I participated in a presentation for Washington Apple Pi last Saturday. I was a part of a panel on tips and troubleshooting. In preparing for the session, I packed a bag of my favorite computer hardware.

Along with a few other pieces of hardware, I took my favorite portable hard drive and my favorite drive gadget, the NewerTech Voyager Q.

The Voyager sits on my desktop, ready to accept the next bare drive I want to mount. I have quite a collection of external hard drives. They connect to my iMac and they share their files with the other computers we own.

These drives are not my primary backup. Those duties are handled by an Apple Time Capsule. Instead, they are filled with other files that are too large to keep on my internal hard drives. One is filled with the graphics used to do digital scrapbooking and copies of the pages I have made. Another contains the archives of articles, projects, presentations and CDs that I have made over the years. Still another drive is the archive of all the digital photographs and videos that I have taken. In fact, there is a separate library for each year. Another contains the iTunes library that feeds our AppleTV.

Notice the NewerTechVoyager. Inside it and to its left are four additional hard drives. These contain backups of the four drives to the right. Missing from the photo are two additional drives that are stored in our safety deposit box. They are larger capacity drives that also contain a backup of these drives.

If you have outgrown the internal hard drive of your computer, you need to have a system similar to mine. For each external drive, you also need to have a backup drive. If that backup is stored in your home, you also need to have a separate backup that is stored away from your home. It could be in a drawer at the office, in a safety deposit box or at the home of a friend or relative, but it needs to be in a different location than you desk. It protects your data in case of a theft, fire, flood or other natural disaster.

Backing up is expensive. To cut down on the expense, a device like the NewerTech Voyager that allows you to easily mount and use bare drives can save you lots of money--I calculate it at about $70 per case. So, this $99.00 device has saved me over $360 already.

Because I am a consultant, the Voyager is also helpful when I upgrade the drives of local clients. I had a client last week who wanted to put a larger hard drive in his MacBook. He brought me his new, larger hard drive. I attached the Voyager to his computer and I used SuperDuper! to clone his old drive to the new one. Then I swapped the drives. I suggested that he use is old drive to store extra files. To do that, he would either need a case for the drive (notice the two drives to the far left in the photo above) or he would need a Voyager.

No matter how large they make internal drives, eventually, we all need more space. A combination of external drives in cases and a hard drive dock like the Voyager help you keep your data backed up and safe.

If you need some help in planning your external storage and its backups, give us a call at Dr. Mac Consulting. We can help you with plans and purchases to protect all of your valuable data.

Safe computing --

Pat

Tags: Backing up

I have to admit it! For the third summer in a row, I found myself in line last Friday to buy the new iPhone 3GS. Since Apple did not change the form between the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS, and since my husband also bought one, we will be needing another external battery pack at our house! Join me as I explore the different type of battery packs and and their features.

I got a Mophie Juice Pack for the original iPhone, and I bought one for my iPhone 3G, but the differences in size and form of the newer iPhone mean we will want another external battery.

While external batteries for the iPhone can take many different forms, I have determined that I prefer batteries that can be attached to the iPhone without adding a lot of extra size. Although it is relatively inexpensive, I find that the Richard Solo backup battery adds too much bulk to my iPhone. It adds too much length for me to easily carry the iPhone with the battery attached in the side pocket of my purses. I also think the connection might not be sturdy enough for me to leave the battery attached to my iPhone

The Griffin TuneJuice has similar problems. I want to be able to leave the battery attached to my iPhone without having it hang off the iPhone.

While I have really enjoyed my two Mophie JuicePacks (and my husband will continue to use my older one), I want to take some time to compare the prices, structure and battery capacity of several other possible choices.

When you are comparing devices that accept standard batteries, it is pretty easy to compare AAA and AA batteries. However, when the device is the battery, it would be difficult to compare battery volume. Fortunately, the industry has taken care of the problem by adopting a common measurement, the battery capacity which is expressed in mAh. The higher the mAh, the more power the battery holds. While we often see cell phone battery capacity expressed as talk time and standby time, those numbers can be misleading.

Since I am looking for an external battery that will also act as a case for my iPhone, I am looking at three different options:

• the Power Slider by inCase
• the juice pack air by Mophie
• the iV by FastMac

Let’s take a look at their features:

At the end of this exercise, I have ruled out the inCase PowerSlider. I have a white iPhone and I really don’t want another black case. The difference in mAh is not enough to give it a clear advantage over the mophie juice pack air and I like the idea that I could buy a replacement for the top case if I lost it.

However, the FastMac iV has several good features. It has a clear advantage in battery power. The integrated light is interesting and the extra USB port might be nice. I guess I won’t be making a final decision today and I might consider eventually buying both units.

Photos of the various products were taken from their web sites.

Good luck in making decisions for your iPhone accessories!

Pat

Tags: iPhone

I gave our old PowerBook to my 90 year old aunt several months ago. This has been a true adventure for her as she had never really used a computer before. Actually, I gave her the computer, an older AirPort Extreme, a printer and even an iSight camera. Aunt Lee lives in California--and I am in Virginia, so we have used iChat screen sharing many times as I teach her more about her computer.

The other day I sent her a link to one of my favorite blogs, Bakerella. If you have not seen it and you enjoy baking or cake decorating, this is a wonderful site. Aunt Lee discovered a recipe for Lemon Bars. Of course, she needed a printout to use while she cooked.

Being a new computer user, Aunt Lee did not know much about blogs. She did not realize that blogs often show several different articles on one page. To see each article or post on a separate page, just click on the title for an article. Your browser will then load just that page.

In the case of Bakerella, there are often lots of photos along with a recipe, so we have only fixed half of the problem. Printing out all of the photos along with the recipe would just be a waste of ink, so now we need to isolate the text.

One way to do that would be to use the preview function of Safari. Go to the Safari File menu and select Print…:

The Print dialog box will open. It may appear like this one:

This is called a simplified dialog box--and I detest them! The little arrow button that I have circled is a called a disclosure triangle. Whenever you see a button like this that points downward, click it and you will have a more detailed and much more useful dialog box:

In this one, you can scroll through the web page using the arrows under the preview to find just the part that you will want to print. Then enter those numbers in the right side of the dialog box using the “From” choice instead of All. Enter the number of the first page you would like to print. Then move to the second or “to:” box. The number that you typed into the first box will automatically appear. If you would like to print more than one page, simply erase the number in the “to:” box and enter the desired page number.

There is no way to skip a few pages. If you wanted to print page five and page seven, you would have to first print page five, then use the “Print…” command to choose page seven. Using this method you can print out just the pages you want.

If you would like to save the pages, click the PDF button at the left bottom of the dialog box:

Choose a location for the file. You may also want to give it a specific name:

While there are many other ways to print and save specific parts of a web page, this is probably the easiest method. If you would like to learn other ways of working with web pages, consider booking a tutorial session with us at Dr. Mac Consulting! The cost is $60 per hour and we will tailor the session to meet your needs and interests. We use our special screen-sharing software to see your screen and we can even control your keyboard and mouse if you need an extra hand!

Happy recipe hunting!

Pat

Tags: Internet, Safari, PDF

If you ask that question to a friend, most people will say that they want to be able to surf the web to find information and do email.

I have noticed that several of the authors of blogs that I follow occasionally post interesting or useful links. I have decided to adopt the practice. The links I provide will generally be to technical sites or to sites that I think will be of interest to a wide audience of readers.

My husband had a heart attack last summer. It caused quite a scare since he did not seem to be a heart attack candidate. He eats sensibly, watches his weight, exercises regularly and his medical tests were in the normal or very slightly elevated range. On the advice of his cardiologist, we invested in a blood pressure machine. I have been looking for a good blood pressure chart, and I have found one! Check this link out:

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/medicine/blood-pressure.htm

I bought my first iPhone the day it was released. I stood in line and had a lot of fun visiting with other early adopters. Last year, I stood in line and bought my iPhone on day 1 again. This year, have to wait! When I went to the Apple page to check my status and possibly order my iPhone instead of waiting in line, was disappointed to learn that I will need to wait until July 12 to buy my new iPhone without paying a penalty to replace my phone early. Use this link to check your iPhone status:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/buy/

If you have a first or second generation iPhone, you probably want to upgrade it soon after the iPhone 3.0 software is released. I plan to be an early adopter and download it as soon as it becomes available. There are some things that you probably should do before beginning the upgrade. I suggest reading this upgrade guide written by the people over at The Mac Observer:

http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/iphone_os_3.0_upgrade_guide/

Check back soon for more interesting links!

Pat

Tags: Internet

Did you read Part 1?

There can be lots of other problems with Internet connections besides those listed in Part 1. While that article dealt with problems that affect both wired and wireless connections, today we will focus on wireless problems.

Years ago when I bought my first Apple AirPort, no one else around me had a wireless Internet connection. My PC neighbors were amazed that I was able to be on the Internet without having a cable connected. Some of them eventually bought wireless set-ups of their own and they were stunned by the difficulties in setting up their new routers while my AirPort made the task so easy.

After a time things began to get ugly. Instead of being able to “see” one wireless network, I had several to choose from in my AirPort menu item. Soon I began having problems with drops in my AirPort signal strength and sometimes I could not even “see” my own network! Click here to read more...

Tags: Internet, Troubleshooting, WiFi

You know the drill.

You launch Safari and all you see is a spinning beach ball. Or you’ve been away from your computer and then you come back to go to a web page. All that you get is a spinning beach ball.

So what is going on?

Why can’t you get that web page?

Did your computer mess up--again? Click here to read more...

Tags: Internet, Troubleshooting, WiFi

The latest sales figures from Apple show that more and more people are using a portable computer as their primary machine.

My last four “main” computers have been Apple laptops. I bought a G3 iBook in May of 2001. It was replaced with a 15” PowerBook G4 in the fall of 2003. Then I bought a Core 2 Duo 17” MacBook Pro in late 2006. I recently purchased the new unibody 17” MacBook Pro.

During my years of ownership I have changed from a computer lab environment to being on the road every day and now to working from home.

Each setting required spending at least some time running my computer from the battery instead of from the power adapter. During some days I found myself eeking the last bits of energy out of my battery, so I have learned ways to stretch battery life to its fullest potential.

So how do you make a battery charge last longer? Click here to read more...

Tags: MacBook, MacBook Pro, Battery

The emergence of a new star in the Britan’s Got Talent show last weekend has captured the imagination of the entire world. Susan Boyle has won the hearts of fans everywhere and many of us want to share her story with friends and family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY&fmt=18

There are several ways to capture YouTube videos. While some are geeky and complicated, CosmoPod, an inexpesive software package, makes the task quick and easy. Click here to read more...

Tags: Safari, Internet

There are lots of iPhone screenshots appearing on the web these days! It seems as though everyone wants to know about the changes coming in the iPhone 3.0 software.

Carl, one of our Dr. Mac Consulting clients sent me a tweet :



The ability to make screenshots was added in the iPhone 2.0 software. To make a screenshot: Click here to read more...

Tags: iPhone

There is some great information available on the web! Do you to save it for future reference and further study?

I do! I often use that information to learn a new technique. I also use it to prepare presentations for my user group, teach a class, ore even write a blog post.

Most of the information that I save will never be printed out. I will read it on my computer screen. I will want to be able to search the information. I will want the option to add comments or highlighting and I want to preserve the links in the article. I might also want to be able to combine several articles into a single document. Click here to read more...

Tags: PDF, Preview