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It’s really summer now and there is simply no place better than Vermont in the summertime. The local produce is so tasty, people are outside that you haven’t seen for months and all kinds of summer events are occurring that will never leave you looking for something to do.
Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!
Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
Don, Kali & Ed
I love Spotlight, the search technology built into Mac OS 10.4 and 10.5. I find it easy to use and speedy (especially on 10.5 Leopard). The Spotlight search field in the menu bar usually provides almost instant results for finding files, folders, and documents, along with emails, contacts, iCal calendars, items in System Preferences, applications, and even dictionary definitions.
Recently, however, I noticed that Spotlight wasn’t finding files I knew existed on my Mac’s hard drive, and was running slower than expected. After making Spotlight reindex the drive, it’s now back to full speed. Since it’s not obvious how to make Spotlight reindex a drive; here’s how to do it:
You can also do this to index any number of external hard drives. If you have a large-capacity hard drive, this may take up to a couple of hours.
You can tell that Spotlight is indexing a drive when a little dot is pulsing in the middle of the Spotlight magnifying glass icon. Also, when you click on the Spotlight icon, it will show a progress bar instead of results. Note that you can continue to use your computer as usual while Spotlight reindexed its hard drive.
Note that many Mac maintenance and utility programs such as Onyx will also force Spotlight to reindex a drive.
“TidBITS”:http://db.tidbits.com is our *site of the week.* Many of you already subscribe to TidBITS as an excellent, essential weekly Mac newsletter. The recently-overhauled TidBITS website has much of the same information as the newsletter, and includes a great archive of back issues.
“TidBITS, begun in 1990, is an online newsletter and Web site, devoted to the person behind the most personal of personal computers, the Macintosh. TidBITS relates events and products to real life uses and concerns. New TidBITS issues go out every Monday night; breaking news and important updates appear on the Web site more frequently.”
Adam and Tonya Engst founded and publish “TidBITS”:http://db.tidbits.com, and contribute to it weekly. A regular roster of Mac experts also write for TidBITS. All of them have written Mac books and regularly contribute to Mac magazines.
“Click here to read the TidBITS website!”:http://db.tidbits.com/
Hey, Kibbles & Bytes readers! We will be off next Friday, July 3 in observance of Independence Day, so Happy 4th of July holiday to all of you!
The Small Doggers will be BBQing, drinking daiquiris (virgin and otherwise) and reveling at Don’s house for his annual 4th of July party.
We’ll be back the following Friday, July 10 with a double issue of Kibbles & Bytes.
Be safe!
__Image credit:__ “OGIM”:http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ogim.4u2ges.com/textit/usa-flags/usa-flag13.png&imgrefurl=http://www.ogim.4u2ges.com/usa-flags.asp&usg=__7Iok4bKP3G6DSNIzQaCp2d0G2rM=&h=164&w=164&sz=36&hl=en&start=12&um=1&tbnid=At4pX7bUOaWl8M:&tbnh=98&tbnw=98&prev=/images%3Fq%3DUSA%2Bflag%2Bicon%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den-us%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
One of the toughest things a technician has to do is tell customers that their hard drive has failed and recovering the data will likely cost thousands of dollars. Recently a Small Dog customer brought in a 24-inch iMac with a failed hard drive. She only had a couple of options: replace the hard drive under warranty and return the failed drive to Apple, or send the drive to DriveSavers for professional data recovery.
The customer opted for DriveSavers. While she was happy to quickly get a new drive with 100% of her data, she was decidedly NOT happy about the bill, which was more than the cost of her computer!
We spoke at length on the phone about how all hard drives fail eventually and how she needs to have a backup system in place. She clearly understood what I was saying, and I made it clear that our conversation was not really about sales but about her protection. No backup drive was purchased.
Three weeks later, the warranty hard drive replacement failed again. She didn’t back it up and has lost three weeks of work and simply cannot afford the pricey recovery again.
David Lerner, an owner of the preeminent New York City Apple Specialist and repair shop Tekserve, has in his email signature __”May you have 1,000 backups and never need one.”__ It’s a mantra we all should take seriously.
This is just one more sad story about 100% preventable data loss. Do yourself a favor and get a Time Capsule, an external drive, even email important documents to yourself or stash them on your iDisk. A $200 Time Capsule is much cheaper than a $2200 data recovery!
Do yourself a favor… __(be sure to click the green links on the product page to view all specials)__
“Time Capsule 500GB”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/70770 from $199.99
“Time Capsule 1TB”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/70771 from $349.99
Hey tennis fans, Wimbledon kicked off this week, and you can follow all the action LIVE on your iPhone/iPod touch. IBM’s application includes…