Barkings! | The Small Dog Apple Blog

With the world of technology changing about as frequently as my hair color (which is a lot!) it’s tough to keep up with the times. Whether you have an iPod shuffle that works without a screen, or the iPod touch that is a whole lotta screen, there is a lot to learn!

At Small Dog, we recently received shipments with the newest iPod “How To” guides, which have been in high demand. The two books that I think offer the most help, and are written in clear, every day language – as opposed to that intense Techy-Talk – are The iPod & iTunes Pocket Guide and The iPod Book: Doing Cool Stuff With The iPod and the iTunes Store.

Both books offer the right amount of information to get you and your iPod to be best friends! The iPod & iTunes Pocket Guide includes more tips and tricks and offers some more involved answers, while The iPod Book: Doing Cool Stuff With The iPod and the iTunes Store offers more pictures and focuses more on iTunes preferences.

I whole heartedly recommend either (or both) or these books to get you going with your new iPod, whether it be an iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod classic or iPod touch!

Tags: book, classic, ipod, ipod touch, manual, nano, shuffle

As an avid, lifelong Red Sox fan (and dedicated Mac user) I was delighted to see that Apple’s new, giant, four-story store currently under construction in Boston is paying homage to the Green Monster. I don’t think that Apple has ever done this in any other city.

Then again, the fastest way to be accepted in Boston is to tip your hat
New England’s great teams.

Tags: , apple, boston, green monster, mac, new england, red sox

Back in the days of the Classic MacOS, one of the most powerful keys to hold down at boot was the space bar. Introduced in System 7.5, Extensions Manager allowed users to select sets of extensions and troubleshoot conflicts in the middle of the boot process. Holding down Apple and Option at boot rebuilt the desktop. Thankfully, those days are long gone.

MacOS X doesn’t require any such maintenance, but like all operating systems, corruption does occur. Here are a few tips.

Holding down the option key at power-up brings you into the boot manager. If you have a bootable external drive connected, it will show up in the boot manager. This is helpful if you wish to select a boot device without booting the computer all the way, and switching the preferences in Startup Disk preference pane.

Similarly, Apple-Option-Shift-Delete bypasses the internal hard drive and tells the computer to use an external device. A nice time saver when you know what you want to boot from!

Holding down Apple-S on your keyboard at boot will bring you into Single User Mode. You can do plenty of harm here, but there’s one command that’s very safe: fsck -yf . This is the same as using the Repair Disk function of Disk Utility, and is an indispensable tool when your machine won’t boot. If this process is unable to repair your disk, you’ll need something stronger like DiskWarrior. And if that doesn’t help, the best software-based recovery utility in my mind is Data Rescue II. We use both extensively in our service department.

Just like the Classic MacOS, holding down Shift at boot will put your computer into Safe Mode. In the process, the same fsck (file system consistency check) will be run while at the gray apple screen. The computer will proceed to boot without third party software and nonessentials like AirPort drivers. If your machine won’t boot in Safe Mode, it’s time to consider DiskWarrior. It might even be time for professional diagnosis.

Another tip is to not hold down the power button too long. A quick press is all it takes. If you hold it down too long, the computer will look for a firmware update, and may not boot unless restarted.

Don and Geoff are at an ASMC meeting in St. Louis this week. They were able to send back a couple of digital goodies via email. First, we have a useful PDF outlining the possibilities of running a small business (or big business) on a Mac. It’s as glossy as a PDF can ever be; click here to download the Small Business Guide.

We also have a PDF of the top 3 reasons iWork is right for your office. Click here to download this PDF.

Enjoy!

Tags: st. ouis, asmc, iwork, leopard, mac, os x, pdf, small business