Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW
Ask TUAW: Finder thumbnails, wifi connection manager, external drive on PS3, Tiger on an old iMac
In this Ask TUAW we have questions on the need for anti-virus protection, customizing Finder views, connecting automatically to an AFP share, using an external drive with both Mac and PS3, installing Tiger on an unsupported iMac and more.As always, your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
Sigbhu asks
I have a BlackBook (early '08) running Leopard. Is there any way I can make the thumbnails in Finder larger? I want to be able to see picture thumbnails more clearly.
I assume you're working in icon view; you can change the size of the icons (including the preview thumbnails) by going to the view options in the View menu (or just hit ⌘+J) and adjusting the Icon size slider. The largest size is 128x128 but if you want anything larger than that you're probably better off switching to the Cover Flow view.
raptrex asks
How safe am I using my mac without an anti-virus program?
It's very difficult to answer a question like this. As of now there has not been a serious virus outbreak on the Mac. Does that mean there will never be one? Obviously not. How likely is it? That's hard to say. With the Mac becoming more popular by the day I suspect that malware will be developed at some point. Another thing to keep in mind is that you might unwittingly propagate Windows viruses even if they don't affect your Mac. I will say that I personally run Sophos on my Macs as I have free access to it from my University. If I didn't get it for free I probably would cross my fingers and hope for the best without, but if you've got access to it I would run it.
Richard asks
I have recently noticed that I have a fairly constant upload of 14–16 KB/s going on in the background (I'm using iSlayer's iStat menus), even though I haven't initiated any upload. I'm not now running any online backup apps. I've checked in Activity Monitor, and can 't see anything very out of the ordinary there, although evidently I've missed something. Is there an easy way to see which applications/processes are using the network connection? Or should I get Little Snitch? It's quite annoying to see that the network connection is being used, and being unsure about what is using it. It's potentially disastrous when I'm using metered connections!
Little Snitch ($29.95) is probably the easiest way to go. There's also another recently released net monitoring application called ProteMac Meter ($29.95) which might be worth checking out. I don't recommend Glowworm FW as I've had serious problems with it under Leopard and have found others reporting similar difficulties. It may be that the demos of one of these application will be enough to find the source of your unknown network traffic.
Josh askd
I was given a Samsung Digimax A50 camera for college a month ago and it isn't compatible with Leopard apparently. Is there any way to fix this or do I need a card reader? Also, I want to connect a Mac formatted External Drive to a PS3 in my dorm room. Is that possible? Or do I need to reformat to NTFS? If I do have to reformat, can I do it without losing any data on the drive?
This camera model was apparently sold in 2005 so I would not expect any updates from Samsung. It's listed as a Mass Storage Device and compatible with OS X 10.2 so I'm somewhat surprised it won't work with your Mac. Nonetheless, your best bet is definitely a card reader, which will likely be faster and more versatile in the end.
To answer your second question, no you will not be able to get the PS3 to recognize a HFS+ formatted drive. However, you also don't want to format it NTFS if you want to write to it from your Mac. You should format the drive FAT32 to ensure maximum compatibility.
Ben asks
I have a old 17" iMac g4 ... before we retired it from normal use, we had put in a new Hard Drive, and I would love to make use of that for a Time Machine drive. My problem is this: For Time Machine to use that drive, the Macbook needs to be connected to the iMac ahead of time. I'm looking for something that will allow my Macbook to sense when it is on my home airport network and connect to the iMac.
You need a connection manager such as Marco Polo (donations requested). You can use it to set up a rule to connect to your iMac AFP share whenever your MacBook joins a specific network. Keep in mind that you must share the iMac's drive through AFP for this to work with Time Machine.
Dan asks
Is there any way to make an Airport Extreme (or Airport Express) connect to my fiance's college network and authenticate itself with her username/password on their 802.1x network just like she does on her computer? Creating her own network would let her share her printer with her roommate, and do wireless Time Machine backups, and also allow me to hop online when I'm there (she's on the edge of AT&T's 3G coverage, so connecting my iPhone & using NetShare works, but isnt ideal for my own usage). I know the simpler option would be for me to plug my Mac Mini into the wall and share the network connection wirelessly, which would work and would have a strong enough signal to cover her entire dorm room, but I'm trying to set this up without giving her my pseudo-media-server/DVR from home.
No, you can't do what you describe, but if you're going to buy an Airport Extreme/Express why not just plug that into the wall? Now, I should mention that adding a wifi router to her college's network may very well violate their network security policy. If it is discovered you might very well get her into trouble.
in2h20 asks
Recently... [I tried] to install [OS X 10.4] on my old iMac Indigo G3 (120 GB hdd, 1 GB RAM running 10.2)... repeatedly I get the message it cannot be done. Any ideas, inspiration, comments?
The official Tiger installer will not run on any machine lacking a FireWire port. The easiest way to circumvent this restriction is with XPostFacto ($25 donation requested). That should allow you to install OS X 10.4 on your iMac.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
brianallen said 9:46AM on 9-05-2008
"Richard asks"
A free method is to open terminal and type netstat.
netstat will list all the connections your computer has and the amount of data sent since the last reboot.
Reply
lakiolen said 5:00PM on 9-05-2008
There's also a (semi) graphical version that OS X comes with called Network Utility that combines netstat, ping, traceroute, and others.
kev orng said 10:11AM on 9-05-2008
To answer Josh's third question, reformatting your external HD WILL erase the data, and even if it didn't, you should back it up anyway.
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Gary said 9:58AM on 9-05-2008
Is it possible to add an inexpensive non-Apple WiFi router to an existing Apple Airport WiFi network?
I'd love to extend the network's range without having to spend $99 on an Airport Express when I don't need the additional functionality of wireless printing or Air Tunes.
Thoughts?
Enjoy...............G
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Justin said 10:04AM on 9-05-2008
Re: External Drive on PS3
If he has any files bigger than 4GB, a FAT32-formatted drive won't be able to hold them. I don't know the odds on him having files that big, but I know that I have a lot of ISO's that are much bigger than that sitting on my drives. What I did for my situation was format my drive in NTFS and installed NTFS-3G on my Mac. It's been great. My external drive still works on Windows machines at work and on my Mac at home, and I don't have the limitations of FAT32.
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Kris Van de Sande said 10:10AM on 9-05-2008
I replaced my picture folder in my root with an alias, pointing to a folder on my external drive, and it works perfect in every way, except that Photo Booth refuses to save pictures. Is there a terminal/other solution to make it save to my external drive?
Thanks.
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Ed said 8:59PM on 9-05-2008
Try this: add a folder called "Photo Booth" in the external drive's pictures folder. Now open up Terminal and change to the pictures directory in your home folder by typing:
cd ~/Pictures
Now create a symbolic link to the new folder by typing:
ln -s /Volumes/ExternalDrive/PathToPicsFolder/Photo\ Booth Photo\ Booth
That may work, although I admittedly haven't tried it 'cause I store my pics on my internal hard drive. Don't forget to change the drive name and path to the pictures folder to what they actually are on your system. And, any folders/drive names with spaces should be added as such: "Folder Name" should be typed as "Folder\ Name" The slash lets terminal know that you're still typing the name of that folder, and not going on to the next part of the command.
Disclaimer: I'm a terminal noob, so feel free to correct me.
phf said 11:13AM on 9-05-2008
@ Gary:
Yeah, you can basically use any router. Go for a cheap linksys or netgear.
Reply
Freeze said 11:01AM on 9-05-2008
If you have your PS3 on a good LAN setup, you could use Nullriver's Medialink to access your mac formatted drives. It's obviously not as fast as a direct USB connection but it is a cheap and easy workaround.
http://www.nullriver.com/products/medialink
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Zev Eisenberg said 11:20AM on 9-05-2008
I installed Tiger on a much older G3 iMac: 350Mhz with no DVD drive or FireWire. I documented the experience here: http://zeveisenberg.com/blog/?p=7
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totoro said 11:45AM on 9-05-2008
Question for next time:
What is the difference between Secure Empty Trash and Empty Trash Securely? One is a Finder Preference, one is a menu selection. They *seem* to take different durations to perform their functions, but that could be my imagination. :p
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Justin said 12:51PM on 9-05-2008
For next ask TUAW - you have written briefly on various occasions regarding ipfw and Waterroof, but I have yet to find a guide that assists in walking one through the whole process step by step. I only want a handfull of ports open - I use Transmission and browse the web. I want everything else closed that I can. I am a fairly savvy user, but configuring ipfw is over my head. Web searches turn up articles that are too advanced for me. I can tell my router to only keep certain ports open; I'd like to be able to do so for the OS as well. If anyone can point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
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zander said 1:12PM on 9-05-2008
10.5.4 MBP(latest)
I use iCal to keep track of the hours I work at my job, and then I manually translate all of the data from iCal to a Numbers spreadsheet that calculates overtime, etc. Then I have to copy that to the paper timesheet. Is there any way to automate the iCal->Numbers translation??
Thanks!
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Chris said 10:57AM on 9-06-2008
Have you tried....Automator?
Josh said 1:12PM on 9-05-2008
Thanks guys. I'm going to reformat it when I go home next week since I don't have a way to back up the drive here at school.
Is there a way to use Ruckus without Virtualizing/Bootcamping Windows?
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Jordan said 1:27PM on 9-05-2008
I have a question related to this week's thumbnail question. Is there a way to make the finder display a thumbnail of the album art embeded in mp3 files? Cover Flow is great but it's not the best for visualizing context. A thumbnail view of album art would be a really nice complement to Cover Flow.
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William said 1:26PM on 9-05-2008
Is there any software that runs on the Mac or a web app that is good for keeping track of orders, invoices, and/or inventory?
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Jean-Philippe Daigle said 2:21PM on 9-05-2008
To find which processes own which connections, I'd simply go with "lsof -i", the output is nice and much briefer than using netstat. See here, super easy: http://jpdaigle.blogspot.com/2008/09/ask-tuaw-finding-which-processes-own.html
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computergeeksjw said 5:07PM on 9-05-2008
My G3 iMac running Tiger connects to the internet through dialup. It has shared the internet over a cable to my PC. Ever since I ran Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection client to connect to that PC, the PC can't connect to the internet through the Mac. It gets an IP address from DHCP on the Mac, but won't get any websites. BTW, My Mac can access the same websites. Any ideas?
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McDoobie said 6:31PM on 9-05-2008
I'm running a Intel-based Macbook laptop with the latest version of Leopard on it. I use flip4mac and when streaming videos online it helps me view them, but it's often glitchy; I sometimes can't see the play/pause button or if I go to another tab, the screen goes completely white with only audio playing. Is there a Mac program out there that can better stream videos online? Usually those in WMA formats.
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