My Blog

Netflix Watch Now On A Mac

Fri, 7 Nov 2008 12:54:41 -0500

Until recently you could not watch movies instantly on a Mac with Netflix, but that has changed. Netflix is conducting a beta of their Watch Now feature for the Mac. I called and got involved with the beta program.

I installed the viewer and watched a season 2 DVD of “30 Rock” on my Mac. The video quality was good and it will certainly be a great way to get more milage from my membership.

Stuck DVD

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:12:31 -0400

I had a little scare today. I could not eject a DVD from my iMac after bringing it out of sleep mode. I got the beach ball when I tried to access the Finder. I also found myself unable to restart the computer due to the beach ball.

I held in the power button to force the computer to quit. Then I attempted to restart. Unfortunately all I got was a white screen... no gray apple.

After trying this twice I called Apple Care. I found out that the usual method of ejecting a stuck disk is to hold the left mouse button down continuously while restarting the computer. That didn’t work so we reset some chip by unplugging the power from the back of the iMac. After doing that holding the mouse button down during startup worked.

Java Script Errors On Blog Pages

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:35:36 -0400

Recently I noticed that I was getting error messages at the bottom of my blog entries that I published here with iWeb. The image above is a screen capture of one of these errors.

I posted a question about this to the Apple iWeb Discussion Forum. I got a response in my Mail inbox within minutes. The email lead me to an older thread on the forum which solved my problem. The link above will take you to the complete discussion including the link to the old forum thread.

To make a long story short I needed to change the CNAME for my domain from “web.mac.com” to “web.me.com”. Although the CNAME was successfully pointing to my domain www.terrischurter.com, there were complications with “mac” vs. “me”. After making the NAME switch via a live chat with technical support from Fat Cow, I had to republish everything from iWeb to mobile me. Doing so removed the javascript errors.

I am very impressed with the speed and quality of the response I got from the iWeb user forum on the Apple web site. If I have problems in the future I will head there first to seek help.

Uninstalled Open Office

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:04:26 -0400

I was not using Open Office, and I was experiencing problems with it. I was not able to quit Open Office from the dock. I was not even able to Shut down my iMac because when I tried to do so the process was aborted because it could not quit Open Office.

I had seen a post from a user on Mac Forums who was dissatisfied with his Mac. This is unusual indeed. It turned out that he was using Open Office. The advice he got was to remove it, and use iWork or Microsoft Office for the Mac instead.

Apparently Open Office requires X11. I don’t even know what X11 is, but I had noticed it hanging out on the dock next to the Open Office application icon.

Since I wasn’t using Open Office I decided to lose it. But I suspected that doing so was not doing to be as straightforward as dragging it to the trash, especially because I wasn’t even able to quit the application.

I spent some time on the Open Office Org forum and found the answer. I also found out that Open Office is not really built for the Mac. I guess that is why it needs X11. I also found out that there is a beta that is built specifically for the Mac incase I ever want to try it. The post suggested that I nuke Open Office with an application called AppCleaner, which is free.

I downloaded AppCleaner and installed it. I tried to remove open Office by dropping the icon from the Applications folder onto AppCleaner. I was informed that the app was protected because it was open, so I had to change the behavior of AppCleaner so it would not protect open applications thus allowing me to remove Open Office. After removing it I changed the behavior of AppCleaner so it would protect open applications, because that sounds like a really good setting.

CrossOver might be the next victim of AppCleaner since CrossOver won’t run the only Windows application I really care about.

iPod Arrived Yesterday

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:46:10 -0400

Fed Ex tried to deliver my iPod on Monday, but for some reason I did not hear them ringing the doorbell or knocking at the door even though I was at home. Yesterday, to be on the safe side, I signed the release form they left behind and placed it on my door handle. In addition to that I set up a go board at the dining room table to review go games, and settled in for a long wait. The iPod was due to arrive by 4:30 PM. However, I was not planning to budge from the table until it came, at least not for more than a minute or two at a time.

My iPod arrived in all its splendor at about 10:00 AM, thank goodness. I was tired of solving life and death problems on the go board by then. It came in an incredibly small box which housed the device, a cleaning cloth, earphones, a little stand, and a usb cable that charges as well as syncs the unit. The engraving was beautiful. I’m glad I had it done.

I installed the latest version of iTunes and set up the iPod to sync with Mobile Me right away. I set iTunes to transfer all of my music and videos not realizing how many podcasts I had. I was left with about 7 GB of the 16 GB free after the transfers. My Mail, Contacts, and Calendars transferred just fine, but the bookmarks did not. I made a call to Apple Care, but they were of little use. The iPod people transferred me to an iMac person when they realized that the problem might have been the sync settings in iTunes. The desktop person didn’t know what he was talking about. He told me that he had actually been a part of the technical support team for Mobile Me when they were having their difficulties at the beginning. They pulled him off of desktop work to help with the Mobile Me problems, so you would think he would know pretty much about Mobile Me. I think they might still be experiencing some difficulties with Mobile Me. This guy did not gain my trust when he told me that he wasn’t even aware that Mail, Contacts, and Calendars could be synced via Mobile Me. He thought that they had to be synced via iTunes. I had to go into iTunes and read off to him the setttings that I had already set up to enable it to sync certain items via Mobile Me. I was calling because I was wondering why the bookmarks were not transferring while everything else was.

I decided not to pursue the matter with him. He suggested that I might try the live chat for Mobile Me. I will probably do that at some time in the future, but I was more interested in getting my iPod set up with the beta of my favorite go recording software, SmartGo Touch. In the major scheme of things bookmarks seemed to be a small issue when everything else was working so well.

In order to install my beta app I had to copy the 40 character identifier key from my device for the software developer so he could create a copy of the app specifically designed to install on my iPod. I guess when you buy an App from the App Store that information is transmitted by the computer to the developer, but since this is a beta program I had to obtain the information myself and pass it along. These are the directions from the developer:

---------------
Locating a Unique Device ID with iTunes 7.7: Connect your device to your Mac and launch iTunes. In iTunes, select your device in the ‘Devices’ section and navigate to the Summary tab. Click on the Serial Number label to reveal the Identifier field and the 40 character UDID.
---------------

It isn’t altogether intuitive to copy that code even if you know you can do it because you have to use the edit menu to get to it. You can’t highlight it and right click it. But I figured out how to so it.

I had difficulty installing the application because I didn’t realize that I had to enable the syncing of applications separately from within iTunes. My developer figured out that must have been the problem. Once I enabled syncing of applications everything transferred just fine.

I am really enjoying the iPod. I will have an opportunity to give SmartGo (the beta app) a good workout this coming weekend at the Hoboken Go Tournament.