Apple & Mac OS X Blog

Decided to install Growl, on my iBook, too. (I’m running Mac OS X 10.4/Tiger on it.)

Had a similar problem as on my Mac OS X 10.3/Panther installation: Mail.app did not crash, but would always hang after launching it.

In OS X 10.4/Tiger, my user library was where I found the solution.

I went to –> Home –> Library –> Mail –> Bundles –> and took out the Growl Mail bundles. Afterwards, Mail.app once again functioned the way it is supposed to.

Too bad I cannot use Growl’s Mail.app notifications.

© 2007. Patrice Schneider. No reproduction without prior written consent.

Technorati Tags: Growl, Uninstall Growl, Uninstall GrowlMail, GrowlMail, Mac OS X Tiger, Mac OS X 10.4

Today, Mozilla launched Version 2 of the Thunderbird mail application.

At the time of writing, the download page on their website still pointed to the previous version (1.5.x).

Found Thunderbird 2.0 on VersionTracker.

Technorati Tags: Mozilla Thunderbird, Thunderbird 2, Mozilla.org, Versiontracker

Having read several posts on Growl, I decided to install it and give it a try. (This entry refers to my installation on Mac OS X 10.3.9/Panther! Procedure on Mac OS X 10.4.x/Tiger is different; please see my separate post.)

I started installing some of the extras, and it all went well until I installed the GrowlMail.pkg. I had followed the installation guide and quit Mail.app before running GrowlMail.pkg.

After having run GrowlMail.pkg, Mail.app crashed on me every time I tried to launch it.

Google and Yahoo! searches for “How To Uninstall GrowlMail” did not find me a solution. So I tried a bit of common sense.

Had a look in my User Library - no luck.

Then checked the System’s Library. In the Folder “Scripts” I removed the GrowlMail-relevant scripts, and bingo: Mail.app did not crash anymore.

© 2007. Patrice Schneider. No reproduction without prior written consent.

Technorati Tags: Growl, Uninstall Growl, Uninstall GrowlMail, GrowlMail, Mac OS X Panther, Mac OS X 10.3

In another entry a few weeks ago, I lamented the fact that once Dashboard is activated, it keeps eating away at the CPU in the background.

That is where DashboardKiller comes in.

The application does exactly what it says (and nothing else): it lets you kill the Dashboard, and straight away it stops wasting CPU, and thereore battery on laptops.

There was only one thing that confused me after first using this utility: after you have chosen “Turn Off” in DashboardKiller, it is “OFF”, even after a restart. You do in fact have to switch it back on, and make sure the status is set to “Dashboard is: ON” - otherwise Dashboard simply will not launch!

© 2006. Patrice Schneider. No reproduction without prior written consent.

Technorati Tags: DashboardKiller, OS X, OS X Utilities, Battery Life

A customer wanted to know how she can transfer all her data from the Address Book on her PowerBook G4 laptop to her G5 desktop.

The solution is very simple:

- Open Address Book (on the Mac that has the Address Book you want to copy)

- Choose –> File –> Back up Database (you can then choose where to save the database to)

- Copy the database file you just created over to the machine of which you want to update Address Book

- Open Address Book on the 2nd machine

- Choose –> File –> Revert To Database Backup

- In the dialogue box that pops up, choose the file you just copied over from the 1st machine

Beware: if you have any Address Book entries, they will be deleted when you choose “Revert To Database Backup”

© 2006. patrice schneider.

Technorati Tags: Address Book, Apple Address Book, OS X

There has been a lot of speculation regarding the battery performance of Apple Computer’s new Intel-Processor-driven Mac Book Pro line.

We will have to wait and see until they come out in February.

I am sure though, that the battery optimization tips I outlined in this article will also apply to the Mac Book Pro.

One thing I am interested in: are any of you going to buy a first generation Mac Book Pro? I usually avoid first generation machines, since they are oftentimes not 100 % perfect and still have some technical problems. (Just remember that until this day Apple has not been able to wipe out all the logic board issues they have been having since the days of the G3 iBooks! On mine, it fried six times!)

Technorati Tags: Mac Book Pro, Apple Computer, iBook, Mac Book Pro Battery Life

Apple Computer now have adapted their iTunes version 6.0.2.

After you have installed it and launch it for the first time, you will be asked if you want to use the MiniStore. Good!

They had really been receiving tons of negative comments all over the internet, from websites to weblogs…

At least they reacted quickly!

Technorati Tags: iTunes, Apple Computer, iTunes Spyware, Apple Blog, OS X Blog, OS X 10.4.4

My brother was getting fed up with using German as his default language in Apple Macintosh OS X and wanted to change it to English.

To do so is very easy - read on for step by step instructions:

Go to the

–> Apple Menu (top left of your screen)
–> choose System Preferences
–> from the Personal Panes choose International
–> then choose Language and a list of all the languages installed on your computer will show up
–> Drag your preferred language to the Top

The next time you log into Macintosh OS X, the language you chose will be the default operating system language! Simple as that.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Macintosh, OS X, Panther, Tiger, System Language, Change Language

There are rumours flying around the net that the current version of iTunes, 6.0.2 (launched first week of January at Macworld San Francisco), is spying on what music you are listening to and sending back info to Apple Computer. Oh dear! Moving closer to be like Micro$oft? I definitely do not like seeing this…

Some testing by other users suggests that this happens only when the MiniStore is active; and Apple claim that they do not collect any data at all… (Apparently they only use the info temporarily to make suggestions on what other related songs you could buy from their shop.)

Still: for the sake of privacy, I would suggest you hide / switch off the MiniStore. (See last entry on how to do this.)

Technorati Tags: iTunes, iTunes Spyware, iTunes Safety, iTunes MiniStore, Apple Computer, iTunes 6.0.2

When you first open the latest version of iTunes (6.0.2), there now is a “MiniStore” of the iTunes Music Store taking up space at the bottom of the iTunes window.

If, like myself, you do not like this waste of space, here is how you can get rid of it:

At the bottom of the iTunes screen, on the right hand side, there are four buttons - the one on the far left will let you “Show or Hide the MiniStore”.

Just saw now that

you can also go to the Edit menu at the top of your screen (4th menu from the left) and choose “Show MiniStore” or “Hide MiniStore”,

or else use the keyboard combination Shift+Apple+M.

Technorati Tags: iTunes, Apple, Mac OS X, iTunes Help