November 22, 2004

Whether or not you have problems with your hard drive it is a good idea to repair Permissions about every 2-4 months.

This is simple Just open up Disk Utility in your Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. Click on your hard drive in the app then click Repair Permissions button.

It is that simple.

Posted by macomadmin at 08:09 AM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2004

Have you ever wanted to make a dup of a CD for backup or are you sick of putting in a CD or DVD every time you wanted to play a game? Let us help with the disk pain.

Note: Mac Over Matter is not condoning making copies for friends and we do not condone stealing software. Please support the people making software. It is how bills are paid. Now, time to come of my high horse and tell you how to do it.

Apple has a cool little app called Disk Utility. This app is used mostly for all disk repair, but it can make a disk image or a .dmg. A .dmg is like a small stuffed hard drive. Think of it is as a virtual hard drive or CD that you can mount by clicking on it, or you can look at it as a back up file.

How to do it:
Insert a CD that you want to make a .dmg of into your Mac.

Open the app which you can find it in your hard drive/Applications/Utilities/ Disk Utility. Go to the top menu and click on Image/New/(Your CD Name).

This will pop up the Convert Image window. All you have to do is type in that you want to call it and pick where you want to save it. This could take a little time if it is a full CD or DVD.

When it is finished, you will have a .dmg file.

Now when you open an app that asks you to insert the original CD, just open the .dmg. Some games and apps will not work with .dmg, but I have only found two that didn't so far.

Make a CD copy:

To make a copy, open up Disk Utility. Go to the top menu and click on Image/Burn. In the new pop-up window, find your .dmg and click Open. In the next window, click Burn. The time it takes to burn is determined by the size of the .dmg and the speed of your Mac. That's it!

As you can see, it is relatively simple to do and it will save you some hassle, but please, do not use this for pirating software.

Posted by macomadmin at 04:41 AM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2004

One of the little unknown things about iTunes is that it can print song lists and cover art. Let MOM show you how to do it.

If you make cd for people or just your self, you know how hard it is to make a jule case with all the song name and cool cover art. Well apple thought of a cool way to help you out but most people don't know about it. This is as simple as printing :).

Start by opening up itunes (duhh) and pick a play list. I am going to use jazz and vocal.

Go to File Print ...

you will get a window that pops up.

In this window, I picked a CD jewel case insert. Then I selected the Mosaic theme. On the right hand side, it even gives you a preview. If you like it, click Print.

That is it!!!! It's that simple, but not many iTunes users know about this feature.

My new Jazz CD

Posted by macomadmin at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2004

If you are like me you and the rest of my family you take a lot of photos and you have a hard time keeping track of them. let this tip help you.

As you should know, you can share your images in iPhoto, but have you ever thought of setting up an iPhoto server?

What You Need:
- Any extra computer that can run OSX (G3 or faster) and can be set up on your network.
- iPhoto 4

Set up this computer:
You will need to install OSX and iPhoto 4.

Once you have installed the software, open up iPhoto and go into the Preferences (iPhoto/Preferences).

Click on "Sharing". Now turn on "Share my photos" and "Share entire library".
Now that the software is set up, add all the hardware to this computer to get your photos into it (i.e. cables to your Digital Camera, Scanner, etc..

Time to set up all the other Macs in your house. On them, open up iPhoto and go into the Preferences (iPhoto/Preferences). Click on "Sharing" and turn on "Look for Shared Photos".

Ready to Use:
With this setup, all you need to do when you have new photos is to add them to the iPhoto server you had just set up. Now every Mac in your house can see them, edit them, and email them around. Just think, every one in your house can have that photo of you in the speedo as their desktop image.

Posted by macomadmin at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2004

Is your monitor really square? About 50% of the CRT monitors I see on my friends desks are stretched. I have a simple fix for them that could help you.

What you will need:

One Square sticky Note
One Computer with a CRT attached that you can adjust the height and Width of the image.
Any App you can make a square in.

First you will need an app that you can make a square in for this I will use PhotoShop. Once open I made a new document 800 x 800 ( any thing over 400X400 will do). Now place the sticky note on the monitor in the center of the window. Holding down the "shift" key make a square around the sticky.

If the square on screen is taller then the sticky note but the width of them are the same

you will need to adjust your monitor to be less tall.

If the square on screen is wider then the sticky note but the hight of them are the same

you will need to adjust your monitor to be less Wide.

Once you have the Sticky note and the on screen square the same size your monitor is square.

Posted by macomadmin at 03:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2927)

October 16, 2004

Never put your OS boot disk in a place you can't find it when you need it. Sounds silly, but how many times have you misplaced it at the worst possible moments?

From time to time, I have people calling me and telling me that their Mac boots up with a blinking "?" (the "can't find disk" icon). Most of the time, that means the computer can't find the part of the hard drive it need to boot from. The quick way to fix this is boot from the disk and run Disk Utility. If that dous not work try reinstalling the OS.

Posted by macomadmin at 02:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (6475)