The Keychain to Success

Having problems with keychains?

If keychain permissions are giving you fits, the first thing to do is type "keychain" into Spotlight, and open Keychain Access. When it's open, click on the Keychain Access menu next to the Apple menu, and click on "Keychain First Aid." In the appropriate blank, click the "Repair" button, and click "Start"

If any errors show up in red, click Start again, until no more errors are found. 

Now, you also probably want to keep your default keychain unlocked. And unless you're using a generic user account on a workstation, you'll want to turn on "User Names and Passwords" in Safari's AutoFill preferences.

There are other techniques for securing your information. Needless to say, once should take extra precautions when storing sensitive material on a laptop. Get ahold of to discuss the options.

Bonjour, kemosabe. Vie gates?: iChat on your private network

Everyone do this with me: Open iChat (if it ain't in your Dock, it's in your Applications folder). Click on the Window menu in iChat. If you see Rendezvous, click on that; if you see Bonjour, click on that. If you're asked to login to that network, click Login.

If everyone in your organization does this, you'll all see each other in the Rendezvous or Bonjour window. I find sending quick text messages often more civlized — and always more quet — than phone intercom. I know of one office where they change their iChat status to show when they're in the office or out to lunch, on the phone, etc. …

… Guess most people I know are fairly out to lunch most of the time, but that's another story.

By the way, you can text to my AIM account s1r4real. If I'm not online, your message will be forwarded to my phone — which is easily set up, by the way, in your AIM preferences.

Also, for folks using a server, Apple is including secure private iChat in the next version of OS X Server.

"If you invite them, they will come": iCal invitations & notifications

This is a natural question, and I hope Apple makes this procedure more obvious in the next iCal:

In a calendar that you administer, click on an event.

Look to the right of the main iCal window; if you don't see a separate information panel, like a drawer, sticking out to the right, click on the button with "i" in the circle at the bottom right of the main iCal window. There's rarely any need ever to close this Info.

Now, in the info panel, click the grey word "None" next to the black "attendees." Start typing the name of someone in your address book. When their name is filled in automatically, hit the key. Now, add your own address in there (just this time, for practice). Finally, at the bottom of the info panel, cilck the Send button.

Et voilà! You have just emailed an invitation to someone, and you (and Apple Mail and iCal) stand awaiting their reply. Look in your email, and also in the Notifications panel of iCal (there's a button bottom left of iCal, and "Show Notifications" is in the View menu.

Moving items from subscribed-to calendars

Turns out that you can copy events from one calendar to another, even if the first calendar is one you're subscribed to. (Given: You can't copy into a calendar you're not able to edit.)

This could be useful, for example, if you wanted to send invitations to people who weren't included in the first round.

Ejectile dysfunction: CD is stuck in the drive!

My CD/DVD burner drive won't let me insert a disk. I think it thinks there's a disk already in there but there isn't. Is there a way to get it "unlocked?"

So, is this a "slot-loading" or do you put the disc in a tray that pops out?

Reminds me of the time at Kinko's when the older lady put the CD into the 5 1/4" floppy disc drive. A Windows computer, natch, and I wish I had a picture of the look on my face. I seem to recall that those damn PCs were bolted down. I giggled a lot.

Either way, try opening iTunes and pushing the eject button at bottom right. If that doesn't work, follow these instructions:

From macosxhints.com: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031210193237190)

I had a CD get stuck in my slot-loading superdrive Aluminum Powerbook, running 10.3. The CD became unresponsive and not recognized by my computer at all! Here is the fix:

Hold Control-Command-Option-Eject Button; this will shut down your computer. Turn the power on with the power button and hold Command-Option-O-F -- this will boot you into open firmware. Now type
eject cd and hit the Return key and wait until the CD pops out. Type

mac-boot
and you are ready to rock!
[robg adds:
As mentioned elsewhere on the site, you can also try holding the mouse button down during boot to force the system to eject any inserted CDs.]