Macworld's best tips, tricks, and How-To's

Leopard Troubleshooting: Seeking First Aid

When simple methods such as restarting fail to patch up your Mac, it may be time to call on Disk Utility’s First Aid tools. Ted Landau walks you through the process.

Excerpt: Leopard troubleshooting guideWhile the Mac is generally a picture of health, many things can go wrong with such a complicated system. When trouble strikes, figuring out what exactly the problem is and where it’s coming from is half the challenge In this excerpt from our Total Leopard e-book, Ted Landau takes a look at some of the most common Mac problems and walks you through the steps you should take to solve them.
Bugs & Fixes: Time Machine holdupsTed Landau’s Time Machine backups began sticking at the “Preparing…” stage of starting a backup. So he did some digging to find out what was causing the problem.

Latest Tips, Tricks, and How-To's

Leopard Troubleshooting: Seeking First Aid
When simple methods such as restarting fail to patch up your Mac, it may be time to call on Disk Utility’s First Aid tools. Ted Landau walks you through the process.
Excerpt: Leopard troubleshooting guide
While the Mac is generally a picture of health, many things can go wrong with such a complicated system. When trouble strikes, figuring out what exactly the problem is and where it’s coming from is half the challenge In this excerpt from our Total Leopard e-book, Ted Landau takes a look at some of the most common Mac problems and walks you through the steps you should take to solve them.
Bugs & Fixes: Time Machine holdups
Ted Landau’s Time Machine backups began sticking at the “Preparing…” stage of starting a backup. So he did some digging to find out what was causing the problem.
Allow personal home page when using WebKit
If you're using WebKit (a version of Safari with a newer web page rendering engine), here's how to make it use your preferred home page instead of the WebKit nightly home page.
Music videos and older iPods
What exactly can you do with a new music video and an older iPod? Answers here.
Essential mobile gear
As a Macworld editor, I’m often asked what I pack in my laptop bag; here’s a look at the kinds of accessories that are on my must-have on-the-go list, along with some specific examples of them.
Use Safari 3 to help with text searching tasks
Use Safari 3's enhanced find features to ease the task of searching text files for various words and phrases.
Frame your calendar
Want to place your iCal calendar on the wall in digital form? Here's how.
Burn multiple CDs at once in iTunes
If you’ve got a machine with more than one CD burner, here’s a simple method to use them to burn more than one music CD at once in iTunes.
Setting up Pro Tools recording gear
Jim Dalrymple’s album-recording project continues, as he turns to the Digidesign 003 Factory audio interface, Pro Tools LE 7 audio software, and M-Audio Octane preamp for his recording needs.
Alphabetizing Firefox bookmarks
Frustrated by Firefox's hesitance to alphabetize your bookmarks? It's easy when you know the trick.
Geek Factor: Control the world
Your Mac can already talk to all kinds of electronic devices. But there are plenty of other gizmos that your Mac can’t communicate with: motors, robots, external LCD displays, and sensors of all sorts. You’ll need a microcontroller to connect hobbyist hardware to your Mac. Brian Jepson shows you how it’s done.
Turn to Path Styler Pro for logos, title graphics
Path Styler Pro helps you produce high-quality logos and title graphics in either Illustrator or Photoshop with a noticeable ease of use. James Dempsey takes a closer look at the plugin.
Bugs & Fixes: Desktop items MIA
If items you’ve tried saving to your Desktop are disappearing without a trace, Ted Landau feels your pain. Here’s how he solves the problem.
Copy paths from Finder selections
There are a number of ways to see and/or copy the path to a given selection in the Finder. Rob Griffiths explores your options.
Add more solid desktop color options
Discover two ways to use more than the 10 provided solid-colored desktop backgrounds.
Mail and its hidden headers
Concerned that a spammer might learn of your whereabouts when you preview a message? Let's bring your concerns into perspective.
Mouse-only access to title bar icons in 10.5
Learn a simple way to access title bar icon menus (proxy icons) in Leopard.
Sending iCal invites to the many
Of course you can send a single iCal invitation to many recipients. Here's how.
Bugs & Fixes: Yahoo Mail won’t send
If you’re an AT&T/Yahoo DSL user having trouble sending e-mail, you’ll want to read Ted Landau’s advice on how to fix the problem.

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Leopard Troubleshooting: Seeking First Aid
When simple methods such as restarting fail to patch up your Mac, it may be time to call on Disk Utility’s First Aid tools. Ted Landau walks you through the process.
Excerpt: Leopard troubleshooting guide
While the Mac is generally a picture of health, many things can go wrong with such a complicated system. When trouble strikes, figuring out what exactly the problem is and where it’s coming from is half the challenge In this excerpt from our Total Leopard e-book, Ted Landau takes a look at some of the most common Mac problems and walks you through the steps you should take to solve them.
Bugs & Fixes: Time Machine holdups
Ted Landau’s Time Machine backups began sticking at the “Preparing…” stage of starting a backup. So he did some digging to find out what was causing the problem.
Allow personal home page when using WebKit
If you're using WebKit (a version of Safari with a newer web page rendering engine), here's how to make it use your preferred home page instead of the WebKit nightly home page.
Essential mobile gear
As a Macworld editor, I’m often asked what I pack in my laptop bag; here’s a look at the kinds of accessories that are on my must-have on-the-go list, along with some specific examples of them.
Use Safari 3 to help with text searching tasks
Use Safari 3's enhanced find features to ease the task of searching text files for various words and phrases.
Frame your calendar
Want to place your iCal calendar on the wall in digital form? Here's how.
Burn multiple CDs at once in iTunes
If you’ve got a machine with more than one CD burner, here’s a simple method to use them to burn more than one music CD at once in iTunes.
Setting up Pro Tools recording gear
Jim Dalrymple’s album-recording project continues, as he turns to the Digidesign 003 Factory audio interface, Pro Tools LE 7 audio software, and M-Audio Octane preamp for his recording needs.
Alphabetizing Firefox bookmarks
Frustrated by Firefox's hesitance to alphabetize your bookmarks? It's easy when you know the trick.
Geek Factor: Control the world
Your Mac can already talk to all kinds of electronic devices. But there are plenty of other gizmos that your Mac can’t communicate with: motors, robots, external LCD displays, and sensors of all sorts. You’ll need a microcontroller to connect hobbyist hardware to your Mac. Brian Jepson shows you how it’s done.
Turn to Path Styler Pro for logos, title graphics
Path Styler Pro helps you produce high-quality logos and title graphics in either Illustrator or Photoshop with a noticeable ease of use. James Dempsey takes a closer look at the plugin.
Bugs & Fixes: Desktop items MIA
If items you’ve tried saving to your Desktop are disappearing without a trace, Ted Landau feels your pain. Here’s how he solves the problem.
Copy paths from Finder selections
There are a number of ways to see and/or copy the path to a given selection in the Finder. Rob Griffiths explores your options.

All Topic Tips, Tricks, and How-To's

Leopard Troubleshooting: Seeking First Aid
When simple methods such as restarting fail to patch up your Mac, it may be time to call on Disk Utility’s First Aid tools. Ted Landau walks you through the process.
Excerpt: Leopard troubleshooting guide
While the Mac is generally a picture of health, many things can go wrong with such a complicated system. When trouble strikes, figuring out what exactly the problem is and where it’s coming from is half the challenge In this excerpt from our Total Leopard e-book, Ted Landau takes a look at some of the most common Mac problems and walks you through the steps you should take to solve them.
Bugs & Fixes: Time Machine holdups
Ted Landau’s Time Machine backups began sticking at the “Preparing…” stage of starting a backup. So he did some digging to find out what was causing the problem.
Music videos and older iPods
What exactly can you do with a new music video and an older iPod? Answers here.
Essential mobile gear
As a Macworld editor, I’m often asked what I pack in my laptop bag; here’s a look at the kinds of accessories that are on my must-have on-the-go list, along with some specific examples of them.
Burn multiple CDs at once in iTunes
If you’ve got a machine with more than one CD burner, here’s a simple method to use them to burn more than one music CD at once in iTunes.
Setting up Pro Tools recording gear
Jim Dalrymple’s album-recording project continues, as he turns to the Digidesign 003 Factory audio interface, Pro Tools LE 7 audio software, and M-Audio Octane preamp for his recording needs.
Geek Factor: Control the world
Your Mac can already talk to all kinds of electronic devices. But there are plenty of other gizmos that your Mac can’t communicate with: motors, robots, external LCD displays, and sensors of all sorts. You’ll need a microcontroller to connect hobbyist hardware to your Mac. Brian Jepson shows you how it’s done.
Turn to Path Styler Pro for logos, title graphics
Path Styler Pro helps you produce high-quality logos and title graphics in either Illustrator or Photoshop with a noticeable ease of use. James Dempsey takes a closer look at the plugin.
Copy paths from Finder selections
There are a number of ways to see and/or copy the path to a given selection in the Finder. Rob Griffiths explores your options.
Add more solid desktop color options
Discover two ways to use more than the 10 provided solid-colored desktop backgrounds.
Mouse-only access to title bar icons in 10.5
Learn a simple way to access title bar icon menus (proxy icons) in Leopard.
Sending iCal invites to the many
Of course you can send a single iCal invitation to many recipients. Here's how.
Quick and easy folder sharing in 10.5
Learn how to easily share folders with anyone in Leopard.