My MacBook Pro and I had a bit of a rendezvous this past weekend. She's a 15 inch Core Duo with 2GB of RAM. Although she'll occasionally get as hot as a toaster oven (leaving red marks on my lap at times) and mooed like a cow when we first met, she's been a consistent workhorse for me.

But her hard drive needed a transplant. Sick of her sluggish performance and hard drive clicking noises, I decided that it was time to fix her up. So, I replaced her 320GB hard drive with, surprise, a 320GB hard drive -- this time a Fujitsu model instead of the Toshiba it replaced. Not because I thought the Fujitsu was any better than the Toshiba it'd be replacing, but because it was the least expensive drive I could find.

Although the hard drive installation went successful, it wasn't without its fair share of bumps along the road. Hopefully, the bumps I experienced could provide many some guidance on what to do as well as what not to do when upgrading your hard drive.

Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column! This time we've got questions on migrating to a new Mac, using a Time Capsule for wireless backup, speeding up podcasts, syncing two Macs, 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.

A few weeks back, Microsoft released its Service Pack 2 update for Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac. While adding a host of features and refinements (such as Custom Path Animation in PowerPoint and increased speed and load times in Word and Excel), the service pack apparently packed too much of a punch.

The update has prevented some Open XML files from opening, for which Microsoft provides the following suggestions, and I've done a bit of MS-to-English translation (with apologies to DF)... read on to get the gist.

Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column! This time we've got questions on using an AirPort Extreme as a wireless to ethernet bridge, automatically backing up a USB flash drive, building smart playlists in iTunes, migrating an iTunes Library 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.

Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column! This time we've got questions on syncing an iPhone with Lotus Notes, expanding storage on a Time Capsule, preventing iCal event invitation emails, uninstalling Haxies, 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.

Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column! This time we've got questions on using a case sensitive file system in OS X, applications focused on writing, controlling a Mac with a universal remote control, push email, using a MacBook with an external display, 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.

Wi-Fi connectivity problems are not limited to the iPhone 3GS, not by a long shot. The iPhone 3G is widely reported to have connectivity problems that, according to the large number of people discussing it on the Apple Support Discussions, dwarf the reports regarding the 3GS.

In over fourteen Apple Discussion threads, over six hundred messages have been posted with the first one being written on June 17th, shortly after the release of iPhone 3.0 software. These threads have been read by thousands of users. Unfortunately, to date, a solution is not at hand.

The problem, verified by many, is that when updating to the new software, Wi-Fi connectivity on the iPhone 3G either decreased or vanished entirely. Those who were used to getting full bars of Wi-Fi connectivity now experience markedly less bars. Worse, even if some signal strength bars are displayed, often there is no Internet connectivity.

Many solutions have been proposed including resetting the router, changing settings (seemingly at random), and even putting the 3G in the freezer:

"Also i might note, I turned off wifi, turned off the phone, put it in the freezer (in a bag) for 10 mins, turned the phone back on, put the phone right next to my wifi antenna and then turned on wifi and it joined, it JUST joined and I couldnt believe it," says one forum poster. Several others report similar results, but this fix did not last long. In fact, blog posts have been written about possible solutions, but none of them seemed to pan out after using Wi-Fi for a short period of time.

Some writers have said that the 3.1 update will fix the problem while a larger number say that the new software release won't help at all.

Wednesday means it's time for another Ask TUAW! For this edition we've got questions about what Macs will support Snow Leopard's forthcoming OpenCL acceleration, using Boot Camp with multiple partitions, connecting a Mac mini to HDMI, automatically importing images into iPhoto, 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.

In this round of Ask TUAW we've got questions about connecting a MacBook to a plasma TV, using a Bluetooth headset with an iPod touch, backing up online, ripping DVDs to watch on an iPhone 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!

When I heard that OS 3.0 was going to enable syncing of notes between the iPhone and the Mac, I was overjoyed. I use the notes app on my iPhone all the time for everything: reminders, grocery lists, and figuring out the monthly budget while I'm away from home. Having those notes sync back and forth with the Mac was something I very much looked forward to, because it made the notes app far more useful.

The first few times I synced notes between my iPhone and Mac, however, I'd get a message like this one:


Since I don't have many notes on my iPhone to begin with, this alert would come up every time I changed, deleted, or added a note on the iPhone. This would also hold up completing the iPhone's sync with my Mac until I confirmed that syncing notes was okay.

After a few days of this, it was starting to get irritating. I racked my brain trying to figure out how to stop it.

Then I remembered: iSync is still its own program (though one largely restricted to the background these days), so there ought to be a preference in it to stop this behavior.

And there was. In iSync's preferences, you can set the threshold for the alert message that appears on syncing with your iPhone:



You can disable the alert entirely, or you can set it to go off if 50%, 25%, 5%, or any data on your Mac will be modified by syncing with the iPhone.

I'm not sure if this was set to 5% by default, or if years ago I'd set it that low out of paranoia and just forgot about it. Now I have it set at 50%, and the irritating alerts have gone away.

Yesterday I tried to open up iPhoto '09, and was greeted with a screen telling me that my iPhoto library needed to be updated. This was sort of odd, since I had run the program many times since the software update of June 4th bringing the program to version 8.0.3, but what the heck. I clicked on upgrade and the program crashed displaying one of the wonderfully unclear error screens of hex numbers.

After trying all the usual things like rebooting, resetting the PRAM and saying 'Candyman' three times in front of a mirror, I sheepishly gave up and called Apple. It turned out that this has been happening to many people. Up until two days ago, Apple had been capturing reports to find the source. I was told that they stopped capturing reports when they numbered around 3,000.

What Apple found was a bug in the 8.0.3 updater, and apparently the bug could bite just about anytime since it didn't necessarily rear its head directly after the update. The bug, in various incarnations with various solutions, is to be cursorily found in the support forums, but here is the authorized Apple fix:

Hold down the option key as you boot iPhoto and you'll see a screen like the one displayed here. Just choose your library (there should only be one) and iPhoto will boot normally. Problem solved! As of now the problem hasn't resurfaced for me, and according to Apple tech support, it shouldn't. This bug will be squashed in a future iPhoto update but for now it's easy to get around.

It's time once again for Ask TUAW! For this round we take questions about cleaning a malfunctioning Mighty Mouse, opening files and applications with the return key, expanding a Boot Camp partition, finding alternatives to Adobe Acrobat, caring for your notebook battery, 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!

We're back with another shot of Ask TUAW! This time we've got a couple of common switcher issues, as well as questions about upgrading a hard drive, using WiFi stumbler software, setting up a dual-band WiFi network, 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!

While Jason D. O'Grady considers anything more than ordinatrix inflagrante to be success when he's installing a new operating system, he and others are still reporting on the various and sundry issues that have cropped up since Tuesday's 10.5.7 update:

• I can't find my brain: Some users are reporting that their Buffalo (among other) external disks aren't mounting after installing the update. Solution: Nothing concrete, though many people are suggesting installing the combo update you can download from Apple's site, rather than using Software Update. You can participate in Apple's Support Discussion on the topic if you share this problem. [via MacNN.]

• Blue screen of death: No joke: since the update restarts your computer up to three times, some users are getting hung up on the first blue screen that appears after the gray Apple logo screen. Solution: Wait until disk activity stops, then shut down the computer hard by holding down the power button. [via PowerPage.]

• I was blind, but now I see: The update is causing some video cards to output non-native display resolutions. Instead of outputting 1920 x 1200, instead Mac OS X will try and output 1920 x 1080 (which works fine for HDMI, but not many widescreen displays). Solution: An oldie-but-goodie: Zap the PRAM by holding down command + option + P + R at startup until the computer restarts a few times, then letting go. [also via PowerPage.]

• Cold fusion: VMWare is suggesting people hold off on updating if their configuration includes an ATI graphics card and they use Fusion to run 3D Windows apps. (2D apps are just fine.) Slow and poor rendering and general crashiness are symptoms of the problem. Solution: None yet. Apple and ATI are working on an update. [via MacNN.]

Got problems of your own? Let us know by leaving a comment.

We're back with another shot of Ask TUAW! This time we've got questions about getting WiFi in an older G4 PowerMac, creating photo contact sheets, blanking a display, automatically opening downloaded files, managing iPhone apps in iTunes, 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!