Latest Posts in Mac 911

Upgrading a MacBook Pro's hard drive

Reader Tim Phillips faces a common upgrade dilemma. He writes:

Is it possible to upgrade a MacBook Pro hard drive without having to reinstall all the applications I have on my current hard drive?

Sure. What confuses most people about this is the fact that in one hand you have a laptop, complete with drive, and, in the other, a raw drive with seemingly no way to move data to it without jacking it into the laptop.

The solution is to simply provide the missing piece—the means for moving data from the laptop to the raw drive. For these sorts of situations I rely on Newer Technology’s $35 USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter. Compatible with ATA and SATA drives, you just plug one end of the adapter into the raw hard drive and the other into the MacBook Pro’s USB port.

Alternatively, you can purchase a cheap drive enclosure and fling the drive into it. (The advantage of the enclosure is that you can put your old hard drive into it and use it for other purposes.) At that point you can use a tool such as Bombich Software’s Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the current drive to the one you’ll replace it with.

When the job is done, open the laptop and… what, you say you’re not sure how to do that? iFixit, in addition to ripping apart every bit of cool technology that crosses its desk, provides solid instructions for upgrading Macs and other gear. If you prefer video, check out Other World Computing’s Install Videos page.

Bugs & Fixes: Font duplicate misadventures

Troubleshooting fonts is among my least favorite Mac tasks. Understanding precisely what is going on and what fix is needed too often seems a bit above my pay grade. Case in point: I recently launched Font Book for the first time since upgrading to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). I was surprised to find 16 “duplicate font” warnings. These had not been present when I had last opened Font Bonk in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5).

Now, as I see it, duplicate fonts are not necessarily much of a problem. Actually, if they truly are exact duplicates of the same font, they should be no problem at all—other than the waste of drive space. Where a problem can occur is if the duplicates are variations of the same font, perhaps in different font formats or created by different font designers. Even here, there are reasons you might want to retain both versions. (Read this PDF of an Extensis article for more on this point). However, especially if you work on documents where minor differences in fonts can have a significant effect on page layouts, you may have a clear preference for one of a duplicate pair. In such cases, you’ll want to deactivate the undesired duplicate.

If I had not launched Font Book, I would probably have never discovered the duplicates and would have continued in my blissful ignorance. But now that I knew about them, I felt obligated to address the matter.

After some investigating, I discovered the single source of all of the duplicates: One font of each pair had been installed as part of Microsoft Office (and was located in /Library/Fonts/Microsoft); the other had been installed by Snow Leopard and was in the /Library/Fonts folder. That’s why the duplicates didn’t show up until after I had upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6.

For no particular reason, other than that the Snow Leopard versions were newer and from Apple, I decided to deactivate the Microsoft versions of the fonts. This turned out to be a bit easier said than done.

Font Book does include a Resolve Duplicates command. Using it, I could select all the relevant fonts and deactivate one of each pair of the duplicates in one step. Unfortunately, this command gives you no control over which version of the font is deactivated. Font Book decides on its own. In my case, Font Book decided to deactivate the Snow Leopard versions—the opposite of my preference.

I tried another font utility, FontDoctor. It had similar problems. Actually, it alerted me to even more duplicates, because FontDoctor checks the /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts folder, which Font Book does not. I decided to ignore these for now. I had enough on my plate with the Microsoft duplicates.

Rather than continuing a search for a better utility, I shifted to a more blunt object assault: I removed the entire Microsoft folder from my Fonts folder. Sure, I was removing numerous unique fonts as well as the duplicates. But I had looked over the list and none of the fonts were ones that I used or needed. Or so I naively thought.

It turns out that Microsoft uses some of these fonts all on its own. I became aware of this on my next visit to Microsoft Word’s Style menu. The names of many of the styles were now an unintelligible string of symbols. This was because Word wanted to display the names in the now missing Eurostile font. When it could not find Eurostile, it shifted to “Type Embellishments One LET” instead.

So much for the blunt object assault. I returned the Microsoft folder to the Fonts folder and relaunched Font Book. I selected Show Font Info from the Preview menu. After selecting each duplicate font, I checked the Location line to determine which version it was. If it was the Microsoft version, I deactivated it (using the Disable command in the Edit menu). It was a bit tedious but, so far, this has worked without any negative side effects. Now about those Adobe font duplicates…

Caching iPod touch driving directions

Reader Stephen Good has a good question about driving with an iPod touch. He writes:

What is the best way to download driving directions onto an iPod touch? It seems so last century to print out directions in 2009. Google Maps remembers the last set of directions searched on Wi-Fi, but displays it only as a list. Maps can’t accept multiple stop directions, reverse the route, nor be redirected without a Wi-Fi connection. Suggestions?

At the risk of offending you right out of the gate, I’m afraid you’re mistaken about Maps maintaining only list directions after it’s lost a Wi-Fi connection. But there’s a trick to it.

Before venturing out into the world and while still connected to Wi-Fi, enter your directions. Now tap the dog-ear icon in the bottom right of the display and tap Satellite so that view loads. Tap dog-ear again, tap Hybrid so that view loads. Dog-ear one more time and tap Map to ensure that view is cached as well. Now take off.

When you return to Maps while on the road, it may appear that your directions aren’t saved. But they are. If the Map view doesn’t appear, tap the Start button in the upper-right corner of the display. This should provide you with the first leg of your journey. Tap the left-pointing arrow on this screen and the Map view should load—this time with a map actually on it. If you tap the dog-ear icon, you should be able to also load the Satellite, Hybrid, and List views. I’ve tested this on two 2G iPod touches and it works, even if you shut down and restart the iPod.

Reverse directions doesn’t work, however. You’re stuck with exactly what was saved when you last used Maps when connected to Wi-Fi. So, what to do? Put the iPod’s screen capture feature to good use.

While connected to Wi-Fi, map out your reverse journey (and stops along the way and alterate routes, if you like) and simultaneously press the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons to take screen shots of any important steps in your journey. When you’re ready for your return trip, call up those directions within the Photos app.

Not as slick as using a GPS or iPhone, granted. But it’s free. And free ain’t bad.

Move Finder items more efficiently

Reader Henry Francis provides the fodder for some intriguing group participation. He writes:

In the Finder, what is the easiest way to move a file from one location to another? My method is to drag the file to the Desktop, navigate to the new location, and then drag the file from the Desktop into the new location. This seems unnecessarily laborious and old-fashioned, but I cannot find any quicker way.

Interesting question. Here are a few ideas:

Spring-loaded folders Short-time Mac users may be unaware of the spring-loaded folders feature of old and that it still exists today. Click and drag the item you want to move to the volume or folder that contains the eventual destination. Hover the item over this volume or folder and that v or f opens. Drag it to the next folder and hover until that folder opens. Repeat until you reach the destination folder and then let go of the mouse button. The item drops into the folder.

Spring-loaded dock and sidebar items Volumes or folders in the Dock work the same way. Place often used destinations in the Dock and sidebar, drag the item to be moved on top of these things, and, again, you can burrow down to the destination you desire.

Copy and Go Select the item and press Command-C to copy it. Press Shift-Command-G while in the Finder and a Go to the Folder sheet appears in the front-most window. Enter the path to the folder you want to open—~/Music/iTunes, for example—click OK, and the folder opens, ready for you to move the item to it.

Use recent folders Copy the item and from that same Go menu in the Finder you’ll see a Recent Folders entry. Select it with the hope that the folder you want to move to is listed among the 10 recent folders.

Note: The failing of the Copy command is that you now have two copies of the item. If this is a big deal to you, don’t use the copy command. And while we’re on the subject of copying, you understand that you can move (not copy) items from one volume to another by holding down the Command key while dragging the item from place to place, right?

Other And here’s where the group participation comes in. I’m a fan of DragThing and have populated a palette with folders I routinely access—those on my startup drive as well as external and network drives. It’s easy enough to drag items into one of these folders or use DragThing’s spring-loaded feature to burrow in. But I know there are other options.

How about offering a few?

Bugs & Fixes: Solving Safari cookie problems

A cookie is a “small piece of text stored on a user’s computer by a Web browser.” If you ever have a problem that appears linked to a cookie in Safari, the standard solution is to go to Safari’s Preferences, select Security and click the Show Cookies button. From here, find the name of the cookie you want to delete and click to Remove it.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t always solve a cookie-related problem. That’s what I discovered when trying to deal with a Safari error that I’ve covered previously. The ironic symptom is that, when trying to load pages from Apple’s Support site (especially search results), I get one of an assortment of error messages—all equally odd. The most common error is shown in the the figure below. Only the Apple site and only the Safari browser are victims of this bug!

When I last wrote about this symptom, I had not zeroed in on a solution. So I’ve been investigating it further. I’ve now found how to eradicate the symptom. But along the way, I learned some curious facts about how cookies work in Safari.

First off, the error message suggested that a cookie item named ac_history might be the proximate cause. I did find an ac_history cookie from apple.com listed in Safari’s Show Cookies window (shown below). So I removed it. The errors vanished immediately, without even having to quit Safari. So far, so good. But within a short time, usually less than an hour, the symptoms returned. As did the problematic ac_history cookie. Clearly, this was not a permanent fix.

Read more...

Printing mailing labels

Reader Evelyn Cromwell asks a question that I try to answer every couple of years. She writes:

Having been an Appleworks user since 1987 I’m lost without it. I now have iWork and Bento 2, but am unable to print out labels. Is there some other software available to print mailing labels with my iMac using Snow Leopard?

There is and it’s an application you’re likely very familiar with: Address Book. Though it’s not a highly visible feature, Address Book supports label printing. You print labels this way:

1. Create a group in Address Book with an appropriate name—My Holiday Labels, for example—and move into it those addresses for which you’d like labels.

2. Choose File -> Print.

3. In the sheet that appears, choose Mailing Labels from the Style pop-up menu.

4. Click the Layout button and from the Page pop-up menu below, choose the kind of label you intend to use—Avery Standard, for instance.

5. From the pop-up menu to the right, choose the specific label “model” you’ll use—5161, for example.

6. Click Print and you’re done.

Filtering foreign e-mail

Reader Bruce Chrisman would like to better rule his e-mail. He writes:

Recently I’ve received a lot of email in non-Roman script. Is there a way to set up a rule to move messages with non-Roman script to the trash, or better yet just delete it? I have set up rules to look at the subject line to detect some Cyrillic letters. While this helps, it certainly isn’t a very elegant solution and isn’t an effective strategy for Asian scripts.

When seeking ways to effectively sort messages in Mail, you’ll find that Mail’s broad filters are a little limited. However, you can do far more interesting things if you create a new rule, click on the first pop-up menu in the If section, and choose Edit Header List. Do this and you can use any entries in the message's header to help filter your e-mail.

In the Message Headers window that appears, you’ll see such expected headers as From, To, CC, and Subject. But you can add others by clicking on the Plus (+) button at the bottom of the window. Do that and in the field that appears enter Content-Type and click OK.

Click again on that first pop-up menu and you’ll see that Content-Type appears just below Subject in the list of filters. Choose Content-Type from this menu.

Read more...

Bugs & Fixes: When PDFs won't load in Safari

Snow Leopard has been out for over a month. Still, I keep tripping over compatibility problems. My most recent stumble occurred when I tried to view a PDF document, accessed as a Web link in Safari.

Safari correctly shifted to the page containing the PDF, but then stalled with the sundial cursor rotating endlessly. In a few instances, a dialog eventually popped up informing me that “AdobePDFViewer cannot find a compatible Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader to view this PDF.” However, attempting to locate a “compatible” version proved fruitless. I was using the most recent version of Reader and it didn’t work.

The crux of the problem, as it turns out, is the AdobePDFViewer plug-in itself. As described in an Adobe support document, AdobePDFViewer is 32-bit software, while Safari in Snow Leopard is 64-bit. The two don’t play well together. This is a common source of compatibility problems (as I noted previously in my Snow Leopard grab bag post.). Until Adobe updates the plug-in to a 64-bit version (and the support article gives no indication as to when this might happen), the company’s recommended solution is to run Safari in 32-bit mode, by going to Safari’s Get Info window in the Finder and enabling “Open in 32-bit mode.”

Unfortunately, this fix has the downside of losing the speed advantage of running Safari in 64-bit mode.

Happily, there is another solution. As long as you don’t absolutely need any of the unique features of the Adobe plug-in (which you most likely don’t), you can simply disable the plug-in. To do this, go to /Library/Internet Plug-Ins folder and drag the plug-in from the folder. (If the plug-in is not there, look in the matching location in your Home directory’s Library.) Next, quit and relaunch Safari. PDFs should now load using Safari’s built-in PDF viewer.

Should you instead want to keep the Adobe plug-in active (for occasional use), but still be able to view PDFs without shifting Safari to 32-bit mode, you can hold down the Option key when selecting a PDF link. This forces the PDF file to download to your Downloads folder rather than open in Safari. Double-click the downloaded file and it opens in Preview, where you can now view it.

Resetting Safari

I’ve reached an age where I sometimes talk to myself. Take today, for example.

“Chris,” I said, “I’m really getting tired of conducting a Google search with Safari 4 and discovering that my Google preferences—viewing 100 results on a page with no SafeSearch filtering—won't stick. Instead, when I conduct the next search, I see the default 25 results and SafeSearch blocks some results.”

“Chris,” I replied, “Have you tried quitting and relaunching Safari?”

“Of course I have,” I retorted, “Do you think I’m an idiot!?”

Read more...

Recovering an erased hard drive

Reader William Eschenfeldt shouldn’t-a, hadn’t-a, oughn’t-a done something with Disk Utility that he now regrets. He writes:

I recently bought a new iMac. While copying files from multiple external hard drives to the new machine I accidentally erased one of the drives before it was copied (using Disk Utility). Nothing has been written to it since it was erased. Do you have a suggestion for the best software for recovering the files? Most were backed up in one form or another but it would be much easier if I could recover them all from the original drive.

If you didn’t choose one of the secure erase options (which will overwrite your data with junk, making it much harder to recover the data), you have a decent shot at getting your data back. The tool I use for such situations is Prosoft Engineering’s $99 Data Rescue II. Unlike some other utilities that demand you install them on a drive before the bad thing happens, Data Rescue II is for after the effluent has forcefully made contact with the rotating blades.

It can be run from its bootable DVD, but you can avoid booting from this disc by installing a copy on your startup drive (which, of course, shouldn’t be the disk you accidentally erased). Before you invest your buck-under-a-C-note for it, download the free demo. Run the demo and it will display all the files it can find. It will additionally recover one of them that’s 5MB or less, thus demonstrating that it works. If you’re happy with what it finds, pungle up the dough and give it a go.

I purposely erased a FireWire drive to test Data Rescue II and while its quick scan option didn’t turn up much, its deleted files scan produced much better results, although quite a few files had lost their original name. It took a long time to do this—around three hours for a 120GB hard drive. If the drive you’re working with is this size or larger, you might consider starting the job at night and letting your Mac chew on it while you sleep. It should be done by the time you visit your Mac in the morning.

Data Rescue II is certainly not the only tool for this kind of thing, it's just the one I've had experience with and good results from. Feel free to promote your solution in the comments below.