Stupid Beginner Questions... Options

[jofferman]

Hi all,

I'm now officially a Mac musician - hurrah
While I feel right at home in OS X, there's a few things stupid things I can't seem to fix:

- How do I change the computer's name?
- MacOS / Finder help is broken... how do I fix that?

Also, here's a more music related question: I vaugely recall someone suggesting that journalling should be switched off for better harddisk performance when working with audio... is there any truth in that advise?

thx,
Jim.

[lushbudget]

To change the computer's name you can either A) click once on the text box under you hard drive icon (default name is Macintosh HD) and start typing or B) change it from Disk Utility the same way. If you want to change your Username that is a lot trickier. It requires use of the Terminal and some Unix commands. If you need to do it, write back and I'll give you the instructions.
:)As far as the help system, did you install OS X yourself? If so, did you omit the Help? It's not likely, but it can be done if you use the packages to install instead of the straight-ahead method. In any case. if going to the Help drop down menu yields no results, you may have to reinstall the OS. That is the only way to safely restore Panther's help system (or Jaquar for that matter - BTW which are you using?)
Lastly, regarding disabling journaling - yes it will SLIGHTLY speed up your HD, but NOT RECOMENDED FOR YOUR SYSTEM DISK!! If you are getting sluggish performance out of your external firewire drive (really you should be using a FW external drive for your audio recording, NOT the system disk) then you can disable journaling, but I wouldn't reccomend it anyway - I had trouble when I tried it myself.

[Dave Bourke]

lushbudget's suggestion changes the name of the HD. To change the name of the computer you must open the Sharing panel in System Preferences. Computer Name is right at the top.

As regards Help, one of Apple's earlier Security Updates broke it (can't remember which). The next one fixed it. If you're all up to date with Security Updates for your system and you're just getting a blank interface when you launch the Help Viewer, try trashing these three Help prefs files in /(user name)/Library/Preferences: com.apple.help.plist, com.apple.helpui.plist, and com.apple.helpviewer.plist.

Then log out and back in again and launch Finder Help.

If this doesn't work, go to the Library menu in the Help Viewer. Select every entry there, one at a time. Then quit and launch every program you have for which Help is provided through the Help Viewer interface.

After you do this, log out and back in again. This procedure has worked for me in the past.

As regards journalling, here's what the pros recommend: turn journalling on for your boot drive and off for the drive you're recording to. And if I were you, I would record to an extra INTERNAL ATA drive rather than an external FW. Also, as lushbudget says, recording to your boot drive is a no-no.

Good luck.

Dave Bourke.

[jofferman]

Hi guys!

Thanks for the tips!

Changing the computer name was to easy. I haven't been able to fix the broken help link however... it seems the Mac OS help has been installed properly (I can access it via the help viewer), it just doesn't pop up when I select "Mac Help" when the Finder is active. That's just a minor inconvenience though.

I'll leave journalling enabled on the system drive. I'm also using it for recording audio at the moment, but that's only until I've bought myself a FW harddisk (I can't cram in another internal HD in my PowerBook ).

gr,
Jim.

(btw. I'm on Panther, with all the latest software updates)