Category: How-To

By Logan@Smalldog.com Mac OS X has a built in encryption utility called File Vault. File Vault takes your user folder and puts It into a Sparse Image. A sparse image is like a virtual HD that is encrypted with a password. This feature in OS X is very useful for people with very sensitive customer…

By Todd@Smalldog.com Do you want to leave OS X to go to OS X Jr. (also known as Vista) on your Mac? Well, unfortunately you may have some serious difficulties if you want to load your wonderful Mac with Vista. While it isn’t impossible, it is inconvenient. Here five issues to consider: 1. Legal Issues.…

By David @Smalldog.com Do you keep receiving the message “the iPod xxx cannot be updated. The required file is in use?” Do you have Norton Antivirus? That could be your problem, right there. This is a specific issue with the “Auto-Protect” functionality in Norton preferences. If you’ve enabled this option in System Preferences, check the…

In my mission to protect the world from data loss, here’s some more tips on how to setup a data backup system. This entry is going to cover how to setup a mirrored RAID and also a RAID5. First lets go over the very basics of a RAID. A RAID is simply a bunch of…

By Seth@Smalldog.com Recently I was having problems connecting to iChat, was getting random disconnections from AIM, and I couldn’t video chat. I did some research on various message boards, where I discovered a consensus that port 443 is the most stable for video chat. My iChat preferences were set to port 1053. To view your…

I’ve been using Mail.app for about 3-4 years now (ever since I got my first Mac) and something that makes me continue to use it is how well it filters out the junk mail. In July of 2006, BBC reported that 95% of email is junk mail. That’s a lot! I would say on an…

By David Boyd Hidden in the Mac OS X system files is an unexpected (and fun) audio file. Go to the Finder’s Go menu, and select “Go to Folder. ” In the window that appears, type: /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/test/ and hit Go. In the window that opens, double-click on the audiotest.au file and your inquisitive nature will…

By Jimmy@smalldog.com I am some one who is always on the go and/or changing computers. I try to make them similar in applications, documents, and other settings but sometimes things change and I forget to change it on other computers. Fortunately I have a trusty flash stick and a smart co-worker who brought up the…

I was skimming over LifeHacker today and noticed a mention of this really cool extension for FireFox. It’s called URL fixer and does exactly that! For example if you type in ‘http://www.google.cmo’ it will correct it to ’.com’. There is an option to turn on confirmation before it makes the change, so if you typed…

There are a couple things you can do to maximize the life of your iPod battery. The first thing that I would recommend to do is either turn off the backlight to set it to stay on for only 5 seconds. The backlight is really a battery eater and can cut down on the time…