display must be either built in or run with a Apple-supplied video card that is supported by your Mac. I thank member Craig Hoyt for this tidbit.
For what is is worth, Craig is disappointed in the developer’s version of Leopard. On the other hand, I think Tiger is very robust.
$10 DSL. For dial-up Internet users, AT&T now sells $10-per-month DSL service. You have to ask for it. I had it at this price several years ago and thought it was the right balance for price vs. speed. Good luck in finding this service.
Broadband Internet Speed Upgrade. Our community’s Broadband Internet service (West Coast Internet, 487-3302) costs only $19.95 a month and has recently been upgraded to a data transfer speed of up to 3 MBps (Megabits per second). This is a welcome improvement. However, in order to receive a DVD-quality picture on your computer via the Internet, we will need nearly 4 MBps of bandwidth. Steve Jobs recently defined “modern broadband” as 4-5 MBps.
Maps with pictures. Google Maps’ Street View uses photos that were taken on Google trucks as they drive through city streets. Very few neighborhoods are covered to date. I looked up an old address in San Francisco and refreshed my old memories. Google has mapped the streets around the Irvine Spectrum. See maps.google.com/maps and click the Street View tab. Then click anywhere in the blue street outline.
July/August 2007
Summer School. Rick Thues will give Saturday afternoon classes in the Learning Center in July and August. The classes are addressed to folks new to computers. Rick will use the metaphor of common objects in the office: file folders, in box, waste paper basket, filing cabinet, paper, and pencil to show the equivalent objects on the computer. The dates, times, and topics are listed elsewhere in this newsletter. Click here to see the announcement online.
Rick will also give a combo class on iTunes and iPhoto to anyone who wants to learn. Each class is given once in July and again in August.
Rick is very good at explaining computer procedures in plain English in a non-technical presentation style. After all, he is the iMentor.
Safari 3.0 Public Beta is available for download at the Apple web site. The final version will ship with Leopard but you can use Safari 3.0 Public Beta now. I find page scrolling is very fast. System requirements are OS X 10.4.9 or Windows XP.
Leopard Features. More Steve. While you are at the Apple web site, please view Steve Jobs’ keynote and demo of Leopard features presented recently at the World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco. If you cannot get enough of Steve, see him with Bill Gates at the D5, All Things Digital conference. Launch iTunes and go to the iTunes Store.
Speed up your Mac. If your Desktop is filled with unmanageable clutter, the Operating System literally spins it wheels generating icons for each object. To stop the extra processing, place all your desktop icons in a folder. Log out and back in and see if there is a difference. My practice is to create a folder named “In Box” and place it in the Documents folder. I then drag the folder in the Finder Window Sidebar. Try it, you may like it.
Enjoy your summer. See you at the pool.
June 2007
Force Quit. When your Mac is busy consuming microprocessor clock cycles or is lost and waiting for an event that never comes, such as a network connection, your pointer turns into a spinning color wheel. If you are lucky, wait a few moments, go get a cup of coffee or green tea (highly recommended), or make that telephone call. The left-pointy arrow will reappear. Ha! Almost never happens. Time to do a force quit. There are two easy ways to force quit.
1) The quickest way for those who have a good memory is to use the keyboard shortcut: Option-Command (Apple)-Esc. You will see a list of applications in a small Finder window. Select the one you think is causing you trouble. Click on the "Force Quit" button. Then close the window by clicking on the red window button. You are done. Left-pointy cursor arrow reappears.
2) Another way is to find "Force quit..." under the Apple menu. Same procedure above applies.
Spotless. I found this most excellent formula for cleaning computer equipment. In a spray bottle, a new spray bottle or recycled glass cleaner spray bottle, mix equal (50/50) portions of distilled water and isopropyl alcohol (70% pure), the kind you do not drink. Use a microfiber cloth to wipe and dry. Spray the cloth first, not the equipment. (Do not use on a display with anti-reflection coating.) Microfiber cloths cost $1-$5 and are in most stores.
I have excellent results cleaning dirty keyboards and fingerprinted displays. The combination of the water/alcohol and the microfiber cloth lift the dirt right off. Warning- the cloths get dirty in a hurry. The solution/cloth combo is great for household cleaning.
May 2007
AppleWorks., Some of our members have purchased new iMacs recently. AppleWorks is not included in the software that comes with new Macs. The good news is that you can purchase AppleWorks from the Apple Store for Education for $39 plus tax and shipping. Free shipping if your order totals $50 or more.
Recycling. Apple has a free recycling program to dispose of your old computers. Details on the Apple Store web site.
Mail and Safari not working. You click on Mail and nothing happens. No messages come in or go out. A check of preferences reveals nothing wrong. Safari complains that the 'server can not be located.' Good clue. The problem is with the Motorola Surfboard cable modem. The Surfboard's lights are on but the download light is not lit.
The standard troubleshooting fix is to unplug the power cord from the back of the Surfboard. Then wait for about two minutes for the settings inside the Surfboard to fade away. This usually fixes a 'stalled' Surfboard. Plug the power cord back in. Lights light, usually.
A more robust troubleshooting procedure is to disconnect the coaxial cable (the thick white cable), the Ethernet cable, and the power cable (12VDC). After a short wait, replug the three cables into the Surfboard. "Voilą". Mail messages come in and go out faster than you can say "Whoa." Safari's home page appears. I swear things are working much faster.
NeoOffice. Finally, I have downloaded NeoOffice 2.1 as a replacement to the entire Microsoft Office for Mac OS X suite. NeoOffice is published with a royalty-free license. NeoOffice is more than I need for my work, but if you have heavy duty Word attachment requirements, give NeoOffice a try.
Opera. I am also using Opera as my web browser. It is the best browser to interpret and display complicated web pages.
April 2007
Sam Mitchell, our club’s founder, passed away February 22, 2007, at age 98. There is a nice article about Sam, written by Ed Egan, elsewhere in this newsletter. Sam recruited me for club president in 1998. He said a two-year term of office would be suitable. (Nine years later, I’m still at it.) Sam would clip newspaper articles about technology news. One I remember was about Bluetooth, a technology that was not then in the marketplace. Bluetooth technology was later incorporated in Apple keyboards and mice. Sam liked technology.
His favorite pastime was tracking IBM options daily and charting them on a spreadsheet. He would create charts showing the price declines and increases. The charts looked like wavy lines with peaks and valleys. Sam added option buying and selling criteria. He would spend all morning improving his investment models. His back bedroom was filled with computers, displays, printers, and other peripherals.
Sam was important to the Mac club because of his long-term involvement with the club. Sam had an uncanny talent to know what would work and wouldn’t work in running a club. During our board meetings he would always make suggestions or express his opinion.
Sam was a gentleman and treated members in a cordial manner. He would address me as “Mr. Charles.” He would frequent Home Town buffet for his evening meals. I would sometimes see him at the Community Center waiting for a bus to take him home. I was my pleasure to offer him a ride home. Sam, it was a pleasure to know you.
The Mission Viejo CompUSA store will be closing in a few months. All items are discounted now, and I expect the discounts to increase until the store closes its doors. Make sure you redeem your gift cards. On my recent visit, the store had plenty of inventory for sale. Our club had a good relationship with the Mission Viejo CompUSA store. Murray Massin worked hard to build a personal relationship with the store managers and the Apple Specialists. As Murray said, “These were the good old days.“
March 2007
Good news, bad news. The Learning Center class size has grown over the past few months. The result is that the 22 computer seats are taken early. Latecomers can sit in chairs around the room or buddy up with folks with a Mac. So, if you want to be sure you can use a Mac during class, arrive at 12:45 p.m. or earlier.
Who’s got Mail? Trouble calls from members making the transition to the new “comline.com” email account have increased. The typical complaint is, “I cannot send email.” The common mistake is the wrong name or a misspelled name for the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP). Check your Mail Preferences > Accounts > “Server Settings” button at the bottom of the Preference pane. The correct entry is “smtp.comline.com.” I have seen “aol.com,” “lworld.net,” “comline.net” and others.
If you have a comline.com account, the Authentication popup should be set to “Password.” Your User Name is your full email address (example: aclark@comline.com), and your Password is your email password, not your administrator password, unless they are identical. Leave the Server port to 25. Turn up your sound and enjoy the “Swoosh” as outgoing Mail is sent on its way.
500 new emails. But there is more. Another member had all the correct settings but yet there were no new messages in the In box. Clicking the “Get Mail” button resulted in the gear wheel spinning and spinning. Still no new mail. Something was wrong. Your mail is stored in your Home folder > Library > Mail. Inside this folder are your Mail accounts folders named POP-email address@Incoming Mail Server. To illustrate, my Mail is held in a folder named “POP-cclark@comline.com@mail.comline.com.” The unhappy member had a misspelled POP folder name that contained both “comline” and “lworld” in the name, which caused the problem. I renamed the folder to the correct format. Instantly, 500 hundred new messages came in. Bottom line: be very careful when changing your Mail preferences. Follow the instructions by West Coast Internet at http://westcoastinternet.net/lagunawoodsvillage/mac-mail.html
February 2007
Membership. Club membership reached a record 500 during January. Folks who have not renewed their 2007 membership will be dropped from the roster February 1. If you wish to renew, fill out your application at www.lwvmacclub.org/form.html
Macworld, who dropped the computer? Apple changed its corporate name to Apple Inc., dropping Computer from its name. The company wants to make the point that computers are not the sole focus in their product line. Apple wants to become a major seller of consumer electronics. Sony comes to mind. Apple announced two future consumer products: iPhone and Apple TV. See details at www.apple.com
Ouch, my Mac won't boot. In order of the operating system to accomplish its work, it needs vacant hard drive space to arrange placement for new files and to reorder existing files.
- Keep 20% of your hard drive, no matter what size, available for the operating system.
- To calculate your 20% of unused space, perform a 'Get Info' on your hard drive icon. The full capacity space, available space, and used space are displayed. To calculate your effective maximum capacity subtract 20% of the full capacity from full capacity. Do not exceed this limit with your files.
- For example, you have an eMac with 40 MB of hard drive capacity and you have filled it with files totaling 37 GB. You have 3 GB of unused space. No, you do not. The operating system requires 20% of the 40 GB or 8 GB for its own use. Your effective maximum storage size for your files is 32 GB (40 minus 8). In this case, you have exceeded your effective maximum capacity. Soon, real soon, your computer will fail to boot. Ouch.
- The 20% rule is a guideline. Violate it at your own risk. Monitor your hard drive space. If you are running out of space consider removing files, adding a larger hard drive, or adding an external hard drive.
January 2007
Board Matters. Jerry Green has retired from the Board after 10-plus years. Jerry served as Program Chair and Greeter, and he carried equipment from the Learning Center to our meetings inClubhouse 1. He was reliable, prompt, and always gracious to everyone. Craig Hoyt has resigned from the Board but not from his Tuesday Supervisor’s role. Craig continues to contribute high-quality support to the Club.
Carol Peterson. Carol Peterson has assumed the Membership Chair from John Hansen. You can call Carol for membership/roster issues. John continues with the Treasurer’s role.
Ed Fuller. The newest Mac Board Associate, MBA, is Ed Fuller. Ed has volunteered to assist Faye Pearl in delivering the newsletter to the post office. Welcome aboard Ed.
2007 Membership Dues. This is addressed to the few members who have not renewed for 2007. If you dues are not paid by January 31, your club membership will no longer be active. If you renew after January 31, the “new member” rates apply.
Macworld Expo. Look for news from the Macworld Expo in San Francisco this month. OS X 10.5, also known as “Leopard,” may be spotted.
Comline.com. Two tips for lworld.net email users making the mandatory change over to the comline.com domain: Know your email password. You will be asked for it. For Mail users, check the Preferences > Accounts >A dvanced tab and check the “Remove copy from server after retrieving a message:” and change the pop-up to “Right away.”
Google and Yahoo. Keith Mueller’s Google and Yahoo tip sheet is available at the Learning Center. Ask the Supervisor for a copy. We are not permitted to post a copy to our web site.
Applejack-1.4.3. Applejack-1.4.3 has been released for the Intel-powered Macs. I use Applejack on a monthly basis to keep my Mac and all the Macs in the Learning Center running smoothly. You should read the Readme file because Applejack is a command-line utility, as known as a shell script. Applejack runs only in single-user mode. Like I said, read the Readme file. Recommended. Download at macupdate.com.
December 2006
2007 Membership Dues. More than half of our club members have renewed their memberships for 2007. Our Treasurer, John Hansen, will quickly process your renewals and send you a new 2007 membership card, printed on a yellow postcard, in the mail. If you have a question, please call or email John. See the left side of this page for contact info.
Renaming Tip. If you have problems renaming a document, a file name or a folder, here is a tip that Murray shared with me. This has been a feature of OS X 10.3 and later:
- Locate the item on your desktop or elsewhere in the Finder.
- Select the item by clicking on it one time.
- Press the Return key to make the name editable.
- Rename the item.
- Press the Return key again to complete the change.
Faster Web Page Loading. The following was published by David Pogue in his New York Times blog. Want faster web page loading? Have a router? Then do this:
- Go to the web site www.opendns.com/
- Click the large, yellow “Get Started“ button n the center of the page.
- Click on one of the images that represents your router make and model.
- Follow the steps on how to edit your router's setup.
- When done, shut down your Mac. Restart and see if web pages are loaded more quickly.
- If web pages do not load twice as fast, recheck the DNS servers numbers you entered.
- Set your browser’s cookie setting to Accept Cookies.
In Safari. go to Safari > Preferences > Security > Accept Cookies "Only from sites you navigate to."In Firefox, go to Firefox > Preferences > Privacy > Cookies tab> Check "Allow sites to set Cookies."
Geek Squad. A dear member inquired about a memory upgrade at the "Geek Squad" desk located in the Best Buy store. She was told that, in addition to the cost of the memory chip, the service fee is $39 and the fee for the house call is $159. She made other arrangements.
No December Meeting. There will be no general meeting in December, although the drop-in classes at the Learning Center will continue through December 21. The Learning Center will be closed December 22 through January 1, 2007. See you at the January meeting, which will be featuring "Leopard," the next version (v. 10.5) of the Mac OS X operating system.
November 2006
2007 membership dues. Thank you to all members who have renewed their membership in the Mac Club. If you have not renewed, please renew today. A renewal form was included with the October newsletter. John Hansen, our treasurer, sends out the (yellow) 2007 membership cards promptly.
Printer troubleshooting. Recently, I helped a few members with their HP, Epson, and Lexmark printers. I discovered that some folks do not know about the Printer Setup Utility application found in the Utilities folder (OS X). In order to solve 'printer will not print' or "my page has ink gaps," I suggest folks visit the Printer Setup Utility. A few members responded that they have never heard of this application or have problems using it. You need to use this application to (1) see your ink levels in a nice bar chart, (2) print a nozzle check page, (3) perform a nozzle cleaning, if required, and (4) do an alignment check, if required.
So here is my tip: Go to the Utilities folder and locate Printer Setup Utility. Drag the icon to the Dock so that it has a permanent spot in the Dock. Launch the application and look under each menu item. For more instruction go to www.apple.com/support and enter '106714' (without the quotes) in the Search field. Press Return.
We all have our favorite ink cartridge vendors. Here are two more that may surprise you: Hewlett Packard and Epson. For Hewlett Packard ink cartridges, check out their prices by calling 1-866-377-2090. For Epson ink, visit the Epson.com web site.
If you are interested in joining our Club’s Board of Directors, you can give me a call at 837-6080.
There will be no monthly general meeting in December. See you at the January 2007 meeting about the next version of the Mac operating system, OS X v. 10.5, called "Leopard."
October 2006
2007 Membership Dues
Your 2007 membership dues are being accepted by our treasurer, John Hansen. John has speeded up the renewal process. John will mail your 2007 membership card immediately after he receives your check. You no longer need to pick up your card at the Learning Center. You can pay at the general meeting, by mail, or leave your check at the Learning Center. Please use the application renewal form enclosed in the October newsletter, or print out the form that’s available on this web site at www.lwvmacclub.org/form.html, or use the form available in the Learning Center. Dues are $10 for renewing village members. Offer expires January 31, 2007.
New iPods announced.
Showtime, Apple style. Apple has expanded their iPod line. Available now, the fifth-generation iPod in 30 and 80GB capacity. It’s sorta like a tune/movie viewer you hold in your hand.
The second generation of the iPod nano features new brightly colored aluminum design, 24 hour battery life, brighter display, and capacities of 2, 4, or 8GB.
The iPod shuffle, my personal favorite, has been completely redone. Nearly half the size of the original, the new iPod shuffle is just half a cubic inch in volume, weighs just half an ounce and features a stunning all-new aluminum design and a built-in clip which makes it very wearable. Comes with 1GB capacity and is priced at $79.
Apple has also updated their iMac line with faster speeds and adding a 24-inch display model. There are two 17-inch models starting at $999. More info at apple.com.
I am asking you to consider volunteering for our club’s Board. The core of the club is the fifteen Board members and six Associates. The only requirement is to have a interest in the Mac. The Board is composed of very nice people who use their life experience to direct the Club's success. The Board meets monthly on a Tuesday afternoon. To learn more contact me or any Board member.
September 2006
New Program Chairman - Shell Weinberg
Welcome back. Shell Weinberg has taken over the Program chair. Murray Massin will continue to obtain door prizes from CompUSA.
December Dark
The Board has decided to discontinue the December general meeting. Since this time is filled with family holidays, we have seen a drop in attendance. We also have had difficulty booking business speakers in December.
Sam Mitchell
Sam Mitchell has stepped down as a Board member due to health reasons. He will remain on the Board as a Mac Board Associate. Sam is one of the founding members and has helped the Board and me with his experience and common sense.
New Mac Pro Computers (Towers)
Apple announced new Mac Pro computers at the August Worldwide Developers Conference held in San Francisco. These are industrial-grade computers for video editors or those who have to have the latest. Me, I think the iMac and the Mac mini suit our members' needs.
Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” - Spring 2007
The next version of Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard is expected to be released spring 2007. Some folks hoped it would be this fall or winter. Some of the cool software that is part of Leopard is a backup application called Time Machine. Time Machine will be able to retrieve any music, photo, movie, or document file at any time in the past with the version created on a specific date. No excuse not to back up. It's automatic.
Steve Jobs August 6 Keynote Address at World Wide Developer's Conference, San Francisco
A QuickTime 7 video of Steve Jobs' August 7 keynote address is on the Apple web site and highlights the new hardware and software. Here is the link:
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/aug_2006/event/index.html
Come October, all Apple computers and servers will be Intel powered. Oh yes, you may install and run Windows XP with the help of Apple’s Boot Camp application, which, incidentally, will be a feature of “Leopard.” This feature is for businesses that must have access to Windows and Apple software on one computer. Sorry, you have to purchase your own copy of Windows XP.
July/August 2006
New Club Name
It’s official. Our new name of our organization is Laguna Woods Village Macintosh Club. Mac Club in short.
For flat panel display owners: Here is display color preference setting that makes my Mac display easy on the eyes. In Displays Preferences, click the Color tab and then click on the Calibrate... button. Your are in the Apple Display Calibrator Assistant. Do not click the Expert Mode check box. Click the Continue button. Next select the 2.2 Television Gamma radio button and then click Continue. In the Select a target white point pane click on the D65 radio button and then click the Continue button. Name your color profile and click the Continue button. Finally, click the Done button. Enjoy the new color levels.
For iTunes and iPod users, here is a great Equalizer setting that enhances your listening enjoyment. In iTunes, click the Window menu and select Equalizer. There are ten frequency sliders and one Preamp setting. Starting from the left to right, set all sliders to the 0 DB setting. Each tick mark on the sliders has a value of 3 DB. Boost the Preamp up two marks (6 DB). The relative settings for the the remaining sliders have negitive settings, They are -8, -5, -2, -4, -5, -6, -4, -2, 0, -3. Name your settings in the popup menu. I named my setting 'Perfect.' Hope you like it.
I also am the new owner 1 GB Shuffle which replaced my 5 GB iPod. i like the Shuffle very much. It is the size of a stick of gum and weighs about the same. There are two versions, $69 and $99. If you order one from the Apple Education Store, you can get free laser engraving.
June 2006
.Mac (dotMac) Mail
Email is a very useful and popular method of communication. I prefer it to the telephone. Hiding behind your email usage and your email provider are limits on your use. I recently came upon the .Mac (pronounced "dot Mac") email account specifications. Dot Mac's outgoing mail server have these limits:
- 200 messages that can be sent each day. OK, fine.
- 400 recipients that can be sent to each day. Ok, not so fine if you have a club roster over 500.
- 100 recipients in a message that can be address at one time. OK, unless you communicate with a large membership group. A five hundred group list must be made of of five 100 groups. Oops, see rule 2.
- The maximum size of a outgoing message is 10 MB (megabytes). This may crimp the style of folks who like to send funny movies via email.
Your email provider will have more or less stringent 'specifications.' You will learn of them when you bump into the 'your message was not sent.' I thank Carol Peterson who had a 160-member group list that could not be sent. Repeated send attempts made her situation worse. Perhaps by the time you read this, Carol has informed her group, hopefully not using envelopes and stamps. Clicking beats licking.
I am a user of the Apple Mighty Mouse. The mouse with virtual left and right click buttons and a tiny scroll wheel which allows me to scroll up and down or left to right. The scroll button is so useful that when I am using another kind of mouse, I notice the annoying mousing required to scroll a large window. The Mighty Mouse is fully programmable to fulfill your wildest needs. Our three newest iMacs in the Learning Center have the Mighty Mouse.
May 2006
New iMacs at the Learning Center
Three new 20-inch widescreen "iMac Intel Core Duos" have been installed at the Mac Learning Center and are ready for you to explore. They are replacing three older iMacs with cathode ray tube, or CRT, displays. These older iMacs will be sent to PCM’s warehouse on Campo Verde for auction, perhaps in May. I will Inform you when the auction will take place.
Troubleshooting Hints
Many computer problems can be solved by checking all power cables and data cables are plugged in tightly. Here are some questions to consider when troubleshooting computer problems. The answers will also help another person assisting you with your computer:
- When did the problem start?
- Can you reproduce the problem now?
- Have you tried turning off your computer and turning it on again?
- What is the last thing you changed or added to your system? Perhaps you added a new power strip. I recently found one nonfunctional outlet in a new power strip.
- Does the issue disappear if you start up the computer with all third-party internal hardware removed?
- Does the issue disappear if you start the computer from a good system disk or external device?
- Is the problem isolated to one specific application?
- Is the problem isolated to one specific document or file?
- Is your computer producing any noise or odors?
Software issues may be solved with a restart, logging in as a different user, or running Disk First Aid (it’s in the Utilities folder). As a last resort, reinstall the Operating System from your CDs. Hardware issues are best left to the genius at the Apple Store or your local guru.
April 2006
The Learning Center will soon have three brand new 20-inch, 2GHz Intel Core Duo iMacs, 1 MB memory, ready to use. Experience the increased speed and iLife’06 (iPhoto, iWeb, iMovie HD, iDVD, Garage Band), and the new Mighty Mouse.
Tired of Apple support calls to India? Try this Apple tip: If you want to stay within the US, when calling in, just answer yes to the question whether the machine you are calling about is owned by education. Apple has a policy of lowering the call times on hold and keeping these calls within the US. Also when you do this, you generally get Elk Grove, CA or Austin, TX.
Last month I mentioned that my iMac G5 was working fine. A few days later, my Mac's display refused to light up. It remained dark. I tried several troubleshooting incantations to no avail. I remembered that first-generation iMac G5s are covered for two years if they have power and display problems. Off I went to the new Irvine Spectrum Apple store. I told the Apple Genius my problem and he wrote up the trouble ticket. Four hours later, they called and said I could pick up the iMac. They had replaced the logic board that had some swollen capacitors. Apparently, a supplier in China for the paste used in the capacitors got his formula wrong, resulting in short-lived capacitors. Apple owned up to this problem by protecting their users for a second year of free power supply and display support. My cost of repairs was zero.
For you OS X 10.2 and higher users, a new version of Applejack is available at macupdate.com web site. You can install over the prior version. Applejack is not an application but a script that runs when you start up in Single-User mode (press Command-S during startup.)
For OS 9 users, Apple has declared EOL (End of Life) for the OS 9 operating system. You can still use it but Apple will not provide support.
March 2006
One hundred and four audience members at the February meeting learned that the Irvine Spectrum Apple Store is open. The store is located between the ferris wheel and the carousel. From the 405 freeway, exit Irvine Center Drive and make a right on Enterprise. The store is closest to the parking structure near Nordstrom, off Enterprise. Store hours are 10 am to 9 pm. Fridays and Saturdays the store is open until 10 pm.
The new Optoma projector at the Learning Center is working out well. It is smaller and lighter than the Epson projector that quit working. I was very impressed with the new projector's light output during our last meeting in Club House 1. My thanks to Shell Weinberg for the purchasing effort.
Thanks to our members' dues and class fee donations, we have the financial reserves to cover unexpected expenses. John Hansen, our Treasurer, works hard to maintain an adequate reserve. Nine years ago, I still remember announcing that we had 'zero point zero" in our bank account.
Our 2006 membership renewal cycle ended February 1. We have exactly 400 paid members, a new high. The club uses the membership dues and class fee donations to keep our world class Learning Center, well, world class. Thank you for your support.
We also need some younger, go-getting, enthusiastic, get-the-job-done Board members. If you can spend two hours a month with a nice bunch of folks at our monthly Board meetings, then please drop in at 1 pm. at the Historical Society on the Tuesday following the general meeting. You can call me, 837-6080, for information. As President, I try to keep the meeting on track.
I also wish to thank Craig Hoyt, our Tuesday afternoon Supervisor, for hiding the cables and power cords on the first three table rows in the Learning Center. Craig drilled access holes and screwed the straps for the cabling underneath the desk tops. The last row will be replaced later with four computer work stations. Well done, Craig.
February 2006
Apple Market Cap News. In mid-January, this appeared:
- Apple passes Dell in total market valuation.
- As of today Apple is “worth more” than Dell!
- Apple up 1.2989 to 85.75, Market Cap: $72.13B
- Dell down 0.15 to 30.55, Market Cap: $71.97B
Microsoft Windows Media Player News. Microsoft has ended support for the Mac version for their Media Player. However, the company has made available a add-on to QuickTime that will play those movies your friends sent you in email attachments. I have tried Flip4Mac and it works. You need OS 10.3.9 or higher. Download it from www.flip4Mac.com. Look for the green icon.
More Microsoft News. As of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from Mactopia (Microsoft's Mac web site). It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.
Troubleshooting Tips.
My iMac G5 (version 1) with Mac OS 10.4.4 has been very stable with nary a problem. My troubleshooting skills may suffer as a result. Here are some tips for you if your Mac has problems:
- Reboot. Always a good idea. This will flush your Mac’s memory and temporary cache files.
- Plug it in. Please check power cords, keyboards, mice, microphones, network cables, cable modem cables, and display cable. Loose or disconnected cables are a very common problem that you can fix.
- What Changed? This is the first question to ask yourself so you can investigate the problem. For example, having trouble after a software reinstall on top of an existing application? Perhaps trashing the application and performing a new install may correct the trouble.
- Get the Exact Error Message. Write down the error message. First, this will make you focus on the problem and second, it will be a valuable clue for your call-for-help troubleshooter.
- Network down. Call you neighbors and see if they have the same problem. Call your ISP and see if they have any news. At our Learning Center we occasionally lose the Internet connection but it can be reestablished with a phone call.
January 2006
Happy New Year. Since we are residents in a seniors’ retirement community, the best new year wish I can extend to members is good health. If you are lagging a bit, make a New Years resolution to exercise 30 minutes three times a week. My wish to members is to establish a regular habit, be it walking around the block or going to the fitness center.
Proactive Computer User. The beginning of new year is a good time to reflect on the past year and commit to a plan of action in the new year. Is your Mac the quiet, obedient servant you want? Mine is, and I attribute it to regular maintenance. Give your Mac regular maintenance as you give your car. Make sure you update your operating system to the current version. Be generous to your Mac by installing plenty of memory. The OS X operating system and G5 PowerPC processors run best with 512 MB or more memory. I have 1 GB (gigabyte) in my iMac G5 and seldom a hiccup.
Software Update. Apple provides a service called Software Update, that you must use. Apple is ever vigilant on security issues as well as on providing updates to your applications, including the operating system. If you are using a dial-up connection to the Internet, please call West Coast Internet, 487-3302, and order your broadband hookup. Over the past few months I have seen more than a few individuals who have not used Software Update because their dial-up connection often disconnects. Another reason why you need a broadband connection is that modern software often requires huge file downloads that could take hours on a dial-up but only minutes over a broadband connection.
Repair Disk Permissions. Please perform this procedure monthly, or when you have added a new printer or other device attached to you Mac, or when you have updated your operating system. Launch Disk Utility to access the repair permissions procedure. It is fast and keeps your files in healthy condition.
December 2005
Mac OS X Update 10.4.3. This long awaited update arrived early November and was installed on my Mac without incident. One positive result is that my Mac runs very quietly. The temperature/fan fix in the update seems to work. I recommend the update for any Mac running Tiger 10.4.x. The download is 97 MB (requires broadband).
New Member Benefit: Convert your VHS Tapes to DVD. In a gesture to help members convert their VCR tape recordings to DVD discs, the LWMUG Board authorized the purchase of a VCR tape to DVD converter. The converter is now available in the Learning Center for use by LWMUG members.
You will be able to convert your personal videos from VHS tapes to DVD+R and DVD+RW discs. Setup is simple and connections are minimal. You will not be able to make copies of commercial tapes.
John Hansen has the same converter at his home, and he agreed to answer any questions you may have. John likes the quality reproduction. He finds the tape editing a bit tedious if you have many stop-and-go points. John is looking for a more detailed user’s manual.
The converter will also play your CD-based MP3 music files and accept JPEG digital photos, including Kodak Picture CDs. You can even play MP3 music in the background during your slideshow. You can also transfer video from your camcorder to the DVD recorder via an FireWire (DV) cable.
Four new work station tables at the Learning Center. Four sturdy computer work station tables have replaced four older banquet-style tables at the Learning Center. One of my pet peeves with the banquet tables was that they sag in the middle. The computer user had to lean their head a bit to square up with the display. This is no longer the case.
Learning Center December holiday closing. The Learning Center will be closed from Monday, December 26 through Friday, December 30, reopening Monday, January 2, 2006. This is actually a very productive time for the Learning Center. All Macs will get a thorough tune-up.
November 2005
October Meeting canceled. What happened? Our club never had a reservation for Clubhouse 1 for the October meeting. We have always have had ten meeting dates for ten years and each year is rescheduled without a hitch. A number of opportunities to discover the missing date eluded us. I do not expect it to happen again. It was a learning experience. If a room is canceled, join us in a march for a vacant room. The speaker had been rescheduled for February. I apologize for the inconvenience.
New iMac G5. Meanwhile, Apple has announced an new iMac G5 available now. The iMac has a built-in iSight camera, AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth wireless technologies. The optical drive can handle 8x writing speed and use two layers of recording media. The iMac comes with 17-inch or 20-inch display. The processor chip speed has increased to 1.9GHz and 2.1GHz. For you folks with a 400 MHz (megahertz) iMac, that is a five fold speed increase The iMac comes with the Mighty Mouse and keyboard. Two new applications are Front Row and Photo Booth. Photo Booth captures images from the iSight camera and can distort the images similar to what you experience with the distorted mirrors found in a 'fun house'. Great fun you can share. Front Row comes with a six button remote control than plays your music, movies and DVDs on the iMac as a slick presentation across the room. Mac OS X Tiger and iLife '05 software included. The price is unchanged from the previous iMac. See the Apple web site, www.apple.com for more details. Lots of value for the price.
New iPods. Two models with 30 and 60GB storage or 7,500 and 15,000 songs respectively. Oh yes, they can run up to 150 hours music videos and TV shows on a 2.5-inch display. Ask your grandchildren how cool they are.
October 2005
An owner of the MacFixIt.com web site stated:
“If the people who usually report problems with OS X were doing but four things, (1) applying system updates in SAFE MODE, (2) keeping a perfectly CLEAN account for systems administration ONLY, (3) backing up REGULARLY using MULTIPLE tape sets or external drives, and (4) regularly running APPLEJACK, MacFixIt would go out of business. It’s not aeronautical engineering, just common sense that Apple should promote as basic rules of thumb for everyone, newbie end-user and experienced sysadmin alike.”
System updates are major Mac OS X 10.x updates, for example 10.4.2. SAFE MODE means booting up with the Shift key depressed. Safe mode allows prevents third-party software from launching during bootup. Once you are in Finder, you proceed with the update. You can expect the update install will be successful.
Keeping a clean administration account means create another User account for yourself that does not have 'admin' privileges. Do this by not checking the "Allow user to administer this computer" in the System Preferences > Accounts. Use this new account for your daily computer use.
Reliable backup requires an external drive. I'll ignore the advice for an expensive tape device. You can try using CD/DVD media. I have an external FireWire 60 GB hard drive. For starters, drag and drop your 'user-name' folder into the external hard drive. All your email, documents, bookmarks, and user preferences will be saved. Please store your documents in the Documents folder inside your 'user-name' folder. When I find a more compressive backup strategy, I'll report back here.
If you use Jaguar, Panther, or Tiger, please download AppleJack at the macupdate web site. Learn more about AppleJack at: http://applejack.sourceforge.net/ AppleJack is a small script that you launch, say once a month, by holding down the Command-S keys during bootup. AppleJack will repair your disk, repair permissions, cleanup cache files, validate preferences files and remove swap files. Swap files are internal, invisible temporary files your system uses during copying and writing operations.
September 2005
Broadband. Starting October 1, the monthly subscription rate for West Coast Internet broadband service will be reduced to $19.95 (currently $29.95/month). Golden Rain thanks the 2,000 subscribers for providing the financial support to fund the service. Now that capital costs are lower, the reduced subscription rate is justified.
New Supervisor. Faye Pearl is our newest Alternate Supervisor volunteer. She was recruited by George Devine. Faye will substitute for the regular Supervisor staff as needed. Ned Read can help out on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I have heard from a few other members that they may be interested. Well, when you are ready to commit, let me or any Supervisor know. You must be comfortable with greeting and helping people. Schedules for Supervisors are three hours each week, either mornings (9-12 noon) or afternoon (12-3 p.m.) - or 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. as Shell does on Wednesdays and Charles and Anne on Thursdays.
Tiger. During the summer, Anne and I upgraded to Tiger (Mac OS 10.4.2). I recommend it as long as you have sufficient memory, at least 512 MB - the more the better. The new search engine, Spotlight, took me a few minutes to get used to. It can find anything on your hard drive, including contents inside files. You no longer need to be so careful about where you store files on your hard drive. No need to be be a neat housekeeper with each file in its 'proper' folder. OK, let's respect iTunes and iPhoto file storage requirements. Another Tiger feature, Dashboard, contains many interesting small programs called Widgets, such as Dictionary, Calendar, Clock, Weather (which lets you see the current and six-day weather forecast anywhere in the world), and many more. All in all, Tiger sports over 150 new features and enhancements to explore.
One Tiger enhancement I discovered early on was the improved capability of Disk Utility. One of our members wanted to upgrade to Tiger, but the installation stalled due to "overlapped extent allocation" hard drive errors. The 10.4.2 version of Disk Utility can repair such problems. I am impressed. Search the Apple web site for "overlapped extent allocation" for the technical details. By the way, the Tiger installation proceeded flawlessly after the repair.
July / August 2005
New Supervisor. Craig Hoyt has eagerly accepted to take over as the Tuesday afternoon Learning Center Supervisor. Craig has extensive Macintosh and Windows repair skills. He is currently a Macintosh Specialist with AzTech. His phone number is on the Board Roster on page 2.
Linda Lee, formally the Tuesday afternoon Supervisor, is currently undergoing intensive medical treatment to build up her immune system. Since Linda’s doctor’s office overlooks the Fashion Island Apple Store, guess where Linda goes shopping? So far she has bought a 17-inch G4 PowerBook, Airport Extreme Base Station, and a Airport Express Base Station with AirTunes. Linda’s goal is to hear her iPod music on her home enterainment system and use the PowerBook connected wirelessly to the Internet. We wish Linda well during her treatments.
Ruth Williams will start soon to help maintain the Learning Center Library. Ruth is a former school teacher from Kentucky. Meanwhile, new Tiger titles are coming in.
SPAM fighter. NetStar, currently providing the Learning Center and a few members with email accounts has eight great new spam prevention tools. One, Challenge-Response Mechanism (C-R) has been set up in the Learning Center. Shell Weinberg uses it also. I recently sent an email to Shell. I received an reply, not from Shell but a Challenge requesting I fill in eight large characters that I see on the C-R web page. Easy for humans to perceive. Spam robots will not have a clue. I gave a correct Response. My email is then sent to Shell. Future email sent to Shell from me will not be challenged.
Email problem solved. A member could not get her mail. I sat myself down in from of the Mac. All settings were good. I did notice that I could not select None for SMTP authentication, not that I need to. This is a major clue. I tossed the com.apple.mail.plist file found in Home>Library>Preferences. I filled in the account settings and bingo; over two hundred messages came in. Case solved.
June 2005
How to avoid problems using your Mac, Part 2
The Library folder and preferences (plist) files. Many problems can be solved by moving or deleting the preference file of the application that is not working. These files are inside the Preference folder, which is inside the Library folder. The contents of the Preferences folder is a list of plist files. Plist is the file name extension for preferences. They are not play lists.
Let’s try the moving procedure. Quit the troublesome application. Move (drag and drop) the suspected plist files to the Desktop. Relaunch the troublesome application and see if the problem has gone away. If it has, you can delete the file on the Desktop. If there is no improvement, you have the choice of keeping the newly created plist file or moving the old plist file back into the Preferences folder.
Using your email address online. If you are using a website to purchase items, only use trusted sites. Amazon is a good example. Do not respond to unsolicited email offers. Do not use your email address where is is posted publicly such as in forum discussions. If you use your email address only for trusted correspondents, you are also cutting down on your daily spam traffic.
Never give out personal information (phishing for data). You may get an email from your bank, eBay, or PayPal asking you to reenter your account information, including your password and credit card number. You may be given a web link to click on for the account details. The web page may look official, but its a hoax setup by evil doers. Bottom-line, just do not respond.
Slow down on clicking on the OK button. Read the warnings before you answer any dialog message. Understand what action you are taking. Do you really want to replace the contents of your iPod with an empty music library on your new Mac? I think not.
May 2005
How to avoid problems using your Mac, Part 1
Our Macs are well built computers. The Mac OS X operating system is very robust. However, it is very large and many parts of the system software remain hidden. Apple Computer has worked very hard to make the user interface easy to use. Follow good procedures and you will be productive; however, “stuff” happens.
Here are some tips to recover when “stuff” happens:
Back up. Yes, I know you have heard this many times and you know backups should be done. Perhaps you don’t know some easy first steps. Go to the Home folder, drag your name user folder to an external hard drive or DVD disk. My user folder size is 5.5 GB, therefore using a CD-R disk is inadequate. I use an external 80 GB Firewire external drive. I also make sure that all documents are stored in Documents folder inside my home folder. I do this because I can make a backup copy by dragging the user folder to the drive or DVD disk.
Save immediately, save often. When I open a new document, I immediacy initiate the File Save command (keyboard shortcut Command-S), making sure I give it a name (untitled is not an option) and a destination (Documents folder in my user folder). So if the application freezes, power goes off, your foot trips the power strip, or the cat steps on your keyboard, you will have something to work on after the unwanted interruption. I save after each paragraph and after each spell check.
Stay out where you are not wanted. Stay out of the invisible Unix files and the System folder. Please.
Be slow to install software updates. This is counter intuitive. When Apple Computer releases new updates, a prudent practice is to wait a few days. Look at the Mac news sites for comments about problems found. Please bookmark www.macintouch.com and www.macfixit.com. You will learn something every day on how to manage your Mac. More next month.
April 2005
A few weeks ago Anne and I had seven computers in our little "home office." From left to right, they were:
# 1 My Titanium PowerBook G4 500MHz, running OS 10.2 (Jaguar) and OS 9, is used when folks ask questions about OS 9. It makes an appearance at our monthly meetings to print new member name badges. In its day, it was hot stuff. Today, it is just a capable, minion-like Mac.
# 2 My new joy is the 1.8 MHz iMac G5 20-inch wide display running OS 10.3.8 (Panther). This is my primary Mac and it works very well.
# 3 Next to me is a Compaq Presario S5000NX desktop PC running Windows XP Home Edition given to Anne by the PC Club so she could use Windows software to support the Laguna Woods PC Club web site. I use it to keep the Windows security updates which are very easy to download. It has no viruses and has not caused me any problems.
# 4 Also next to me is a member’s Blue and White G3 350MHz with Mac OS 10.2.8 and 256MB memory. It is a legacy Mac with an Apple Desktop Bus connector for the keyboard. It is still a competent Mac. I tuned it up and it is good for another year.
# 5 Finally, nearby is a Toshiba Satellite laptop running Windows XP Professional owned by the PC club. It was loaned to me when I borrow the cable modem and wireless router for our monthly meetings. For the few hours I have it I usually download the Windows security updates and the latest virus update. No real problems.
# 6 Anne’s primary Mac is a 1.25 MHz eMac, the workhorse of the group. It is still snappy.
# 7 Anne’s second (older) Mac is the 500 MHz G4 with two connected flat-panel displays. Anne is in desktop heaven. That’s a total of three screens in front of her. An added touch is a small television nearby for diversion.
I am so surprised that I filled up my eight-port Ethernet switch.
March 2005
New Macs The Learning Center has three new iMac G5 20-inch widescreen computers. These G5 iMacs have a 1.8 GHz G5 processor, 160 GB hard drive, and a slot-load Super Drive. The computers’ software includes Mac OS X version 10.3 “Panther,” iLife (includes iTunes, iPhoto 5, iMovie HD, iDVD and GarageBand), AppleWorks, Quicken 2004 for Mac, World Book 2004 Edition, Nanosaur 2, Marble Blast Gold, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive, Apple Hardware Test and more. These iMacs will not have any problem running the soon-to-be-released edition of operating software, Tiger (OS 10.4). I thank Shell Weinberg for rearranging the computers in the Learning Center. He is very efficient and works faster than I do. The new computers will reside on “Supervisor’s row.”
Old Macs Three old iMacs will be removed from the Learning Center and placed in the PCM warehouse. Two of these iMacs are the ’classic’ Bondi blue iMacs. The third computer is a Motorola StarMax. All three of these Macs are Internet-capable and have Mac OS 8.6 installed. If you have a friend that may want one of these computers, look in the Laguna Woods Village Globe for the ’For Bid’ for surplus property notice. The buyer in invited to inspect the computers and must submit a written bid. Highest bidder wins. The funds are deposited to Golden Rain Foundation’s account.
Thank You I wish to thank member Matthew Krasowski for buying stuff for the Learning Center (at no cost to the club), giving me his old computer magazines, and bringing me coffee Thursday morning. Matt shops the various computer fairs in the county and seems to enjoy shopping or spending money, one or the other.
Errata In the February 2005 President Message I wanted to describe my iMac 20-inch widescreen computer as a real whipper snapper. In the Opening Attachments in Email ... article, the last line in Tip #4 should read AppleWorks 6.2.9 works great because it has file translation built in.