Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Steven Pollock seeks a digital copy of a movie he recently purchased. He writes:
I read Macworld’s story about how to rip DVDs with HandBrake and I’m having a problem. I’d like to rip a DVD that I recently purchased so that I can view it on my iPad. But when HandBrake starts scanning it, it crashes. I’ve tried it multiple times and I’m not having any luck. Is there a trick to it?
There is. But before we get into it, run your eyes over the boilerplate text that we include with these kinds of articles:
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Mike Sadowski finds something amiss in Safari and Mail’s relationship. He writes
In Safari 5 I was able to view a web page and, with a keyboard shortcut, insert a web link to that page in a new Mail message. Mail now places the link below my default signature. In previous versions of OSX, I distinctly remember the link being placed at the top line or the second line of the new email. For the life of me I can’t find a setting to change this. Is there a way?
There is. But before I reveal that answer, allow me to fill in some blanks for readers hearing about this feature for the first time.
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Cat Sorenson finds herself with an iPod that won’t update. She writes:
I’ve been trying to update my iPod touch to iOS 6 and it’s not working. I plugged it into my Mac, chose to update it in iTunes, and the update stalled on the iPod—the progress bar never filled in on the iPod’s screen. I waited an hour and still nothing. I unplugged the iPod and tried again. And when I did, I was told I had to restore the iPod. I tried this too but I got into this endless cycle where iTunes would download the latest update, the update wouldn’t install, and then I was told to restore again. Again, iTunes downloaded the update but wouldn’t install it. I can’t use my iPod at all as it only displays the Connect to iTunes screen. What should I do?
The Connect to iTunes screen you see indicates that your iPod is in recovery mode and clearly that’s not working. Your next step is to try booting into Device Firmware Update (or DFU) mode. To do this, hold down the On/Off button until the iPod shuts off. Then hold down both the Home and On/Off button for 10 seconds. Let go of the On/Off button but keep holding the Home button for another 10 seconds.
Last September, a new thread in Apple Support Communities briefly noted that a user was unable to get his iPhone 5 to pair with other Bluetooth devices. As it turned out, he was not alone. Cut to the present: this thread is now 29 pages long, with several hundred confirmations of the symptom.
Here’s the problem: In the most common scenario, users are unable to pair an iPhone 5 to a Bluetooth car audio system. In some other cases, users are unable to pair an iPhone 5 to a Bluetooth headset. Pairings to other devices may or may not work. Typically, problems begin after upgrading from an older iPhone model (which was working just fine) to an iPhone 5, running iOS 6. In a few instances, the same sort of pairing problems have been reported for the iPhone 4S.
If this has happened to you, one or more of the following fixes should get you connected again:
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Gil Cranston would like to save a step or two when saving files. He writes:
I’m a pretty happy Dropbox user who spends a lot of time on the road. But I sometimes forget to put the files I’m working on at the office in my Dropbox folder. Any hints on ways to ensure this doesn’t happen?
I can offer a couple, yes. The first is dead simple but it will cost you $35. That $35 solution is St. Clair Software’s Default Folder X. This much-beloved-by-Macworld’s-Dan-Frakes utility allows you to choose a… well, default folder for saving documents within any application.
