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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We took a break last week for Thanksgiving. In this round of Ask TUAW we'll go over setting some Finder preferences, Software Updates,...

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jami

I''ve got a quick question.
I want to store all my media (itunes,iphoto) libraries on an external drive, as I'm running out of space on my MBP.
Can time machine back up both my main drive and external to a second external HD?

thanks

December 02 2007 at 7:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

oculos

Dear TUAW,

Here's something I haven't seen on the forums, but it's freaking me out:

I have an iPhone, which I've unlocked using independence and anysim 1.1 (it came and still is with firmware 1.1.1 (only been downgraded for jailbreak purposes).

My problem is: phone's battery: no more than 48 hours stand by time, no more than 2-3 hours of video playback.

Is there anything I can do to improve my battery life? It should be way bigger, shouldn't it?

Cheers,

Francis

December 01 2007 at 10:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Kevin Vahlbusch

This has probably been covered elsewhere and is really more of an observation - If you put the dock on the side of your Mac then stacks only open in a grid. Super lame. Is there a way that us side dockers can actually get a "stack"?

December 01 2007 at 11:48 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Johnny

I was transferring all my files (@185GB) from one hard drive to another, and when all the copying was complete (overnight), the some of the folder sizes on the new drive were LARGER than on the old drive. Both drives have capacity of 698.46GB, and formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). The only difference is that the old drive was the surviving half of a RAID 1 configuration, while the new drive is a couple of drives set up in a RAID 1 configuration.

December 01 2007 at 1:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

eurie

i don't know if there is a more appropriate place/way to pose a question to "ask tuaw" so i'm going to give this a shot:

I backed my iTunes Music Library to an external firewire drive a few years ago and then deleted half of it from my PowerBook. I want to continue backing up music to this external drive but rather than have separate libraries, I'd prefer to have one master library. Is this possible?

November 30 2007 at 4:01 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to eurie's comment

Kevin Vahlbusch

You can adjust where iTunes keeps you library in the preferences. By default it is Mac HD:Music:iTunes Music Folder. You can change it to you external HD, but note that you cant play the music unless the drive is connected. I have it setup like this because my library is too big to have on my MacBook. I just use my iPod when Im away from the external.

December 01 2007 at 11:26 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

weeeeeew

Question: Is there any way to keep iTunes from editing my files completely? I know about the two checkboxes in the preferences (not sure what they are called in English though, maybe something like "Copy files to..." and "Keep the folder iTunes Music in order"), but iTunes still edits the metadata of the tracks when I edit genre-info and such. I would need iTunes to just store those changes in some sort of database of it's own, and not in the files.

I hope that you understand what I mean.

November 30 2007 at 1:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Carlos

I have an Imac and when I want to watch the theatrical videos (movie trailers) in frontrow in Leopard it tells me I have no internet connection when I am actually connected. I used to be able to watch these trailers in Tiger but now in Leopard I can't. Does anybody know why that might be and if there is a solution to this? Thanks

November 29 2007 at 1:52 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jason mark

I have a question for you guys for a small (10 person) all Mac office. We would like to:
1) Have a company wide calendar, so we can check people's availability and assign people to meetings.
2) Have a company-wide address book so when a client's contact information is updated we can have it updated company wide.
3) Have these two things linked together, so we can see the history of things we've done with a client.
4) Have an easy way to assign tasks to people (as opposed to events).

We currently do ALL of this in a custom Filemaker solution, but I have this feeling that OSX Server is getting closer and closer to "just working" out of the box. There is now CalDev, and from what I've seen online there is an LDAP server (which you can't write to from Address book), and I found some "hints" on the Leopard server page that it might be possible to now write to the LDAP server with Address book... but it's unclear.

Is there anywhere that provides easy steps to set up and turn on all these features? Do they really work?

November 29 2007 at 11:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

bryan

@ #15 Ram

You can open TextEdit and drag the file or folder from the Finder to the body of TextEdit, and it will display the path to the item, which you can then highlight and copy.

November 29 2007 at 10:58 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Carl

This may have been asked before, but since I've only recently been following these I'll have to beg for forgiveness.

I have iPhoto 08 and have used my own account on my MacBook Pro to add all of our photos. My wife has her own account on the laptop, but insists upon using mine because "that's where the photos are."

Is there any (easy) way to share the library between accounts? I've read something about putting it on an external drive, but that's not much of an option for someone on a laptop--it rather defeats the idea of portability.

I haven't upgraded to Leopard yet (still on 10.4.11, I think), but I surmise that it wouldn't change anything.

Thanks!

November 29 2007 at 10:55 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply