Mac Geek Gab — Apple Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting

John and Dave back this week, and John’s done a LOT of upgrades on his end. There are a ton of tips to share, too. Don’t miss it! Sponsor: Yojimbo: Your effortless, reliable information organizer for Mac OS X. It will change your life, without changing the way you work. Sponsor: GoToAssist® Express: Instantly view and control customer computers with secure, easy-to-use GoToAssist® Express. Try it FREE for 30 days. Note: Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned: Poisoning Pigeons in the Park Mail, iCal, Address Book Apple Drops Mac Developer Program Cost to $99 Steve Balmer – Developers MacBook Pro (Early 2008) – Technical Specifications OWC 4GB DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHz DIMM OWC Express 2.5″ SATA Enclosure Kit with 500GB Hitachi 7K500 7200RPM Drive and 5 piece toolkit. John F. Braun’s Photos New in Labs: Advanced IMAP Controls Quicken Essentials for Mac The WebKit Open Source Project Gecko Konqueror – You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.

John and Dave dig and then dig some more to tell you about all the Cool Stuff Found that crossed their paths over the past few weeks. Then it’s off to sharing your tips and answering your questions in this excellent episode of Mac Geek Gab! Sponsor: PDFpen from Smile On My Mac: Effortlessly edit your PDFs. Add text, images and signatures, combine and split PDFs, reorder and remove PDF pages, and fill out and save PDF forms. New in version 4: OCR, MS Word import and more. Sponsor: Circus Ponies Notebook: The Easy Way to Get Organized on the Mac. Try it FREE for 30 Days. Note: Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned: Choosy Safari 3.1: The Magical Develop Menu HUDCalc Flux Brightness Control MoneyWell Versomatic Want to Avoid Losing Your Work? Better Check Out ForeverSave Lite! Perian Flip4Mac WMV VLC media player Prowl Hazel TiVo Premiere FastScripts Want to Secure Your Data Across Platforms? Check out TrueCrypt! – You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.

Dave and John are back for this second Mac Geek Gab Premium episode for February. Lots of juicy stuff today, including POP vs IMAP, Annotating PDFs, Startup Chimes, Safari toolbars, and a quick refresher on SSDs. Subscribe today and enjoy! Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned: StartupSound.prefPane Code to silence the startup chime on Intel-powered Macs (with useful discussion) Mac OS X 10.6 Help : Shortcuts for starting up Topic : Copy and paste from PDF in Preview results in gibberish Post Office Protocol – Version 3 Setting up a Spam Filtering Drone Topic : Safari Mac Toolbar keeps disappearing – help! Diablotin PlugINCool Reconnector X Analytics and Automator on Snow Leopard MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 – You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.

The mailbag is overflowing, and John and Dave do their best to get through as much of your feedback as possible. A common theme this week is prepping your Mac for sale or service, and your two favorite geeks talk through that as well as sharing some listener tips on the subject. Restoring from backups, what to do with .do files, iCal to Google Calendar syncing, and even a winning answer for our Geek Challenge posed in show 244 are all here! Subscribe, download, tune in, and enjoy! Sponsor: Circus Ponies Notebook: The Easy Way to Get Organized on the Mac. Try it FREE for 30 Days. Sponsor: GoToAssist® Express: Instantly view and control customer computers with secure, easy-to-use GoToAssist® Express. Try it FREE for 30 days. Note: Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned: Open Recent Items HotKey Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts (includes Move focus to the menu bar) BusySync BusyCal Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac Little Snitch Mac OS X v10.5 or later: About Disk Utility’s erase free space feature Temperature Monitor Mac OS X: Disk Utility’s Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore Onyx How to rebuild the LaunchServices database duraSync iStubz “To Pair or Not to Pair” – part in a continuing series (Updated August 16th, 2007) – You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.

John and Dave took the Main Stage last Thursday just as the show floor opened at Macworld Expo and recorded Mac Geek Gab 243 to a packed house. The two shared their thoughts on some of their show-floor picks, then went on to take questions from the audience which, to the geeks' surprise, mostly seemed to center around Apple's Mail.app. Definitely a fun show, and definitely something you don't want to miss! Note: Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned:   Eye-Fi Pro X2 HyperMac Battery Packs CarMD TUFF-'N'-TINY USB Drive SiloInk Office^2 Telefingers Keyboard Maestro KeyRemap4MacBook Topic : iDisk shortcuts disappear from Finder's Places SMTP iPad Mac OS X 10.3: Mail – How to Use a Secure Email Signing Certificate (Digital ID) Temperature Monitor – You're downloading today's show from CacheFly's network BackBeat Media Podcast Network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.

John and Dave are back from Macworld Expo, ready to roll. They share their thoughts on the show, answer your iTunes questions and share your iTunes tips (including something close to the Holy Grail…), then off to discuss routers, BlueTooth issues, and more! Sponsor: Yojimbo: Your effortless, reliable information organizer for Mac OS X. It will change your life, without changing the way you work. Sponsor: GoToAssist® Express: Instantly view and control customer computers with secure, easy-to-use GoToAssist® Express. Try it FREE for 30 days. Note: Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned: Les Joulins Jazz Bistro 4iThumbs FastMac U-Socket TuneUp Girl (aka @meghanthefox) TuneUp CDDB FastMac iV Plus Anoto Canson Papershow Livescribe TMO Editors Choice Awards 2010 Apple Airport Networks (PDF) iTunes 9: Understanding iTunes Media Organization Syncopation – You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.

Dave and John are back for a second time this week, talking about Keychain passwords, the pros and cons of admin accounts, personal finance software options, comparing VirtualBox with others, and more! Don’t miss it, download today! Sponsor: Yojimbo: Your effortless, reliable information organizer for Mac OS X. It will change your life, without changing the way you work. Sponsor: GoToAssist® Express: Instantly view and control customer computers with secure, easy-to-use GoToAssist® Express. Try it FREE for 30 days. Note: Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned: Sync the keychain passphrase with the login account password in Snow Leopard MobileMe: Prompted for password when syncing keychains Enabling and using the “root” user in Mac OS X Mac OS X 10.5 Help – Creating a new user account iDefrag Default Folder X AppleCare Mac OS X: How to force background maintenance tasks (logs and temporary items) VirtualBox VMware Fusion Moneydance – You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.

Dave and John dig into the mailbag and discuss a few issues of sleepless Macs, managing system preferences, defragmentation and then a great Cool Stuff Found segment. Don’t miss it – download today! Sponsor: PDFpen from Smile On My Mac: Effortlessly edit your PDFs. Add text, images and signatures, combine and split PDFs, reorder and remove PDF pages, and fill out and save PDF forms.  Check out the “scribbles” feature for correcting papers and more. Sponsor: Circus Ponies Notebook: The Easy Way to Get Organized on the Mac. Try it FREE for 30 Days. Note: Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned: Macworld Expo Mac OS X: Why your Mac might not sleep or stay in sleep mode SSH and Public Key Authentication About disk optimization with Mac OS X Business & Finance Software (via Apple) Bonjour for Windows Perian TuneRanger iTunes 9: Understanding Home Sharing Quiet Read Platypus Request Tickets to Cirque du Mac – You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.

John and Dave share your questions and tips regarding all this Mac and, of course, can’t help but spend a little time talking about the recently-announced iPad from Apple. Plus, John gets into not one but TWO great rants (you’ll never think of “bumper cars” the same after hearing this!). All this and more in this Premium episode of Mac Geek Gab. Subscribe and join the fun today! Note: Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned: iPad Discover AirPort Express kill Zombie process Gordon Microsoft Silverlight Apple’s A4 chip is ARM Cortex A9 with an ARM Mali GPU? (via Engadget) iFixit TechRestore iResQ How to find your nearest Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) or Apple Authorized Distributor (AAD) SpamSieve Request Tickets to Cirque du Mac – You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.

This week John and Dave turn it over to you, the listeners, to share all the tips, thoughts, follow-ups and responses you’ve had to recent shows. There were so many good tidbits in the mailbag over the past week or so that it made sense to devote a whole show to sharing all this juicy info. Download today, kick back, and increase your Mac knowledge with your two favorite geeks. Sponsor: Mac Geek Gab Premium: For just US$25 you can get 6 months worth of MGG Premium which gives you two more MGG episodes each month plus full access to the MGG archives. How can you NOT subscribe? Note: Shownotes are complete! Stuff mentioned: Everything You Need to Know About Dual Channel (via Hardware Secrets) Apple Tech Specs (includes RAM capacity) Installing QuickTime Player 7 on Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard SoundStudio3 Want to See What’s on Your TCP/IP Network?  Check out IP Scanner! Bonjour for Windows Mac OS X: Why your Mac might not sleep or stay in sleep mode Apple Notebooks (includes Battery Storage Tips) Apple Portables: Calibrating your computer’s battery for best performance How to uninstall the Adobe Flash Player plug-in and ActiveX control – You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network MacGeekGab AAC Enhanced Feed – Thanks to Michael Johnston of iPhone Alley.