Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW
Ask TUAW: Leopard Finder, Software Update, iTunes tracks and more
We took a break last week for Thanksgiving. In this round of Ask TUAW we'll go over setting some Finder preferences, Software Updates, setting iTunes track information, deleting from iPhoto and more.As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. And now to the questions!
Jon asks
With Leopard my Finder is always showing Shared computers. Is this a security risk on public networks? Is this using any memory or could it be slowing down my internet connection? Can I stop this sharing as a whole or on a per computer basis?
No this is not a security risk. These computers are broadcasting their availability via Bonjour or zeroconf. If you don't want to see them any more you just need to go to the Finder preferences and in the Sidebar tab, uncheck "Bonjour Computers" in the SHARED category.
There's not really any way to prevent this from happening overall, since it's the other computers that are actually broadcasting this on your network.
Cynthia asks
Once, while waiting for my turn at the Genius Bar of my Apple Store, I decided to run software updates for my macbook pro - cuz I had enough time to update my computer...so while the updates were downloading, I was writing email or surfing the web, or something similar, when I received a STERN warning from one of the Genius guys. He said NEVER (with emphasis) run any programs while downloading software updates because that could mess up the updates. Now, I know a Genius Guy would never lead me astray, but I did not really believe him. Is he correct? Can I mess up my updates by multi-tasking while they download?
Yes, he's probably correct in that something could happen, particularly during the optimization process. We actually posted on this a while back. According to Rosyna of Unsanity, "when you see the 'Optimizing System Performance' phase of a software update, Mac OS X is really updating prebinding. Updating prebinding has a very, very nasty bug in it... If multiple processes are updating prebinding at the same time, then it is possible for a system file to be completely zero'd out. Basically, all data in the file is deleted and it is replaced with nothing." I'm not sure exactly if/how Leopard has affected this, though it does seem that Leopard updates like 10.5.1 actually take over your computer and prevent you from doing anything else. In short, however, the Apple Genius is giving you good advice.
Joe asks
Is there a way to delete photos from iPhoto that permanently remove them from the computer? I thought deleting them form iPhoto would so this but just because the don't show up in iPhoto doesn't mean they've been deleted as with Leopards new SEARCH FOR feature in the finder shows that they still exist in the iPhoto Library folder and then begins a lengthy process of finding and deleting the Originals, Modified, etc. versions of the same file. There has to be an easier way.
I suspect that what's happening is that when you "delete" a photo what you're actually doing is just removing that photo from an album, and not from the Library. What you need to do is delete it from the Library. To do that, however, you need to be viewing the photo in the Library (and not in an album) when you delete it. If you do that it will be moved to the iPhoto "Trash," which you can then empty.
Alex asks
Every time I empty the trash in Leopard it asks "Are you sure you want to remove the items in the Trash permanently?" This is really annoying when emptying the trash often. Is there anyway to disable this?
You can turn this off in the preferences of the Finder. Just go to the Advanced tab and uncheck "show warning before emptying the Trash."
Al asks
I've added a recording of a live show to my iTunes library. I am struggling to maintain the correct order of tracks without the 01songname, 02songname, methodology. What is the smart way to assign a specific order to an album?
The best way to handle this is with Track Number metadata. In iTunes select all the tracks that you want to edit and Get Info on them by right-clicking or hitting ⌘-I. First, give them all the same album name and then give them Track Numbers out of however many tracks you have. If you sort by album, the tracks will appear in the proper order.
Peter asks
In a previous Ask TUAW you showed a screenshot of the Manage Widgets widget. In it, most of the image was grayed out, and a small circle drew attention to the part of the image you were highlighting. This is a pretty similar feature to the search function seen in System Preferences. How was this effect achieved - it'd be great for presentations?
Well now Peter, you want me to give away all my secrets?! Okay, just between you and me, Skitch from plasq makes this really easy. Using the translucent grey color, you can just draw a shape around the part you want to highlight, then use the paint-bucket tool to fill in the rest around it. Unfortunately, Skitch is still in beta, but you can request an invitation.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Adam said 8:29PM on 11-28-2007
Question:
Every time I restart into Leopard from my Vista Bootcamp partition, the Leopard clock is off by 8 hours. I imagine that it is 8 since I am in the Pacific time zone, which is 8 behind and somehow the switch is confusing it. I then have to manually reset it. Is there anyway to make it update automatically by fetching the internet time, or do I just have to wait for Apple to update bootcamp or is this Microsoft's problem.
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Sam said 7:44PM on 11-28-2007
ok ive got a few questions; first, when i got my mbp, it booted in 27 seconds. now that i've upgraded to leopard, it takes 2 minutes. why?
also, why is iphoto so slow when i only have 2000 pictures and why does safari 3 crash all the time (the only add-on is inquisitor)
help please?
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Mat Lu said 7:47PM on 11-28-2007
@1: http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/17/ask-tuaw-migration-assistant-boot-camp-time-problems-iweb-and/
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Sam said 5:45PM on 11-29-2007
um...that helps me how?
Anonymous Coward said 8:14PM on 11-28-2007
Joe might find this screencast helpful for deleting stuff from iPhoto.
http://murphymac.com/give-me-some-space/
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Andrew said 8:37PM on 11-28-2007
The key combo the person needs in iPhoto is cmd-opt-delete. That will move a photo to the trash even if they are viewing it from an album.
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kbv136 said 8:38PM on 11-28-2007
I use VLC for all my video files but in Leopard I cant make them work in the "Preview", "Quick View", or (most importantly) "Front Row". When I play the video in all there of these places there is simply just a black screen, no video or sound. Preview and Front Row worked in Tiger. How do I fix this?
On a related note, I tried to fix this by reverting playback to Quicktime, but again in Leopard QT will not play a .avi file. I think I just need a download to fix that, but I cant find it. What is it?
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Matt Schinckel said 8:43PM on 11-28-2007
The problem with Boot Camp/Windows is that Windows stores the time differently, or rather, accesses the system clock differently. It assumes the clock is in local time, whereas other operating systems assume the clock is GMT. (or the other way around, I can't remember).
There is a registry patch you can use to fix this. I don't use Boot Camp any more, so I can't provide you with it. Use the google, it's on there somewhere!
:)
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Skidz said 8:49PM on 11-28-2007
kbv,
Try downloading Flip4Mac WMV. It is a great plug-in for QT that will play .avi files!
Slanté
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kbv136 said 4:15PM on 11-29-2007
Thanks - I knew I was just forgetting something I had in 10.4 and this was it!
greg said 8:54PM on 11-28-2007
Is there an app or trick that will ensure that all of the files/folders I have in a particular folder on my mac are also on another networked drive?
I use my networked Tivo to play mp3's which are stored on a PC. The files are organized there into genre folders, then artist folders, then album folders. I don't play the mp3's on my mac thru the Tivo because it takes forever to scroll thru the Tivo/iTunes interface.
I don't want to sync the drives per se, since I think that would destroy the file structure on the PC. I just want to make sure that files I have on my mac are also on the PC.
A long, drawn out question, I know.... any thoughts?
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Peter said 9:17PM on 11-28-2007
Thanks for that Skitch tip! However, I have since discovered two more extensive techniques to achieve the same highlighting look - perhaps others might be interested. Both of these tips are structured for live presentations, but it is a simple matter to activate the tool and then take a screenshot.
The first is Boinx's Mousepose - http://www.boinx.com/mousepose/ which has fairly basic effects.
The second is the Omni Group's OmniDazzle - http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidazzle/ which has a much more extensive group of highlighting effects.
You can see a brilliant demonstration of Apple's use of similar software in the iWork and ILife tutorials:
http://www.apple.com/iwork/tutorials/
They use an effect which acts like a magnifying glass (similar to that found when editing text on an iPhone) which is very cool. I still don't know how they achieve this, any ideas?
(See the "Formatting Text" tutorial for Pages to see what I mean.)
Thanks!
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Lauram said 9:59PM on 11-28-2007
I have a Safari question. In researching articles, I frequently need to save relevant web pages in page source format rather than Web archive. (They are easier to work with and always accessible that way, whether or not I'm online.) However, once it's time for fact-checking, I'd prefer to have the "live" urls for those pages to send to my editor. Is there some way to get Safari to automatically record the url of the page when it saves the page source? It seems a fairly obvious thing to need to do, but apparently the only way to accomplish this is to manually copy the url and paste it into the document's Spotlight Comments
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aptenergy said 10:20PM on 11-28-2007
Skidz, the Flip4Mac plugin is for playing .wmv files.
kbv136, you want Perian (www.perian.org).
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Jeff said 10:40PM on 11-28-2007
2 Questions.
How do you get AVI files into iMovie 08?
I can drag and drop them into iMovie 06, but not 08. Why will it not
convert it?
also, is there a patch out for the new Apple Keyboard in bootcamp?
Question marks and varies other Characters do not work on the windows
side. Also num lock in is off by default. The new keyboard does not
have a num lock button on it. How would one enable this?
Thanks for all your help guys
Jeff
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Michael said 10:41PM on 11-28-2007
I just wanted to ask a quick question. Do you guys know how to add a playlist of shows and then sync it to my Touch? I tried to make a playlist which I did with iTunes, but I cannot add it onto my Touch? Thanks.
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Ram said 11:17PM on 11-28-2007
I use my Mac at work (in an all PC office). When I'm working on files off the server, I wish I could send my PC co-workers the file path formatted for their Windows Explorer address bar. Get Info shows me the file path, but I can't copy/paste it (it's non-selectable); it also isn't formatted the way I need it. Any solutions?
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Rick said 11:48PM on 11-28-2007
"Cynthia asks
genius said NEVER (with emphasis) run any programs while downloading software updates because that could mess up the updates. "
but it's UNIX? isn't it? built for mulpitle users, multiple tasks...
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Rainer said 12:32AM on 11-29-2007
I just bought myself an iPod touch and love it. I also love the free iTunes singles of the week. Is there any way to download those tracks from the iTunes wifi store on my touch, or do I have to download them onto my computer and then transfer them to the touch?
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Cycomachead said 1:52AM on 11-29-2007
@4 (Adam) Go into System Prefs and click on (or search for) Date & Time
Click on the 1st tab (date an time) and right below it there is a check box for syncing the time with Apple's servers. Chose the US option and make sure you time zone is set correctly (2nd tab).
It only takes an internet connection the first time - and Apple's servers are synced w/ satellites as far as time goes.
Now it you have iTunes sync the time to your iPod it will also always be accurate.
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