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.

[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.