Ask TUAW: Target disk mode, energy saver prefs, iTunes sharing and more

Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about target disk mode, energy saver prefs, Safari file issues, iTunes album artwork, iTunes sharing and more.

As always, your suggestions and questions 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.

computergeeksjw asks:

I have an old iMac Blue G3. The fliesystem failed, but I can't reformat because there is a disc in the slot-loading drive. I tried the tricks I know like Open Firmware (gives me a weird error) and holding in the mouse button (I hear the drive spin up but nothing else happens). I have a newer G4 Quicksilver. Will it be able to boot up into Target Disk Mode even though the filesystem is damaged? (Then I can try to repair with Disk Utility or reinstall from there) or will it fail like a normal boot does?
Depending upon the nature of the damage, you should be able to boot into Target Disk Mode with no issues because the disk that is damaged is not a startup disk and only needs to be mountable on the desktop of the G4 system. If the damage to the file system prevents it, or for some other reason you can't boot into Target Disk Mode, try holding down the "Option" key on the keyboard of the iMac when you turn it on.

That should give you a screen which will allow you to eject the disk in the CD drive and put in an OSX install disk to try and repair the file system of the iMac. Also, you could try booting the iMac from an external firewire drive that has OSX or OS 9 installed on it. That way you could attempt a repair of the iMac's drive as well.

Jeff Clark asks:

Is there a way to change display preferences when you plug in an external monitor? For example, I want my display to never dim or shut off, nor my screensaver start, when I'm connected to a projector.

I'm not aware of a specific setting for projectors, but you can set your screen to never dim or turn off via System Prefs> Energy Saver. Simply set the "Computer Sleep" and "Display Sleep" slider on "Never" and your computer will never dim or go to sleep.

Or, you could use a program like Caffeine to quickly switch your computer's settings for sleep and screen dim on and off.

zyzzyx26 asks:

Every now and then when I download a file Safari renames it - sometimes adding an extra file extension, others renaming it completely. It appears to be the site's server not handling MIME-types properly. However, that doesn't happen when I'm on Firefox. So, to my question, is there a solution for this odd file handling problem for Safari?

According to my Apple support sources, this is a problem that Apple is aware of. While they wouldn't get into specifics, it seems a solution may be forthcoming. Although, when that is is anyone's guess. In addition, they had no real alternatives or solutions to present at the moment. So, if it doesn't happen in Firefox and it really bothers you, just use Firefox until Apple provides a solution.

Andy asks:

The music and video files of my iTunes collection are stored on an external NAS hard drive in my flat. The iTunes library files reside in the music folder on each separate computer and direct iTunes to look at the external disk for the files. This allows both my machines access to the files without filling hard drives but does mean I have to import new files in both versions of iTunes to be able to see them. With the new home sharing and file management features of iTunes 9 are there some easier options for me?

My feeling about questions of this nature is usually I will ask people why they feel they need to make a change. If a system is working for you, I usually advise users to just stick with it and don't make sweeping changes you don't have to make -- especially with something as important as your iTunes Library.

That said, the Sharing features in the latest version of ITunes do allow you access to music and video files across your own internal network so, in essence, you could have one Library serve ail of your Macs. This works pretty well with the new version of ITunes but as the software is still relatively new, it requires further testing to be sure there's no problems that crop up.

Or, you could also do what I've done in the past and have your entire iTunes Folder exist on the external NAS and just provide an alias of it in your User's Folder that points to the NAS. That way, when iTunes opens on machine it will access all of your music, video, etc. from the NAS and eliminate the need to import things twice.

Thomas Beck asks:

In iTunes 9, is there anywhere to uncheck sync Album Artwork? I always had that unchecked because I have a fifth generation iPod, so I don't really care if the artwork is there or not, except that without it, I get an extra 300 MB. I'd really like to be able to get that space back.

If you don't want the artwork at all simply uncheck the "Automatically Download Missing Album Artwork" box located in iTunes > Preferences > Store. That way, no artwork will be downloaded when you import songs so you won't have to worry about syncing it or not.

Santiago Pena asks:

I was wondering if there is a way to convert all iWork '08 into iWork '09 with automator. The new file types of iWork are much easier to share with other people, so I would love to have a way to be able to convert all my old files to the new format.

Unfortunately, after speaking to several colleagues, it doesn't seem such a thing exists. However, perhaps one of our intrepid TUAW readers can shed some light on this question, which is the reason I've chosen to include it it this week's column.

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Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about target disk mode, energy saver...

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Bill Kearney

@Chris, your suggestion to use a network share for music files would be a good one were it not for a horrible bug in itunes9. Now it will inexplicably apply a ! mark to tracks thinking they're 'missing'. But if you double-click them to play they WILL PLAY. So they're not actually 'missing'. It's just itunes has lost it's mind and only thinks they're gone.

This gets even worse if you try using the apple Remote ipod app. It will spit back an unknown error if you try accessing one of the tracks. Go back to the itunes computer (it can be a PC or a Mac, the bug is cross-platform) and the track (and now suddenly MANY more) will have a ! mark on it. But the track will still play if you double-click it.

It's really annoying bug. Their software testing people should be beaten with sticks for missing something so obvious.

October 17 2009 at 7:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

dave

I upgraded to Snow Leopard recently and I have been pretty happy so far. One complaint that I have is that whenever I startup Mail for the 1st time I receive a warning saying that Growl Mail Plugin is not supported. I have upgraded to the latest Growl but the warning will not go away. Is there a way to delete this warning? (I can provide a screen shot if needed)

October 12 2009 at 11:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Joe Story

Question for Ask TUAW:

I have had a massive hard drive failure on an aftermarket 500GB SATA 2.5" drive in my early 2009 17" MBP. It was such a severe crash that the mere presence of the drive as an internal would crash the computer even when I'd started off the Startup DVD. I finally had to physically remove it, put it in an external enclosure just to be able to attempt a repair. However, I've tried Disk Utility, DriveGenius, and Disk Warrior, all to no avail; some can see it , none can do anything.

I've simply replaced it with another, and would like to send it in for warranty repair or replacement since it is only 4 or 5 months old. However, I suspect there is still valid and recoverable data on it, including banking and brokerage account passwords, and I'm unwilling to let those be seen by repair techs. (I'm not mentioning the brand because I don't want to impugn the techs of that company. I just don't want anyone to have access to that info.) The drive is only worth $120 or so, so I'll sacrifice it for protection of my financial data if I must.

Is there any reliable way to externally scramble all data on such a drive, e.g., a very strong magnetic field? Years ago I had a degaussing tool for crt's, but crt's mostly went away after having added an automatic version of that feature.

Any suggestions

October 08 2009 at 5:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Alexandre Strube

For the next TUAW.

When I'm copying a file, finder tells me how long it will take to finish. Is there a defaults to make it show the transmission rate too, like windows?

October 03 2009 at 2:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chance Johnson

Is there an app for this??

Currently i have 3 Macs in my house. 2 macbooks and a MacPro. all of them work off a wireless network i've built that includes an Airport Extreme. I've added an external hard drive to my Airport and i use it to store all my movies on so that i can access them without having multiple copies of files across multiple computers. Ive even made a stack on my docks to easily accesses the files on each computer, it's brilliant! Now the problem: I've recently picked up a pico pk-101 projector and i've been using it to watch movies from my iPhone. Is there an app/way out there that will let me view/stream those various video types and sizes strait to my iPhone over my wireless network from that HDD so that i can play them strait from my iPhone and also output it via the 30-pin connector to the composite in on the pico???

October 03 2009 at 3:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tom

I have another question for next week:

Is there a way to backup your bootcamp partition like you would backup your mac osx partition using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper? Both of these applications do not support NTFS.

October 02 2009 at 6:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Tom's comment

Ato

Hi,
You can use a program call Winclone.

October 02 2009 at 9:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

tajasel

Is there a good twitter app which allows multiple logins and supports identi.ca as well as twitter?

October 01 2009 at 11:28 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Nick

I have a question for next week...

Where are apps that are downloaded from the App Store supposed to be downloaded to? I have my iTunes music folder (now called the media folder since iTunes 9) on an external hard drive. When I download an app, the app is saved to my computer's hard drive in Music > iTunes > iTunes Media > Mobile Applications. However, when I do a File > Organize Library and choose consolidate, iTunes copies any apps that are on my computer to the Mobile Applications folder on my external hard drive. I'm a bit confused since iTunes seems to be doing two different things with the apps at two different times.

I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.1 on an iMac with iTunes 9.0.1 and an iPhone running 3.1.

Thanks

October 01 2009 at 2:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

meego

Ok this should be a good one.

I use Gmail and Mail.app with IMAP

It's great.

However, the unread count badge displayed on the app icon in the dock has an issue. Because Gmail's folder structure is non-standard, Mail.app counts unread mails twice. First in the Inbox folder, second in the All Mail folder. Also, mails in the Spam folder are also counted.

As a result, the unread messages badge is quite uninformative and unreliable because of this.

TUAW, do you know how to solve this issue?

Cheers

September 29 2009 at 12:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mike

Question for next Ask TUAW:

Is there *any* fully bidirectional sync between iPhone and iCal that can happen over the internet. I've found many apps that sync over WiFi only, and many apps that will sync two-way between iPhone and various services like Toodledo and Remember the Milk. But I haven't found a single app that will combine the two and two-way sync iCal and Toodledo or anything else.

September 28 2009 at 11:34 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply