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 Tim Kisanuki is a bit late to the party and is unsure what to expect when he arrives. He writes:
I’ve been running Snow Leopard on my iMac since it was released. I’m finally ready to upgrade to Mountain Lion. Before I do, can you tell me about any serious problems or odd behaviors I might encounter?
I recently moved one of my Macs that remained on Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion so the experience is fresh in my mind. The few things that popped out at me soon after I restarted with my freshly installed version of the Mac OS include:
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 Elsa Pederson finds her Mac mysteriously out of memory. She writes:
Today I saw a message I’d never seen before. It indicated that my Mac had run out of application memory. In order to keep working I had to force quit some of my open applications. Is there a way I could have known which application was causing the problem?
Yes. In some cases, the misbehaving application will appear in red, followed by the words “Not Responding.” This strongly hints that this application has gone on a RAM binge and has consumed so much of the stuff that it can no longer move. One way to tell if that’s the problem application is to force quit a different application. If the once-red application starts responding again, it tells you it’s now happy because it has more RAM to chew on.
One of the best benefits of using iCloud is Safari syncing because it syncs all of your Safari bookmarks across all your Mac and iOS devices. As if that wasn’t enough, if you’re running Mountain Lion and iOS 6, each synced device can view and open Safari tabs from any other device.
For me, the only downside of this feature is that it doesn’t always work. I’ve especially had problems getting my MacBook Pro (13-inch Retina display) to sync with changes I make on my Mac Pro. I am not alone. If you search Apple Support Communities, you find at least a half-dozen threads describing the same general issue.
If this happens to you, my first recommendation is to quit and relaunch Safari. If that has no effect, log into your iCloud account (at www.icloud.com) from Safari. Doing so may jog iCloud into taking the appropriate syncing action. If there is still no success, restart your Mac.
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 Susan Malloy has lost some important email and can’t seem to retrieve it. She writes:
I use Microsoft Outlook 2011 as my email client. I was recently searching for an invoice emailed to me so that I could add it to an expense report. I know Outlook once had it but when I search within Outlook the message doesn't appear. Oddly enough, when I perform a Finder search, the message is there. Yet I can’t open it. What can I do?
First, take a deep breath. (And, if you swing that way, a stiff drink, as this one’s a brain buster.) Here’s what happened:
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.
