Audience Questions

Audience QuestionsHour 1

Hour 1 Hour 2 Hour 3

How can I get my Mac Mini to work better with multiple hard drives?

Watch Denise from Santa Clarita, CA Comments

When her old Mac Mini started acting up when connecting multiple hard drives, Denise was encouraged by an Apple Genius to buy a new one. So she did and now she'd like to set it up properly with Time Machine, external hard drives, the works. Leo says buying a new computer to solve an external hard drive connection wasn't really the right solution. Connecting all drives into a common USB bus would make any drive unreliable. It's far better to have drives with their own dedicated power. That makes them more consistent.

Denise also has problems with her USB keyboard. Leo says that may mean that the USB hub is overwhelmed and is becoming unreliable. He recommends unplugging all the external drives and then connect them one at a time, testing for reliability. When they start being unreliable, then she knows how many the bus can handle.

How can I build a mobile website?

Watch Nick from Colton, CA Comments

Nick's wife has started a business in educational consulting. They've signed up through GoDaddy and wants to know if they're website builders are good. Leo says don't use GoDaddy's web builder or hosting. They're terrible. Leo says that being a consultant, it's important to be mobile responsive. The new trend is called Mobile Responsive Design, which makes websites available for both mobile and desktop versions. Leo likes SquareSpace. They have templates that are great on both mobile and desktop browsers. They won't bog it down with a ton of Flash either.

The Chatroom also says that 1and1.com is a good alternative for hosting.

(Disclaimer: SquareSpace is a sponsor).

How can I get iTunes Match to work on Windows?

Watch Peter from Wisconsin Comments

Peter has signed up for iTunes Match, but he keeps getting an error message that says "try again later" whenever he starts iTunes in Windows, citing an "unknown error 4001." There's a solution at MasterYourMac.net that says if he turned Match off and back on again, it would fix it. Leo says that's crazy and probably won't do a thing. Apparently if he turns it off with the shift key held down, that will disengage all the Match services. That's an odd fix, but worth a try.

Some music files with the word "error" attached to it may be sticking things up too. Deleting those files may fix it. There's also talk of a bugs in iTunes Match that has been going on since iTunes 10.5. He can also contact iTunes Support and have them fix it on their end Check out this link for more suggestions. Also check out this article from Macworld.

Audience QuestionsHour 2

Hour 1 Hour 2 Hour 3

How can I batch convert my graphics files?

Watch Jeff from Pasadena, CA Comments

Jeff has just upgraded his Mac and now he can't use an art program called "Canvas," that he has thousands of art files saved on. He wants to know how to convert all of these for use in another program. The Chatroom says that GraphicConverter is an option. It's been around forever and handles batch conversions. It has a trial version, but it's $40. However, it may not support the Canvas format of CVS, CXV, or CVX.

How can I install Windows on my Mac Mini?

Watch Peter from Brooklyn, NY Comments

Peter just bought a MacMini and would like to run a dual boot OS setup with both OS X and Windows. Leo says he can do that with Boot Camp. To use Windows 8, he'll have to have updated drivers and there are many articles on the web on how to do it. Can he install Windows via USB key? Leo says yes, he can also just download the ISO to his USB key and point to it, and the Mac Mini will install it.

Note, if you're using a fusion drive with the iMac, you'll need to do a hack to get it working. This article explains how.

What can I do to preserve laptop battery life?

Watch Alex from Fort Meyers, FL Comments

Alex is going to be gone for awhile and wants to know how to put his battery into storage without damaging its capacity. Leo says that the latest thinking is to keep the laptop plugged in the entire time. He can also run the battery down half way and store it. According to the current thinking, having the laptop connected to power while he's gone won't hurt the battery at all and will keep it up to power until he gets back. Here's a good article from Battery University.

How long will hard drives last?

Watch Carl from Camarillo, CA Comments

Leo says that it's important to assume a hard drive will fail, and at any time. So it's important to not only have a backup, but multiple backups of everything. Google put out a White Paper on hard drives, and they found that in analylzing all their drive failure rates, that 3% fail in the first few months, up 2% the second year, and 8% for each year after that. So the older the drive gets, the more likely it'll fail. These are all constant use drives of course. When the drive starts making noise, it's likely bearing wear or bad sectors that are starting to fail, causing the drive to labor as it tries to read the sector.

Paul has a cool site called TotalCarScore.com (Think Rotten Tomatoes For Cars).

Audience QuestionsHour 3

Hour 1 Hour 2 Hour 3

What's the best backup solution?

Watch Edgar from San Diego, CA Comments

Edgar has been keeping a laptop alive until he can get a new laptop. He's been backing up using Carbonite and also images his hard drive with Acronis True Image. Leo says it's a great idea to have multiple back ups and using Carbonite off site along with an image is ideal. The image will help to restore a disk very quickly and save the computer state that he really likes before he starts using it.

Edgar wants to know if he should backup everything in one place for consistency. Leo doesn't think so. Leo says that it's more risky if he has a single point of failure. Having a shotgun approach with multiple services guards against catastrophic failure. Carbonite has a new image service that Edgar has tried and it's failed. Leo says that there's too many things that can go wrong with an image over the Internet.

Other options for imaging a hard drive include EaseUS, Clonezilla, DriveSnapshot, and SuperDuper for the Mac.

What's the best alternative for an old digital diary?

Watch Bert from California Comments

Bert is looking for a good replacement for his ancient Casio Digital Diary. Leo says that is an old piece of technology that smartphones have replaced. An iPod Touch would also work if he uses an app called Evernote.

Do I need a spam filter for my phone?

Watch Mary Jane from Melrose Park, PA Comments

Mary Jane got a new Samsung Galaxy Note II and wants to know if she needs a spam filter for her phone. Leo says that it makes no sense to have a filter on the phone since filters need to be done at the source, from her mail provider. Also, most people have moved to web based email like Gmail with good filters that can learn, that spam is hardly an issue anymore. It benefits from a collarborative process.

Leo advises using GMail to pick up her mail from Comcast and Gmail will filter it for her.

How can I manage my mobile images?

Watch Mike from Fullerton, CA Comments

Mike wants a better way to organize the images on his iPhone. Leo recommends iPhoto. It works great on the iPad as well. The reason they're better is that Apple restricts access to the images from third parties. He can save out to the camera roll, but he can't really manage it well.

Mike also needs a good address book app that will allow him to search more efficiently. Leo recommends CoBook because it searches via customizable hashtags (#). Leo loves it because he can use it on his iPhone and his desktop. It's also free!

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