QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Several computing queries and suggested solutions included:

WHEN TO UPDATE
Should I set my Software Update Preference to update automatically?

Generally, yes. In System Preferences/Software Update on the Scheduled Check panel you have the option of checking Download important updates automatically - this refers to new system and security software. Its a good idea to check this, unless you are short of space on your hard disk:

SYNCHRONISING MEMORY STICKS
I have several memory sticks (flash drives) - how can I synchronise them so that they contain the same files?

Use a file synchronising application such as JFileSync, which synchronises pairs of directories. For information go to http://jfilesync.sourceforge.net . On the download page select the latest End-User Release. [Thanks Jamie]
Use a backup/synchronising software such as Carbon Copy Cloner (see AMUG Minutes April 2009) which compares files on a source disk with those on a target disk, then synchronises by copying/deleting as necessary. For download and information visit http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html.

USING BOUNCE IN MAIL
How and when do I bounce e-mail messages in the Mail application??

To bounce an unwanted message in Mail, select the message, then go to the Message menu and select Bounce. The message will be moved to your Trash folder, and the sender will receive a reply indicating that your e-mail address is not valid.
Mail Help explains, To discourage someone from sending you messages, you can reject or bounce messages from that person, as long as the return address is valid. Bouncing messages can be useful for rejecting mass mailings from companies whose mailing lists youve been added to after buying products.
Also note: many unsolicited (spam) messages do not have valid return addresses, and cant be bounced back to the original sender. If you try to bounce a message that has an invalid return address, its returned to you as undeliverable.
You can create a rule that automatically deletes messages from a specific sender. Or, use the junk mail filter to remove messages that are likely to be junk mail.

ITUNES LIBRARY PROBLEMS
Sometimes when I select a song in iTunes it tells me that the original could not be found what can I do?

If files have been moved/deleted inadvertently, your iTunes library and/or playlists may need to be recreated. For a detailed explanation of how to do this, and also information on how to back up the library and playlists, go to the Apple Support webpage http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451.

SIMILARLY - iPHOTO LIBRARY PROBLEMS
Blank panels have appeared in my iPhoto library now what?

Usually this is because your iPhoto database has developed some irregularities. You can rebuild it by first quitting the application, then holding down the Option and Command (Apple) keys while you restart it. This opens a dialog box which gives you a number of rebuilding options which should cure any problems. Note the Backup warning!

HOME NETWORKING PROBLEMS
When I open Safari on my home-networked computer it will sometimes connect, but at other times needs to be quit then re-opened before it will connect. Any ideas why?

Sorry no-one at the meeting could offer suggestions. Does anyone have an idea?

SLIDEHOW MUSIC
How can I make slidehow music play so that there is no silent gap between tracks?

the quickest is to tell your iTunes to crossfade songs go to the iTunes/Preferences/Playback menu and check Crossfade Songs. Drag the slider to the right to increase the crossfade time:
more involved (but not difficult) is to use Garage Band to crossfade the song tracks (see session below). Garage Band can also eliminate the silences at the beginning/end of song tracks.

Thank you to the various members who helped in this session.

MacBASICS

Sheryl gave an explanation of a number of basic features relating to Finder appearance and Hard Drive set-up:

APPLE MENU

The colour of the Apple icon in the top left corner of the screen indicates the version of the Operating System that is currently being used:

Black (or semi-transparent) = MacOS 10.5 or 10.6
Blue = MacOS 10.0 - 10.4
Rainbow = MacOS 9 or earlier (Classic). On pre-Intel Macs running MacOS 10.1-4 and Classic, the colour or the icon will change according to the OS in use.

Clicking on the Apple icon causes the Apple Menu to appear.

ABOUT THIS MAC

The first item in the Apple Menu, About This Mac, gives information about both the computer and the system software that is being used. Firstly, the Version of the Operating System is listed, eg. 10.5.8 above. In this version-name, the 10 refers to the number of the Operating System, also referred to as Mac OS X.

The next number (eg. 5 above) is the version within Mac OS X; to upgrade this you need to purchase the next version. Each version of Mac OS X is codenamed:

10.0 Cheetah, released in March 2001
10.1 Puma, released in September 2001
10.2 "Jaguar", released in August 2002
10.3 "Panther", released in October 2003
10.4 "Tiger", released in April 2005
10.5 "Leopard", released in October 2007
10.6 "Snow Leopard", released in August 2009

The last number (eg. 8 above) is the latest update within the current version. Updates are free, and are obtained through Software Update, also on the About This Mac panel, as well as in the Apple Menu.

On the About This Mac is also information on the computers processing speed and available memory. Clicking More Info gives access to a wide range of information about the computers hardware and installed software, including applications.

HARD DISK CONTENTS

The computers Hard Disk (HD, or Hard Drive) contains a standard set of folders, some of which should not be interfered with, moved or renamed. These are:

The Applications folder is where MacOS X apps which are available to all users of the computer should be stored. This folder also contains the Utilities subfolder, with such apps as Disk Utility, Grab and Keychain Access.
The Applications (MacOS 9) folder will only appear on pre-Intel computers which are using MacOS 10.4 or lower, and which have Classic installed. It contains Classis apps which are available to all users.
The Library folder contains a variety of subfolders of items such as Fonts, Pictures, and Dictionaries which are also available to all users. Generally, leave this folder alone!
The System folder contains a library of folders which contain components of the MacOS X operating system. Definitely do not alter!
The System Folder (not the same as above!) contains the components for running Classic (MacOS 9) on pre-Intel machines. Again, dont alter.
The User Guides and Information folder may or my not be present it contains information about operating the computer.
The Users folder contains Home folders for however many user accounts have been created on the computer, as well as a Shared folder to which other users have access.

Within each users Home folder are a number of standard folders containing items which are available to that user only these include Applications, Library (of user-specific fonts, preferences, etc), Pictures (where iPhoto files are stored), Music (where iTunes and Garage Band files are stored), Movies, Documents. Generally you can use these folders and create other folders here, but dont go into the iPhoto and iTunes folders, as altering their contents could corrupt the files in them.

Thank you Sheryl for this detailed Basics session.

AMUG WEBSITE

Jamie has begun to update our website, which contains an archive of topics previous meetings (extracted from the minutes) for the past ten years, as well as information on AMUG Committee members and the minutes of the most recent meeting. Thank you Jamie for taking over this task, and for your work on the website to date.

As may be seen above, Lea (thought it was Orcon but most likely not!) had added a Search facility to the sites homepage being able to Search the Site means that the reports of meeting sessions (including many Q&A topics) in the archives are now fully indexed and searchable, so if a topic has been on the agenda in the past, you can quickly locate its report. Thank you, Orcon!

Access the AMUG website at http://www.aorakimacuser.orcon.net.nz
Although you may already be aware of this if you can see this!

Thank you Jamie for your ongoing work as AMUG Webmaster .

CREATE BOOKLET

Tony demonstrated a small utility service called Create Booklet which enables a multipage document to be automatically reformatted so that it prints out as a foldable double-sided booklet.

This is done by using Apples Automator to create a workflow which automatically resizes the original pages and rearranges them appropriately into a PDF document. You do this by creating your pages (in Pages, Word,etc), then going to the Print menu and clicking the PDF button and selecting the Create Booklet option, eg (actual appearance will vary according to your installed printer):

You then print the PDF document, either by printing odd then even pages, or by duplex printing, fold and centre-staple the sheets to make a multi-page booket which contains all the pages in correct order very handy, and certainly saves a lot of manual cut-and-paste time!

This facility, created by Christoph Vogelbusch in Germany, is described and is available on Apples Download website: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/createbooklet.html.
You might also like to browse other Automator tasks on http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/.
You may also download it here!
CreateBooklet1.1.dmg

Thank you Tony for demonstrating this useful Automator service.

BURNING CDs MULTIPLE TIMES

Hugh shared an article (posted on the Smalldog.com Mac Treat website by Matt Klein) which succinctly describes how to burn more than once onto a CD or DVD:

Did you know that its possible to burn to one CD or DVD multiple times? The trick is to use the Leave Disk Appendable option in Disk Utility, located in the Utilities folder on every Mac. First step is to create a folder and fill it with the stuff you want to burn. From there, open up Disk Utility (Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities), pull down the File Menu, select New, and then Disk Image From Folder in the sub-menu.

When the resulting window opens, find that folder you just created and click the Image button. Select a destination for your image, and click Save. The disk image, ending with .dmg, will shortly appear on your desktop and along the left side of the Disk Utility window. Click once on its icon in Disk Utility, then click the Burn button at the top left of the Disk Utility window.

Heres the trick: When you click the Burn button, a dialog box will pop up asking you to insert a discgo ahead and insert the disc, then click the blue triangle on the right side of the window and click the box next to Leave Disk Appendable before hitting Burn. Next time you need to burn a disk, just repeat the process; when you get to the final step, the button will say Append instead of Burn.

View the article and other Mac Treats on Smalldogs website: http://blog.smalldog.com/article/mac-treat-98-burn-several-times-to-the-same-disc/

This topic was further discussed at AMUGs June 2008 meeting go to http://www.aorakimacuser.orconhosting.net.nz/2008/June_2008.html

Thank you Hugh for sharing this article.

E-MAIL SECURITY

Arising from a query during the Question & Answer Session, Jamie demonstrated how to additionally safeguard the Mail application from receiving unwanted messages:

When you receive messages in HTLM format that is, so that the message includes anything other than plain text (colour, bold print, underlining, images, etc), some spammers can insert an unseen image which the message has to download from their server this indicates back to the spammer that yours is a valid address, and is therefore open to receive unsolicited messages. The unseen image may be as insignificant as a single white pixel, and therefore visually undetectable, but is present, nevertheless.

You can circumvent the spammers ploy by telling Mail not to automatically download images messages in HTML from remote servers. To do this:

Go to Mail menu and select Preferences.
Click the Viewing tab.
Make sure that the Display remote images in HTML messages box is unchecked:

Other e-mail applications have similar protective features. Entourage will not automatically download images in messages in e-mails, although you can set it to do so in messages from contacts in your address book.

Thank you Jamie for this useful tip.

SNOW LEOPARD

Barry has been running Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) since it was released a month ago, and made some comments on his experience:

Installation was no problem all went quite smoothly.
Operation is appreciably quicker than earlier operating systems.
Considerable hard disk space has been saved around 6-7GB.
Little visible difference from Leopard one feature is that nested folders are now available in grid view from the Dock (previously they opened in Finder).

Thank you Barry for this information.

REMINDER

Next AMUG Evening Meeting : Friday 30 October at 7:30pm. All welcome!
Next AMUG Committee Skype Chat : Tuesday 20 October at 9:00pm.

Regards to all....

Tony Climo
Secretary, Aoraki Macintosh Users Group
E-mail tonyclimo@orcon.net.nz
Phone 03 693 9215

September 22, 2009 Meeting

Webspot - Apple Tablet

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MacBASICS