OS X Lion was likely released download only as a means of promoting the the Mac App Store. I am all for the Mac App Store, it’s yet another step towards having an awesome cloud experience, but when it comes to a full-blown OS, I like to have a physical means of backing up my Shiz.

Thankfully, Apple has released the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, a tool that will allow Lion users to make a recovery partition on an external drive or USB key. This announcement comes after Apple released their own external drive loaded with Lion available for purchase, for about $70. If you don’t feel like having a reliable physical medium at that kind of cost, you can simply make one for yourself!

From the people of Apple, directly:

To create an external Lion Recovery, download the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant application. Insert an external drive, launch the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, select the drive where you would like to install, and follow the on screen instructions.

When the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant completes, the new partition will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility. To access Lion Recovery, reboot the computer while holding the Option key. Select Recovery HD from the Startup Manager.

The Recovery Disk Assistant can be downloaded HERE.

This utility is similar to the recovery utility that comes with your initial install of Lion. The reason behind having the physical medium:

[Users can] reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari. This drive can be used in the event you cannot start your computer with the built-in Recovery HD, or you have replaced the hard drive with a new one that does not have Mac OS X installed.

In conclusion, Apple had these final notes:

- If the computer shipped with Lion, the external recovery drive can only be used with the system that created it.

- If the system was upgraded from Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard to Lion, the external recovery drive can be used with other systems that were upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion.

It’s always nice to have a digital safety-net and Lion already comes pre-installed with one.  But having a second one that you can hold in your hand is even more satisfying.

Safe Travels

~Max

Understanding Malware threats to your Mac

As a Mac user, one of the things you get to congratulate yourself about is choosing a computing world that is free from viruses. It’s true. In “the wild” there aren’t any Mac Viruses. But there is Mac Malware. The thing about Malware is that it can’t install itself. It takes your participation to install it. The latest is a fake anti-virus website MACDefender. The crooks placed fake ads on websites inviting you to click and get a free virus scan of your Mac.

Like most modern malware, MACDefender isn’t designed to erase your hard disk or display a message saying “Hahaha you have been cracked by ]-[@©Km£i$ste®”, or whatever viruses used to do when we were little. It’s all about making money. Having shown you a professional-looking anti-virus scan “Control Center” that lists all the terrible (imaginary) malware on your Mac, it invites you to enter your credit card details for a fix. Presumably its work is done at that point, but of course there’s no way of knowing where your credit card details might end up.

Until about a year ago I didn't pay much attention to the string of Mac malware. Then I got a new MacBook Pro and installed it from scratch. Every application was installed from install disks. Nothing was copied into the System or Library folders from any backups. The only files copied to it were my data files. I wanted to know if I had any tracking cookies in my system. I installed a program called MacScan and ran it, finding not only  dozen tracking cookies, but a Keystroke Logger — a program that records every keystroke and sends them to a server somewhere consolidating this information for some criminal organization. I was freaked out! How the hell did this get on my computer? I never run rogue applications. No one ever works on my computer but me.

MacScan removed the Keystroke Logger, and the tracking cookies. I started to run it weekly just to see if anything else showed up. No more nasties like the tracker, but there are additional tracking cookies occasionally. Tracking cookies are placed on your computer by online advertising companies. These companies track your movement on the Internet for statistical and relevancy reasons. No thanks. I didn't give you permission to track what I read, what I buy, etc. Delete! Delete! Delete!

There are two prevailing views on Mac Malware.
* One, that it's a real problem and you should protect yourself against it — "Apple Mac malware: A short history." from Sophos, an anti-virus company.
* Two, that it's an invented technology news story — "Wolf!" from John Grubber's Daring Fireball blog.

I think the truth takes both points of view into account. After these articles, I'll tell you how I've come to handle the issue.

Then two short pieces of brilliant business advice from the mind of Steve Jobs.

Apple Mac malware: A short history (1982-2010)
There's been a lot of discussion in the media recently about the threat that malware poses on the Mac OS X platform. It's clearly an emotive subject, with strongly held views on both sides.

To help some of the discussions, here's a brief overview of some of the malware we have seen infecting Apple computers. From the early 1980s, right up until the present day, here are some of the highlights in the history of Apple Mac malware.

Mac Virus Timeline

1987
The nVIR virus began to infect Macs, spread mainly by floppy disk. Source code was later made available, causing a rash of variants.

1990
The MDEF virus (aka Garfield) emerged, infecting application and system files on the Mac.

1995
Microsoft accidentally shipped the first ever Word macro virus, Concept, on CD ROM. It infected both Macs and PCs. Thousands of macro viruses followed, many affecting Microsoft Office for Mac.

1996-2010: The rest of the Mac Malware timeline is here.

Wolf!

Ed Bott, ZDNet, three days ago: “Coming Soon to a Mac Near You: Serious Malware”:

Now I am seeing evidence that the next target is OS X. That’s potentially very bad news for Mac owners who have abandoned their PCs in the belief that switching to a Mac somehow immunizes them from malware.

Security experts know, of course, that there’s nothing magical about Macs when it comes to security. They just haven’t been targeted because Windows has been such a big juicy target for so long.

But now that Macs have achieved a critical mass of success in the marketplace, they’ve attracted the attention of malware authors. According to a report from a Danish IT security company, an underground group has completed work on a fully operational kit specifically designed to build malware aimed at the Mac OS platform.

Tony Bradley, PCWorld, December 2010: “Apple No Longer Flying Under the Security Radar”:

The McAfee report explains, “McAfee Labs saw malware of increasing sophistication that targets Mac this year; we expect this trend to increase in 2011. The popularity of iPads and iPhones in business environments and the easy portability of malicious code between them could put many users and businesses at risk next year and beyond,” adding “We anticipate threats of data and identity exposure will become more pronounced.” […]

If McAfee is right, 2011 could be a bittersweet year for Apple and Apple fans.

Nick Farrell, The Inquirer, September 2009: “Hackers Target Macs”:

A bunch of Russian hackers are offering 43 cents for each Mac that their partners in crime can infect with bogus video software. The move has been cited by insecurity experts at Sophos as a sign that Mac users’ security by obscurity days are coming to an end. […]

This is because most Mac users believe that faith in Steve Jobs protects them from all malware. To them, malware is only for Windows users because OS X is perfect and totally secure. The fact that Mac OS X’s security is the stuff of jokes at security experts’ parties does not matter to the Apple faithful.

Bernhard Warner, The Sunday Times, July 2008: “Hackers Start to Target Apple Macs”:

The company [Sophos] reports today that two new Mac-ware Trojans that emerged in February and June ought to shake Mac users of their misconceptions that their computers (and, eventually, iPods and iPhones) are impenetrable. To put this in perspective, the first really pernicious piece of Mac malware emerged only in October, 2007, Mr. Cluley adds, suggesting that a worrisome trend is about to get worse.

See the rest of the medias dire warning list back to 2004 here.

My Malware Solution

Since my Keystroke Logger experience, I’ve been running MacScan weekly for months. I find a few tracking cookies each week. A few months ago I ran it on a clients iMac and discovered dozens of PC malware varients that it could identify but couldn’t remove.

I see two premiere products in this arena. MacScan and Intego VirusBarrer Plus.

MacScan removes the largest library of tracking cookies – about 10,000. It detects and removes Mac (not Windows) Spyware. Cost $30 here.

Intego VirusBarrier Plus removes the most common tracking cookies, plus Mac and Windows Spyware, plus looks for virus-type behavior. It costs $7.99 and is only available in the Mac App Store.

I use them both and have them set to run automatically every week. MacScan finds tracking cookies that VirusBarrier Plus doesn’t. VirusBarrier Plus finds the occasional Windows malware I receive via shared files. In most cases it can clean the file so that I don’t pass on the infection. So, for about $40 you’re protected from the current ways people are trying to steal your info via malware or tracking cookies. If I were to choose one over the other, I choose VirusBarrier Plus. The threat from Spyware, Microsoft Office viruses, and passing on Windows Malware is protecting against a larger and deeper threat than the larger tracking cookie library of MacScan. Tracking cookies aren’t doing any “harm”. I just don’t think a company should be able to put a tracking device on me without my permission or a court order. I don’t recognize any difference between slipping one in computer and slipping one in my pocket. I use both because there are some areas that don’t overlap.

Wyn Matthews provides in-home and in-office technology break-fix services for Ojai, Santa Barbara, and Ventura, California.  He also specializes in Mac tutorials and is an expert in all things “gadgety.”  Check him out HERE.

Understanding password security and management

Passwords are like keys to the physical buildings, cars or rooms that you use. Your house, car, vacation house, hotel room, safety deposit box, etc. In our physical world, we take it for granted that each of these keys are different.

By these obvious standards, in our digital world, we are careless. We have the same key for our PO Box and our front door. Maybe another key for our safe deposit box and car. Understanding what follows will help you get a new set of digital keys and a digital lock box to manage them without stress.

I know there’s a lot to read here. Please take the time. It’s important.

Password Security Issues

We use dozens of passwords in our digital life. Criminals use the latest technology to steal user names and passwords. They’re not really interested in your password. They’re interested in the information in the accounts behind the passwords. Selling passwords is now big business.

I hear from people every month who discover that junk email is being sent using their email address. This is possible when your email password has been compromised or your outgoing email settings don’t require any password authentication.

This article is a look at the current state of password usage by internet users and how to create and manage passwords that are very difficult to crack. I strongly suggest that you take the required actions, make the necessary changes in your habits and practices to protect yourself.

Understanding safe passwording isn’t difficult. What seems daunting is managing them. I’ll give you the best solution.

Studies of Actual Password Usage

Common passwords ARE crackable

An analysis of 32 million passwords stolen by a hacker from RockYou (who makes games for Facebook and other social networks) found that the quality of passwords chosen by users is extremely poor. From the article:

Imperva found that nearly 1 percent of the 32 million people it studied had used “123456” as a password. The second-most-popular password was “12345.” Others in the top 20 passwords included “qwerty,” “abc123” and “princess.”

Odds are most of those users had the same password for their email and Facebook accounts, meaning they are quite vulnerable unless they take action and change their password.  Read more here.

Using the SAME PASSWORD on multiple sites

“A scary 92% of people use the same password across all websites, including their email accounts, this is the finding of a short research project we did for a client recently.

92% IS a scary statistic. Here’s how we got it:

“Over the last 6 months we have been working with two clients to experiment with their security authentication methods. One of the questions we asked was do people use the same passwords across multiple sites. 92% said Yes.”   Read more here.

Lists of common Insecure Passwords

A list of insecure, banned passwords on Twitter here.

A graphic of the 500 worst passwords here.

Guidelines for creating Secure Passwords

A nice graphic showing a matrix of unsafe to safe passwords by age and societal groupings here.

Guidelines for what TO use:

• The password must be at least 8 characters long. The longer—the better.
• Have a unique password for EVERY required password
• The password must contain a mixture of upper- and lowercase characters, numbers, punctuation marks and special characters.
• It must be meaningless.
• If a password is hard to remember, it is also hard to guess.
• Change your password periodically on sites that have any financial information.

Examples of secure passwords

These are all 10 digits. The first two are easier to remember, they are built around actual words. Remember the easier it is for you to remember, the easier it is to crack. The next two are random letters and numbers. The last two include symbols and other special characters — the most secure.

• 9tripleX1%
• SLeIgH0.!6
• 86yk6Vt599
• 25ai77L65h
• 0@sBnohwF_
• LuBuqRh%?3

Creating Secure Passwords

It can be difficult to create a random password that doesn’t have elements of the “what not to use” list. One way is to type a bunch of gibberish and then select 10-12 characters of it to use. Some sites have secure password generators built-in to them. If the site doesn’t have it’s own, and you want to use a password generator, one that’s easy to use can be found here.

Managing Secure Passwords

Most people I see use some kind of notebook, pieces of paper, Word or Excel doc to manage their passwords. This is definitely NOT secure. Paper gets lost or stolen. Documents on the computer are right there for the thief if your computer is stolen.

If your passwords look like the sample secure passwords, you won’t want to be typing them in manually. After I share with you my recommended solution, if you still want to use a computer document, please protect it with a secure password.

If you make the jump to using only secure passwords, you’ll appreciate a program to manage them. The best is 1Password from AgileBits. There are Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPad versions that all sync to a common password database stored online, usually in Dropbox.

If you manage a dozen passwords or more and your list includes banking and other financial websites — once you learn to use this application — you’ll wonder how you survived without it.

1Password

1Password captures your passwords as you login to websites. To access your saved passwords you’re required to enter your master password — your 1Password. You can forget the rest of them. If you change a password or update the security of a password, the updated password is updated in 1Password.

1Password works so well because it isn’t just a security product. It changes the way you deal with website logins. You will do things more securely and more easily when 1Password is around. There are other Mac password managers. Where 1Password shines is both it’s level of built-in security and it’s attention to “process”.  1Password is easy to learn and easy to use.

1Password is $39.99, the IOS version is $14.99. For more information the 1Password website is here.

A recommended short video is here.  A 3-minute Expert Guide is here.

Final thoughts after putting this together

I have 187 passwords in 1Password. I have passwords that I need to strengthen. I did a search for two duplicates that I use. About 25% of my passwords are not very secure. While not financial sites, they do have personal information — name, address, and maybe a phone number. The good thing is that I use 1Password. Updating these will be relatively easy. One of my tasks to compete during the next week!

Wyn Matthews provides in-home and in-office technology break-fix services for Ojai, Santa Barbara, and Ventura, California.  He also specializes in Mac tutorials and is an expert in all things “gadgety.”  Check him out HERE.

It’s inevitable.  Sooner or later, no matter how well you take care of your Mac, you’re going to experience some slow performance and be confronted with the dreaded, spinning pinwheel, also known as the spinning beach ball, sometimes known as the spinning pinwheel of death. No one wants a slow Mac, so here’s this week’s 10 Second Tip for a Happy Healthy Mac.

Let’s look at how to Repair Disk Permissions.

I do this on my own machine at least once a month, and you should too.

NOTE: be sure that you’ve got a recent Time Machine backup before you run this process.

How to Repair Permissions
1.  Launch Disk Utility.

This utility app lives in your Utilities folder, which is inside of your Applications Folder.  The fastest way to get to it is to click on the Spotlight icon at the top right of your screen, and start typing the words Disk Utility.

2.  Next, with the First Aid tab selected, locate and select your System Hard Drive in the list in the left-hand sidebar.

3.  Click on the Repair Disk Permissions button. (See illustration below.)

Just let it do it’s thing, it will take up to 10 – 15 minutes, if you’ve not done this before, or if it has been a long while.

You’ll see a something like this:

Wrapping up

Ideally, you should run this once per month.  And for best results, run it, restart your computer, run it a second time, and then restart your computer again.

You’d be shocked at how many problems this simple routine will fix for you.

For those who would like a more in-depth look at what Unix Permissions are all about, click HERE.

Cheers!

Chris

From the EXCELLENT Macgasm.net Blog

Author Credit: Gerard Lagana

In this on-going debate of whether a Windows computer is cheaper than a Mac computer, you need to take two things into account.  First, the upfront cost of each of the computers. Second, the total cost of ownership, or TCO for short.  For the sake of this article I’m going to compare a Dell and an iMac.  First I’ll price them out as stock without warranties; then, I’ll configure the Dell to match the hardware and software specs of the iMac.  Finally, I’ll look at the total cost of ownership for both.

Dell Inspiron 560s and the 21″ iMac

I configured a Dell Inspiron 560s with a 21.5” LCD Display, an integrated webcam and microphone.  I also added anti-virus software; which is something that is needed to protect a Windows computer from Viruses.  I tried to match the hardware and Software as close as possible to the iMac that I will be talking about in just a bit.  The total price of the Dell Inspiron 560s was $1,136.50.  This price was after discounts that were applied.  The original total price if Dell did not include discounts would have been – $1,420.75.  This is a $284.25 difference.  The thing with Dell’s discounts are that they change weekly.  So, if you don’t act quickly on the configured computer, you could be paying that extra $284.25.

Next, I configured an iMac 21.5” 3.06GHz computer.  The only thing I added to the iMac configuration was iWork to match the Office Productivity software from the Dell Inspiron 560s.  The new iMacs come standard with a wireless Bluetooth keyboard and Magic Mouse.  In contrast to the Dell Inspiron 560s, it only comes with a wired USB keyboard and mouse.  The total price of the 21.5” iMac configured was $1385.68.

As you can see the Dell Inspiron 560s costs more than the equivalently configured 21.5” iMac without the discount on the Dell computer.  The Dell is actually $35.07 more than the iMac.  However, the iMac is $249.18 more than the Dell with the discounts applied.  Basically, if you can get the Dell with the discount, it will be less than the iMac.  However, if you don’t get the discount, it will end up being more than the iMac.

Total Cost Of Ownership (TCO)

I would now like to talk about Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).  If this phrase is a new concept to you, here’s a quick and dirty example.  Total Cost of Ownership is what the total cost of the computer would cost you during the time you own the computer.  Maintenance and repairs are included in this.  One of the biggest costs for Windows owners is Virus and malware annual software subscriptions.  Generally, you can use free malware removal tools, as well as anti-virus applications.  But for anti-virus software you’re probably going to want something with a subscription.  With that said, you’re probably going to pay annually about $60.00 to $70.00 to protect your Windows computer from being attacked.

Click HERE to read the rest of this article at the EXCELLENT Macgasm.net Blog.

Here’s a horror story from the field, made un-horrible with a just few steps:

You buy a new computer – and your iPhone is synched to the old one. Bummer. It can only belong to one iTunes library and iTunes now wants to erase your iPhone.
Now what?  These simple steps will move your iPhone to a new “home”.

When you connect it to a new iTunes library it says  “Hey, this is a new phone! Do you want me to automatically sync Apps, Contacts and Calendars? This is fine if it’s truly a new phone with no info on it. But it it’s a well used iPhone there’s lots of other data that you don’t want to loose.

Here’s the trick…

First make sure that other data you want to sync TO the iPhone is complete on the new computer, i.e. addresses, calendar, music, podcasts, photos, etc.

Second, take a screen shot of each of your iPhone screens, email them to yourself, then delete them from your Camera Roll. You’ll need them later.

Third, before you connect your iPhone to the computer, open iTunes. Under the iTunes menu select Preferences. Click the Devices icon in the Toolbar. Click the checkbox next to ”Prevent iPhones and iPods from automatically syncing to this computer.“ Click OK.

Now you can connect your iPhone to the computer. After it shows in devices, select it.

1. right click on the iPhone and select Transfer Purchases.

2. right click and select Back Up.

Now you have a backup on your new computer!

Quit iTunes.

Restart iTunes.

You’ll be asked if you want to setup your iPhone as a new one or Restore from a backup. Since you now have a backup, you can choose Restore from a backup.

When this is complete your iPhone will have all (with a couple caveats below) it’s data restored, plus be now paired with this instance of iTunes.

Caveats: the only music, podcasts, etc. that will sync back to the phone are those that exist on this new computer. (See First above.) The other thing you’ll have to do is rearrange your App locations. Here’s where those screen shot you emailed to yourself come in handy for setting up your preferred App arrangement.

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Wyn Matthews is new to the FoleyPod Digital-Life Coach Blog. He comes to us with decades of Mac and PC troubleshooting experience, and is an expert on both systems.

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Here’s a great (and brief) article from MacWorld’s Christopher Breen covering what to do when your permissions issues go beyond what your Mac’s built-in Disk Utility software will repair.   While rare, this issue is one I’ve seen before, often when someone is moving from an older version of OSX (like 10.2 Jaguar or 10.3 Panther) to Leopard or Snow Leopard.

This issue is also likely to rear its ugly head when installing a fresh instance of OSX, and creating a new user profile with a different short name than your old one.  Whoops.

[MacWorld] Reader Paul Moortgat’s Mac appears to be unhappy with a new hard drive. He writes:

I replaced the 500GB internal with a 1TB drive in my Mac Pro. I used SuperDuper to copy the disk. Now each time I create a file or a folder on the Desktop and place it on the hard drive icon or trash an item, I’m asked to enter my password. I reset the PRAM and repaired permissions to no avail. How can I get rid of that authentication dialog box?

This is indeed a permissions issue, but it can’t be treated with Disk Utility. And the reason it can’t is because Disk Utility’s Repair Permissions feature repairs permissions only for files installed by OS X, Software Update, or an Apple software installer. It won’t touch your documents, the stuff in your Home folder, or third-party applications.

That said, something definitely got mucked up when you copied your files from your old drive to the new one. What I suggest you do is select one of these files, press Command-I, and in the Sharing & Permissions area of the resulting window, see who “owns” the file. If it’s not you but some other entity, there’s your problem. If you change the permissions so that you own the file, you won’t see the warning.

Continue reading this article HERE at MacWorld.com.

Time machine is a breeze.  We’ve been a really big fan of Time Machine since before 10.5 Leopard was even available.  Backups used to be really difficult to manage, and restoring from a backup was a task that your average user simply could not do themselves.  With Time Machine, Apple has put more power and peace of mind into the hands of normal users than has ever been available before.

In fact, if you’re new to Time Machine and/or backing up your Mac in general, you may want to have a look at this article from last year.

If you’re running Windows inside of  Parallels or VMWare Fusion, your compressed Windows file is backed up in your Time Machine backup.

But if you’re using Boot Camp — Time Machine only backs up Mac partitions — you need a separate backup procedure.

Here’s how to.

First (and only) decision… Are you going to backup to the same drive as Time Machine or a separate drive?

If you chose separate drives, it’s easy — one formatted Mac and one formatted Windows.

If you’re going to use the same drive, the next step will be to partition your backup disk to make room for your Windows backup. If it’s a new drive, you can create both partitions in Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder… or do a Spotlight search for it), formatting the Time Machine partition Mac OS Extended and the Windows partition Fat32.

If it’s an existing Time Machine backup drive you can resize your Mac partition in Disk Utility and then format the vacated space with Fat32.

Now that your backup drive is ready, you can setup your Windows backup.

• In Windows XP the backup utility can be found in Start-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools.
• In Windows Vista, open Backup and Restore Center by clicking the Start-Control Panel-System and Maintenance.
• In Windows 7 the backup utility is Start-All Programs-Maintenance.

Each utility gives you options on what you want to backup and the location of the backup files. What you backup is your choice, from individual files or folders to the whole Windows installation. Where you backup is going to be your Windows partition on your backup drive.

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Wyn Matthews is new to the FoleyPod Digital-Life Coach Blog. He comes to us with decades of Mac and PC troubleshooting experience, and is an expert on both systems.

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With the release of Safari 4, Apple has given us some very compelling reasons to stick with Safari as our default web browser.   But perhaps you’re still running OSX 10.3 or 10.4 and can’t get the newest version of the fastest web browser.   Or perhaps you simply prefer to use another browser such as FireFox, Flock, Opera, Camino, or many other available apps made to help you surf online.

Once you’ve chosen your “default” browser, worry not, you won’t find yourself obligated to use only that default browser.  What default browser means is that when you click on a link in an email, or you double-click on a file which forces a browser to open, your Mac will launch that browser to visit the page to which that link refers.

You probably want to set your default browser to be whichever browser you use most often.  This is the one you have stored most of your bookmarks in.  Otherwise, you may find yourself with half of your bookmarks saved in one browser, and the other half in another browser, which can be irritating.  If Safari is your most used browser, you can stop right now, as there’s nothing to change.

Otherwise, here’s how to do it:

Launch Safari. 
Since Safari is set to be your default browser by, um.. default, it is only appropriate that you change this setting from inside of Safari.

• Click on Safari menu, and choose Preferences.

• Choose the General tab at the top of the Preferences Window.

• To the right of “Default web browser” is a drop down menu. Locate your desired application from the drop down menu.

• You’ve now changed your default browser. Quit Safari.

That’s it!

You may be wondering why one might choose to use more than one browser, and the answer is “the right tool for the right job.”   I use a few browsers throughout the course of my workday.  For example:

Safari is my default browser, and I use it for all of my research and to manage my Social Media profiles throughout the day.  Safari is feature-rich and launches in fewer than 2 seconds on my MacBook Pro.

FireFox is my main development browser.   I use it to deal with building web pages, accessing servers, account centers and other professional logins, online banking, etc.  FireFox has historically been more secure than Safari, and besides, I currently have all of my business bookmarks, sensitive passwords and logins stored in FireFox.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for reading.

~ Chris

Here’s another great article from Chris Breen and Macworld.com.  I see this issue quite often, and chances are, you’ve seen it too…

Here’s an excerpt:

Reader Linda Gardner seeks a cure for a cantankerous media drive. She writes:

Lately, when I insert a CD into the drive, the computer, after a few seconds, ejects the CD. I have to insert the CD several times before it finally accepts the CD. My iMac is only a little over a year old. Why is this happening and what can I do about it?

This could be happening for a variety of reasons. Moving from best case to worst:

Your CDs are dirty. Do your kids routinely handle the things after eating peanut butter and honey sandwiches? Take a gander at the ones that are being ejected. If they’re dirty, give them a good wipe with a damp soft cloth.

Your iMac’s optical drive is dirty. The inside of a computer can get really dusty. It’s possible that some of that dust has made its way to the lens of your optical drive. You can pick up a lens cleaning CD (one that has tiny brushes on it) for less than $10 on Amazon or any store that handles gadgets and electronics (Radio Shack, for example).

Read the rest of this article HERE at Macworld.com

Enjoy
~

Chris