Do  you ever need to rent a meeting room in Seattle? Many of my clients run home-based businesses and they sometimes need to rent a room where they can conduct trainings, interviews or depositions. Here’s a list of some organizations which rent rooms in the Seattle area. While I try to list a few highlights, these facilities vary widely in size, price, hours of availability, amount of parking, etc. Please contact each organization to get specific details.

I intend to update this list as I learn about new resources. If you can recommend any places, please contact me.

Phinney Ridge

The Phinney Neighborhood Association operates four buildings that contain a wide-variety of rooms that could accommodate a mere handful or many dozen. All rooms have wireless Internet access.

Wallingford

Present Sense has two small meeting rooms which offer a small kitchen but no Internet access.

The Mosaic Coffeehouse rents their den. It includes a large conference table and wireless Internet access.

iLeap rents their Library which is equipped with white boards, projector, screen, wireless Internet and a kitchen (for an additional fee).

All Over Seattle and Bellevue

The Seattle Public Library offers free meeting rooms in many of their branches. The rooms can be reserved up to 3 months in advance. The meetings need to be open to the public. No attendance fee can be collected and no merchandise sold there.

Regus offers conference rooms, virtual offices and executive suites in the greater Seattle area and in many other states. Rooms can be rented by the hour, half day or full day.

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Would you like to build a professional-looking yet affordable web site for your business? Here are some ideas about how this could be done.

This is the fourth and final article in a series about setting up email and web hosting for a new small business. The first article explains basic terminology, the second discusses how to register a domain name, and the third offers guidance on selecting an email and web hosting company.

This article will give you an overview of three affordable options to build a good looking web site. The first option includes template-based systems like SquareSpace, Virb and Zenfolio. Second, I present an overview of how to build your own WordPress-based web site. Third, I describe hiring a professional to build a WordPress-based site.

 Option 1 – Rather than trying to design your own professional-looking web site, you might consider using a template-based web site. Template-based web sites have been around since the mid-1990s, but they’ve come a long-way. The template systems of old often looked cheesy. Today’s systems look more professional and often include features like blog pages, photo gallery pages, a calendar and integration with social networking sites. Both SquareSpace and Virb let you use your own registered domain name, offer free trials and then have prices that start at $10/month and $8/month, respectively. If you’re a photographer then you might want to consider Zenfolio which also offers a free trial and accounts for as little as $30/year.

Option 2 – If you’re fairly tech-savvy and interested in building your own web site, you could build a great-looking site using WordPress. This is the option that I chose a few years ago to build the site you’re reading now. WordPress is a free, open-source tool that is very capable and widely used. I bought a professionally-built WordPress Theme for $30 from ThemeForest. (There are also many good-looking free Themes.) I then hired two friends to make customizations to the Theme and help me with a couple of WordPress Plugins. This out-sourcing cost me less than $500. I use and often recommend WordPress since it’s a tool that can be used by novices to update their own web site. Since so many people use WordPress, there are thousands of plug-ins that let you add a wide range of features to your website, like a calendar, statistics tracking, search engine optimization information, good print layouts and countless others.

Option 3 – If WordPress sounds good to you, but you want some hand-holding getting things setup, you could hire a professional web site developer like Christine The Designer. Christine focuses on WordPress and offers her WordPress Assistance Package for $500. She’ll help you register your domain name (in case you were still intimidated even after reading previous articles in this series), install WordPress at your hosting company, help you select a Theme and modify it slightly. Finally, her package includes two training sessions to show you how to make changes to your site in the future. Wow, that’s a great deal, if you ask me!

Hopefully, one of these options will fit your needs. You can build a great-looking site in a few days if you use a template-based system, already have a logo, know what colors you want to use and have an idea about content you want to include. Alternatively, you could learn to build your own site using WordPress and then have access to thousands of plugins. Finally, you could hire a professional to get you up and running in just a few weeks using WordPress.

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Do you have an iMac purchased between October 2009 and July 2011? Does it have a 1 TB (Terabyte) hard drive in it? If so, it might be part of an Apple recall.

MacWorld has an excellent article that explains the entire recall situation, After reading MacWorld’s article, enter your iMac’s serial number on Apple’s page to see if your iMac is affected.

You can locate the serial number of your iMac by clicking on the Apple menu and selecting About This Mac. In the window that appears, click on the numbers that appear below “Mac OS X”. When you click on the numbers, they’ll toggle through displaying the version of Mac OS X, its build number and the Mac’s serial number. Write down the serial number, then go to Apple’s iMac recall page and enter it in the search field to see if your iMac is affected.

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Do you have old 45 or 78 rpm vinyl records or audio tapes that you’d like to convert to CD or MP3? Reclaim Media and Ferris Mastering both offer such conversion services if you want to farm out this work. [Update March 2013: Reclaim Media closed on January 1, 2013. They are no longer an option for conversions. Other references to them in this article have been removed.]

FerrisMastering also offers record and tape conversion services. They are based in Pennsylvania. Converting one record costs as little as $10. Their web site isn’t as polished as Reclaim Media. I could be wrong but I get the feeling that the company is just one or two guys working out of their garage.

You could be thinking that $10 or $12 per record is a lot if you want to convert 20 or 50 or even 100 records. That’s true. These services aren’t the best choice for records which could be replaced by buying a CD or MP3 versions from the iTunes Store or other online services. These services make sense for rare recordings and in other circumstances. You might also think about buying a machine like this one or that one, which would let you do this conversion yourself.

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Do you have a box of 35mm slides you’d like to convert to digital photos? You have two ways you could proceed. You could either buy a scanner that is capable of scanning film (both positives or negatives) or you could farm out the work. GT Recording, HomeDVD and iMemories are 3 such companies which offer slide scanning services. iMemories offers photo, negative and slide scanning.

If you want to buy a scanner you could consider something like the Canon CanoScan 9000F which has attachments that let you scan a few slides or negatives at a time at 4800 dpi. It costs about $200 or less. If you can get your hand on a discontinued Nikon Coolscan professional high-speed slide scanner, then you could use it. As I recall, these scanners could hold 20 slides at a time and would scan each one at about 4000 dpi in about 30 seconds and automatically move through the entire stack.

If you prefer to farm out this work you could drop off your slides at GT Recording in Seattle. They charge scan slides at either 3600 or 7200 dpi. They charge a flat $15 setup fee. They have different price tiers that currently look like this:

• less than 100 slides cost $1.25 each
• 100-499 slides cost $.99 each
• 500-999 slides cost $.89 each
• more than 1000 slides cost $.79 each

iMemories scans at 600 dpi and charges $0.49 per photo, slide or negative

Home DVD offers a range of resolutions at different prices. Refer to the table below for details. They’ll scan both photos and slides.

For photo transfer to DVD, your price is $0.99 per photo for any size up to 12 x 15 inches in size. All slides and photos needing to have additional adjustments to bring out the best image possible will be brought into Adobe Photoshop for repair at no extra charge.  Below is a chart that will help you determine which resolution would best suit your needs:

The per slide/photo charges described above include the price to burn your digitized JPEG images of your 35mm slides or photos onto as many DVD-R discs as necssary. There is a minimum charge of $45.00 per job.

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In a previous Tech Tip I listed three companies that offer video tape to DVD services. In each case, it cost about $25 per tape. Do you have a box full of tapes that you want to convert? If so, it might be more economical for you to do the conversion yourself. A colleague, Tim Lusk, wrote the following about his experience using a Sony DVDirect to convert VHS tapes to DVD:

I used a Sony VRDMC6 DVDirect. It works great for transferring VHS tapes to DVD. Amazon currently sells this device for about $240. Here is a basic overview.

The DVDirect is a great investment for someone who has VHS tapes that are going to run more than $200 for conversions. It has multiple connection choices for camcorders (USB, FireWire 400), SD cards and Memory Sticks, as well as Composite Video. I was able to easily connect a Panasonic VCR to it and quickly have things up and running to transfer the video. The LCD display was a great addition, as you could quickly view what you’re recording without having to guess where to start and end.

The DVDirect allows each DVD to be formatted prior to buring and gives roughly 60 minutes of recording time per DVD. (So, this isn’t meant to copy VHS movies over to DVD) The DVDirect is also smart enough to know when the tape is finished with the recorded content–I transfered a few school presentations that were 5-9 minutes long.

Once a DVD is finished with the transfer and you press the eject button, the DVDirect will ask if you would like to finish. By doing this it goes through a few steps to ensure that the DVD will play in a DVD Player. (NOTE: If you choose not to finish the DVD or cancel this request, the DVD will fail and will be wasted.)

Even though I did only a few transfers, I know that I could have consolidated the school presentations onto 1 DVD by swapping out the VHS tapes after a transfer and continue to hit record, allowing up to 6 10-minute presentations to live on 1 DVD.

I have yet to transfer the DVDs onto my hard drive, but the DVDirect definitely did what I was looking for.

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Do you have duplicate or triplicate photos in your iPhoto Library? I recommend using Duplicate Annihilator to remove them.  The developer’s web site has a short movie that shows you how to use the program. It is reasonably priced at $8 for a single license or $13 if you want a Family Pack which lets you install it on as many as 5 Macs. While I trust Duplicate Annihilator, you should always make sure that you have a complete backup of your iPhoto Library before you use Duplicate Annihilator. Its default settings will not delete any photos from your iPhoto Library. Instead, it assigns the word duplicate as a comment for each duplicate photo that it identifies. By default, it uses an MD5 checksum to compare photos. This is a very effective and accurate way to compare digital fingerprints of two files to see if they are the same. Duplicate Annihilator can take several hours to scan a library with tens of thousands of photos, so be prepared for this. It displays some status indicators such as a running total of duplicates found, how many photos it has scanned, how many photos remain to be scanned and estimates how much longer the scan will take. Once the scan is complete, you can enter the word duplicate in iPhoto’s search field to locate all of the duplicates. Then you can go to the Edit menu and choose Select All to select the duplicate photos, then press the Delete key on your keyboard to put these photos into iPhotos’ Trash. Then you would need to empty iPhoto’s trash to completely delete the photos.

Important Note: Before I delete the duplicates, I like to do some random double-checking. After I’ve used iPhoto’s search feature to locate the duplicates, I write down the date of a handful of the photos. Then I clear out the search field so I can see all of my photos. After that I locate these selected photos by date to verify the photos are, indeed, duplicated. Finally, I repeat the search to locate all duplicates and delete them.

Check out Duplicate Annihilator. It can save you a lot of time when you need to eliminate duplicates in iPhoto on your Mac.

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Do you use GMail, Google Docs, Dropbox, Facebook, CrashPlan or iCloud? If so, then you use cloud computing. It’s not essential that you have an in-depth understanding of cloud computing, but here’s a brief overview.

Cloud Computing is often misused as a synonym for the Internet itself.  This is an incorrect use of the term. However, the term was inspired by the common use of a picture of a cloud to represent the complex infrastructure of the Internet in diagrams. Consequently, this incorrect use is somewhat understandable.

Broadly, cloud computing refers to computing resources that are offered as a service rather then a product. More specifically, these cloud computing services also need to meet certain characteristics including wide access, measured service, as well as pooling of storage space and computing horsepower.

Let me illustrate this with an example. In the past, if you wanted to use a word processor you would typically buy a product, like Microsoft Word, and install it on your Mac. In a cloud computing world you might, instead, sign up for a free (or paid) service, like Google Docs, and use its word processor. Google Docs is broadly available and behind the scenes Google’s system can bring more computers online to handle surges in customer use of  the service.

Cloud computing has become possible because it’s cost-effective for companies to build huge data centers where computing and software can be provided remotely at massive scale and rented out, like a utility service. Other factors include the lower prices of computers and smartphones and the growing pervasiveness of fast Internet connections.

For those interested in a more in-depth description and definition of cloud computer I direct you to this excellent Tidbits article on cloud computing. It covers the essential characteristics, service models, and deployment models for cloud computing in more detail. With this basic understanding of cloud computing, we’re ready to look at Apple’s iCloud service. We’ll address the question, What is iCloud? Look for this in a future Tech Tip.

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One of the greatest sources of confusion for computer users is the difference between a computer’s memory and its storage space. The confusion is not entirely the users’ fault. Overlapping terminology contributes, as does poor word choice. I’ll try to reduce confusion by differentiating the terms as well as talking about their overlap.

A classic example of this confusion is when a person receives an error message which states something about insufficient memory and the person thinks that they need to delete files from their computer to make more memory available. This is not the right action to take. Taking the error message at its face value, the proper response would be to close applications and files to free up memory. Alternatively, one could buy more memory for the computer. Let’s start to examine these terms.

Computers have two kinds of storage — temporary and permanent. A computer’s memory is used for temporary storage, while a computer’s hard drive is used for permanent storage. Whoever selected the term memory for temporary computer storage did the world a disservice since people tend to permanently store information in our memories. If I asked you to recall your first grade teacher’s name you could, most likely, tell me because that piece of information is stored in your memory, right? This is not how computers use their memory. A computer’s memory is also called RAM which is an acronym for Random Access Memory. A computer’s memory is where information is temporarily stored while it is being accessed or worked on. For example, if I’m updating my resume, then I double-click its icon to open it. This process of opening the file, copies it from its permanent home on the computer’s hard drive into the computer’s memory. Once in memory, I can edit it. If the computer loses electrical power while I am updating my resume, the most recent changes I’d made are lost. This is because the information in a computer’s memory is only kept there while electrical power is supplied. To avoid losing my most recent changes, I need to save the file. The act of saving a file copies it back to the computer’s hard drive. The contents of a hard drive remain intact even if the computer is turned off or it loses electrical power some other way.

A simple analogy I use to help remember these terms is that memory is like your desk’s work space and your hard drive is like a filling cabinet. Your filing cabinet is typically large enough to store hundreds of file folders and thousands of pieces of paper. Your desktop work space is not large enough for all of these file folders and papers.

Both temporary computer storage (memory or RAM) and permanent computer storage (hard drives) are measured in bytes. These days they are measured specifically in gigabytes (GB). If you’d like to learn more about bytes and gigabytes, please read this previous Tech Tip. This overlap in measurement systems contributes to some of the confusion.

In early 2012, a new Mac might be equipped with 4 GB of memory and a hard drive whose storage capacity is 500 GB. The primary reason for this great disparity is cost. Memory, RAM, is much more expensive then hard drive storage space. Here’s a rough comparison. One GB of RAM costs about $8, while 1 GB of hard drive storage space costs about 10 cents. In other words, RAM costs about 8000 as much as hard drive storage space. Wow.

This price differential explains why we can have much more hard drive storage space compared to memory (RAM) storage space, but why do we need both? Why are computers designed this way, constantly copying data back and forth, into memory and then back to the hard drive? The primary reason is that RAM is much faster than hard drive storage space. I don’t have exact numbers, but RAM is thousands, probably tens or hundreds of thousands, times faster than a hard drive. This is true for both mechanical hard drives, which have been used for decades, as well as solid-state drives (SSDs), which are becoming increasingly common. Apple uses SSDs in all iPhones, iPads and MacBook Airs. SSDs are an option in the iMac, at present.

The prevalence of confusion between (temporary) memory and (permanent) hard drive storage space is so great that the occurrences of misuse of these terms is greater than the proper use of these terms. For example, a discussion from January 2012 is about how much memory is enough in an iPhone. The original poster’s question should be how much storage space is sufficient in an iPhone. It’s tough to use these terms correctly when so many don’t. I feel like a fussbudget grammarian when I correct a person or clarify a person’s question. Now that you have a better understanding, help me out and use the terms properly!

Note: Since I’m a strong advocate for everybody backing up their computer’s hard drive, I should point out that hard drives should be thought of as only semi-permanent storage. This is because hard drives fail. Every hard drive will eventually fail. It’s only a matter of time. Drives can fail in a number of ways, so some fail sooner than others. Sometimes they give warning signs and other times they don’t. Consequently, it’s necessary to backup the contents of a hard drive. Ironically, we often backup one hard drive onto another hard drive! In previous Tech Tips, I’ve recommended backing up your data to at least two different drives and having one copy of your data stored in an off-site location.

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If you connect your Mac to your TV, you might need to deal with TV Overscan. Explaining what it is and why TVs do it is complicated, but recognizing it is easy. If  your TV screen cuts off the outer edges of your Mac’s image then you’re suffering from TV overscan. For example, you might not be able to see all of the menus at the top of your Mac’s screen or the lower half of the Dock icons might be cut off. If this is the case then you should figure out how to turn off the overscan feature on your TV.

If you want to understand what TV overscan is and why TVs do it, I’ll direct you to these articles from Wikipedia and Graham Hughes.

My focus is try give you some guidance on how to turn off this feature. I recommend using your TV’s manual since television manufacturers use different terms, and the exact process varies from model to model. For example, I have a Samsung LCD TV. I eventually found a Picture Option named Just Scan.It turns out that this turned off overscan. The only clue that I was a parenthetical phrase in the manual which read, “Use the function to see the full image without any cutoff when HDMI, Component or DTV signals are input.” The feature’s name clearly didn’t give me a clue about what it does. I’ve learned that Samsung also sometimes calls the feature Screen Fit. Pioneer apparently calls this feature Dot by Dot. If you don’t have your TV manual hand you might be able to download one online. I typically find manuals by doing a Google search terms like this, “download Samsung LN42A550 manual.” Often the results will take me to a download link from the manufacturer’s site or a third party site which compiles user manuals.

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Clients are often unsure how to properly use the term streaming or unsure about what this term means. In a slight misuse of terms, you could substitute broadcast for stream. For example, you might hear a person say, “Last night, I streamed Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino on Netflix”. You could think in your head, “Last night, I broadcast Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino on Netflix”. It isn’t 100% accurate to think this, but it could help you while you work on getting your head around the term streaming.

A proper definition of streaming is transmitting a continuous flow of audio and/or video data while earlier parts are being used. The term refers to the delivery method of the data rather than the data itself. Another common delivery method for audio and/or video data is downloading the data onto your computer so the data ends up being stored on your computer. Streamed data is not stored on your computer, at least not the entire data file all at one time. When audio or video is streamed to your computer, the data is being continuously sent to your computer and your computer displays earlier parts while subsequent parts are being received. Once the earlier parts have been displayed they are typically discarded. Downloading and streaming data are two contrasting ways of obtaining audio or video data.

Looking back at our movie example, if a person downloads a copy of Clint Eastwood’s movie onto her computer so she can watch it again and again, then she is not streaming the movie when she watches it. She does not need to be connected to the internet to watch the downloaded movie. However, if this same person goes to her Netflix account and clicks a button to begin watching the movie, then Netflix begins to stream the movie across the Internet to her computer. This transmission is more fleeting. At any one point in time, only a small portion of the movie is on her computer.

There is a variety of streaming media currently available. These days one can stream movie trailers, Internet television and radio, YouTube videos and much more. Let’s look at some examples. If one lives in Boston, but wants to listen to a Seattle radio station, like KUOW, then one could go to www.kuow.org and listen to an audio stream that is identical to the radio station’s FM broadcast.  Streams can be live or on-demand. KUOW’s Internet audio stream is a live stream. Similarly, when Apple Inc. introduces a new product they will often hold an event in an auditorium and invite the press. To increase the event’s exposure they would often send out a live video stream of Steve Jobs’ presentation. Subsequently, they also often allow their web site visitors to watch the video presentation streamed to them on-demand.

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GT Recording, HomeDVD and iMemories are three companies that clients have used to convert VHS tapes to DVD. All companies also convert audio tapes and film and will scan 35mm slides.

GT Recording is located on Aurora Avenue in Seattle. They offer quick and friendly service. Turn-around time is typically just a few days. You can drop off a variety of types of video tapes and they’ll convert them to DVD. They support VHS, SVHS, VHS-C, Super 8, Beta Max, Mini DV and a number of other types of video tapes. Alternatively, they can convert your video tape to a digital video (.dv) file that you can import into iMovie. If you choose this option then you’ll be able to edit the video using iMovie.

GT Recording can also handle 35mm slides, audio tapes and a variety of film formats including 8mm, Super 8 and 16mm. They’ll convert your slides to digital files such as jpegs or TIFFs. They’ll convert your audio tapes to CD or audio files, like mp3s which can be edited.

Cost varies based on the length of the recording. It cost $25 to convert an hour-long VHS tape to a .dv video.

HomeDVD is based in Canada but that didn’t pose any problems for my clients who have used their services. They charge $19.95 per hour of video or a minium of $19.95 per cassette. There is a minimum of $45 per transfer job. You can have your tape converted to a DVD movie or an editable digital video file, just like GT Recording offers. HomeDVD make it easy to get started. All you have to do is click the “Request a Shipping Kit” button on their web site. Fill-out the form and then they’ll send you a box with explicit instructions for mailing in your collection of tapes. They cover these shipping costs, but you pay to get the finished product and your original tapes sent back. You’ll receive an email confirming their receipt of your box as well as a summary of the work to be done. They’ll call you when your conversion is completed and will confirm the return shipping address. From beginning to end then entire project will take about 3 weeks.

iMemories is located in Arizona. They offer direct transfer services in which they’ll transfer your tape to a DVD. However, they also offer a fancier service which lets you review the digitized movies online and edit and re-arrange the  video clips to build your own custom DVD. Here’s how they explain their process:  http://www.imemories.com/howitworks/

With this fancier service they give you 30 days of free access to the online version of your converted video. During this time you can edit your video and share it with others. At the end of the thirty days you should order a DVD copy of your video. If you want to continue to be able to view and share your video (or slides) via your online account you can pay about $5/month.

iMemories has a very well-organized and user-friendly web site. You can ship your tapes to them using your own box. However, if you’re worried about sending your precious memories on tape through the mail, they’ll send you a high quality, crush-proof box and using a shipping service that’ll let you track your package so you can be reassured that it arrives safely.

iMemories prices are clearly listed here. You can convert a videotape to DVD for $19.99. Turn-around time varies based on the size of the project and time of the year but a project typically takes a few weeks. If you choose the option which gives you 30 days to edit your project then you’ll need to add more time to the overall duration.

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Update: I found a web page at MacShadows which lists default login credentials for many routers.

Here’s an easy way to determine the default password for many routers. You might need to know your router’s default password if you forget or don’t have a record of your router’s current password or if you end up resetting the router to its factory defaults. You can visit the Open Sez Me web site to locate your router and determine its default login information. I recently had to use this web site for a client whose router had been setup by a friend a few years ago. My client didn’t have any record of the password. I guessed that the friend hadn’t changed the password from its default. So, I used the Open Sez Me web site to locate the particular model of router and its default login information. Sure enough, it worked on my client’s router.

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[Update: Intuit released a Lion-compatible update of Quicken 2007. You can buy it here. Quicken 2007 can import data files from Quicken 2005-2007 as well as Quicken Essentials. They have a helpful FAQ page.]

Intuit recently announced that it plans to release an update to Quicken 2007 that will make it compatible with Mac OS X 10.7, aka Lion. This news is a big relief to a number of my clients who have intentionally held off on updating to Lion. Those clients use Quicken 2007 and migrating to another application is not a simple task. iBank and Quicken Essentials are two applications that users could consider as a replacement, but an update to Quicken 2007 simplifies the entire situation.

When Lion was released in July 2011, Tidbits had an article talking about finding a replacement for Quicken. One colleague switched to iBank but due to differences in how iBank handles investment accounts, he spent many hours cleaning up his Quicken data after it was imported into iBank and needed assistance repeatedly from iBank’s tech support staff. A few of my clients who used only the account registers and reporting features in Quicken were able to use Quicken Essentials. Quicken Essentials for Mac was released in 2010. It is not really an update for Quicken 2007 users. Instead, you could think of it as a successor to Quicken 2007, but one that lacks some of Quicken 2007′s features. As its name implies, it is a bare-bones financial management application. It is enough for some, but not for all, Quicken 2007 users. Thus, the announcement of this Quicken 2007 update is welcome news.

Intuit indicates that this Lion-compatible update will be available “soon.” Elsewhere, I’ve read that it’ll be early-spring 2012. Users will be able to update their Quicken 2005, 2006 and 2007 data files into this updated version of Quicken 2007. Please read Intuit’s note about this update as well as Tidbit’s article about this Quicken update if you’d like more information.

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Do you send out annual updates about your family around the holiday season? If so, MacWorld has written a good article about how to create a newsletter using Pages. Pages is Apple’s word processor which competes with Microsoft Word. It comes bundled with some Macs, so you may already have a copy. If not, you can buy it as part of iWork. Or, if you have Mac OS X 10.6.6 or higher on your Mac, you can use the App Store to buy it stand-alone for about $20. I used the MacWorld article as a guide to design our holiday newsletter this year. Here’s a brief overview.

Start by opening iPhoto and identifying which photos you want to include in your newsletter. I found it easiest to put my photos into an album so I would be able to find them again easily when using Pages.

Next, I opened Pages and selected the “Informal Newsletter” template. I clicked on the Media button in Pages’ toolbar. I clicked on Photos and selected the iPhoto Album containing my selected photos. I then dragged the images on top of the placeholder images that appear in the template.

I clicked on the text box on the first page, selected all of the text and deleted it. Then I typed in our content.

We wanted to add a second page so I went to the Insert menu, selected Pages and added a “Back Page” since it has pre-defined locations for text and photos. I linked the text boxes on page 1 and page 2 so the text would automatically flow between them. I replaced the placeholder photos, of course, as well.

Finally, I realized that I needed more room to fit all of the text so I had to adjust the template’s layout some. I removed one of the photos on page 1 and added a new text box then linked it to the other box on page 1. After that, I changed the font and font size a bit to get everything to fit. Finally, I was satisfied with the layout. Pages is a pretty elegant program to use for tasks like this and the templates are really professional, so it made this task easy to do.

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Recently, a client presented me with a new problem. I devised a solution and wanted to share what I learned. My client bought a new Panasonic 55 inch flat panel TV, model Viera TVP55VT30. After he’d set up the TV in his home, he looked for a headphone jack and was surprised that he couldn’t find one. This particular model of TV only had a digital audio output connector! It did not have an old-fashioned analog audio connector, aka a mini stereo jack, which would accept the plug on his headphones. After spending time talking to Panasonic’s support staff and doing some research via Google, he was confused by the lack of a simple and affordable solution. Numerous people had directed him to find a digital to analog converter and the appropriate cables to connect everything, but nobody could identify exactly what he needed and the items that he found would cost over $100. I did some research and pieced together a solution that cost about $27.

We bought a $23 digital to analog converter and two cables which each cost about $2. The digital analog converter converts either coaxial or optical (Toslink) digital stereo audio signals to analog stereo audio. My client’s Panasonic TV had an optical Toslink connector, so we bought a 6 foot Toslink cable. Some televisions may require a digital coax cable. I list both cables below. Finally, we used a 6″ adapter which connected to the digital to analog converter’s dual RCA (aka phono) connectors and had a stereo mini jack on the other head which would accept his headphone’s plug.

Digital to Analog converter for $23 from Monoprice.com. See image below. On the Input side it has a Toslink digital audio connector with a hinged door. This connector is square in shape with two beveled corners. The other connector is used if you’re using the digital coax cable with a round RCA connector. The Output side has two RCA audio jacks and a plug for the AC power cord.

Optical Toslink cable for $1.94 from Monoprice.com. See image of connector below. The tip in this connector is 3.5 mm (1/16″) which is the same diameter as a stereo mini jack. The tip is typically surrounded by housing that is square in shape, but has two beveled corners. This housing pushes open the hinged “door” that commonly covers digital audio connectors on TV or other electronic equipment. I should also mention that there is a Toslink mini connector. It’s tip is even skinnier and typically not enclosed by any sort of housing. Monoprice sells a Toslink to Toslink mini adapter. I’ve never seen a television set that takes a Toslink mini connector.

Digital Coax cable for $1.28 from Monoprice.com. See image below. It has a round tip in the middle that extends slightly beyond its round housing.

Stereo Female to Dual RCA Male cable for $1.79 from Geeks.com which looks like the 6-inch cable below.

I was very surprised that a TV manufacturer wouldn’t include an inexpensive analog audio jack for headphones. If you find yourself in this pickle some day, please know that there is an affordable solution.

Here are some additional pictures to help identify the type of connector on your TV, which should help you determine the cable you need. The left-hand image shows the two common digital audio connectors that you’d find on the back of a TV, a CD player or other audio-video equipment. The round digital coax RCA connector is on the left. The digital Toslink connector is on the right. Its outer shape is square and has two beveled corners. The round hole in the center often has a red laser beam light (fiber optic signal) inside, though there is often a hinged door which covers this central hole. This Toslink connector does not have a hinged door. Instead, if this connector is not used the stopper plug (object at bottom right of image) is inserted to block the laser beam. The image on the right shows a Toslink connector on the left with its hinged door closed. On the right is the digital coax RCA connector.

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Would you like to learn to use iMovie better? Here’s a list of some online information that can help you. iMovie has grown and evolved since it was introduced in 1999. In 2007, Apple gave iMovie’s interface and workflow a complete overhaul with the introduction of iMovie ’08 (aka version 7). This same general interface is still present in the current version, iMovie ’11. The interface overhaul throws experienced iMovie users for a loop and confuses many novice users. Consequently, I frequently provide iMovie training to help users get oriented. There are some very good online resources to help you get started learning iMovie as well.

Apple offers some free how-to videos for iMovie. Apple also has a list of iMovie keyboard shortcuts which can really speed up your work in iMovie.

Ken Stone, a professional photographer who uses Apple’s high-end video editing application Final Cut Pro, has written a detailed overview of iMovie ’09. While he approaches some things from his own perspective and personal needs, I found the article very informative.

Lynda.com is an online computer training business which has been around since the late 1990′s. It has an extensive collection of video tutorials. For a relatively low monthly subscription fee you have access to the entire library including their iMovie training videos.

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Zamzar, an online file conversion service, is an easy way to save a copy of a YouTube video on your Mac. To do this you enter the YouTube video’s address at Zamzar’s web site and it will convert the YouTube video into a file type which you choose, then send you an email containing a link to download the  converted file.

Zamzar is actually a very versatile file conversion service. I’ve used it to convert Microsoft Visio drawings, Microsoft Works files and Microsoft Publisher files. To read Zamzar’s huge list of supported file types visit this web page.  Zamzar offers several levels of service. Their free accounts are ad-supported. Free accounts are limited to processing upto 20 files per day which add up to not more than 500 MB. Paid accounts let you overcome these limitations as well as offering additional features.

Update: Here’s another possible option. Jaksta is a commercial application which claims to let you save a copy of any audio or video file that you stream in your web browser.

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Have you ended up with duplicate songs in iTunes that you want to remove? iTunes has a built-in “Display Duplicate” feature which can be helpful, but I prefer to use the slightly hidden “Display Exact Duplicates” feature instead. How’s are instructions on its use:

• Open iTunes.
• Hold down the Option key, then click on the File menu and select “Display Exact Duplicates”. (If you don’t hold down the option key you’ll instead see “Display Duplicates.”)
• iTunes will do a search and do its best to display pairs of songs which are exact duplicates of each other. This feature doesn’t work perfectly but it’s pretty good.
• Then to actually get rid of the duplicates you can hold down the Command key (aka Apple key) and click on each of the songs that you want to delete.
• Finally, press the Delete key.
• You’ll be asked if you really want to remove the song. Click the Remove button.
• Finally, you’ll be asked if your want to move the song file to Trash or keep it in the iTunes Media folder. You could do either but to really get rid of the file you should put it in the Trash.

Note: There is a reason why I don’t like to use  iTunes’ built-in “Display Duplicates” feature. In a nutshell, it doesn’t seem to be very effective. I think it only compares the song’s Name and Artist. There are times when one might want two copies of the same song by the same artist. For example, one might have two versions of the same song — one from the original album release and a second version from a live concert album or a greatest hits album.

If you find that iTunes’ “Display Exact Duplicates” is not adequate for your needs then I’ll direct you to two third-party products. Acertant’s Tunes Ranger and SuperSync. I’ve used Tunes Ranger to merge multiple iTunes Libraries while retaining playlists. I haven’t used SuperSync. Both products indicate that they’ll help to identify and remove duplicates.

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Are you having difficulty getting Verizon Wireless UMW190 Aircard working on your Mac running OS X 10.6? If so, make sure you’re using the proper version of VZAccess Manager. I know that the UMW190 works with version 7.0.5.

Verizon Wireless’ web page for Support Devices & Platforms lists the incorrect version of VZAccess Manager. It indicates that if your Mac is running OS X 10.6 then you should use VZAccess Manager version 7.2.1 (2595a). I spent a long time banging my head against the wall to find out that this is incorrect.. You can install version 7.2.1 and your UMW190 will be able to establish a connection to Verizon Wireless. It even gets an IP number assigned, but it can’t ping its WAN IP number, it can’t ping typically available public IP numbers and it doesn’t respond to pings. I spoke to Verizon Wireless tech support on a handful of occasions and we repeatedly reviewed which version of VZAccess Manager I had installed. I indicated version 7.2.1 and none of them indicated that this was wrong. So, either they refer to the same web page that I found or their internal documentation lists the wrong version also.

The clue that lead me to try the “wrong” version was the ReadMe file for the 7.2.1 Installer. I read through the list of supported Aircard devices and the UWM190 wasn’t listed. I then revisited Verizon Wireless’ Supported Devices & Platforms page and saw that the UMW175 and UMW 150 cards use VZAccess Manager 7.0.5.  I guessed that the UMW190 was probably a pretty similar device, so I downloaded version 7.0.5 and read its ReadMe file. Sure enough the UMW190 was listed! I installed this version, restarted my Mac, established a connection. Voila. That was it. Everything worked. I was able to view web pages and send and receive email.

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How big is a kilobyte? How big is a gigabyte? Relative to each other, how big are any two files? Here’s some information which can help you get your head around file sizes and comparing them.

File size is commonly measured in bytes. In a plain text file, typically each byte is equal to one letter. One page of text can hold a few thousand letters, so a plain text file that has one page of text might be about 4,000 bytes in size. Since 1,000 bytes equals 1 kilobyte, we could express that as 4 kilobytes (KB).

Plain text files can only contain letters, numbers and punctuation marks. In other words, they can’t contain any formatting. Formatting is a general term that includes such things as bold text, colored text or fonts (typefaces). The information needed to store formatting details in a file takes up space and thus increases a file’s size. If we took that one-page plain text file and converted it into a Microsoft Word document, underlined some text, converted some of the text to the Palatino font and other text to Times New Roman, this formatted one-page document might grow to be around 100 KB in size.

If you then placed a jpeg image into that one-page Word file, it’s size would increase further. The size of jpeg images can vary widely from tens of kilobytes to hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands. Let’s imagine that we insert a jpeg that is about 2 inches x 3 inches in size and is a low resolution. Such a jpeg might be 100 KB in size. Now our Word file could be about 200 KB in size.

At this point, you hopefully remember that 1 letter is typically 1 byte in size and have a sense for how file size grows. You likely have a rough idea of how large a word processing file can be. Let’s move on.

In addition to kilo- there are other metric prefixes which you’ll commonly see in front of byte. Here’s a list of some of these prefixes and their size relationship to each other:

8 bits = 1 Byte = 1 letter

Bytes
1 kilobyte = 1000 bytes
1 megabyte  = 1000 kilobytes (KB)
1 gigabyte = 1000 megabytes (MB)
1 terabyte  = 1000 gigabytes (GB)
1 petabyte = 1000 terabytes (TB)
1 exabyte (EB) = 1000 petabytes (PB)

While file sizes can vary widely, here are some gross generalizations to further help get your head around the sizes of different types of files.

1 page of text might be around 50 KB
1 an email message of two paragraphs might be 10 KB
1 jpeg photo could be 500 KB
60 minutes of spoken words could be 25 MB = 25,000 KB
a 10 minute long mp3 song could be  20 MB = 20,000 KB
1,000 minutes of an audiobook could be = 1.4 GB = 1,400 MB = 1,400,000 KB
2 hour long movie could be = 5 GB = 5,000 MB = 5,000,000 KB

These days a computer’s hard drive is typically measured in terms of gigabytes or possibly even terabytes. So how many Word files, jpeg photos, mp3 songs and movies could be stored on your hard drive?

If your hard drive’s storage capacity is 100 GB then you could have room for the following. Let’s assume that Mac OS X requires about 5 GB of storage space and that your applications (Word, Safari, iPhoto, etc) take another 20 GB then that leaves us with 75 GB to store our own files. Again, let me use some gross estimates and generalizations. This will let you see some rough comparisons and that photos and music files take up a lot more space than individual Word files or a typical email message.

5,000 photos could use 10 GB
5,000 mp3 songs could use 30 GB
5,000 email messages with their attachments could use 100 MB  or .1 GB
5,000 Word, Excel and PDF documents could use 600 MB or .6 GB

Added together, these photos, songs, email messages and other files are about 42 GB. Since we have 75 GB of available space on our 100 GB hard drive we know that we’d still have a healthy amount of free space even with this many items. Roughly 30 GB of space would still be free. To fill up this much space you might need another 15,000 photos or another 5,000 songs or another million or so email messages.

With this information you should have a general sense of how large files of different types should be and how their sizes compare. If somebody told you that you need to clean up your hard drive to free up storage space, you’d know that you should focus on files that take up 100 megabytes or gigabytes of space. You’d know not to worry about files which take up kilobytes of space since it would take thousands and thousands of these smaller files to equal the space of a larger file. Thus, when you need to clean up, you typically shouldn’t waste your time deleting old emails. Instead, review your pictures, music and video files to see if you can get rid of some of those.

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Here are instructions on how to reindex your Quicken Data File.

• Open your Quicken data file.
• Open the Accounts window and then simultaneously press the Command, Option and B keys on the keyboard.
• The reindexing will begin. Once it has finished, then go to the File menu and select Save A Copy. Give your file a new name and save it to your desired folder.

You can read a more detailed explanation of these reindexing instructions in this troubleshooting article on Intuit’s web site. The article does also suggest exporting the data in QIF format and then re-importing the data into a new file if the reindexing fails or does not solve your problem.

I’ve supported many people who use Quicken, and this is the first time that I’ve had to reindex a Quicken data file. I was not even aware that Quicken included this feature. I’m pleased about this since it’s common to have to do maintenance on large database files from time to time. I wonder why Intuit has hidden this feature, but I’m glad I know how to do it now. I discovered this procedure while working with a client recently.

This client had a damaged Quicken data file that was fixed after we reindexed it. My client was a long-time Quicken user and this data file had been in use for many years. He used it to track his checking, savings and investment accounts. I provide all of this detail to indicate that this file had seen a lot of activity over many years. Apparently, out of the blue it started to give him problems. Specifically, the symptom was that he would add a transaction to one of his accounts, close and then re-open the data file and the balance for that account would have changed radically.

Intuit’s web site indicates that there are a host of symptoms which can be signs that you need to reindex your Quicken file, including these:

• Categories/classes are missing from your Categories & Transfers list.
• You are unable to assign a Category to an item in a split transaction.
• You are unable to open a backup of your data file.
• Your reconciliation is off in a previously reconciled statement and you have not made changes to previously reconciled transactions.
• Duplication or “Unknown” items are listed in the Payee column of the QuickFill Transactions list.
• You receive errors when performing a Save a Copy.

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What is the difference between the words download and upload?

I’m asked these questions frequently. I have 3 answers that I offer.

1. It doesn’t matter if you use them properly. Go ahead and use the words.  People will understand what you’re trying to communicate even if you pick the incorrect word for a given situation.

2. Rather than worrying about which word is correct, just avoid the words and use alternatives. Using either copy or move will work in most situations. For example, rather then saying “There’s a problem downloading photos from my digital camera to my Mac.” you could say “There’s a problem moving photos from my digital camera to my Mac.”

3. Finally, here’s a direct answer to the question. Use download when you’re talking about moving files (such as song files, pictures or Word docments) onto your local computer. Use upload when you’re talking about moving data off of your local computer. For example:

“Yesterday, I downloaded pictures from my digital camera onto my Mac. Then I uploaded them to my Flickr account so my friends would be able to view them.”

I should probably add a bit more clarifying detail. Historically, uploading referred to moving files from your local computer to some remote, typically larger, shared computer. Downloading referred to moving files from a shared, remote computer to your local, peripheral computer. So, one typically uploads from a smaller device to a larger device. Thus, one uploads files from a personal computer to a fancy server computer like the ones that comprise Flickr.  So, I think one could also say that one uploads files from a camera to a computer even though in my example above, I used the word download to talk about moving files from the camera to the Mac. It’s easy to see why people get confused about how to use these words, so why not just avoid these words and use move or copy!

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Have you ever wanted to print just part of a web page or some other document? If so, you should consider installing the free Print Selection Service.

Using Print Selection is easy. One just needs to select text in any document such as a web page, a word processing document or a PDF file. Then go to the application menu, select Services and select Print Selection. A preview window will appear. Simply click the Print button. The only tricky thing is being able to find the application menu. The application menu is the menu named after the application you are using. For example, if you’re using Safari, then its application menu is the menu named Safari. If you’re using Pages, then the application menu is named Pages.

Print Selection requires Mac OS X 10.4 or newer. It also requires that the Mac application supports the use of Services. While most applications do support Services, not all developers take the time to build this into their product. The most notable example of this is Microsoft. Neither Office 2004 nor Office 2008 applications support Services.

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For years, SanDisk’s Cruzer USB flash drives have been partitioned into two parts. One part is named U3 and contains some Windows-only software that can be used to protect files stored on the other partition. This software is useless to Mac users and the U3 partition just becomes an annoyance. So, many people have wondered how they can delete this U3 partition. Until recently one needed to download and use a Windows-only application made by Cruzer. Finally, in Jan 2010, Cruzer released a Mac application which can be used to get rid of the U3 partition.

You can download the application here.

Once it’s downloaded you can open it and start its installation. Be aware that installation will require you to restart your Mac.

After the restart you’ll find several applications in a folder named “SanDisk Cruzer” in your /Applications/Utilities folder.

Open up the application named “LaunchPad Removal Utility for Mac” and follow the on-screen instructions. I found one part of the instructions confusing. It asks if you want to backup the data. I thought it was referring to the data on the other partition, but that is apparently not the case. I figured out that it was only referring to the data on the U3 partition, not the data on the main partition where you put your files. So, I told the application to go ahead and remove the partition without backing up data. I waited 30 seconds and it finished the process successfully and all of my data on the main partition was still intact.

Even though I told you that the application won’t erase your data on the USB flash drive I still recommend that you backup the data on the USB flash drive just in case something goes wrong. I don’t want you to lose any of your data.

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