"Why Can't I Share my iTunes Library between my Mac or iMac and My iPad, iPod, iPhone, or MacBook?"

Check the setup of your Mac or iMac's firewall in the Security preferences panel. If the firewall is on, and if you've checked "Block all incoming connections" under Advanced options, then iTunes music sharing won't work.

But if you're still running Microsoft Office 2004, don't turn off that setting before reading this post.

"Why Is My Epson Expression Scanner So Glitchy?"

I recently bought an Epson Expression 10000XL scanner to replace a dying Microtek. With the Epson's great reputation, I was expecting high-quality software -- hopefully better than the capable but finicky and fragile software that Microtek provided. I'm afraid I was disappointed.

For those of you with Epson scanners, especially on newer Macs with Snow Leopard, here are some of the problems and disappointments I encountered, plus my own solutions for them.

-- Epson Scan turned out to be less powerful than the Microtek software, and it has not been kept properly up to date. It hasn't been revised for Intel Macs -- it still needs Apple's Rosetta translator to run -- and it doesn't even know enough to keep its opening windows clear of the OS X Dock! But the real deal breaker was that color management is broken under Snow Leopard, as lamely acknowledged by Epson's own Web site, with no guarantee of a fix. The result is that what you see on screen is very different from what you get in the scan, even to a less experienced eye like mine.

The solution to this is to use third-party scanning software like VueScan or SilverFast AI. Epson actually includes SilverFast with the Photo model of the 10000XL, but I bought the Graphic Arts model for several hundred dollars less -- then wound up spending almost all the money I saved to buy Silverfast separately. I don't understand why Epson sells any model of this professional scanner without it.

SilverFast is even more powerful than Microtek's scanning software, with some wonderful features like automatic screen detection for descreening. But be warned that the program is extremely unMaclike, and its arcane interface will be a challenge to master. Also, none of the program has been optimized to use multiple cores for fast processing.

-- FireWire connections don't work properly -- at least not with a FireWire 800 to 400 adapter like mine. Though Epson Scan seemed to work OK with this connection, SilverFast could never even find the scanner unless I had just restarted the Mac -- and often while the program was searching, it just froze. And when I did get it started, after working awhile, I would sometimes get errors from the scanner that forced me to restart again.

On top of that, the FireWire connection seemed to interfere with Mac OS X itself. If the scanner was on when I restarted, startup was often slow, and sometimes after restart the system wouldn't even respond to the mouse. So, I had to follow the strict order of restarting the Mac, then turning on the scanner and waiting for it to initialize, then turning on SilverFast.

The solution, it turned out, was to switch to a USB connection. I had no problems after that. And contrary to my fears, I found that USB didn't noticeably slow things down. (Just make sure that every cable, hub, and port is at least USB 2.0, also called "Hi-Speed.")

-- There may be a problem with the Epson installer. Originally, after installing the Epson scanning software, I could not restart the Mac at all with the scanner on. After the twirling circle ran an extremely long time, I got a black screen, and that's all. I figured I simply would never be able to have the scanner on during restart.

During routine maintenance of my Mac, though, TinkerTool System informed me of a problem with the permissions for kernel extensions -- permissions that it said DiskUtility does not repair -- and then fixed it for me. After that, the Mac would restart with the scanner on -- though, as I said, I had to switch the scanner connection to USB to get rid of my startup problems entirely.

It's possible that the Epson installer did not cause this problem, but that the driver was simply interacting with a previously unnoticed glitch in my system. In any case, I suggest using TinkerTool System to check your Mac. (You can use a downloaded copy in Evaluation Mode, if you're not ready to buy.) Click on "System Issues," and then on "Extensions Cache."

If you haven't installed Epson's software already, and you have Snow Leopard, then let me point out that you don't really need to install it at all -- and in fact, that's my recommendation. Epson Scan is probably not much better than the new scanning features in Preview and Image Capture. And the Mac version of ABBYY FineReader supplied by Epson -- at least with the 10000XL -- is much older than the one ABBYY sells now at a reasonable price.

As for the scanner driver, it's already in Snow Leopard. Just hook up the scanner -- by USB, remember -- and turn it on. OS X will automatically recognize the scanner and install the driver, as you can verify in the Print & Fax panel of System Preferences. Then run Software Update to automatically update it.

Epson has really fallen down on the job in the scanning software it provides for the Mac. But if you can tame your Epson scanner, I think you'll be happy with it -- as I am now.

"Why Won't Safari Play Some MP3s on My Web Site?"

While adding new MP3 audio files to my Web site recently, I discovered that Safari was refusing to play one of the MP3s already there. The frustrating part was that I could see no difference between this MP3 and any of the others that Safari did play.

Searching the Web, I found that this problem was neither uncommon nor particularly new. Safari under Snow Leopard has been having a lot of weird problems playing MP3s. And despite a fair amount of discussion, no one seems to have a solution.

So here's mine: Forget MP3. Though it's a common element of HTML5 audio, and though Apple is nominally supporting it, it's really a legacy format. Support may well dwindle further, going forward. My advice is to use MP4 instead.

But isn't MP4 a video format? As it turns out, not really. It's a file format that can contain video, audio, stills, and more. You can have audio with your video, or you can have audio without video.

Sound familiar? Yes, it's a direct descendant of Apple's QuickTime Movie. You can use it for just about anything, and in this incarnation, it has the wide support that the QuickTime Movie lacked. In fact, in my testing, MP4 was handled by various browsers in just the same ways they handled MP3. So, in many cases, you can meet all your media needs with this one format.

Of course, to switch from MP3 to MP4, it's best to go back to your original, uncompressed audio -- generally in AIFF format, or WAVE, if you're on Windows -- and convert to MP4 from there. You can instead convert directly from MP3, but you will lose quality.

Many audio or media programs can convert audio to MP4, including QuickTime 7 Pro. Generally, you can set a lower bitrate for MP4, about 75% of what you'd use for MP3. To differentiate MP4 audio from MP4 video, you can use the .m4a extension -- but the standard .mp4 will work just as well, maybe better. This does not affect the format.

So, what's the trouble with Safari and MP3s? It's just Apple telling you it's time to move on!

"How Can I Still Create PostScript Files with Acrobat's Adobe PDF from InDesign in Snow Leopard?"

With Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard," Apple introduced an entirely new architecture for print drivers. The new system is designed to provide greater reliability and timeliness in printer support by taking much of it out of the hands of printer manufacturers that, frankly, have never been great at supporting the Mac platform.

With such a major change, though, there were bound to be casualties, and one was Acrobat's Adobe PDF print driver. It simply stopped working. In response, later versions of Acrobat Pro 9 have entirely removed the driver and its associated PostScript Printer Description (PPD) file from Snow Leopard systems. In its place, Acrobat leaves a new "Save as Adobe PDF" item on the PDF menu of the OS X print dialog. And of course, we can still export direct to PDF from within Adobe CS applications like InDesign and Illustrator.

That's all well and good for general use, but it doesn't satisfy every case. For instance, Lightning Source, the POD printer I use for my books, wants my book cover files to be run through Acrobat Distiller, which means first creating PostScript files from InDesign. But without the PPD for Adobe PDF, I have no way to create PostScript for oversize pages like book covers. It should work to choose "Device Independent" instead, but it doesn't. (I've written more about this specific problem on my Publishing Blog.) Users of InDesign's Print Booklet feature have likewise found themselves up a creek.

Fortunately, there are ways to recover Adobe PDF's PPD and make it permanently available to CS apps. Here's the procedure for CS4.

1. Find a copy of ADPDF9.PPD, the PPD file that the latest Acrobat Pro 9 versions remove. You might find it on a backup of your computer at Library > Printers > PPDs > Contents > Resources > en.lproj. (That's starting from the root of your system, not from your user directory.) You can also get it from the Acrobat Pro 9 app itself if you choose "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu and then go to Contents > MacOS > SelfHealFiles > AdobePDFPrinter > PPDs > Contents > Resources > en.lproj. You might also locate a copy for download from the Web.

2. Place this file in Library > Printers > PPDs > Contents > Resources. (Again, that's starting from the root of your system.) Do NOT place it in the folder en.lproj. Though that will work too, it will move the file farther down on menus, making it harder to find.

3. Rename the file so that Acrobat won't be able to find and remove it again. I suggest something like "Adobe PDF 9.ppd". (That, again, will keep the file high on menus.)

For CS4, that's all you have to do. Now, when you go to print from InDesign and choose "PostScript File" as your printer, you'll be able to choose "Adobe PDF 9.0" from the PPD menu. (You'll see a menu item by that name regardless of what you named the PPD file.)

With CS5, things are a little trickier. InDesign's menu does not show anything from the Mac OS PPD folder unless it's a PPD in a current print queue.

One possible solution for InDesign is to add the PPD file directly to the app's support files. Go to Applications > Adobe InDesign CS5 > Presets. Create a new folder named "PPDs" (case sensitive). Then place your PPD file in this folder. You don't even have to rename it.

The trouble with this method is that you'll have to repeat it if you ever reinstall the program or install a major upgrade. And by then, of course, who knows if you'll be able to find these instructions. So, a better method is to set up the PPD file in a new print queue -- a dummy print queue -- where InDesign can find it. Here's how.

1. Start by following the same procedure as for CS4, locating, installing, and renaming the PPD file.

2. Go to the Print & Fax pane in System Preferences and click on the plus sign to add a printer.

3. Select ANY connected printer from the dialog. Then for "Name," change what's shown to "Adobe PDF" or whatever else you like. From the "Print Using" menu, select "Other," and then choose the PPD file you installed. When you click "Add," you'll get a warning about installing a queue for a printer that already has one. Take a deep breath and click "Continue."

You will now have a print queue with the desired PPD associated with it, in addition to your original queue for that printer. You will not be able to create PDF files with this new queue, but you will be able to access the PPD from InDesign CS5. And that will enable you to create PDFs with pages of any size.

"How Do I Make My HP LaserJet 2100 (or 2100M or 2100TN) Work with Snow Leopard?"

After all my hassle of getting my old HP LaserJet 2100 to work with Leopard -- including installing a JetDirect card for Ethernet with AppleTalk -- Apple removed AppleTalk from Snow Leopard. So, I was right back where I started.

Well, not quite. At least I had the JetDirect card. With just a little more trouble, I should have been able to connect through TCP/IP, the card's other protocol. Only, that wasn't working either, despite my following helpful instructions from around the Web.

I finally found someone who had successfully navigated the whole maze for a LaserJet 2100. You can read Maria Langer's original post here. But I'll try to simplify it for you.

Basically what we're going to do is change the Mac's IP address so it will see itself and the printer as being on the same network. A better solution would probably be to change the IP address of the printer, but I'm told that requires the HP utility for either Windows or OS 9, which not everyone has. This may be a second-best solution, but it works fine -- as long as you are not using the Ethernet service for anything but connecting to your printer. (For all other networking, I use Airport, not Ethernet.)

If you are using Ethernet to also connect to other computers or the Internet, you cannot use this solution! Go find something that instead tells you how to change your printer's IP address. If you do what I tell you, you'll be disconnected!

[Update: This shows how little I know about Ethernet. According to a commenter on this post, he simply went to Network in System Prefs and set up a second Ethernet service to handle the printer separately. With that, my instructions caused no problem with his Internet connection.]

OK, here are the steps.

1. Make sure that your Mac and your printer are turned on. You also need to see an Ethernet service listed in your Network preferences panel. If there isn't one, click on the plus sign and add one.

2. You need to know the IP address of your printer. If you haven't messed with your network setup, then it's probably the default of 192.0.0.192. To find out for sure, you can print out a configuration page by pressing the printer's two buttons at the same time -- the Go button and the Job Cancel button. The address will appear on the second page that prints. Note: you can't do this right after turning on your computer and/or printer, but only after a minute or two. If you try too soon, you'll instead see 0.0.0.0.

If you have messed with your network setup and for some reason need to return to the printer's default settings, you can do a "cold reset." For the 2100, turn off the printer, then turn it back on while holding down the Job Cancel button. Keep it pressed till the printer lights come on, then release it at once. (If you hold it down another 20 seconds, you'll lose your printer's internal statistics.) Then wait a minute or two, if you want to check the result by getting a configuration page.

3. In your Network prefs, set the Configure menu to "Using DHCP with manual address." Then in the IP address slot, enter the same IP address as your printer, except lower the last number by one. So, if your printer is at 192.0.0.192, the address you'd enter here would be 192.0.0.191. Do not enter the exact same address as your printer's! (There are no doubt other values that will work here, but I'm just describing what Maria did and what worked for me too.)

4. Go to the Print & Fax preferences pane, and click on the plus sign to add a printer. At the top of the dialog box, click on "IP." As the protocol, choose "HP JetDirect - Socket." Enter the IP address for your printer. Give the printer a descriptive name.

At this point, your Mac should have already automatically filled in "Print Using" with "HP LaserJet 2100 series," which it got by connecting with your printer. If you instead get "Generic PostScript Printer," this means your Mac is not connecting, and you won't be able to print, regardless of whether you finish adding the printer or not. So, you'll need to try something else.

5. If everything's OK, just click "Add," and your Mac will do the rest. Oh, and don't forget to right-click on the printer in the list if you need to specify it as the default.

If you ever need to return to the Mac's default Ethernet setup, change the service's Configure menu to "Using DHCP" without "manual address." Or just delete the service and add a new one.

Now, if I can just get my old scanner and DVD burner to work.

"How Can I Stop Leopard From Continually Asking Me to Accept Incoming Connections for Microsoft Office Apps -- Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Entourage?"

 

Leopard has a different primary firewall than was offered in earlier versions of OS X. On the Firewall tab of the Security prefs pane, you get three choices for how it works:

-- Accept all incoming connections
-- Allow only essential services
-- Set access for specific services and applications

If you choose the third option, Leopard asks your permission whenever any network connection is attempted to a new app on your computer. Microsoft Office apps rely on such connections for various purposes. For instance, through Microsoft AutoUpdate, they check for updates. Through Microsoft Database Daemon, they check your local network for other open copies of any Office app that might violate your license agreement. And of course, Entourage collects email and performs a number of other functions over your network.

The problem is that Office apps are never treated by Leopard as apps you've already approved. Instead, you're asked again and again about these connections. No doubt, it's Microsoft's subtle form of sabotage to import Windows Vista's annoyingly frequent permissions requests into the Mac environment.

Just kidding. It more likely has to do with an older software design described by Apple's support document "Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: About the Application Firewall":

"Some applications check their own integrity when they are run without using code signing. If the Application Firewall recognizes such an application it will not sign it, but then it will re-present the dialog every time the application is run. This may be avoided by upgrading to a version of the application which is signed by its developer."

I imagine this will clear up with the next version of Office. Meanwhile, the best solution for the non-geek in most cases seems to be to choose one of the other firewall modes.

If you choose "Allow only essential services," Leopard itself will decide what's allowed to come in (which apparently does not include checking for other open Office apps). This is the choice I've made for now. The only problem would be if you've turned on one of the services on the Sharing prefs pane -- file sharing, printer sharing, Internet sharing, or such. Those won't work anymore.

The other choice, "Accept all incoming connections," blocks nothing. That's another way to make sure you're never asked. Of course, if your computer is connected directly to the Internet, this would not a wise choice. But if it's connected through a router with its own firewall -- for instance, an Airport Extreme base station -- then mostly likely you are already adequately protected.

But this does not constitute medical advice, and be sure to consult your personal physician.

P.S. If you choose either "Allow only essential services" or "Set access for specific services and applications," be sure to go into the "Advanced" options and turn on Stealth Mode for extra safety.

 

How to Avoid Trouble with System Updates

 

You've probably seen the cries of pain on the Mac fix-it sites that arrive with every system update -- blank screens, lock-outs, networks going down, Apple apps failing, hardware not responding. Yet most people seem to experience little or no trouble. Why is that?

With something as complex as a system update, some incompatibilities are bound to occur. But some Mac users heighten the chances dramatically by loading their computers with crud.

By "crud," I mean small programs that modify the system to produce interface changes or add features. With every one of these you add, you make it all the more likely that the next OS X update will choke on an unexpected modification. And also with each one, you make it harder to locate the problem!

How do you spot these programs? Usually, they're the ones that use installers instead of drag-and-drop. An installer often means they're sticking files in places they'd be wiser not to. If they weren't doing that, they wouldn't need the authenticated OK that the installer requires you to give!

In case you have any doubt, these installers often tell you exactly where their files will go. Just select "Show Files" on the installer's File menu. If they're putting files in obscure folders, be very, very suspicious. And if they don't have a menu item to let you know, that's double the danger!

It's not all the fault of Mac users. The fact is, they're urged on to it by members of the Mac media, who should know better. These are the people who get paid to spend hours a day in front of their Macs. If something goes wrong, they can take the time to fix it, then write about it and get paid! They don't seem to understand that not all of us are in that privileged position.

For instance, let's take a look at the current issue of MacWorld, August 2009. The cover trumpets "56 MUST-HAVE MAC APPS: High-Quality, Low-Cost Mac Downloads." As you might figure, I'm skeptical of such articles, but I do look at them. Two of the recommended apps caught my eye: iAntivirus, a free antivirus program with a four-mouse rating, and GlimmerBlocker, an ad blocker for Safari with three-and-a-half stars.

Whenever I'm evaluating such software, about the first thing I do is go over to VersionTracker and read the feedback for it. (Click on "Show All Feedback" for the full treatment.) What did I find?

iAntivirus has only three out of five stars there. The very first message is from a fellow who actually tested the program on a collection of common viruses and found that it failed to find one of them. Some commenters found it to be a resource hog.

Skip iAntivirus.

The description of GlimmerBlocker sounded promising. "The problem with other ad-blockers for Safari is that they are implemented as awful hacks: as an InputManager and/or ApplicationEnhancer. This compromises the stability of Safari and very often create problems when Apple releases a new version of Safari. GlimmerBlocker is implemented as an http proxy, so the stability of Safari isn't compromised because it doesn't use any hacks."

It has four stars, too. Looks good! But then you look at some of the feedback. Slows down browsing. Prevents downloading podcasts in iTunes. A pain to remove.

None of that feedback was for the current version, so I thought I'd at least visit the developer's site. There I read a list of the applications requiring workarounds or special configurations to coexist with this app. And what about the incompatibilities the developer hasn't yet run into? Or the ones that the next version will introduce?

Scratch GlimmerBlocker.

Another small app often recommended by MacWorld is LittleSnitch, which monitors and manages outgoing network connections. I happened to try that out today on my Test volume, while gathering data about a problem with Microsoft Word.

Why on my Test volume and not on my main boot volume? Because of comments I'd read online, including the ones pithily reflected in the developer's own note on changes in the current version: "Fixed an issue causing system freezes at login on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger." The app performed well enough on my Test volume with OS X 10.5.7 -- oh, except that all other volumes were grayed out in my Startup Disk prefs pane, so I had to uninstall Little Snitch before I could select my main boot volume.

Trash Little Snitch.

I'm not perfect. I do occasionally succumb to the lure of greater functionality. When I switched from OS 9 to OS X, I just couldn't live without some kind of replacement for the old Apple menu. After trying out numerous options, I finally settled on Butler, which seemed relatively fast and safe.

And it was, except for one little feature that I never used but that was turned on in the background: a custom clipboard. That little "enhancement" caused Microsoft Word 2004 to crash repeatedly for the better part of a year -- almost every time I tried to cut or copy a substantial block of text in a large file -- before I finally discovered it and turned it off. So, indeed, I paid for my sin. (Microsoft, please forgive me for blaming you all that time.)

People used to complain all the time about how unstable OS 9 was. Let me tell you a secret. OS 9 was incredibly stable. I use my computer for most of the day, almost every day, and with OS 9.2.1, I could easily go a couple of months without a system crash.

No, it wasn't OS 9 that was unstable. It was the crud that people loaded into it. And not just the small-time freeware and shareware, from which you might expect trouble. It was software from the big names too. Remember Adobe Type Manager? How many OS 9 users had that on their computers? When I saw how often my Mac crashed with it, into the Trash it went.

And then there were the Norton Utilities extensions. I remember once spending two or three days trying to fix a network problem and finally narrowing it down to a Norton extension update.

When OS X first came out, no one could believe how stable it was. People ran it for months without rebooting. And there was good reason for that: No one had yet written crud for it!

But now they have, and there's loads of it around. Do yourself a favor. The next time someone offers you an app to add a nifty feature to your system, measure that feature against the security of knowing your computer will start up after the next update.

I know you'll make the wise decision.

Late edit: Wow. I just discovered that one of the Google ads displayed with this post is for iAntivirus. Good match, Google!