Get rid of that Space-Wasting “Other” on iPhone

I’m a Software Instructor and Mac Consultant – not an iPhone expert, so I was pleased to find an answer to a question today.

I have a 16GB iPhone 4, which has quite a lot of apps, music, video, photos and books on it. So, I’d expect to have a lot of space used on my phone. However, even with all this stuff, I was losing storage space to a “little item” called “Other” in my iTunes view of my phone – I was losing 2.6GB of space!!

I knew I could restore from a backup, but I’d just spent quite a bit of time clearing some photos and didn’t really want to spend an hour restoring from backup.

Fortunately, I found a very simple solution that worked perfectly:

On the iPhone, Go To “Settings/General/Usage/Music and then swipe left to right over the “All Music” entry and select Delete, then re-boot the iPhone.” He stated, ” you think it would delete all your music, but id doesn’t” (sic)

This was listed at: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3418045?start=75&tstart=0

Research is my friend!

Some info for When you Finally Move to Mountain Lion

The Macworld Help Desk has a really helpful article about what to expect when upgrading to Mac OS 10.8 (currently 10.8.2) Mountain Lion. The article can be seen at http://bit.ly/10n5gNc

Personally, I haven’t performed this upgrade, but there’s really only one reason for this at this point. I HAVE upgraded to Lion (10.7) and do not particularly like it. It’s GREAT for new users, but for those of us who’ve been using the Mac for a long time, we have to jump through too many hoops to do anything with real control. This is the same issue with Mountain Lion, and from what I see, Mountain Lion has some improvements over Lion. So, you ask, WHY have I upgraded to Lion, and skipped Lion?

Well, I NEED my old applications that run in Rosetta. “But” (you say), “Lion doesn’t run Rosetta either, so how can this be a good reason?”

In my efforts to keep my old apps running, I found the ONE version of VMWare Fusion that allowed us to install Snow Leopard as a guest operating system so I can run my old Snow Leopard installation (my favorite OS so far, btw) in emulation – much the same way I run Windows. Now, I need you guys to know that installing Snow Leopard’s Client OS may be breaking the “letter of the law” unless you use the Server version.

The ONE version of VMWare Fusion that will allow the use of Snow Leopard’s Client (means end-user version) will stop working if I upgrade it, and the old version will not run on Mountain Lion – simple as that!

Oh, and I should tell you that I HAVE tried using the Server version of Snow Leopard in Parallels and VMWare. They work fine, but don’t have the same capabilities as they do when emulating Windows – they don’t allow copy/paste to work between environments, and they don’t allow drag and drop of files from the main environment to the virtualized one (a VERY helpful feature between Mac and Windows – non-existent in Mac to Mac emulation – can you believe it?!)

All this, so you can understand the implications of upgrading your Operating System on the Mac. It may not affect you as most of you have been using the Mac for a short enough time that you don’t have any older programs that require Rosetta. But if you do, you may wish to take heed.

My Favorite Subject – BACKUP!

You all know that Backing Up your data is a practice I highly recommend. In fact, I’m a fan of multiple backups (because you just don’t want to be without a backup if you need it!)

A couple of days ago, Macworld Magazine posted  a very good article on restoring data when you use “The Cloud” for your backups, as well as some background information that supports why I’m more of an advocate of a local cloned startup drive. Take a look:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2013632/how-to-restore-your-data-from-the-cloud.html#tk.nl_mwhelp 

Ranting on the Apple Store… ME?

As you all know, I’m a big fan of the Macintosh and Apple. I like the products Apple makes, their business model (for the most part) and their innovations. But a recent trip to the Apple Store really made me cranky.

Most of you know (especially my students) that I’m a big fan of the phrase “I don’t know, but let me try to find out.” For me, the use of this phrase engenders trust, a sense of security, and a sense of respect. I’m often shocked at the amount of people who have either never heard this phrase, or are too embarrassed or prideful to use it (believing perhaps that they should be perceived to know everything).

First, a little technical background on the question I brought to the Apple Store:
I recently upgraded my MacPro to the 2012 model. I love it. It’s fast, it’s still backward compatible with my legacy hardware and software (it can still boot OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, and therefore run my legacy software in Rosetta), and it’s well-made (as I’ve come to expect in my MacPros). In my older computer, I had a wonderful little device that allowed me to use 2 SATA ports that were not in use on the logic board, so that I could have the equivalent of ESATA on my MacPro (http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php). I really appreciate ESATA – it’s very fast and reliable, and excellent for multimedia, but it’s not built into any Macs.

My new MacPro still has this capability, however it only has one available port on the logic board (instead of the old 2), so I’ve been searching for a reasonable PCI-E card to do the trick. However, I’ve seen that some cards don’t play well with the Lion OS (10.7). So, I thought perhaps asking at the Apple Store would help me find out which card to buy. WRONG!

NOW, the problem:
Upon entering the Apple Store, I was quickly greeted and asked if I needed assistance. Nice! When I explained the question, the young lady helping me admitted that my question was beyond her expertise, so she brought me to a young man who, according to him, was very knowledgeable about ESATA. After reiterating my question, this nice young man proceeded to tell me that ESATA was impossible on the MacPro, and always had been. He insisted that the ESATA cable I mention above never existed for the Mac, and that no PCI-E cards were capable of offering that service on a Mac (but it would on a PC). Even after I told him I’d been using this for some time on my own MacPro and knew for certain that there were cards out there (the Apple Store online sells them), he continued to insist that it didn’t exist, and tried to pull up websites that would prove me wrong.

Now… I know I probably should have talked to management or somebody, but at this point I was rather irritated and also didn’t want to get that young man in trouble, so I left. But, I’m hoping some person from Apple may happen along this rant and maybe institute some policy so that employees can be force-taught the phrase “I don’t know, but let me try to find out.” I mean… C’mon Apple Store… what’re you, Fry’s???

Powerpoint Problem with Boot Camp – and Resolution!

As you probably know, most of the actual work I do is on the Mac side of my computer, and I haven’t had much need to use the Windows version of Powerpoint in some time. Of course, today I had to use it… and so the saga begins!

Every time I started to type on a slide, Powerpoint crashed! I tried all the usual suspects – eliminated all my add-ons. Tried troubleshooting by starting Powerpoint in Safe Mode… nothing worked. Fortunately, I had it installed in Parallels on my laptop, so I was able to get work done, but I really needed it on my Windows 7 BootCamp partition (running through Parallels).

After MUCH research, I found the answer at http://blog.cdeutsch.com/2010/12/fixed-powerpoint-2010-crashes-when.html  . Worked like a charm – and SO easy. I find it hard to believe Apple hasn’t issued an update to fix this problem – but I’m really quite grateful to Mr. Deutsch for helping me get it resolved so quickly!

 

A Little Sound Nostalgia for the Good ‘Ol Days of Mac

I’ve been a Mac user since about 1990 and, despite a zillion improvements on the Mac and in all computing, I find myself nostalgic for Mac’s Good ‘Ol Days. The days when it didn’t take itself too seriously. The days when cute little extras and Easter Eggs could be found in software, and in the Finder.

One man has managed to bring back a little bit of the quaint times on the Mac by recreating the original  Classic Mac sounds for the New OS’s and for the iOS as well.

Check out the free download from http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/19079/mac-os-classic-sound-pack

Also, I recommend checking out the Steven Jay Cohen’s Blog, on which he has some serious software development stuff, his resume, and some very cool Doctor Who stuff! http://www.stevenjaycohen.com/tags/development