edition

Apr 27 2009

Save your Mac for free!

This weeks edition of Freeloader Friday features a couple utilities that could save your Mac and speed it up.

BootCD

In times of woe (sad Macs, lost System Folders), there was always a way out: the startup disk. Nowadays, with Mac OS X it isn’t so simple to startup from a CD. You can boot from an install disk, but the good old days of a fully operational system on a disk are gone. Or are they?

BootCD is a utility that creates a fully bootable system disk. It also alows you to include self-contained applications on the disk as well. Though still in it’s 0.5 version, this utility is fully functional and could save you in a pinch.

Jaguar Cache Cleaner

This utility targets the left-over cache files that can accumulate on your disk. Keeping your caches clean can save disk space and increase stability in your applications.

So whether it’s through everyday maintenance or a bail out in a time of need, todays freebees could be just what your Mac needs.

See you next week with more indispensable freeware,

Brian

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

Web Serving Made Easy Part 1

In the next month (or two) I’ll cover the scope of web serving on MacOS X
Jaguar. You don’t need the server edition, and you don’t need to buy anything
else. Today is going to be the basics, next week we’ll learn how to do port
forwarding and get a domain name.

The first part of web serving is turning Apache on. Apache is the world’s
most popular web server, and it happens to come built into OS X! To turn it
on just head over to System Preferences and choose Sharing. Click the checkbox
next to "Personal Web Sharing". That’s it…. You’ve just started up your own
web server.

Fire up your web browser and type ‘localhost’ into the link bar. This is a
de facto address for your compute, so in other words your browser is going
to be asking a web server on your computer for its index. You should be greeted
with a simple page that comes with Jaguar. If not, make sure you’ve turned
on "Personal Web Sharing".

In your home folder there is a folder called "Sites". Anything you
place in this folder can be accessed via the web by messing with the url: localhost/~username will fetch
the files located in the site folder of the user dubbed "username". Try it
out with your username. You should see another simple web page that’s built
into the system.

Here’s where it gets interesting. If you are not behind a router, and have
broadband you’ll be able to share files or set up a web site for all to see.
If you are behind a router, you’ll have to wait until next week. If you don’t
know if you’re behind a router, just continue and see what happens… It can’t
hurt.

Your friend can’t use localhost because
that will make his browser look on his computer. You have to tell it to look
on yours. Look up your IP address by going to System Preferences and choosing
Network. Highlight and copy the IP address and then make it into a link like
this:

http://youripadress

If a friend can type that into her browser and get the same page you saw,
then you’ve successfully completed part one. Stay tuned in the coming weeks,
I’ll be showing how to do everything from IP forwarding to installing MySQL.

By admin • Articles, Power User Monday Tip of the Week • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

Make a Boot-able OSX CD (with Finder) for Free

Yes, my friends, it’s time for another quick, but useful edition of “Quick, but Useful Power User Monday”. Today, we’ll highlight BootCD, by CharlesSoft.



Do you have an application that can’t run, or can’t repair if launched from the start-up drive (TechTool Deluxe, for example, cannot check or repair the volume structures when run from the start-up drive). If you don’t have an external HD to install OSX on, you probably think that you’re out of options, right? Not if you have a CD burner and BootCD.



Yes, BootCD will create a boot-able OSX CD with Finder installed (a first for OSX boot-able CDs). Launching the application does just that by creating a disk image, you will then be asked to add other applications (which will appear in the Dock when booted from the CD). Finally, burn the disk using Disk Copy (DO NOT USE TOAST).



You now have a fully enabled emergency disk, congrats. Please note that the only real downfall to the CD is that it will take at least 5 minutes to boot. But, as they say, “it’s all good.”



This “Quick, but Useful Power User Monday” has been brought to you by, James “MacManX” Huff.

By admin • Articles, Power User Monday Tip of the Week • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 »