I recently was able to upgrade my Mac (mini) to OS X Leopard thanks to a generous friend. One of the things I was looking forward to most from this upgrade was the use of Time Machine. Time Machine, if you don’t already know, is Apple’s new software that takes over the tedious and easily forgettable task of backing up your computer to an external hard drive. It’s pretty cool how it works, because you open up the crazy, space portal thing and you tell it you want to move this particular file back to, oh, say, Saturday’s version, before I messed it up by deleting it or saving over it. So it does a cool warp tunnel effect thing and the file is right back the way it was on Saturday. Yayy!

So, I have a hard drive I can use, and lots of files I want to protect, so I plugged them in and clicked on Time Machine. Oh, it wants to erase my hard drive. Huh? See, I have been using this external hard drive to back up files from this Mac and also my Windows laptop. But, Time Machine wants to use Apple’s super-special HFS+ disk format, one that is not compatible with Windows. But I still want to put Windows files on there, too!

So here’s what I did for anyone else out there searching for a solution:

1. I used Partition Magic on my Windows laptop to format my hard drive into 2 partitions, both FAT32 (Windows and Mac can both write to this)

2. Then when I plugged the drive into the Mac, I told Time Machine to use the second, newly created partition. So it did, and erased it and created it’s own HFS+ partition. So now it works! Now half is used for the Windows laptop, and half is used for Time Machine on the Mac Mini!

At least I think it works. I’m backing up the laptop now using a program called SyncBack. Then I’ll plug in to the Mac and let Time Machine do its thing. I’ll let you know if anything goes terribly wrong.

Also, I’m planning on hooking both computers up to a USB hub so that I won’t have to switch the USB cord from one to the other all the time. That should be nice.

Sometimes people show me their computers or I work on them and I am just amazed at the amount of clutter or crazy programs people deal with on a daily basis. There are easier, less stress-inducing ways of maintaining your machine, that are actually better for you, as well.

Here’s a few:

• Your web browser: Everyone in the world gets a new computer, and then jumps on the web with Internet Explorer because it’s there and it’s free. Well, you should use it at least once, and that is to go to GetFirefox.com to download a better browser, Firefox (for Windows and Mac, though safari is ok for Macs.) It’s cleaner, it free, it’s easier to use, and it’s open source which means it wasn’t made by a for-profit corporation.
• Email: Don’t bother messing around with your internet provider’s email they give you for free. You can get better, more accessible email for free elsewhere. I recommend Gmail. There’s no ads, there’s unlimited space, and it’s got a clean, easy to use interface. If you don’t like Google stuff, try the new Yahoo mail, which is just as good if not better. But it might be a little more cluttered.
• Maintenance: all you needto keep your computer running smoothly is an antivirus program, and adware program, and a spyware program. 3, that’s it. and look, the 3 best are bundled together by our friends at Google for free, in what is called Google Pack. Lets see what they give us:
  • Norton Security Scan – Free antivirus protection and updates.
  • Spyware Doctor – Detects and removes spyware and adware.
  • Picasa - Excellent photo organizer and editor for Windows (comparable to iPhoto on the Mac)
  • Google Earth – Just download it. You’ll play with it for hours.

  And there’s more like Firefox, Skype and Adobe Reader that you’ll also want to download. It all comes with the Google Updater that automatically updates your ‘Pack programs for you so you don’t have to, and so that you always have the latest versions.

• Google Browser Sync – Download this extension for Firefox, which puts your bookmarks on a server somewhere in space so that you can access them from any computer, and not have to worry about backing them up if you get a new computer.

What else do people do with their computers?

• Work: Can’t afford Microsoft Office? Then try OpenOffice. It’s a free group of software that works just as well as the big boys. Or try Google Apps, a group of online applications for communicating and organizing, document publication, and web publishing. All free. Also, 37signals offers a whole suite of online applications that help organize and keep track of to-do lists, customer info, discussions, and documents.

So this is all pretty nerdy and stuff, but the point is, things can be cleaned up and less cluttery than they most likely are. Those stupid Yahoo and Google and AOL toolbars in your web browser can be removed. All those ads on your Hotmail don’t have to take up your attention everyday. You don’t have to pay $500 for Microsoft office. You don’t need a Web Accelerator or SBC Spam Protection for your internet. They just take up space.

Maybe it’s all easy for me to say, I sort of know what’s ok to delete or remove and what isn’t. And I know how to get stuff back if it is removed on accident. But if you don’t know, you should ask me or someone who does and we’ll help. It will make life a wee bit easier.

Ok, so I acknowledge that I’ve been around and used computers a lot in the last 10-15 years of my life. So obviously I know a lot more than the average person and especially the average person above the age of 40, just because I’ve used them and been around them so much.

But that doesn’t make it any less annoying when people don’t know how to use computers, or more accurately, don’t CARE to LEARN. A lot of people use computers because they’re either trendy and cool, or because they use one for work, or because they’re forced to. THat’s all fine and good, but people, if you’re going to use, here’s some simple tips that you should engrain into your heads to make my life less stressful.

First, clicking things:

1. Don’t click things multiple times! Especially if you have an older computer, this will most likely cause whatever you clicked on to open 80 times and crash your computer, causing you to say asinine things like “C’mon you stupid computer, gosh it’s so slow!” That’s just ignorance, so get over it.
2. General rules:
   • Icons on a desk top need to be double clicked to open
   • Icons in programs usually only need to be clicked once. If that doesn’t work after 5-10 seconds, then try double clicking.
   • Anything, ANYTHING, in a web browser window only needs to be clicked once. ONLY ONCE. Never ever double click something in a browser window.
   • If you hover the mouse over something, and a little border appears around it that makes it look like a button, then it is a button. Buttons only need to be clicked ONCE.
   • Remember what you used (single or double-click) to open something so you don’t get them mixed up.
3. You can double-click files to open them. This saves time.
4. You can right-click icons and files to see what else you can do to them. (You can also do this with links in web browsers to, for example, open that link in another tab)

There’s probably more but after writing all that, I’m not as frustrated as I was before. Thanks, BLOG.

After over ten years of playing around with computers, I’ve finally got myself an Apple.

My friend Scott had gotten a Mac Mini a while ago, and I was captivated by it’s small size and the wonderful Mac OS X. You can’t beat the price for what you get, either. I got a 1.83gHz Intel Core Duo with a Superdrive (for making DVDs) and 2GB of RAM. I’ve heard these things are really hard to upgrade, so I got the best of what I could get for now. Only a 80GB hard drive, but I figure I can get an external hard drive for cheap later on.

Anyways, Shan and I just got a new flat screen monitor for the apartment, and the Mac looks nice on it. Not a widescreen, but the desk space is wonderful after having a giant, 90’s CRT TV on there forever.

I’m still in the transition phase, trying to learn the shortcuts and easy ways to do things on a Mac. I know Windows pretty good, at least good enough to get around in it pretty fast, but I’m not too familiar with OSX. But it’s so beautiful and fun to look at that it’s nothing bad to have to spend a few more seconds looking around.

I’m looking forward to spending some time with iPhoto and iDVD, and iMovie HD. Next I need to get a bigger SD card for my camera so I can start taking more videos.

Another real nice thing is the FrontRow feature. Click the link to see some pictures. It’s so smooth and seamless that I love to play with it.

The built-in wireless is also very nice. I just love the attention to detail that Apple puts into it’s products. They know that we don’t want to deal with wires or huge boxes or whatever, so they just make things easier.

The only problem so far has been with the Apple keyboard that I got with the Mini. I ws using the USB slots on the keyboard to transfer photos from Shan’s computer a GB at a time. Let’s see the troubles that caused:

1. First of all, the keyboard doesn’t transmit data through those ports as fast as directly into the computer, so it took forever.
2. Obviously the keyboard didn’t like that because it just stopped working.

So I had to order a new keyboard. That was annoying, but not a big hassle.

So overall I’ll give the Mac Mini an ‘A’ so far. I’m trying to use it for fun stuff only, and keep using my laptop for work.