Blog R.I.P., Mac Support Site Lives On

I have decided, after much deliberation and thought, to discontinue this Mac Support Site Blog, and only continue my actual Mac Support Website. This is due to time constraints, etc.

I will leave all the information that's currently on this blog on the Internet for some amount of time, and I will update my Mac Support Website from time to time, but I will no longer be maintaining this blog. It was good while it lasted, but nothing lasts forever! Farewell!

P.S. You can also check out some other cool sites I will continue to maintain at LifeisaPrayer.com.

Running Mac OS 9 (Classic) Applications in Mac OS X

I received this email today:

"My grandpa just bought a new Mac with OSX 10.3.4 on it. He has Canvas 3.0 that he could run on OS 9 but now, OSX will not run Canvas anymore and he asked me for some help. I know a bit about Mac's but I'm mainly a Windows user. He has a copy of OSX 10.3.4 and OS 9. So, do I have to install OS 9 from within OSX to run the old programs or ... what is the solution?"

My response:

To run older OS 9 applications in OS X (any version), you will need to make sure you have Mac OS 9 (any version, preferably 9.2 or later) installed on your Mac and Classic installed in OS X. For detailed instructions, read these Apple Knowledge Base Articles:

• Mac OS X: How to Use Mac OS 9 Applications
• Troubleshooting the Classic Environment in Mac OS X

New Mac Help Articles - Startup Sound and Right-Clicking

Lately I've received a few questions in my email concerning right-clicking on Macs and disabling the startup 'Chime' or 'Bong' sound, so I've finally found some time to post them on my Mac Support website.

Here are the links:

How to Right-Click on a Mac
How to Mute or Turn Down the Startup Sound

Choosing a Drive to Burn to in iDVD 5

From my latest Mac Help Article, Choosing a Drive to Burn to in iDVD 5:

With the release of iDVD 5.0 (in the iLife '05 suite of Apple's apps), Apple finally enabled disk image burning and burning to external drives. Unfortunately, you cannot currently choose which drive you'd like to burn your DVD to if you have more than one DVD-burning optical drive. According to a reader of this website, the Hack/Easter Egg I explained here fulfills this role!

If you would like to choose which drive to burn to on a multi-burner Mac with iDVD 5.0, please read the following directions. iDVD will remember your drive selection, so you need not follow these procedures every time you'd like to do a new burn (unless, of course, you need to switch drives).

For the rest of the page (including step-by-step instructions), click here.

Show and Hide Drive Icons on Mac OS X Desktop

I was recently asked via email:

"I have a quick Mac question. Is it possible to hide the hard drive icon from the desktop? In both OS9 and OSX. If you can, how can the administrator access it or restore it?

This is, in fact, very easy to do. When you are in the Finder (click on the Finder icon in the Dock to be sure), click the "Finder" menu and select "Preferences...". Once the preferences window shows up, click on the "General" button at the top. You can control what you see on your Desktop by checking or unchecking the items under "Show these items on the Desktop:".

You can choose to view or hide Hard Drive icons, CDs, DVDs and iPods, and Connected Servers.

This may be useful for you if you like a perfectly clean Desktop or if you would rather not have a user see the hard drive or other media connected to your Mac (maybe, say, your child or a friend who is using your computer). There are also many other useful options you can choose in the Finder Preferences, including how long it takes to open spring-loaded folders, what view windows open in by default, Finder window sidebar options, and more.

Search Mac Help for "Finder Preferences" for more information.

Email: Video from FCX Won't Play in iDVD

I was recently emailed a question concerning a Final Cut Express video unable to be played via exporting it and copying it into iDVD.

Emailed Question

A four-minute movie plays perfectly in Final Cut Express 2.0. Exports to Quicktime 6.5.2 I drag it to iDVD. It won't preview (or play when burned).

Before this started happening, I was getting perfect audio but no video in iDVD preview. I tried this with two different movies. Same problem with both. They both play beautifully in Final Cut Express. I have been on several Final Cut discussion pages for info but have decided this must be an iDVD problem.

My Answer

How did you export the video? Did you click "File>Export>QuickTime Movie..."? If you did, did you make sure the 'Include' menu had "Audio and Video" selected, and the 'Markers' Menu had "Chapter Markers" or "None" selected?

If you do all of the above and still have a problem in iDVD, there are a couple more things you should try in Final Cut Express:

Instead of choosing "File>Export>QuickTime Movie...", try Exporting via 'Using QuickTime Conversion...". For the 'Format', choose 'QuickTime Movie', click 'Settings...', and set the following options:

In the window that pops up,

1. Click on 'Settings...' in the Video section (and make sure the 'Video' checkbox is checked, and choose "DV/DVCPRO - NTSC" from the video codec menu, "Best" from the Quality menu, and make sure the 'Frames Per Second' field is blank. Then click "OK".
2. Click on 'Settings...' in the Audio section (and make sure the 'Audio' checkbox is checked, and choose "None" in the 'Compressor' menu, '44.100 kHz' in the 'Rate' menu, "16 bit" in the Size section, and "Stereo" in the 'Use' section. Then click "OK".

Finally, click "OK" in the dialog box, choose a name and location for your file, and Export it. Drag this file into iDVD and see if it works.