Category Archives: Mac

Internet Slowdown Problems

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Screen Shot 2014-08-15 at 11.26.09 AMQ: Lately I’ve noticed that the internet has slowed down a great deal. I also tried to purchase music at iTunes and got an error message, three times, that the network connection had ‘timed out’

A: In my experience Internet slowdowns are often a result of two things. Obviously it could be a slow down at the cable company providing the service. But the second thing actually happens more often. The devices that connect us to that Internet sometimes get confused. These are boxes at tend to run 24 hours a day so any little glitch can cause a problem. The first thing I always do when the network seems slow is to unplug the router and unplugged the cable modem. But it’s important to reconnect them in the right sequence.

While these boxes are unplugged, restart your computer. It’s always a good idea to shut down all the way to power off and then turn the power back on.

Next, plug the cable/DSL modem in and then wait about a minute. Now plug the power into the router. This allows the cable modem to reset and make a connection prior to getting the router powered back up. Once you’ve done that the next thing to do is to test the speed of your Internet and see if you’re getting what you’re paying for.

I often use one of these websites to test Internet speed.

http://www.speedtest.net/
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

There are also apps to do this on the iPhone or the iPad.

If you’re not getting the speed you’re paying for, it’s time to call your Internet service provider and see if they can do anything to help.

Transcend’s JetDrive Lite : A Low Cost and Fast Storage Upgrade

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Screen Shot 2014-08-13 at 8.20.04 PMTranscend’s JetDrive Lite 330 Expansion Card gives you the chance to instantly boost the total available capacity of your MacBook Pro system without the need to upgrade to a larger capacity SSD.

With their substantial amount of storage space, Transcend’s JetDrive Lite 330 expansion cards provide plenty of space for professional-quality photos and videos as well as a large music collection. Each 64GB card for instance, can store over 31,000 high-resolution photos, 16,000 mp3 songs, 16 hours of Full HD quality video, or seemingly limitless number of documents.

When inserted into the SD card slot of a MacBook Pro 13″ Retina Display, the low-profile Screen Shot 2014-08-13 at 8.20.18 PMJetDrive Lite 330 won’t stick out like a normal SD card and can even be left in place for on the go storage. What’s more, the JetDrive Lite 330 makes fast and efficient file transfer possible with incredible transfer speeds of up to 95MB/s read and 60MB/s write.

Thats the great part. It’s unbelievably fast. I installed the beta for the Yosemite operating system on the drive and it’s nearly as fast to me as running from a internal SSD drive.  I really love the way if it’s flush in the SD slot.

For just $40, I’m able to get 64 GB of pretty darn fast SSD space for my MacBook Pro. It’s a great way to safely try out a new operating system. You got a love that.

Posted in Mac

Mac: Starting apps using Spotlight

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SpotlightThere are many applications on a Macintosh that I only use once and a while. Rather than find the applications folder and look for that applications icon, I use a better way that allows me to go directly to where I want to go.

If there’s an app I need to use that’s not in my Dock, I start it by hitting Command + Space bar to open the Spotlight search box, then I begin typing its name. After just a few characters Spotlight has usually realised which app it is, and I just hit Return to start that app. Simple, and quick. No mouse required!

In the next release of the operating system, Yosemite, Apple will make this even more prevalent. When you hit this command key combination, the spotlight dialog will pop up in the middle of the screen so it will be easier to see.

MacBasics: Mac OS Productivity Apps Training in Jefferson City

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A few times a year, I am asked to do some training for aappleJAC, our local Macintosh Users Group.  One of these classes is coming up in September.  This class will cover the Mac operating system beyond the basics. A basic Macintosh class will teach you to get around in the operating system and find things but Apple has include so many applications with the Macintosh OS that it really cannot cover these in one class.This class, will cover all those applications that Apple includes free as part of the operating system.

Information on the class is below. Everybody’s welcome.

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Posted in Mac

Paste text without Formatting

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imagesI don’t know about you, but I never, want to paste something into a fresh document AND carry across its original formatting. I always want to paste and remove the format.  On both the Mac and Windows, there’s a keyboard shortcut that will allow you to do that. Unfortunately, that keyboard shortcut is not simple to do.

On a Macintosh, to paste without formatting (i.e. as plain text), hold down Shift + Option + Command and hit V. It’s a tricky keyboard combo to master but with a little practice you’ll get used to it.

On Windows, in most versions of recent Windows versions,  Ctrl + Windows Key + V also pastes text as plain text. All you have to do is to relearn these command sequences as your standard paste command. If you do that, you’ll always be getting text only without the added format.

Protect your Mac from Power fluctuations with a UPS

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A75-2114-mainVFluctuating or unclean power is one of the things that cause electronics most problems. Fortunately uninterruptible power supplies, UPS’s, are readily available and relatively inexpensive. A UPS plugs in to the electric current coming from your house and provides additional outlets.  These devices condition the power coming from the electric outlet before it gets to your computer so that spikes and fluctuations are mitigated. If that sounds similar to a surge suppressor, it’s because it UPS will replace your surge suppressor. It provides the same functions but it also provides one great additional benefit. An uninterruptible power supply provides battery backup for the electrical power coming from your outlook.

UPS’s are made with a battery internal to the unit. All electrical power goes from the outlet in your house to the battery and charges the battery. The battery then supplies power directly to anything plugged in to the device.  If there are spikes, fluctuations or brown outs in the electricity coming from the power company the battery takes over and keeps those from affecting your electronic devices.  If the power coming to your home goes out completely, the battery takes over powering the devices for a certain amount of time depending upon the size of the battery that’s included in the UPS. This function is all well and good, but on a Macintosh, the UPS has the ability to connect to the computer and intelligently give the computer commands telling it that the power is out.  There are similar functions in windows but these often require additional software installed that comes with the UPS.

Screen Shot 2014-07-17 at 4.40.07 PMIn recent versions of the Macintosh operating system, Apple has included support for UPS devices built-in. This support is controlled in the energy saver system preference panel. Without a UPS connected, you cannot see the controls. Once you plug in a UPS with a USB cable thats usually included with the device, new and additional options are provided in the same energy saver panel. It is important to note that this USB cable typically needs to be plugged directly into the computer and not through a USB hub.

With the UPS connected, looking at the energy saver panel you have the ability to turn on an icon in the menu bar that allows you to check the charging status of the battery in the UPS. You also have the ability to set shutdown options that tell the computer how to correctly shut down based upon the power being given from the battery in the UPS device. Typically, you would want to turn on the option that allows the computer to be shut down when the UPS power reaches something near 25%.

This setting will allow your computer to get through all brown outs and power fluctuations Screen Shot 2014-07-17 at 4.38.47 PMwithout being affected. It will also continue to power the computer for a period of time after the power goes out. In this way you’re able to not have to force the computer to shut down if the power outage is short. If the power outage continues for a period of time that causes the battery power to reduce down by 75%, the computer will begin the shutdown process. The final 25% of the power in the UPS will get the computer shutdown correctly. This way, the hard drive on your computer doesn’t abruptly shut down with the possibility of file loss.

There are a number of UPS devices on the market, but the major player in this field is APC. Uninterruptible power supplies from APC are recognized directly by the Mac and allow this built in software in your operating system to control the UPS.

If you live in a location where the power is not stable, or have reasons that the power fluctuates, a UPS may be just the thing to protect your computer.

Clean up your Mac with Disk Doctor

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Screen Shot 2014-07-09 at 7.45.25 PMFor years I recommended a product called CCleaner to clean up all the cash files on your Mac computer. Unfortunately, the company that made that product quit updating it for your releases of the Mac operating system. Recently I’ve run across the another product that will do very similar things.

Disk Doctor, available from the Mac App Store, is a very simple utility that can clean up all of this I needed information.
With just a few clicks, Disk Doctor can empty the following:

– Applications Caches
– Application Logs
– Browser Data
– Mail Downloads Folder
– Downloads Folder
– Large Files (files within your user folder that are greater than 100 MB) *Mountain Lion Users only*
– Trash Can

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And while the product is someone of a one trick pony, it is very inexpensive costing only $2.99.  Running this utility takes only a few minutes and will certainly get rid of a lot of information that you have no reason to keep. Running it once a month will ensure that your Mac is running as fast as cleanly as possible.

Network attached storage for the home: The good the bad

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Screen Shot 2014-07-02 at 2.06.00 PMEverything you hear these days is about cloud computing. Articles about ways that people are moving to the cloud seem to be all over the internet.  Many are related to many products that can store your files in the cloud.  I have had the opportunity to try a couple of network attach storage devices recently and had one very good experience and one not so good.

So why would you want a home network attached storage device? Well that’s pretty easy to explain . If you’re using cloud storage today you’re likely limited by the amount of cloud storage that’s provided at a low-cost. You can definitely add additional storage for additional cost but that still does not solve the problem of having enough storage for what you want to put in the cloud. Vendors have realized this need and have developed network attached storage devices that you can put in your home and that will provide you a large amount of storage for a relatively low cost. You also have the added security of knowing that your cloud data is located where you put it. There is no risk of the cloud service going out of business or losing your data by doing things this way. It does not eliminate the need for a backup of your network device, but it does provide you that peace of mind in knowing that you have the data and are the only one with the data.Screen Shot 2014-07-02 at 2.06.27 PM

The first one I tried is made by Western Digital called My Cloud. Western Digital is a storage company that makes hard disk drives that are available at a local electronic stores so they were a natural to get into the network attached storage business. If you’re familiar with an external Western Digital hard drive,The My Cloud device will look very similar. On the back of this device you will find an ethernet connection port. This port connects to your local home network and allows you to configure the device for access outside the home. It also provides a USB3 port on the back of the device to allow you to either upload photos from a digital camera or connect directly to your computer.

Screen Shot 2014-07-02 at 2.10.13 PMSetting up the device only takes a few minutes. Once you install the included software on your computer it provides access to the device You then connect to the device across your home network to do the configuration. Once it’s connected you can map drive to your computer or you can access the files from the Internet. It’s very easy to work with and works very quickly. Western Digital offers mobile apps for the Android and iOS operating systems that which helps solve another problem many of us face: data fragmentation caused by having stored files on multiple devices. Install the apps onto your smartphones and tablets, and you can send all your media files over the Internet to your My Cloud.

One of the best parts of this network attached device is the cost. A 2 TB unit costs about $150. A 3 TB unit is about $200. Considering the cost of the drive itself is at least $100 to $150, these devices are are absolute bargains.

Unfortunately, I can’t be nearly as positive about the second device I’ve had experience Screen Shot 2014-07-02 at 2.28.24 PMwith. This unit was called Transporter from Connected Data. (recently purchased by Drobo). If you were giving points for looks, the transporter would certainly be a winner. It has a very odd shape and a beautiful blue light that pulses when date is being accessed. But looks are about the end of the good things I can say about transporter. The software for this product has been extremely buggy. I ‘ve also found that when I have the software running on my computer in noticeably slows my machine down. You might be able to forgive the company for some problems with the software, but the problems with the transporter only begin there.

The Achilles’ heel behind the beautiful looks of the transporter is that it uses only a 2 1/2 inch drive. As a result, the costs are much higher for drives in a transporter. Plus many small 2 1/2″ drives are truly intended for laptops and not intended for something that spins and runs 24 hours a day. The result of this drive choice is that transporters are expensive and slow compared to other devices. As an example, a 2 TB transporter costs $350. That’s a full $200 more than the Western Digital My Cloud.

Screen Shot 2014-07-02 at 2.28.35 PMOne of transporters claims to fame is that can it can automatically mirror your data to another transporter. In practice, this proved to be difficult to make happen. Configuration, firewalls, and general lack of ability for the device to see itself on the network made doing this difficult. When you add in the fact that to make this work you need a second transporter, you have to wonder what these people were thinking about in their design and selection of product features.

You have to wonder why a company like Drobo, that provides high-quality storage devices, would purchase transporter. Couple that with the fact that Drobo doesn’t even advertise transporter on it’s own website makes me believe that the purchase was more related to software or people that it was to the device itself.

From my experience with these two devices there is no choice. If you’re looking for a low-cost network attached storage device, to build your own cloud in your home, choose the Western Digital My Cloud. Steer away from transporter.   It really does not perform as well as it should, and costs way too much.

Talking to your Mac doesn’t mean that you’re crazy

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Screen Shot 2014-06-16 at 6.59.36 PMI absolutely love dictation on my iPhone and iPad. It truly does a great job of converting my speech into text. So it goes without saying, that I would want to use the same text to speech on my back too. To turn that on, you go to system preferences and select dictation. You press on button and it turns dictation on. You can change the shortcut key issues on it to turn on the dictation mode if you like or it will default to the function key. So double tapping on the function key brings up a small microphone location I’m using. When that microphone is on the screen unable to talk and it converts that to text just like it does on my iPhone and iPad.

Now, being the overachiever that I am, I also turned on the enhanced mode. The enhanced mode gives me the ability to be able to use text-to-speech off-line by downloading the text-to-speech conversion dictionary onto the Mac and converting it directly on the Mac. The added benefit of this mode is that it also shows the text as you’re speaking it. Unfortunately, whenever I try to use text-to-speech it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. The thing that I find particularly interesting is that it is much worse on the Mac in this mode that it is on even the iPhone or the iPad. I find many of the words I say cannot be converted to text correctly. Then I must going to changes to the text that I speak.

I’ve tried an external mic also to see if it made it better. With the external mic I find that it still doesn’t understand me nearly as well as the iPhone or iPad does. I was very nearly ready to abandon speaking to my computer. Me. The enhanced text-to-speech mode that downloads the dictionary might be causing my problem. As soon as I turn that off text-to-speech immediately got much better.

So now, when I turn off enhanced text-to-speech mode, it must go to the Internet to be able to create the text from my speech. It also doesn’t show the text as I’m talking it only shows the text when I get the done key. But the conversion process is almost immediate, and it finally understands me again and does.

Hopefully in the next release of the Mac, Apple will make the enhanced mode in text-to-speech better. I really like the idea of being able to see the text, as I speak it, but I just can’t live with the poor quality of conversion but I’m seeing in the enhanced mode.

So my recommendation is, if you haven’t turned on enhanced mode in Dictation, don’t do it. Then the conversion of your text to speech will work very similarly to the way your iPhone or iPad does. And for me, that makes it very usable again.

CamRanger: Remote DSLR Photos with all the bells and whistles

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DeviceAndCaseWouldn’t it be nice if you could set your camera off remotely. Most DSLR cameras these days allow you to do that with a small hand-held infrared remote. The problem with doing it this way is you’re not able to see what you’re taking a shot and you’re not able to modify the settings of the camera based upon what you see. There are many ways to get around this using all sorts of computer applications but most of these require you to tether your camera to a computer. What if you could do it remotely from your iPhone.iPad, Android device, or computer?

CamRanger is a stand-alone device that connects to select Canon or Nikon DLSR cameras with a provided USB cable. It creates an ad-hoc WiFi network that your device (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, or Mac or Windows computer) can then connect to. The free CamRanger app then enabled control of the camera. There is no need for a computer or existing Internet connection.  CamRanger creates its own Wi-Fi hotspot that your device connects to.  Once connected you run their software and it gives you complete control of the camera and also the ability to view what the camera seeing. You iPad_LiveView_Smallcan easily make changes to the controls of your camera, adjust any setting, and see the results through the camera lens.

In addition to simply letting you take pictures, the applications also provide the ability to do macro photography and focus stacking, take HDR images, and time-lapsed shots.  The real place that the CamRanger excels is its ability to be able to use literally any setting your camera has. If your camera can do it CamRanger likely supports it.

There are many products in the market today to do this similar function but in taking a look at CamRanger it seems to me that it may be the best at providing you control of your creativity. If you’re interested in photography and want to be able to set your camera off remotely and see what it’s taking a picture of, CamRanger maybe the tool for you.