As I mentioned on Wednesday, the September 12 Ask TUAW prompted an avalanche of questions--too many to address in one post. So as a special this week, we present Ask TUAW, round II. This time around we'll be covering questions about FairPlay in podcasts, a Company Smart Group in Address Book, sharing an internet connection, migrating from PC to Mac, trying to fix printer problems, and more.Next week we'll return to our regular Wednesday schedule. As always, you're welcome to leave suggestions and/or questions for next week in the comments below.
Sam asks
Are the free podcasts available via iTunes wrapped in the same FairPlay DRM as music purchased from the iTMS?
Generally speaking, no they are not. Since many of the podcasts are MP3s and FairPlay is an extension of the AAC format, then clearly most podcasts don't have DRM (including, for that matter, AAC podcasts). Plus, Apple hasn't licensed FairPlay to anyone, so the only files you will find FairPlay on are from Apple.
Kevin asks
I use Safari and when clicking links on TUAW or any other website I like them to open in Tabs instead of new windows. I know of two was to make this happen first is Command-Click and the second is to Control-Click-Open in new Tab. However, I would like a way for Safari to automatically and always open links that pop in a new tab instead of a window. Do you know if there is a way to do this ?
I have to admit that I'm not quite following your question. But I think the essential Safari extension Saft ($12) may do what you want. As you can see above it includes a "Always open browser window in tab" option. Saft has a variety of other great features as well, so I highly recommend it.
Josh asks
Every time I open Safari or Firefox and I visit a website with Java or even youtube, I get the broken Quicktime symbol over the location that can't be displayed. I'v deleted quicktime, reinstalled it, made sure I have all updates, checked plugins (i think I have them all that are specific to my needs), but it never works. I wouldn't mind not seeing another Java ad again, but not having youtube is a big problem. Even when I try to upload a picture in facebook or myspace, I can't because of the broken Quicktime symbol (Quicktime symbol with a question mark in the middle of it). Somebody please come to the rescue. Thank you for your help.
We've covered this in a previous Ask TUAW. Basically you just need to make sure the Flash media checkbox in the MIME Settings... sheet of the Advanced tab of the QuickTime Preference Pane is unchecked.
Ryan asks
Is there a way to sort contacts in Address Book by Company only? Contacts can be entered as a company (by checking the box below the entry name), and are given a city type icon vs. the vcard icon; but I want to view only those company entries to narrow my search from the personal contacts. Couldn't seem to make it happen, even with the Smart Group sorting option. Oh wait...I guess I could just throw them all into a regular Group...seems too basic & cumbersome, but works. Any other ideas?
You can set a Smart Group to show only companies. In Address Book just create a new Smart Group with the criterion: Companies is set (as below).
Lee asks
I have a two-mac set-up - one MacMini, which acts as a server-like machine (both printers and three external hdds attached) and the other is a MacBook Pro. Both connect to my (crappy, service-provider-supplied) WIFI router for internet access, but are also wired with an ethernet cable for data access (ie for accessing the Mini drives on my MBP). I always seem to have a problem with printer sharing though. Most of the time, my two printers show up twice each - one reachable through WIFI and one reachable through Ethernet. Because of my work, I'm often printing large image-heavy documents and printing over WIFI often just doesn't print at all or takes forever because of the transfer rate. The problem is, when choosing a printer it's impossible to see which is the WIFI connected one and which is the ethernet connected one! You can't even name them differently. Is there an application or setting I can tweak to only allow printer sharing over ethernet? Is my setup a bit daft?
Hmm, this is an interesting problem. I'm not aware of a way to allow printer sharing only over ethernet, but I do have a suggestion. Instead of allowing the MacBook Pro to connect directly to the wifi router, instead turn on Internet Sharing on the Mac mini (as we've described here). In other words, share the internet from wifi to ethernet on the Mac mini (which itself will continue to be connected to the router by wifi), but turn off wifi on your MacBook Pro and depend on the Mac mini to access the internet through ethernet. If you set it up this way the MacBook Pro will only be able to see the printers over ethernet.
Mike asks
In the coming weeks I will be selling my (custom-built by myself) PC and buying an iMac. There are various reasons for this, but I won't go into them. Now, even though I've used OS X quite extensively, I still have a a couple questions I'd like answered.
First is moving my iTunes library. It's currently stored on a seperate harddrive, and iTunes Music Library.xml refers to D:\Music several times (and is also defined to be the location of the music folder), however every guide I can find on doing this just involves replacing an existing but empty library with a copy of the old one. Normally, I wouldn't be concerned about this, but I have 30 GB music and I use star ratings extensively, and I'd rather not lose them. As well, I've ripped several of my DVD box sets and labeled them as TV Shows (lot of work putting in all the episode titles and such), which doesn't seem to be a property of the MP4 files, but just entries in the library, again something I'd like to not lose.
The question isn't entirely clear, but I guess you're asking how to migrate an iTunes library from a PC to a Mac. I don't have a PC so I can't really vouch for this, but there is a great tutorial at Lifehacker that covers this exact thing. As far as the library.xml file, you apparently just need to open the file replace the PC format paths with Mac (Unix) format paths.
Second question, I will definitely be running VMware Fusion (the ability to run the Boot Camp partition as a virtual machine is incredibly attractive), but I'm curious if I'll be able to use hardware that doesn't work in OS X but works in XP (the hardware in question is my Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector)?
From the release notes for Fusion: "Even devices that do not have drivers for Mac OS X will work in a virtual machine." As far as that particular connector, I have no idea. But why exactly do you want to use the Nintendo connector? From what I can tell the Nintendo connector is just a modified USB wifi dongle so why not just share your Mac's internet with the Wii or DS as mentioned above.
The Airport Extreme Base Stations are looking quite good, especially with AirTunes. Except it doesn't seem that the Extreme base stations support AirTunes, only the cheaper, lower-end AirPort Express do. Is this just some kind of information I'm missing or is this actually the case? It seems quite counter-intuitive for the high-end hardware to lack features, especially one as useful as AirTunes.
There are two different products here: it seems like the Airport Express is designed primarily to support AirTunes, while the Airport Extreme is Apple's main router. In other words, while the Express can function as a router, it looks like Apple intends that as a subsidiary function primarily as a travel router when you're on the road. In other words, if you want AirTunes you get an Express; if you want a router get the Extreme.
Greg asks
I have 2 identical HP Photosmart 3180 All-In-One printers- one at home and one at work. Both are connected via USB cable. But once I print with one, the other no longer recognizes the driver. I have to delete and then reinstall it for the other printer to work...and so it goes each time I change printers. What's up with that?
Well needless to say it shouldn't be doing that. I don't know exactly what the problem is, but I do have a suggestion. I would suggest checking out Printer Setup Repair ($29.95). Fortunately, there's a 7 day demo to see if it'll help with your particular situation.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
9-22-2007 @ 2:11PM
Sam said...
i'm considering getting boot camp on my mbp and installing vista business. i have read however, that support will be gone for boot camp under tiger at the end of this year. if i boot camped and put vista on, then upgraded to leopard, would boot camp still function and would i still be able to get to vista? i hope this doesn't come off as too complex, because as of right now, boot camp is a beta, and in leopard its an actual product. i just don't want to put dual boot capabilities on my mac and find out i can't access my windows partition.
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 2:20PM
ducttape said...
@Sam
Yeah, it will still work. Your windows install is stored on a separate partition. If you do an upgrade, archive and install, or a clean install without wiping the disk, your boot camp install should be fine.
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 3:57PM
Chimera said...
I left my question in the end of the last Ask TUAW post.. but in case you didn't see it.
"I have a question. Is there a free/open source program that will convert .avi videos to watch on my PSP (will be replaced with iPod touch later on)? I used PSP video 9 on Windows and that was perfect but I've failed to find anything for Mac after I switched. Well I did see VisualHub but thats not free (is it worth it?)"
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 4:16PM
G said...
I dig Saft. In fact, Saft + Safari 3 on Tiger is a fantastic combination, definitely on par (finally) with Firefox's site compatibility + Adblock.
But isn't there going to be some issue with Input Managers in Leopard? Has there been any talk about Saft continuing development if so?
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 4:31PM
Clifford said...
Chimera -- look into iSquint, the free little brother of Visual Hub.
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 4:52PM
tintin77 said...
I have a Logitech nuLOOQ controller. I really like it, especially when paired with the now unsupported Tooldial software. The problem I am having is that the tooldial software I have is a demo/trial version, with a 30 day time limit. Now that the 30 days has been over for a while now and I can't any thing that will replace the functionality of the software. I even got so frustrated i called Logitech and tried to beg/bribe serial number off of them. The nuLOOQ was originally a mac specific item so I am hoping that there is some mac software out there to replace the Tooldial for users like me.
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 5:15PM
Chimera said...
Clifford - I have that actually, it only lets me make iPod size videos but my PSP is widescreen (480x272).. the iPod size vids do play on PSP but obviously not full screen.(looks horrible stretched) I tried to edit the advanced settings in iSquint to 480x272, that file will play on my Mac fine but comes up as corrupt data on the PSP. :(
Im kinda hoping they update iSquint for iPod touch (480x320) now..that might possibly work.
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 5:18PM
Frank said...
i, too, left my question at the end of the last Q&A. apologies if i'm not supposed to be double-posting, but this really is pissing me off, since it's one of the best features of the iphone, imho:
i have an iphone question: what happened to my visual voicemail??
earlier this past week, i realized that my original voicemail message was gone (a victim of a recent iphone upgrade?), so i touched on the "greeting" button and went to make a new one, which took me to AT&T (!), and a tedious old-phone "touch 1 for this, 2 for this" type of process. once the voicemail was recorded, i thought everything would be back to normal, but it seems that now whenever i get voicemail and i touch the voicemail icon, my phone immediately dials AT&T, and my visual voicemail queue is gone! i really really really HATE listening to voicemail at AT&T in chronological order! any idea what happened? is anyone else experiencing this all of the sudden?
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 5:25PM
Clifford said...
Chimera -- did you try using the cropping options?
Before I began to use iSquint, I was using FFMpegX (which is far more complex) to reformat videos for my Palm TX -- it's free and might do the trick, but you need to halfway know what you're doing.
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 6:03PM
Dan Woods said...
@Mike
to Add MP4 tags to your Videos in a more secure manor, you can use AtomicParsley.
I had a similar problem when my the HardDrive my iTunes Library was on crashed and I had to rebuild it from Backups. All the early stuff I tagged with AtomicParsley still had its tags, while the stuff I tagged later with iTunes lost it's tags.
An Applescript could be written for iTunes which could record your current tags (and Playcount and Rating) re-tag the Video with AtomicParsley, re-import the video into iTunes and Re-assign a Rating and Playcount.
Reply
9-22-2007 @ 10:33PM
Anthony said...
I have recently discovered the joy of making my own podcasts on rare occassion. Is there a way to make my own audiobook that will show up as such in iTunes or my iPod which I can then share for free (no protection)?
Reply
9-23-2007 @ 1:42AM
Zoli said...
Ok, so I have a really strange problem.... I synced my address book with exchange and now for some reason everything in ichat, mail, and even iphone show the names reversed, even though in the input fields show they are correct, and yes, the sort by feature is set correctly. Any ideas?
Reply
9-23-2007 @ 3:24AM
м6 said...
I don't think Ryan's question was fully answered. If you have some of your 'person' contacts with Company fields set (like, not just 'John Doe', but 'John Doe from ACME Inc.'), those will show up in the smart group as well. Which is a bummer for those people that want their 'companies' separated from their 'people'.
Reply
9-23-2007 @ 3:59AM
Quine said...
Hey Mike, you can set up your wii to connect to a shared wireless connection from your mac with this strategy:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070514152251515
I just configured my wii this way and it worked like a charm. Remember to use the hex converter they link to to convert your password, and remove the % signs in its output (the password i entered on my wii for example was 656565656565)
Reply
9-23-2007 @ 6:33AM
PowerLlama said...
With the lack of MMS support on the iPhone, is there any way to download pictures from the AT&T viewmymessage.com website? It used to be straight HTML, but they've recently changed over to flash based, and I can no longer download the pictures people send me.
Reply
9-23-2007 @ 7:00AM
VanillaSpice said...
For Ryan's address book company smart group question, the trick is to use both Company is set and Name is not set - that will exclude any people cards with the company field set.
A simple Name is set smart group will group people and exclude companies.
Annoyingly, the address book does maintain a "company" flag, but doesn't expose it smart group criteria.
Reply
9-23-2007 @ 7:21AM
Matt McNamara said...
I'm getting a MacBook sometime around December-January time. Would I be better getting it in December or January?
I have only recently started watching Apple's pricing and don't know when the best time to buy is, if there even is a 'best time'.
Reply
9-23-2007 @ 12:12PM
Maria said...
RE Airtunes.
I think the point of Airtunes/APExpress is that it is meant to be the wifi "card" for your stereo. My APExpress has a audio out port, while my APExtremeBaseStn does not. The APExtreme 'supports' Airtunes in that it can send the audio signal to the APExpress/Stereo.
You can configure the Express as a base station but it has a much shorter range (one room vs one house) than the Extreme, and it has fewer ports.(USB, ethernet, audio out). I use the Express as a wireless ethernet jack for my old iMacDV for which airport cards are unavailable.
Reply
9-24-2007 @ 2:48AM
Maynard Handley said...
Hi.
This is two questions for the next installment.
(1) If you are dicking around with your iPhone using ssh, what are the best methods people have found for stopping it from going to sleep. The rules it has for the device going to sleep (as opposed to just the screen going black) are not clear to me, but I have occasionally found that an ssh connection will suddenly go very slow and it's not clear what is going on, if the device is dead or in some sleep mode or what.
My solution is to start running a longish video and just rely on that to keep the device alive. It works, but obviously it's inelegant.
(2) Suppose you want to push some content to your iPhone. (In my particular case, every so often I run a script on my mac that generates a text file I want to have on my iPhone.) It's conceptually easy enough to get the data onto the phone via scp; there are however two slightly tricky aspects.
(a) If you want password-free logging into the iPhone you set things up as usual for ssh except (for reasons I don't understand) your public key is named /var/root/.ssh/authorized_keys2 not authorized_keys.
(b) How can you ensure that the iPhone is actually awake at the point where your script is ready to scp to the device? If your script is fast, no problem, just hit a button to wake the iPhone. If your script takes many minutes, this is not going to work. The best solution I have come up with is to send an sms to the phone which can be done via the command-line
mail -s "wakeup" 2121234567@txt.att.net /dev/null
(Change the phone number to your phone number, of course, note that it is your 10 digit number with no leading 1 and no dashes or suchlike. If you're not using att, look on the internet for whatever email address you should use.)
This sms solution works, acting basically like a wake-on-lan packet, but is not ideal in that it's using up one of your 200 SMS messages/month. This may or may not be a big deal depending on how often you sms, and how often you want your push script to run.
Does anyone have any better ideas? Another possibility is to use some sort of dialout (via modem, skype or whatever) allow one or two rings, then hang up. This might be better in terms of usage (I assume connection attempts that hang up don't charge either ATT minutes or skype minutes) but I don't know how to do this.
Reply
9-24-2007 @ 2:53AM
Maynard Handley said...
Oops. Great, HTML and the comments engine and such screwed up the command line
It should be
mail -s "test4" 2121234567@txt.att.net [/dev/null #] /dev/null
where
[ is the less than sign (std-in input), and
#] is ampersand then greater-than-sign (std-out and std-err output)
Reply