The Mac Admin's Blog

Turning off after spinning wheel/beachball/processing icon Exact issue that you might face: The machine will turn off after spinning beach ball. Before I mention the troubleshooting steps, let me explain the reason in brief. Mac has given a new feature in Leopard that enables the functionality to perform a disk check in the back ground and occurs at every start up. Now while performing this check if there is any irreparable damage then it shuts down the mahcine. If you face this issue all you have to do is using Mac OS X installation DVD boot the Mac from another volume/drive and then use the disk utility feature to verify if there is any issue and see if it could be repaired. If its irreparable then reinstall the OS using erase and install. I would recommend you to copy the data on another volume and then install the OS on this drive.

How to Eject a stuck CD/DVD in Mac? There are many ways to eject a drive but here I am mentioning only two of them, targeting the novices. 1. Eject using Disk Utility: The simplest way to eject is to use Disk Utility, (to access press Command+U). Once Disk Utility is launched, select the volume that needs to be unmounted and click Eject . 2. Eject using Disk Utility: Press & hold down the mouse button at startup, in some cases this might cause a misbehaving optical drive to eject its media. There are few more steps which I will be mentioning in upcoming posts.

Process to connect to a server or a share drive From the Finder menu, click on Go and the select Connect to Server or Press Command+K as shortcut. It will take you to the connect to server window. Enter name or the IP Address of the server or share drive (with smb:// as prefix) that you need to access and click on Connect . If user is unable to connect to server: 1. Now try with different protocols like smb://, ftp:// or afp:// with correct symbols. 2. Check on another machine, if you are able to connect, if yes then restart the machine & retry. If there is no connectivity issue in the network then this should resolve this issue. Process to disconnect to a server or a share drive All you need to do is hold the share drive and drag it to the trash. As soon as you start draging the icon, Trash will change into eject icon.

What is file sharing and how activate this feature? File Sharing is a service which enables file on a Mac to be shared on other Mac, not just file now you can also share applications in your network. Go to System Preferences and open Sharing . Select the application/s that you want to share. On the mid-right there is an option of Shared Folders, where you can select the folders that you want to be shared with other users. Now on extreme right there is another option of Users, using which you can define who all people on the network should have access to the defined application/s or the folder/s. From this menu itself you can also define the access type, should it be Read only or Write access. At the top of this window, name of the machine is mentioned. If any user wants to connect, he/she can use the machine name or the IP address of your machine. Other sharing options in Mac.

Unable to open pdf file in Adobe Acrobat One of the other issues that I face often about pdf files not opening in Acrobat but in Word or some other application. This issue is not as tough as it sounds, its all about changing the default application. These simple steps will help you to get rid of this issue: Select the file that needs to open & press command+i in combination. This will open the info window displaying all the charecterstics of this file. Expand Open with and see the application chosen there. Change the application with drop down arrow and if Acrobat is not there then choose it from more applications. After chosing now this file will always open in Acrobat. If you want this change to be permanent, then click on the button Change All which will open all the files of this type in Acrobat. This is not just limited till pdf and Acrobat, following these steps you can change default application of any file type.

When clicking on Apple menu, there is not list under drop down Last week I came across a case where user was not able to find any menu item when he clicked on Apple menu and he has some changes to make in System Preferences which he could not do just because of this problem. The solution for this issue is very simple, if you face this just follow these steps: Go to your account and open Library . Under library locate and open the Preferences folder. Find the .plist file for finder and drag it to the desktop. After this, launch the Apple menu, it should work fine. Once it starts working fine, just move the .plist from desktop to Trash . In any troubleshooting when you move the .plist file and it does not fixes your issue then make sure that you move that file back to its place.

Unable to save a file after editing If in case you are unable to save file after editing and get this error message, "The disk is full trying to write to uwrobka. Free some space on this drive or save the document on another disk." Here are few steps that you can perform: 1. Restart your Mac machine as sometimes this can fix the issue. 2. If not, then you can try 'Save As' rather than 'Save'. 3. Check if the file is getting saved in a drive where you have enough empty space. 4. Sometimes the destination to save a file is defined to a read only location. 5. Changing the save locatoin will surely fix this issue. These are independent steps and need not to be followed in sequence.

How to check the Printing Queue If the printer is not working, the very first thing that needs to be checked is if the printer is stopped. 1. On the dock, click the printer icon to open it. or 2. Go to Apple menu, choose System Preferences and then click Print & Fax. 3. On this window, click the Printing tab & then Print Queue and try to find out if any error message is there that says “Jobs Stopped”. 4. If you find any, then click on Resume or Start Jobs from the printer's menu. This is the simplest and initial step that you need to start from in troubleshooting.

Guide to set up a printer on Mac Machine 1. Launch System Preferences and go to open Print & Fax. 2. Next, click on " + " sign above the lock. 3. Enter the IP address under Address , then click on Add button. 4. O nce successfully completed, the printer details will be displayed in box (right). In some cases you might need to install the printer. Process to map Network printer and Local Printer is same.

Introducing Snow Leopard & its price The biggest question in every Mac lover's mind is, "How much will it cost?" Snow Leopard will cost $29 for existing Leopard users, and a family pack will charge for $49. In case you’re still running Tiger on an iMac, Apple is going to offer you a Mac Box Set which will include Snow Leopard, iLife ’09 and and iWork ’09. This fantastic Mac Box Set costs $169, with a family pack available for $229... Oopsss! “We want all users to upgrade to Snow Leopard, because Snow Leopard is a better Leopard,” said Serlet of OS X 10.6’s price.” Source: http://bit.ly/FgYqm

How to create Entourage task using Notebook 1. Open your Notebook application. 2. Select the item for which you want to create Task in Entourage. 3. Go to Formatting Palette , under Note Flags , click on Create Entourage Task . or 4. In case you don't see the Formatting Palette , click on View and then Formatting Palette . 5. There is a good option here, select Remind me check box, and then choose a date and time. 6. If you want to edit a task in Notebook Layout view, just click the task icon that is in the left of the item. 7. To view this item in tasks in Entourage, launch Entourage , and just click the Tasks tab. Good idea isn't it?

Deleting Windows Partition from Mac HD using Boot Camp 1. The very first step would be launching the boot camp assistance. 2. Go to Application , open Utilities and launch Boot Camp. 3. On the initial Boot Camp Assistant window, click on Continue . 4. Now select Create or remove a Windows partition and then click Continue . 5. Here you have to select Restore button which will remove Windows partition and restore it to normal single OS X partition. 6. On this step your OS X might ask you to verify that you have admin rights on this machine so enter the password and click OK . 7. Here is the main action, Boot Camp Assistant will start partition process. 8. That's it now Windows has been removed forever, and now your drive has a single partition back again. Just to remind you that by deleting partition yu have removed all the data on this partition so make sure before doing this you backup all the data on this partition.