MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/7575
28 MacDirectory
DEPARTMENT
Q > I just bought a new Mac, copied
over my iPhoto library and ditched my old
machine. Now iPhoto says that my
previous library cannot be imported.
What can I do?
- Saadiyih, Arkansas
A > This is not the first time that Apple
has burned bridges in the name of
progress. What you need to do is to move
the library to either a data DVD or an
external drive and find someone with an
older version of iPhoto. Hold down the
option key while launching their copy of
iPhoto and specify your library as the
default. Once you have done this, use
iPhoto's file menu to export the library,
move the resulting file to your new
machine, and reset your friend's version of
iPhoto to recognize the original library.
You can then import the exported library
into your new copy of iPhoto.
Q > Disk Warrior tells me that I have a
number of corrupt preference files, but
the names are suspicious and when I look
in my prefs folders I can't find these
mysterious files. What do I do?
– Matt, New York
A > Your Mac is crammed with invisible
files, most of which are mission-critical to
one process or another. It is possible to
search for invisible files but I do not
recommend it. On the other hand, you
may have a spyware issue. (Have you ever
encountered a spammy popup and you
clicked on a "no thanks" button? This is
one way that spyware can be installed
without your knowing. My
recommendation: Buy an antivirus
program and let it ferret out all the
naughty files for you.
Q > When performing a search I often
cannot find files that I know are there. In
order to test this, I saved a document to a
folder, then I opened the folder and saw it
right there, but it did not show up in a
search. What's going on?
- Rex, Delaware
A > Unlike the Mac's previous file search
systems, Spotlight does not perform a live
search based on disk directories, but it
creates an index of files in the background
and searches the index. If there has not
been sufficient time to add a file to the
index, it will not show up in the search
results. Back in the day of 200 MB hard
drives live searches were great. Now with
drive space running a mere 5 GB a buck,
live searches would take forever.
There is a lot to like with Spotlight, but
there are issues as well. Frankly, I wouldn't
mind having an option to conduct a live
search of specific folders. Now, if I could
only find where I put Steve Jobs's phone
number….
Q > I upgraded to Keynote 09 and I
can no longer find some of my favorite
transitions, such as droplet. Why did Apple
do this and what can I do?
- Dillon, New York
A > No problems! Open Keynote
preferences and click on the "include
obsolete animations" checkbox. They will
then appear in the list. Here's a trick, tho'
– If you don't want to deal with a scrolling
list of every transition in the book, you can
either copy a slide with the desired
transition and paste it into your new
presentation, or you turn them all on,
apply the transition, then turn 'em off.
Only the desired transition will be added
to the list.
Two other goodies, while we're on the
subject: First, the Leopard-friendly
Keynote Remote
iPhone / iPod Touch
app is fantastic. Second, check out