Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW
Ask TUAW: Windows Printing, AutoFill, FireWire HDs, MacBook power adapters and more
It's time again for Ask TUAW, our weekly feature where you ask the questions and we make up the answers... er, I mean carefully research and determine the optimal solution. This week we'll be tackling questions about printing from OS X to a printer connected to a Windows box, AutoFill in Safari, problems with a FireWire hard drive, using a MacBook Pro power adapter with a MacBook, and more.As always readers' suggested answers are most welcome! Please leave your questions for next week in the comments.
Aaron asks
How can I get Safari to save my password for comments on your website? Opening Mail just to copy and paste is really starting to become bothersome.
Well, in principle it should do it automatically, but I know that Safari's AutoFill is not always reliable. If it's not already on, you may need to turn on AutoFill in Safari's preferences. If it's already on, try deleting the TUAW entry and then putting it in again (go to the site, put in your password, etc.). Of course, if you want to go for something more reliable there's always 1PassWd, but that's $29.95. Like one of your fellow readers, I use ClipMasterCM for saving web passwords and it's free.
Mack asks
I just recently bought a friend's iBook G4 as a way to transition into the Mac OS, and so far, I love it. I have 2 Windows PCs, with a printer hooked up to one of them. All the computers are connected via a wireless network, so I was wondering if it's possible to print from my Mac laptop to the printer wirelessly over the network.
Well basically that depends on which printer it is. Macs are able to print to SAMBA shared printers (which is what Windows uses), but only if they have drivers for them. There are way too many possible variables to give you specific advice but I can point you in the right direction. Check out these directions from iHarder.net. I got something that this working a couple of years ago, but it took a lot of trial and error. You're probably going to have to be very patient to get it working, but generally it is possible.
Jennifer asks
In an attempt to get caught up on my podcast listening, I created a smart playlist where genre is podcast and play count is zero. When I look at the results, there are several podcasts listed that I apparently deleted some time ago. They don't show up in the Podcast section of iTunes (7.2) nor as individual listings in Music. Do you know why this is happening and how I can get rid of them?
I'm just guessing here, but I suspect what happened is that when you deleted them you did not actually move them to the trash. When you delete podcasts manually you'll get a dialog box like this. Be sure to choose "Move to Trash." As far as getting rid of the ones you already have in you Library, you can easily delete the file itself by right-clicking each one and selecting "Show in Finder." This will open a Finder window with the original file which you can delete as normal.
Adam asks
Is it safe to use a MacBook Pro's 85W magsafe connector with my MacBook? A co-worker leaves an extra at the office, and I'd love to leave mine at home when she's on vacation.
Yes, it's fine. The wattage rating refers to the capacity of the adapter. The computer will only draw as much current as it needs, so you should have no problem connecting a MacBook to an 85W MacBook Pro adapter. If you want some independent confirmation of that, both Alex King and this Apple Discussion thread offer the same advice.
Alex asks
I'm having a lot of trouble running a Firewire HD on my Macbook. Both the computer and the drive are fairly new, within a couple of months, and they were peacefully co-existing until suddenly the entire system began freezing during read/write operations to the drive. The system will sometimes freeze on startup, with the little spinner beneath the Apple logo stopping, until I disconnect the drive. All the data is backed up, so I'm only interested in getting the drive usable again - formatting hasn't helped. Can this be fixed? And, if I end up RMAing the drive, how can I prevent this from happening again?
It was most likely a hardware defect with the drive and there was likely nothing you could have done. Just be sure to eject the drive each time you want to unplug it. If you've done that, I would just say return the drive and assume it's just a bad one. If it happens again with a new drive you might possibly have a problem with your FireWire port on the MacBook (e.g low voltage). If that were the case you'd need to seek help from Apple and/or use a self-powered FireWire drive.
Zachary asks
Is there a way (system preference or plugin) to make the yellow minimize button in the window border hide the window instead of minimizing it to the dock? I know I can just type Command-H or select the entry from the applications menu, but I'd rather do it with the yellow button because I never actually use the minimize built-in minimize functionality.
No, there are different paradigms. Hiding refers to all the windows of an application. Minimizing refers to just that particular window. Unfortunately it would introduce some inconsistency in the GUI to allow the yellow gem to hide rather than minimize. That said, I completely sympathize with your request. I'm the same way--I hardly ever minimize and I hide all the time. So let me make a suggestion. What you really want, I take it, is an easy way to make an application hide with a mouse click. I think of a couple of ways to do that. If you have a multi-button mouse you could use your mouse driver to assign the Cmd+H to one of the buttons. If that option isn't built-in to your mouse driver you could use a third party mouse-driver like SteerMouse ($20). Alternatively, you could set up a mouse trigger in Quicksilver or a CornerClick to invoke a Hide AppleScript like this one.
JWS asks
I live off my 4gb thumbstick. What's the best way to sync this drive with my OS X iMac? Note - I'd prefer software that just sync's the changed files and, obviously, free is better!
ChronoSync ($30) is my default syncing recommendation. Now if you really want free, you can roll your own solution with rsync (as described here), but that will be much more complicated. Whichever route you take, you'll probably want to pair it with Do Something When to automate the syncing when you plug in the drive.
This information is provided for your entertainment. Neither TUAW nor this author can be held responsible for any problems arising from the use of the information provided here.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jennifer M. said 1:40PM on 8-29-2007
Hi, it's Jennifer M. again...thanks for answering my question. I go through that process regularly to delete my "listened to" podcasts. Occasionally, I get trigger happy and hit Return instead of clicking on Move to Trash. HOWEVER, my current issue is happening on my iPod, not the Podcast library on my computer. These files cannot be revealed in Finder. Any other suggestions? How do I find and delete them? Thanks again.
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Wouter said 1:43PM on 8-29-2007
I have a question for Ask TUAW.com
I travel a lot and am working in different timezones. When I am in Europe I can set time settings to GMT +1 but then all my appointments in iCal move a couple of hours. It would be nice if there is some workaround so iCal neglects the timezones.
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mune360 said 1:53PM on 8-29-2007
What about "Bonjour" for printer share and drive share?
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Drew said 2:12PM on 8-29-2007
A hard drive question for next week:
I have a G4 Powerbook and a Lacie USB2 backup drive. It works fine (as photo storage and a PB HD backup mirror), but it seems to cause the Powerbook to slow down often. When I command-click a file to choose "open with," for example, the USB2 drive wakes up, slowly spins up, and then the PB unfreezes. This also happens at other times and adds a real slow down.
So my question is this: is this caused by the fact the drive is USB2 instead of Firewire? Would a Firewire drive stop this from happening?
Thanks!
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Jonathan said 2:15PM on 8-29-2007
I'm a Programmer and i live by a dual screen setup, however i have a problem. I've got 2 *19" displays (VGA & DVI) and a Macbook C2D 2.0Ghz. What is the best way to run both displays(spanning) from the macbook either directly or indirectly connected to it.
Heres a few ideas i've seen already
get a second machine connect the display to it, and and run a vnc type app, on the macbook and use the second machine as a client.
matrox dual head 2 go, however this supports a max resolution of 2048*768 not the 2560*1024 i need.
Is there another solution, or do i need to drop bank on MBP?
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Rich Gordon-Williams said 2:22PM on 8-29-2007
Wouter
Just open up preferences in iCal and in the advanced menu cick turn on time zone support. Simple!
Hope that helps
Rich
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Kalessin said 2:22PM on 8-29-2007
In response to Aaron's question, I've noticed Safari doesn't seem to save TUAW passwords, although the email is always populated automatically. I use the bookmarklet solution at http://www.alexcoles.com/2007/08/04/log-in-to-a-website-automatically/
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Marcos said 2:24PM on 8-29-2007
I hide applications all the time. What I do, and find it quite efficient, is to hold down the option key and then click on another application's icon in the Dock or on any window of the application I want to switch to. This hill hide the application I'm switching from.
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Rich Gordon-Williams said 5:49PM on 8-29-2007
Drew, i think it might have something to do with spotlight indexing on the clone (making osx search it for apps I suppose) which you can turn off using spotless. http://www.fixamacsoftware.com/software/spot/ don't quote me on it but it think it should work.
Rich
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Michael said 2:32PM on 8-29-2007
Ok question for next week:
So it's back-to-school time (Sept. 4 for me) and I decided to reconnect my TI-84+ (Silver Edition) calculator to my MacBook again. But TI's supplied software can't see my calculator. I've gone though the usual testing and can confirm the calculator, cable and my Mac's usb ports all work. I looked at TI's site and a small note says the software, TI Connect X, isn't supported on intel Macs (but I thought in the year that I had my MB, it's worked with my calculator). Is there and alternative software for my calculator or a work around? I'm running 10.4.10 w/ all the latest software updates.
Thanx
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Rich UK said 2:35PM on 8-29-2007
By the way there are other (read free..i think) alternatives to spotless (cloneeject???) but I can't remember their names
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Brian said 2:40PM on 8-29-2007
In response to Zachary's question, you might try Unsanity's WindowShadeX at http://unsanity.com/haxies/wsx. For $10 it lets you reprogram the yellow button to "shade" the application into just a title bar, ala Mac OS 8/9. You can also set it to hide the app, if you want that functionality with the caveat TUAW's response pointed out.
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jit82 said 3:19PM on 8-29-2007
Hello, little question here. What's the best way to access my mac from a windows computer in a remote location? I'm currently using logmein, but I wonder if there's some other VNC client I should use.
Also, how can I set up folder sharing with windows computers without the shared folder be my "public" folder?
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Al said 3:26PM on 8-29-2007
I am trying to use Front Row on a second, external display (tv). I want Front Row to start on that display rather than the primary (computer) one. I can't seem to find a way to achieve this though. Any suggestions? Apart from making the external display the primary one (with the menu bar).
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Joe said 4:07PM on 8-29-2007
Whenever I fill the trash (in OS X) I always remember to empty it soon after, so this bugs me. Why does the trash, for lack of better terms, not delete? When I empty the trash either by the key short cut or by holdng my mouse on the icon, the "trash" always disappears from the icon, only to come back several more times before its gone once and for all. One example, if i shut down and boot back up a few hours later the trash is sitting there again, and this is really annoying.
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Michael said 4:01PM on 8-29-2007
Al, to set Front Row to the TV go in System Prefs > Displays > Arrangement and the the little white bar to the TV display. The TV must be connected to do this
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KR said 4:26PM on 8-29-2007
Hi, Firewire HD question for ya!
How can I run an OS off of my external firewire hard drive. I don't want to partition my local hard drive and run it via bootcamp, which I know would be the best option. So is there a way to install it on an external drive and boot it up from there?
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CajunLuke said 4:59PM on 8-29-2007
Michael:
Try TiLP - at http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tilp/macosx.html. It may work better on Intel systems, though I've had no trouble using TI-Connect on my MacBook Pro.
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CajunLuke said 5:00PM on 8-29-2007
Jonathan:
You can't run two external displays off a laptop with only one display port, to my knowledge.
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quandmeme said 5:22PM on 8-29-2007
My question for next week:
I'm saving up for a Mac after an apostasy of several years. I need a wiki or website for switchers that shows what Mac programs I can turn to for the functionality I get on XP. For example I love OneNote, but someone showed me OmniOutliner, I'll miss some of the features but get some others I'm excited about. Now I need to find something like Amicus Attorney.
Thanks
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