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 eZine. He comes to us with decades of Mac and PC troubleshooting experience, and is an expert on both systems.

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DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN?
Click on the HELP button at the bottom of the page to submit your own question.

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.

We’re really pleased to announce the launch of our own Automated Help Desk system for receiving and tracking support requests for our customers.

Our Help Desk software allows us to capture your information as soon as you report your issue, and keep a record of the support session, from start to finish.  There is also a Forum inside and a knowledge base full of helpful FREE articles which could very well save you the expense of opening a support request!

Please view the brief video, and feel free to click on the big RED help button at the bottom of this page to register for your own free account.  You can also use the FoleyPod Help Desk system to ask us a question, make a suggestion, or request a tutorial topic for the eZine.  Use it your own way.

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 eZine. He comes to us with decades of Mac and PC troubleshooting experience, and is an expert on both systems.

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DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN?
Click on the HELP button at the bottom of the page to submit your own question.

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

The most common method of opening a file is to double-click on it, right?  Well what happens when you double click on your file, and it opens in the wrong program, or won’t open at all?

Here’s a real-world example.  You have Microsoft Excel installed on your Mac, but you have Apple’s iWork installed as well.  Someone sends you a spreadsheet file in .xls format, and when you double-click on it, it opens in Numbers.   Uh-oh, you don’t know how to use Numbers.  You were expecting it to open in Excel.  Oh the injustice!

I’ve seen this happen quite often. Adobe .pdf files can open in Adobe Reader, Adobe Acrobat, or Apple’s Preview.  Microsoft Word files can open in Pages, which is great, if that’s what you want.

Sometimes it gets even weirder.   I’ve had Adobe Air files open in Waveburner, which is a pro audio application.  That didn’t make sense at all.

Here’s how to fix this.

To select the default application for a particular file type, click on any file once to highlight it, and then press ⌘ and I at the same time or go to File>Get Info.

From the resulting Info box, click on the Triangle next to Open With to view the Open With dialog section.

Click on the Open with Drop-down menu, and select the appropriate application from the list.

If your desired default application is not listed, click on Other. You’ll be able to select your program. Once you’ve selected your program, click on Change All.

Your Mac will now use your selected program the next time you double-click on this type of file.

Thanks for reading!
~ Chris

Is your Spotlight utility acting wacky lately?

It happens a lot, don’t feel too bad.  If your Mac is in otherwise good working order, it’s likely that Spotlight’s Index file has broken.  You can force Spotlight to re-index your computer’s hard drive in a few short steps.

Here’s how to fix Spotlight:

First, click on the Apple icon at the top left of your screen, and then launch System Preferences.

Next, from the System Preferences window, click on Spotlight.

This next part might seem a little counter-intuitive, but it’s okay, stick with me.
Select the Privacy tab from the Spotlight window.

Normally, this privacy section contains folders that you don’t want Spotlight to look through.  (Click HERE to access an article which describes why you would want to use this function to speed up your Mac.)

For now, click on the + button at the bottom left, and then select your computer’s hard drive from the resulting sidebar, and click Choose.

You’ll notice that your computer’s hard drive now appears in this Privacy list.  Right now, Spotlight is no longer going to access your Hard Drive.  In essence, you have just broken Spotlight, but that’s okay, because now, you’re going to highlight your Hard Drive, and then click on the remove button (-) at the bottom left to remove your Hard Drive from Spotlight’s Privacy list.

Spotlight is now going to RE-Index your Hard Drive, and will delete its old index file.

This could take several minutes.  Once this is done, restart your computer.  Spotlight should be good as new right away.

You can also try this trick with any external hard drives you’re using to increase Spotlight’s search power.

Thanks for reading!

~ Chris