The Mac Observer Forums

MGG 378 - Card Munch App

2012-02-12T17:42:04-05:00

(tried posting this on the comments section after the show notes—and got a red error message )

Just listened to the Cast, boys and loved it as usual. About the CardMunch business card scanner app—verified by real people—it is “FREE”. However, I believe you have to have a paid LinkedIn account to make it really work for you.

LinkedIn is a great service for those who want to pay $25 - $50 a month for promoting their professional selves online. I don’t use it, don’t have a need, can’t justify the cost. However, for some people it just makes sense. It really isn’t the “Facebook of Business” like so many people claim it is. Facebook is about making as many connections as possible. Linked In is really about making as few, carefully calculated connections as possible. I haven’t checked their pricing scheme in a while but I think that at the $50 a month level you can contact at most 6 to 8 people a month through the Messaging function.

For Joe Entry-Level-Manager who is looking to move up to Senior-Level somewhere the monthly fee could be the best sum he ever spent in his life. He may be thinking how else could I get in touch with a V.P. of Company X other than through linked in. Linked In is absolutely useless as a free account because you can’t do anything with it at the free level.

that’s my perspective.

Accessing my website from within the LAN

2012-02-08T15:43:10-05:00

I recently swapped from a DLink router to a Belkin N750, so I could have the advantage of gigabit ethernet for the NAS. I think going Belkin-wards was a minor mistake, but it’s generally fine.

I have a configuration problem with it, which I can’t seem to get around. When I look at it through http://localhost, it’s fine; when I look at it away from the house it’s fine too (so port forwarding is working), but if I try to look at it through the domain name (http://www.daemons.co.nz) locally, my web browsers balk at it and can’t find it.

I have the Network DNS Server set to 192.168.2.1 to let the router do all the work, which is the prescribed way of doing things, eh? Should I set that to the ISP’s DNS servers? But why should the router not be able to channel the external IP address back through itself?

System drive backup without the media folders?

2012-02-10T13:14:14-05:00

Dear all,

I currently use Super Duper to make a backup of my system drive and time machine as an extra backup.

However, now my large media folders (iTunes media & iPhoto library) are so large that I don’t have room on my Super Duper backup drive to make a clone.

Is there a way to make a clone of just the system whilst excluding those large folders so that I can easily revert to it as an emergency backup?

I realize that the way to go is to probably move these large folders to an external drive but I’m trying to avoid having tons of extra drives (I want a server already!)

Any suggestions?

Regards,

Felix

Safari cookies perma-removal.

2012-02-09T21:05:14-05:00

A week or two ago, My Mac got slow in text dialog boxes and frequent beech ball stalls while using Safari.

Some processor cores where screaming along (see image). Timing wise I needed to install silver lining and Google’s Chrome to update my Ford truck’s Microsoft Sync system.

In the image, my VMware is going bonkers. I don’t know why. It runs a virtual machine that is running XP with service pack 2 (not 3) and a trading application. It does nothing else and the trading application is the only thing that has been launched.

Questions:

1) How do I uninstall silver lining and Google Chrome? I cannot find either install app to tell it to uninstall.

2) Safari cookies, even when completely removed, keep coming back, all 4590 of them. By coming back, I mean I deleted them, left the room for a couple of hours and nobody touched my mac, and *poof* the cookies are all right back. How do I remove the cookies and keep them gone until I manually visit web pages?

Thanks.

Two things I’m surprised ALL email clients don’t do

2011-12-22T21:52:32-05:00

I hope these features are available in some email client for Mac. If so, please let me know the name of the app.

1. When I start typing an email address or a name, auto complete shows me a drop-down list of people/addresses that match. So many times, that list includes addresses that are outdated or are not in the format that I desire. I know I can get out of that email, go look up that listing and change or delete the information, but seldom do I have the time, nor want to go to the trouble, to do all that. Why can’t I select an address from that drop-down list, right-click/control-click/two-finger-click on it and edit it or delete it? And yes, I know that I can edit the name/email address for the specific email I’m sending, but that doesn’t change the main record. The next time auto-complete comes up, the edited version is not there, the old one still is. Doesn’t any program do this?

2. Delayed send. Seems like that would be a no-brainer. I can set all kinds of alarms, alerts and reminders for just about any time, but I can’t write an email to remind someone of a meeting and have it sent on the day prior to the meeting. I’m willing to leave my machine on 24/7. I’m no programmer, but that sure seems like it would be easy and WAY useful!

I appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks!

Terminal: what happened to “last” aka wtmp?

2012-02-06T10:11:09-05:00

I had been in the habit of using the “last” command in terminal, which invokes wtmp. In Lion, the log seems to start at the time of the command, so no login history is listed. Does anyone know how to get wtmp to behave the way it used to? Or, does anyone know of an app that produces a log of user logins going back several weeks? I’ve read the wtmp man page and can’t make enough sense out of it.

Success in adding more than the specified limit amount of RAM.

2012-01-17T06:13:12-05:00

I’ve a Black Macbook (Late 2006 A1181) which is supposed to have a limitation of 2GB Ram. Browsing through the specs on my machine using MacTracker I see that although Apple state a 2GB limit, my machine will actually support 3GB Ram. I was curious to see why 3GB would be the limit, surely if 1 Ram slot can support a 2GB SODIMM why can’t the other? So I ordered 2 x 2GB Sticks from Crucial (CT25664AC667) and they worked just fine.

I now have 4GB of RAM in my 2006 Macbook and it’s running perfectly, way faster than before.

I also checked MacTracker for the Memory options for my Early 2008 I-Mac (MB325LL/A) and that can apparently support 6GB of RAM as opposed to the 4 GB Apple specify as the maximum. Back to Crucial and I ordered a single compatible 4GB Stick (CT51264AC800) and I now have 6GB Ram in my iMac. At $90 each I didn’t want to try 2 x 4GB sticks just yet but I am tempted.

So both my Macs have had third party memory upgrades beyond the maximum capacity Apple specifies, and both are working great.

I know both John & Dave successfully upped the Ram in their 2008 Macbook pros, but it seems to me that there’s a far wider range of Macs that could benefit from some extra RAM. I’d suggest people check out the actual memory capacity of their Macs using MacTracker (free from AppStore) and see if you can’t breath some new life into your old kit.

I really don’t need to replace either of my Macs now as they’re both running much faster with far fewer page outs.

Mark.

Airport Utility 6.0

2012-02-01T09:44:00-05:00

I have experienced the perfect storm of issues with my Airport Express this week. Right out of the gate Monday morning one of those gremlins attacked my Airport rendering it useless. Once in a great while it happens and I have to start from scratch. No big deal. When I opened up Airport utility, after resetting my Airport, I was met with the “new software available” message. “Oh, goody!” I thought to myself. Perhaps this would solve a few of the little niggly issues I’ve had. Oh, and what’s this? New firmware, too? Oh, happy day! I should update that as well and then everything will be fine, right?

The old adage “look before you leap” should have sprung to mind. However, in my excitement I plugged my nose and jumped off the update cliff fully expecting that Apple would catch me gently in it’s outstretched arms. I fired up Airport Utility 6.0 and what the heck? If what I’m reading online is true, they eliminated the ability to manage multiple profiles? Can it be? Please don’t make me go backward, Apple!

Can anyone verify this for me, or am I just missing something?

iPhone 4s battery life

2012-01-19T18:36:03-05:00

I finally bought myself a new iPhone 4s 64GB from a Apple store. I have been a Blackberry user until now. I loved the ios5 interface, the ease of use and all the apps and abilities of the device. What I could not live with was the battery life. I was shocked that the phone would not even last me a single day. I noticed that if I took it off the charger at 8am and left for work, by lunch time the phone had already lost between 10 - 15% and by the time arrived home it was down to 40%. I am not a heavy user, had not yet installed any apps, and sent around 12 texts and 2 calls totaling approx 6 min. Over night the phones life dropped to 10% by the morning. This is performance is no where near what Apple quote. When I took the phone back to Apple they didn’t seem interested in my opinion and experience. They just offered to give me my money back, saying that this was a mini computer and I should not compare it to my Blackberry Bold. If I was not happy I can have my money back. This I did and am back on my 2 year old Bold . I just wondered what others experience is and are Apple doing anything about this?

Lion and wireless connection drops

2012-01-07T18:53:44-05:00

I did a search and did not find a topic on this, but if I missed it maybe someone can direct me. I recently got a new iMac and a macbook pro both with Lion. Now my airport wireless connection drops all the time. I have an older iMac sitting here along with iPad and other devices and they work fine when the macs with Lion drop the connection.

The connection might be fine for a hour or two, then it may drop 3-5 times per minute for a long period of time. I work from home alone so no other activity on the network to cause the problem, and again it seems Lion specific.

Web searches come up with many hacks but none so far have worked. Anyone have any insight or can point me to a possible solution? This issues has been prevalent since Lion release and nothing from Apple to address those affected.

Thanks.

One thing that I would like to try but don’t know how is to eliminate all the other network connection options (from the neighborhood) that maybe are interfering somehow. Is there a way to stop my mac from recognizing every wireless connection it sees?