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preferences

Tweak your Mac OS settings

TinkerTool is a small, free app that lets you tinker with your user preferences, allowing access to options that you can't find through System Preferences. These "hidden" preferences--extras like adding scroll arrows to both ends of scroll bars--exist for a variety of reasons, but are usually invisible to users without the help of an app like TinkerTool.

TinkerTool's preferences are organized under 10 main headings: Finder (for options like showing hidden files or restricting the Finder), Dock, General (a lot of useful options, including control over scroll arrows and screenshot file formats), Applications, Snow Leopard (with … Read more

Workgroup Manager preference settings affecting iPhoto sharing

When working on shared or managed systems, preferences for applications may not always work as expected. When attempting to share your iPhoto Library, for instance, you may find that preference is not available due to settings in Workgroup Manager.

The issue Apple Support Discussions user RabbitSF posted:

We have 17 latest Mac Minis in our school lab and I want to have one machine share its iPhoto library over the network. So I went to open the iPhoto Preferences, then Sharing tab, checked Share My Photos and Share Entire Library, but the Status still says Off.

Sharing your iPhoto Library … Read more

A reminder on how to reset your Mac's system password

One of the most frustrating troubleshooting situations one may come across is when a user has forgotten his or her system password. As an independent consultant this is one the more common issues I encounter. Luckily, resetting a user or administrator password is pretty straightforward. The following tips work for any Mac running Mac OS X 10.3 or later.… Read more

First-step troubleshooting for Mac audio issues

Occasionally you may experience issues when attempting to play audio from the built-in speakers on your Mac. Sound may still work from external speakers or headphones, but the internal speakers appear to not be working. Follow these simple steps and you should be back up and running in no time.… Read more

Preferences, not mandates, for open source

Open source can save governments and enterprises tremendous amounts of money--but not always. Lower cost is not always the primary driver for IT deceptions. That's why policies of preference for open source, not mandates, make sense.

Open-source mandates have always seemed like a terrible idea to me, just as mandates to use proprietary software are. When a problem demands the turn of a screw, you don't want to be clobbering it with a hammer.

The Dutch police force understands this, which is why it has explicitly decided to prefer open source in IT purchasing, but to not use … Read more

Backup utility for Outlook

Migrating applications from one computer or operating system to another can be a hassle. Doing so for e-mail clients can be particularly frustrating. However, this dandy little utility lets you breathe easy by making the Outlook move a simple process.

BackRex Outlook Backup loads an easy-to-access icon onto your desktop. Launching the utility opens a small dialog box from which you can choose the Outlook components to back up and the destination location for the resulting package. This handy utility performed well in our tests, and selecting options was simply a matter of a few clicks. Navigating its processes was … Read more

Monitor your Mac processes

MenuMeters is a free, open-source, small-footprint set of menubar tools for monitoring CPU, disk, memory, and network usage. You set up MenuMeters in a system preference pane, adding any or all of the four meters that you want to appear in your menubar. The CPU meter displays load information along with options for graphs; the disk meter show activity on local disks, with space usage on a drop-down menu; the memory meter shows RAM usage with an optional paging activity indicator; and the network meter provides multiple options for displaying and scaling activity. MenuMeters has a long, stable history and … Read more