Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW
Ask TUAW: Migrating from a PC to a virtual machine, tweaking OS X, controlling iTunes, and more.
This week in Ask TUAW we've got questions on tweaking, migrating from a PC to a virtual machine, forcing the Leopard welcome screen, controlling iTunes with the bare function keys and more.As always, your suggestions are welcome. 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 (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
marinepilot asks
I just bought a new iMac 20" and I want to know if I can use either Parallels or Boot Camp to make a partition (or Virtual Machine) on an external hard drive and then clone my old PC "C" drive into it to use it as it was?
You can do this with either Parallels or VMware Fusion. The steps are pretty simple: 1) Convert your PC with convertor software running on the PC, 2) copy the resulting file to your Mac, 3) convert that to a new virtual machine.
VMware has the instructions for Fusion. Parallels has a similar set of instructions of their own. Personally, I use and like Fusion, but I think either of these would do good job for you. They're each $79.99.
theraf83 asks
I'm prepping an iMac for sale and will do a clean install off an original Leopard disk (10.5.0). If I want to be nice and update the iMac for its future user, then is there a way to update to 10.5.6 without losing the initial welcome/setup screen?
Yes, it is possible to do this. Reinstall Leopard, create an admin account (with password), and apply the 10.5.6 Combo Updater. Then in the terminal you'll need to delete the file /private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone . Go to the terminal and type:
sudo rm /private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone
Put in your password and the next time the machine is started it should run the startup sequence. Keep in mind that this will not delete the admin account you created. So you should probably just tell the new buyer about it.
jordanpories asks
I have the leopard w/ all updates on a brand new iMac and i wanted to know if I could run the windows 7 beta DOWNLOAD on my mac via bootcamp & partitions. I ask this because online everyone talks about their windows 7 beta disks, but Microsoft offers it as a download, too, and I wanted to know how it would work.
There are several tutorials online for doing exactly this. Check out this one from SimpleHelp.net to get the basic idea.
Paul asks
I NEVER use Exposé, Spaces, etc and would love to use the function keys for things like Play/Pause iTunes, next track etc. I have an older MacBook without the keys built-in (Mid-2007). For example I would like to assign F8 to Play/Pause, F9 to Previous Track and F10 Next Track. I understand you can go to the the keyboard pref-pane and assign these keys to iTunes specifically. However, this does not work when you using another application (for example when I am writing in Word or browsing the net). Basically I would like to add the functionality play/pause etc Universally... I would ideally like to have the functionality without a third-party app.
Unfortunately, I think you will have to use a third-party app to control iTunes with the bare function keys. Synergy (€5 = ~$6.50) specifically allows this. Incidentally, it has some nice other features as well.
Chris asks
Right-click context menu in Mail> Search in Google. This opens Safari. Firefox is set as my default browser. Any fix?
Unfortunately, I believe this feature is actually an OS X Service of Safari itself so it cannot be remapped to work with a different browser.
MadMike asks
What about custom tweaks for Hardcore users? For instance windows has 100,00 different speed tweaks (multiple partitions, separate swap partition, etc).
OS X does contain a lot of hidden preferences that you can manipulate from the command line. However, there are also many different utilities that function as GUIs for many of these. You might check out Onyx (donations requested), Cocktail ($14.95), and/or TinkerTool (free). A relatively recent addition to the list with some interesting features is Secrets (free).
spdrcr5 asks
How about a way to enable the "Ignore accidental Trackpad Input" when you're running a MacBook Pro with Leopard and a Multi-touch trackpad! This feature was removed when Apple changed over to the multi-touch track pad. Their "answer" and "fix" for this is to install 10.4! How stupid is that?
According to this Apple Support Document this functionality is now "is enabled automatically, by-default." So I'm afraid you're unlikely to get it back.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
iGO said 11:13AM on 2-04-2009
Question For Next Edition:
1) How do I set, or more importantly, NOT SET Mail as my default email reader?
I want to have NO DEFAULT email reader because at times, certain applications or links in browsers, open mail due to a url click or an application action.
Reply
dave said 11:36AM on 2-04-2009
Your question probably needs to be rephrased.
Having a default reader means that links clicked will do something. Not having one would mean it will bug you each time you click a link. Are you asking if there is a way to bring up a dialog box asking which program to use when following a mailto: link?
My first impression is to think that you are probably using webmail and that you would like to have a mailto link open your web mail. If that is right, that is a different question.
Maybe you use different email addresses in different email clients, like entourage, mail, and thunderbird being used with hotmail, mobileme and gmail respectively. The simplest way of dealing with this is not asking how to specify different email clients, but having more than one email address set up in one client -- then change the "send from" email address as necessary.
Either way - you are probably gonna need to give some more info if youa re going to get a helpful answer.
iGO said 11:52AM on 2-04-2009
Thank you for taking the time to respond. My exact situation is:
1) I ONLY use Mail as my single/sole email reader, with a single account/email address.
2) I NEVER want mail to start/open, unless I start it myself by clicking the Mail application icon, inside the applications folder.
3) My thought is to "disable" the opening of mail by NOT making it the default email reader.
4) I don't care if a mail-to link ends up in a dead-end OR if applications can no longer trigger Mail. For example. from iPhoto or any of the iLife applications, I don't care if I can no longer "share" pictures via the share, email, action from the menu bar. And I want this behavior across ALL applications, including links in browsers.
I hope this is clear.
Thank you
ronl12 said 10:24PM on 2-04-2009
I have Parallels but discovered that my amateur radio software needs to be 'closer to the metal' to work properly with the USB-to-radio adaptors. I know that I can boot Windows in Boot Camp so I created a Boot Camp partition in NTFS format. I have Paragon NTFS and can read and write NTFS partitions. QUESTION: How can I migrate my Parallels VM to BootCamp so that I can boot from it so that I don't need to reinstall all of my software to the Boot Camp partition?
Rico said 1:46AM on 2-05-2009
@IGO: You can choose any legitimate application that contains an application bundle. IOW, I was able to choose 'Word', 'iPhoto', even 'Calculator' and 'Chess' to launch when clicking on a MAILTO: link in a browser.
I tried to make an AppleScript Application to take its place, but a simple [applescript].app does not contain the required architecture to accept the call from another app by itself. However, a quick build from AppleScript Studio did take the call just fine. It contained only one line of executable code:
tell me to quit
If you have the Developer Tools installed on your Mac, you can build this replacment in under fifteen seconds; save it to your apps folder (or anywhere), name it 'MailKiller', or whatever, then select it as default email application from Mail's Preferences.
When you click on any browser link, or contextual link within, e.g., a PDF file or Help document, the app will instantly both launch and quit, returning you to your current program.
Of course, you will have to know that was the wish; there will be no (obvious) indication that your command was even received; this could be a problem if others use your account.
If you don't have DT, or don't want to bother, just choose Calculator or any fast-launching app that won't bother you to temporarily switch to when browsing.
Sam said 11:31AM on 2-04-2009
Question:
I'm relatively new to Macs. Late 2008 Macbook, Leopard.
1. I can't get applications to consistently open up certain file types. For example, I want avi files to always open in VLC, not Quicktime. I've went into the "open with" dialouge and chosen VLC and checked "always open with."
But whenever I double-click an avi file, it always opens in Quicktime. What's the deal with this? Is there a program that will manage this type of thing?
Reply
dave said 11:42AM on 2-04-2009
For the VLC question: there should be a button in the get info pane that says "Change all" - first you set that one file to open in VLC and then click "Change All."
ChriB said 11:42AM on 2-04-2009
Right Click > Get Info (or press cmd+i):
Under "Open with:" choose the application and click on "Change All..."
Digaos said 11:46AM on 2-04-2009
When you do what you say, you're changing the default application for that specific file.
To change to all avi:
1) Select one avi, right-click and get info (or just select the file and cmd+i).
2) You'll see Open with: Quicktime. Select VLC and press the change all button and confirm.
You're done.
Erik said 1:21PM on 2-04-2009
A good app for dealing with default applications is the freeware RCDefaultApp:
http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/
Tim said 11:44AM on 2-04-2009
@Paul: I control iTunes via SizzlingKeys http://yellowmug.com/sk4it/ that's free!
Reply
Aaron Ruhlig said 11:46AM on 2-04-2009
A change to iPhoto '09 is that when cropping in full screen on a unibody MacBook, pinching in and out now changes the shape and size of the crop area. In iPhoto '08, it zoomed in and out of the whole photo. I liked the old way. Is this configurable in any way?
Reply
bryan said 11:45AM on 2-04-2009
Is there a way to activate a context menu from the keyboard, as if you were to right/control click with a mouse?
Reply
niknak said 12:01PM on 2-04-2009
I have a question for next time (MBP Unibody and latest versions of everything).
After once again leaving a USB thumb drive in one of my university's computers (though i got it back) i thought i would finally try and secure the data on it. What would be the best way i could go about this? I know i can make an encrypted disk image somehow, but i need something that, as well as on my own MBP, will also work on both the Windows and Mac machines in my university (so it also needs to be FAT formated).
Ideally i would like something that would ask me for a password to 'unlock' when i plug it in or try to access it, and would then stay unlocked until i eject it, and which works on both Windows and OSX machines without any special client software. While i'm working I usually have it in my MBP with Chronosync set to sync my Documents folder to it every 10 minutes, so i don't really want to be bothered with having to re-type the password all the time.
Any suggestions?
Reply
bighoffa said 1:07PM on 2-04-2009
A great tool is Truecrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/). It works for different operating systems, and you can have the tool run directly from the USB drive.
SomeOtherGuy said 12:05PM on 2-04-2009
Why use synergy for € 5 when you can use GimmeSomeTune for free, which does all this as well as downloads lyrics and artwork?
Reply
Sriram Sarveswaran said 12:12PM on 2-04-2009
I have been using my MacBook (2.4Ghz, Early 2008 model) for about 8 months now and I find it getting slower each day. I upgraded my RAM to 4 GB and that has not helped. When I run Safari (with no other programs running), I can hear my processor fan go whoosh while on Youtube, Hulu, etc. Consequently, I find my MacBook overheating much more than it used to. Solutions?
Reply
iGO said 12:33PM on 2-04-2009
@ Sriram,
Sounds like you need a general system cleanup and maintenance,
Try ANY of the different utilities that function as GUIs for many of these actions. You might check out Onyx (donations requested), Cocktail ($14.95), and/or TinkerTool (free). A relatively recent addition to the list with some interesting features is Secrets (free)
My personal choice, but not free, is MacPilot.
All of these tools above, have excellent utilities to clean-up caches, rebind applications, improve launch services etc. I trust you will see a like-new machine after running the utilities
Some said 12:16PM on 2-04-2009
Ye misunderstood the question about Windows 7 - he meant can you install from the iso file or do you have to burn it to a dvd.
Reply
Mike said 12:29PM on 2-04-2009
Another free application that lets you control iTunes from your keyboard is uTunes (http://www.frencaze.com/products/utunes)
Reply