Barkings! | The Small Dog Apple Blog

I was on vacation last week, enjoying some fresh powder (6 feet!) and admiring the iPad from afar (no, Steve didn’t check with me prior to scheduling Apple’s Special Event to see if I had a conflict. He’s been warned.).

While on vacation, I wanted to make sure that I was still (somewhat) connected to my crew here at work via my Small Dog email. However, much like the last time I went on vacation, around the second day in a remote location, Mail stopped communicating with the Small Dog email server (or vice versa). It’s probably all a coincidence, but I still wanted to figure out what I could do to make sure Mail and my email stay BFFs.

I have heard grumblings from many people about how Mail and especially Mail for iPhone have issues handling inboxes with a large number of emails. There are several theories about why this is the case, but a good rule of thumb is to limit your inbox to under 1-2K messages. (My last count? Almost 16,000!) This is especially important if yours uses an IMAP protocol, as ours does.

With an IMAP account, it allows users to access their email through multiple means, because whatever actions you take (sending, saving drafts, etc.) always stay synced to the server. (For example, if you have your email account set up on your Mac as well as your iPhone, the same information will be available on both.) So, it stands to reason that once the emails start to stack up, that’s a lot for the server to keep straight, and for it to do so quickly.

So, with the help of our IT Department (who, let’s face it, knows more about email protocols than anyone should), here’s a handy checklist to keep in mind when managing your inbox, whether you’ve had issues with it or you just want to do some preventative maintenance:

1. Keep your inbox under 1 – 2k total messages (apparently, it’s so important, it’s worth mentioning again).
2. Store your messages in a folder outside of the inbox, whether it’s solely on your Mac (“On My Mac”) or a folder that is available on the email server (Mine’s called “SDE” with a subfolder called “Archived Mail”).
3. When moving your messages to your preferred folder, try not to move too many at a time (I like to grab a month at a time, which works out to between 1,000 – 1,500k; ideally you’ll only move a couple hundred at a time, depending on your connection).
4. As you move the groups, don’t move a new group of email until your last one has finished (Open Window > Activity to preview your progress).

Hopefully, you’ll notice that Mail continues to work speedily and consistently. Mine’s been great so far—I’ll continue to mind these tips and to use Smart Mailboxes to keep myself organized and trouble-free.

Have you had an email nightmares or tips you’d like to share? Email me with your stories!

Earlier this week, Apple released iPhone OS 3.1.3 for all versions of iPhone and iPod touch. This fixes several bugs and addressed a number of security issues:

• Improves accuracy of reported battery level on iPhone 3GS
• Resolves issue where third-party apps would not launch in some instances
• Fixes bug that may cause an app to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard

Click here for full details on the security updates in iPhone OS 3.1.3.

Download the update via iTunes with your iPod touch or iPhone connected to your Mac or PC. It took me a total of five minutes to download and install the update.

Apple has slowly been moving the functionality of the iTunes Store to the web. First, Apple introduced iTunes Preview, allowing people to read browse and read about albums and sings in the iTunes Store from the web in any modern web browser. Then Apple added the ability to actually listen to :30 second previews of songs from the web.

This week, Apple introduced webpages featuring information about iPhone apps and games. These look just like the pages you’d see in the iTunes Store, but again, you access them from any modern web browser. In my opinion, it’s somewhat easier to read about various apps in full-screen web browser than it in the standard iTunes Store interface.

Interestingly, when you’re reading about an app online, iTunes will simultaneously launch on your computer, directing you to the app you’re reading about.

Check it out at Apple.com/itunes. At the bottom of the page you’ll see a window called “iTunes preview.”

Back in December Apple acquired a streaming music service called Lala. Perhaps iTunes preview is simply a preview of a future, web-based iTunes experience, based partly on IP from the Lala acquisition.

Many of our clients with large houses or outbuildings want to get maximum wireless coverage without running or burying ethernet. Apple’s AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express and Time Capsule devices make excellent wireless signal repeaters to cover large distances. If you have an existing AirPort device, you can add another to extend your network.

First, run Software Update on your Mac, and make sure you have all the available updates. Many updates improve wireless performance and security, so you want to have all of those installed. Then open Applications > Utilities > Airport Utility, and double-click on your current AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, or Time Capsule, click on the Wireless tab, and check “Allow this network to be extended.”

If you do not already have a password on your network and want your network protected, set the password now before you add any other wireless devices. You should use WPA2 Personal for maximum protection. Once you have saved those settings, the AirPort device has restarted, and you have rejoined the network, you can move on to setting up the next device.

To set up another AirPort device, make sure it is new or unconfigured. If you have an existing device and wish to reset it, you can do a hard reset by holding down the reset button for about five seconds while the device is plugged in. If you have a new AirPort, you will also want to install the updated software that comes with it since AirPort Utility 5.5 is not yet available via Software Update.

Next, open AirPort Utility, and select your new or newly-reset device. Click “continue” and it will walk you through the setup process. When it asks how you want to connect it to the internet, choose “Join an exiting wireless network.” Choose your network from the list, and if necessary, type in the password. Then you should be able to check a checkbox to allow clients to join the extended network. Complete the setup wizard, and let the device restart. If you did it correctly, the AirPort light should be green on the device.

I recommend a central location for your first wireless router, avoiding refrigerators, big chimneys, and any other architectural details that could cause gaps in the network. Try to avoid wireless phones, especially if they operate on the 2.4 or 5.8 gigahertz bands. New DECT 6.0 phones operate on a different frequency than wireless networks, and will not interfere. Before you deploy another AirPort device to extend your network, you should use a laptop to make sure you have good wireless signal in that location; otherwise the next router won’t be able to connect and extend the network.

You should also keep in mind that every device extending your network will halve available bandwidth since network traffic will double. Repeater devices copy everything the extending device does, and vice versa. Adding a third device will again cut throughput in half, so only extend a network as much as you have to. I also recommend using the newest possible AirPort gear for your entire network for their dual-band capability, which lets them operate simultaneously on the 2.4 gigahertz band for older devices and the 5.8 gigahertz band for newer devices. I only use AirPort Express units when wireless music streaming is desired, since they can only operate on one frequency band at a time.

All this aside, the very best way to extend your wireless network is to connect satellite base stations by ethernet, as there is no loss of bandwidth. But that’s a topic for another time!

This is a service Small Dog’s Consulting branch performs often. If you’re in Vermont, you can email consulting@smalldog.com to make an appointment.

One of the things that makes the Mac OS intuitive is Apple’s use of universal symbols. Apple also extends these symbols to most of their software titles, creating a cohesive environment. The most common examples are Apple’s use of ‘+’ and ‘-’ symbols for adding and deleting, magnifying glass icon for searching and the gear icon for changes or additional options.

While the use of these universal symbols adds to the usability of the OS, they are sometimes overlooked. The symbol that I find is most commonly overlooked is the magnification slider found in Finder and in iPhoto. Just yesterday a customer emailed support with a screenshot of iPhoto. It appeared that he was looking at single large image, and he was writing because he couldn’t get himself into “thumbnail view” despite having clicked on ‘Photos’. I immediately looked at the lower right of the screenshot and saw that his magnification slider was slid all the way to the right, which is the highest magnification. He was in thumbnail view; his thumbnails had just been blown up to the full window size. By dragging the slider back towards the left, he was able to view the pictures in a more traditional thumbnail size.

This slider can come in pretty handy, though! Not only is it nice to temporarily blow thumbnails up to a more viewable size, or scale them down to a mini-size if you have a ton of photos and want to scroll through them quickly, but it can also easily be used in Finder when viewing a Finder window in icon view.

Try it out! Open a new Finder window by clicking on the smiling blue Mac-face in your dock (or, if you love menus, you can go to the Finder and to File > New Finder Window). Now navigate to a folder with many documents or pictures in it; it’s much more fun with pictures! Get yourself into icon view by selecting the icon that looks like four squares on the top left of the Finder window. You should now see the slider on the bottom right and you can play around by dragging the slider to the left and right and watch your icons grow and shrink.

Being able to resize photos and documents on the fly makes it even easier to find the item you want quickly. If you’re rocking Leopard or Snow Leopard, check out the Quicklook feature (select a document or picture in Finder and press the space bar) which helps fine-tune the process even further. Play around with it and have fun!