answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we focus on using a VM image or Boot Camp partition in Parallels, adding alarms to the "Birthdays" calendar in iCal, and getting movies to view on an Apple TV. We continually answer e-mail questions and while we present a few here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Standalone Virtual Machine or Boot Camp in Parallels?

MacFixIt reader "Jack" asks:

When installing Parallels 6 and Windows … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we have questions on SUID file errors when fixing permissions, options for ejecting optical drives, problems with optical drives immediately ejecting, and the lack of a track joining option for audio books in iTunes 10. While we continually answer e-mail questions and present a few here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: SUID File errors when fixing permissions

MacFixIt reader "Ian" asks:

When I do a Permissions Repair … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we have questions on boot camp drivers not installing on MacBook systems, how to undo the Terminal command to disable DNS prefetching in Safari, black rectangles appearing over Finder items, and how many CPU settings are recommended for use with Windows XP in Parallels Desktop.

Question: Boot Camp drivers not installing on MacBook

MacFixIt reader "Michelle" asks:

I have a Core duo first-generation MacBook (one of the black ones). I have recently decided to put Windows on my Mac for software incompatibility … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we have questions on missing "new message" chimes in Mail, installing iPhoto from another computer, Time Machine drives not being recognized despite being formatted properly, and how to set a system to boot to the 64-bit kernel by default.

Question: New message chimes in Mail

MacFixIt reader "Robert" asks:

I have an iMac that is 2 years old. When I purchased it I was running Leopard 10.5.8 I have since upgraded to Snow Leopard 10.6.4 I … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we have questions on extending wireless networks with AirPort Express devices, new Macs not booting to a retail upgrade DVD for Snow Leopard, QuickTime not able to play some media files, and changing from the less secure WEP wireless security scheme to WPA or WPA2.

Question: Extending wireless networks with an AirPort express

MacFixIt reader "Mark" asks:

How can I get my Airport Express to act as a bridge (extend my Wi-Fi signal)? I only have a 2Wire (WEP password) router, and … Read more

While Facebook is busy amassing questions and answers from its 500 some million members, a new service called Swingly, which is coming out of stealth on Tuesday, is thinking a little bigger. Like the entire Internet bigger.

As described to me last week in a call with Swingly's managing partner Andrew Hickl, Swingly is a machine-generated answer engine that contains somewhere around 100 billion to 150 billion question and answer pairs. "It's the first one of its kind," Hickl said. "Our gimmick here is that Swingly uses our system and the Web."

What that … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week, we have questions about old e-mail addresses still being used in Mail's address auto-completion, battery calibration behavior in MacBook Pro systems, printer queue accidentally removed from the Dock, and a commend on another useful utility that tracks file system changes.

Question: Old e-mail addresses still being used in Mail's address auto-completion

MacFixIt reader "Charles" asks:

I have a problem with Mail/Address Book. When my friends change their e-mail address, the old address remains in my system. When I send … Read more

Questions-and-answers service Fluther is unveiling a new platform on Monday that lets companies integrate the Fluther community, and its real-time Q&A interface into their Web sites.

The platform, which is called Federated Fluther, can be skinned to match whatever site it's on, bringing the same feature set and functionality found on Fluther.com. Any questions that are asked on that site can then be answered both by its users, and those back over on Fluther. Likewise, the answers from either community end up in the same bucket--something that for sites with a smaller community can mean those … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week, we have questions about Bluetooth suddenly not being available on a Mac when it was previously, whether or not it is possible to change the BSD device node ID for a drive, and tackling Safari Extensions not working.… Read more