Feb 12

It never seems to fail. When you think everything is perfect a curve ball comes in high and fast.

A few weeks ago I had a small problem with our home computer. Ok, it really wasn’t a problem at first, but through my messing around it became a problem. Let’s just leave it at the idea that all the data on our iMac hard drive had been erased. Keep in mind this is the computer that holds each of my children’s accounts with music, photos etc. But more importantly my wife’s data, music photos etc. And I had a few things too.

Several months ago I had taken my own advice and installed a brand spankin’ new two terabyte Time Capsule. It has been faithfully backing up my son’s MacBook, My MacBook Pro, two Mac mini’s (One is a media center device, but that’s another story) and of course the iMac. All the data was erased? No problem I have Time Machine and a Time Capsule.

The story goes like this. I had a fresh install of Snow Leopard and proceeded with the setup assistant. I really loved when it asked if I wanted to transfer data from a Time Machine back up. All plugged in to the household ethernet network I emphatically clicked yes.

I’m no dummy, most of the time, so when the computer reported back it would take some where north of ten hours to complete the data transfer I took it in stride. After all, it was almost five hundred gigabytes of data traveling over a home gigabit network. At that point I went and found something else to occupy my time, still coming back every half hour or see to check the progress.

Imagine my surprise when after two hours it said, all done. I realize in retrospect I should have realized this was one of those “things that make you go, hmmm” moments. Or even when I tried to log in to my account and it kept bleeping that my password was incorrect. But nope I thought everything was hunky dory.

My two younger sons accounts logged right in and everything looked good. Of course neither of them have the huge iTunes library of their teenage siblings. The older kids gave the same bleep of dismay at the attempt to login as mine did. But thankfully the wife got right in, major catastrophe averted, except her desktop photo was gone…. And half of the applications from her dock were missing.

Weird, but not the end of the world. Through the spouse account I accessed the migration assistant and once again began the process. But this time I selected to only migrate the applications. After a couple of hours, it actually reported a fairly accurate time, I rebooted and voila all her programs were back.

I figured some where in the transfer it had simply scrambled a few of the passwords. I grabbed the installer disk and went through the steps to reset my password, which went off with out a hitch. That is until I rebooted, logged in to my account and found a blank new account with all my data gone. Logged in to one of the older kid’s account with the same result, no data.

Don’t panic, deep breaths. Logged in to my wife’s account, she is an administrator, and deleted my blank account, plus the others that had come up as blank. At that point I was able go back to the utility folder and use the trusty Migration assistant. With fingers crossed I selected only the accounts, that I had just deleted, from the Time Capsule and clicked migrate. Another few hours was the guesstimate. I was done messing with it. It was late. I went to bed.

The next fine morning before buzzing off to work I checked if my account had been resurrected. To my complete joy it was there. Login successful all the data in tact, deep sigh of relief. Dragged kids out of bed to make certain their’s were also whole then exhaled for what seemed the first time in the last day.

Sitting later at my desk I was pretty proud of myself. Even though I had created a near life ending situation, my life that is, I saved the day and looked like a hero. Then, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi honey. I think I have a problem.”

My heart sank.

“All of my photos are gone.”

Photos the joy and bane of my existence. Hadn’t I done this once before to her?

“And my email looks funny. I think some of it is missing, and I can’t download anymore mail.”

Ok. I rolled the dice with my own account and the kids accounts, time to hit a seven. I told her not to panic. I should know that is usually not the right thing to say, beside I was panicking enough for both of us. I walked her through logging in to my account and (gulp) deleting her account.

“Are you kidding? Delete my account?”

“Hey trust me. I’m a professional.”

Once again the process was started off using the migration assistant and migrating only her account. I did tell her if she had done anything in the last half day it was lost. Thankfully that wasn’t too big a problem. If all her photos were gone? Well that would be a problem.

She let me know the system reported her account would take an hour or two to transfer. Not too surprising since her’s was the largest account before. Nervously I told her I had to actually accomplish some other “work” and it wouldn’t really help for us to be on the phone for the next several hours, but instead to call me back when it had completed. I hung up and waited.

Now from the opening paragraph you might think this story has an unpleasant and ugly ending. I am still actually alive to tell the tale, which should tell you otherwise. In fact in turned out great. I know the Apple technology didn’t behave exactly the way it should have, and I spent a little more time than intended, but still it did work, I kept everything and more important I still have a happy home.

The moral of the story. No matter what, have a back up. That way if you do something dumb things can still turn out alright.

written by Russ

Jan 08

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Dec 11

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Nov 18

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Oct 29

Max & Me

written by Russ

Oct 27

System 10 made dealing with fonts a heck of lot easier than they were in System 9 and it’s predecessors. I still remember in the days of 6 messing with the Font/DA Mover application, and even that was an improvement from what came before. Then System 7 and the Font Folder made a huge leap forward. But still it seems fonts are always managing to be the bane of someone’s existence, and with what I do it frequently ends up being mine.

Case in point. For a while my wife has had a strange problem with Safari. You know how it is, you usually don’t help the people closest to you until it becomes your problem. I had to sit down at the home computer and do a quick internet search. The computer was logged in to my wife’s account so I launched Safari and began the surf. Problem, the fonts were all skiwampas. The font on almost all the pages was some whacky font I didn’t recognize. I asked what she had done. The innocent answer was the one I hear all day, “Nothing honey.” Except most people don’t call me honey at work.

I tried logging in to other accounts on the computer and sure enough, whatever was going on was not system wide but limited to her account.

I went into the Safari preferences and tried to change the appearance font, size, width, appearance, nothing, nada, zilch. What on earth could this be?

I had all but given up, after all, it wasn’t my account ; - ) Then my wife launched her Mail and opened an email. Holy Crap. The email was exhibiting the same goofy font. So now I knew it was an account wide problem, not just Safari.

Bingo! It was some odd font conflict. Then with a little nudge we discussed that she had become something of a font junkie. With doing the “scrap book” thing she had found and, I hate to admit it, with my help been loading lots of “cutesy” fonts from scrap book and craft sites.

The Font Book program has become very useful. When I opened the application it showed the large number of fonts and a significant number of them with yellow warning icons. It didn’t take long to find the offending font. In our case it was a rogue copy of “Arial.” All it took was to disable, and finally delete the little rascal and now all is well.

At least I don’t have to sleep on the couch.

written by Russ

Sep 21

Now that Snow Leopard, aka 10.6, has been out a week or two, I thought I would find out what the guys around the shop think about it.

We haven’t seen as much of the grief as we have read about on the internet with printer driver problems, but we know there have been a few. Feel free to chime in with your experience.

Anyway, here is what everyone had to say. Warning; I make no guarantee of employee spelling, caps or anything else contained in their responses.

Now that Snow Leopard is out What do you think?

Bryan: It’s fast, most of the time. It freezes up on me quite a bit (fewer freezes after the 10.6.1 update, but still random spinning beachball moments that I could do without).  I like the changes made to the stacks in that now when I select a folder in the stack, it shows me the info within the stack in another stack rather than opening the folder in the finder

Dave: It is better than Leopard for sure.

Jayme: It’s grrrrrrrreat! Better than running Windows 7 any day.

Christian: 10.6 is great! Their are visible performance increases on my iMac core 2. I have found that 10.6 greatly enhances the performance of Logic 9. I can only assume that all of the new pro app versions can take advantage of 10.6.

Bryce: t’s really nice. The upgrade process was easy, and I do not have any issues. Everything is running better then before.

Scott: PRETTY PICTURE ON THE BOX BUT I HAVE NOT USED IT.

Is it worth the price?

Chris: Yes it is, for only $29 you can upgrade to the most advanced operating system in the world.

Bryan: Definitely!

Dave: It is only $29 for crying out loud. No Intel computer should be without it.

Jayme: Yes

Christian: Well worth the price!

Bryce: Definitely worth the price.

Scott: YES.

Was it worth the wait?

Chris: Yes, the improvements they made increase performance with little to no problems for the consumer.

Bryan: Not sure, what wait?

Dave: Yes but we would all have wanted it sooner I think.

Jayme: Really wasn’t waiting for it.

Christian: Sure. Like anyone I would have loved to of had sooner.

Bryce: Yes, definitely worth the wait.

Scott: ALWAYS LATE BUT WORTH THE WAIT.


Have you upgraded? And if not Why?

Chris: I have.

Bryan: Yes.

Dave: Yes.

Jayme: Yes, both work MacBook and home Mac Pro.

Christian: Yes, the day it came out.

Bryce: Yes, the day it came out.

Scott: NO. DOES NOT WORK WITH MY STAR TREK LCARS SCREEN SAVER.


What is your favorite, part, feature, thing, that 10.6 gives you or a client?

Chris: Activating multitouch for all laptops, and the new exposé features.

Bryan: Better calendars through 10.6 serve

Dave: I like the subtle fixes. Like an error that means something when you cannot eject an external drive. Also the stack scrolling has been useful. Things just seem to work better with less slow down.

Jayme: More 64-bit incorporation, as I own a Mac Pro that can run up to 32 gb of memory, I like knowing that Snow Leopard will allow apps. to access all of that memory.

Christian: Its workflow with Logic Studio. I assume that is related to Grand central dispatch. Maybe open GL contributes to that as well.

Bryce: Speed, speed, and more speed.

Scott: UNKNOWN. ALTHOUGH I’M REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO TRYING MY HAND AT WRITING CHINESE CHARACTERS DIRECTLY FROM THE MULTI-TOUCH TRACKPAD.

Where do Snow Leopards live?

Chris: Tibet.

Bryan: Snowleoppiton… I think it’s in Alaska… or Canada… one of those places that no ones really ever seen.

Dave: In the snow.

Jayme: Places where it snows?

Christian: Asia??

Bryce: No response.

Scott: FIRST GUESS: SIBERIA

SECOND GUESS: JUST OUTSIDE OF KANAB

written by Russ

Aug 24

Apple has a new operating system coming out, and no, it won’t terrify you and bloat your computer the way Windows Vista does! In fact, OS X Snow Leopard is so simple, stable and trim that we had a hard time figuring out how to describe it. We debated between ‘tubular’ and ‘boss’… Ok, that’s not true, only one of us thought that those were good ideas, in reality we think ‘awesome’ is the best way to describe it.

Want to know what else we think is awesome? Snow leopards. Yep, in case you didn’t know, snow leopards are real. Yeah, Apple didn’t just run out of cat names when they wanted to name this new OS. But a sad thing is that snow leopards are endangered. Snow leopards are found in Central Asia (Mongolia, India, Pakistan, China, etc). They are considered the “spirit of the Himalayas.” But they are disappearing. Their habitat is used for agriculture; they are hunted for their pelts; and they are killed to protect livestock. Only 3,500-7,000 snow leopards remain in the wild today. They are officially “Endangered,” like tigers and pandas. But not dodo’s. Cause dodo’s are extinct and that is sad, which is not what we want to happen to snow leopards.

Because we think snow leopards are awesome, MacDocs is partnering with the Snow Leopard Trust. We will be donating $1 for every copy of OS X Snow Leopard purchased and $10 for every computer purchased between Friday, August 28th and Saturday, August 29th to the Snow Leopard Trust. Also for a $25 donation, you can adopt a Snow Leopard cub directly through the Snow Leopard Trust and bring it home with you. No, not really. For your own safety (because snow leopards are carnivorous, and you are made of meat) the Snow Leopard Trust will use that money to better the life of a snow leopard in the wild, but you get pictures and updates!

Come down to MacDocs at 1435 S State Street in Salt Lake City or in American Fork at 945 W 500 N, Suite 100, and help save the Snow Leopards, and get one for your Mac as well!

written by Russ \\ tags: , , , ,

Aug 21

While many of us Macphiles don’t bother with options other than Apple when it come to electronics, most of us do, or have had at one time, an electronic gadget that was not made by Apple. The most common one I think is probably a cell phone. Most cell phones are designed to be able to connect to your windows PC with a cable and, somewhat easily, download and upload digital content to and from your device.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case with cell phones and the Mac. For some reason instead of using well built open standards, the just write PC programs and leave us all behind. At least this was the case with Captain Planet, but now with Bluetooth being standard in almost every phone out there, with a few simple steps you can use your mac to easily grab the photos from your phone, add wallpapers, games, and ringtones without any headache or having to load windows on your machine.
These features and sometimes even more will depend on the make and model of the phone you are trying to use. I have found that Nokia and Motorola have been the most friendly phones. Not only can you transfer songs, pictures and games, but often they work with the little know utility called iSync, you can transfer contact and calendar information as well. To know if your phone is compatible with iSync already you can check the compatibility list on apples website here. You can also just try connecting the phone via Bluetooth to your computer and it will tell you if it thinks you can use it with iSync. Usually if it says this it will eventually work, but you may have to find a few drivers online.
The initial connection to your phone is easy. By Default, your computers Bluetooth status icon should be displayed in the menu bar on the top right of your screen and you will want to select the option to Set Up Bluetooth Device.

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You will first see the Bluetooth Setup Assistant introduction page. Just go ahead and continue to the next window. Following the introduction you will be asked to choose what type of device you are connecting. At this point you want to make sure your mobile phone has Bluetooth turned on and is discoverable (Sometimes shown as Find Me mode, or Visibility mode.) After selecting Mobile Phone, click continue.

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You should get a screen that will show the available mobile phones within the range of Bluetooth (About 30 Feet). If your mobile phone had you enter a Bluetooth name it will help distinguish yours form others in the area, otherwise you will usually just see the make and model of the phone you are using. Once you find your phone hit continue.

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Your computer will the gather some information about your phone.

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It then will want you to put in an authorization code which is unique to each connection. Your phone should be prompting you at this point to allow a connection with your computer. Make sure to accept the connection within a few seconds, waiting to long will mean you have to hit “Go Back” and start a new connection.

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This next window will tell you what extra services are available for your device. In this phones case ( a Motorola RAZR) you can set it up to sync contacts, and use the phone as a modem for the internet. Sometimes when you have the proper drivers, you can even use the phone to send a fax, or call a dial-up internet service provider. Usually I uncheck accessing the internet because set up can be a pain and is not usually worth it.

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At this point you are pretty much ready to send and get files from your phone. You can send items individually from your phone. Just select options on the photo or ring you want to send, and send via Bluetooth, or you can browse and send to your device from your mac.
Now all you have to do is figure out what kind of files your phone supports and have fun installing everything your heart desires!

written by Russ \\ tags: , , , ,

Aug 20

We have a pretty sweet deal on a used iMac. It is a 20-inch late 2006 model; the processor is an Intel Core2Duo 2.16 with 1Gb of ram and a 250GB hard drive. All for only $750! It has 10.4.11 on it at the moment but you can purchase Leopard now for $129 and get Snow Leopard when it is released next month for only $29 bucks! It has the original system discs, plus comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse. Come down and pick this up before it is gone!

written by Zak \\ tags: , ,