I think this may be a new Leopard (10.5) feature, but perhaps I just never noticed it: if you close your LCD display (sleep your computer) during a file transfer, the transfer will resume after the machine is woken up.
For example, say you’re transferring a 5GB file from your Macbook to your Mac Pro on the same network. Halfway through the file transfer, you accidently shut your LCD display and the computer goes to sleep.
Do you have to start the transfer over? No! Open the LCD display and wake up your computer — it will automatically rejoin your network and immediately resume the file transfer from where it was stopped!
The only caveat here is if your computer can’t rejoin your network. If, after shutting your display, you move to another network or loose your WiFi signal, the transfer will give up and produce an error about 10 seconds after waking up.
Although much hasn’t changed with the iDisk after the switch from .Mac to MobileMe, I have noticed a couple welcome changes:
First, when uploading something to an iDisk, you get a real progress bar/file transfer box.
In the past, you would probably just see this box for a few seconds. It would close quickly, looking like the upload was completed, but the file would still be uploading to the iDisk in the background. The only way to tell the upload was completed was by checking the file size on the iDisk.
The second welcome change to the iDisk involves iDisk syncing. In the past, iDisk syncing was completely secretive with no way to tell when or what was being synced to/from the iDisk and your computer. Now, when your iDisk is syncing, you get a handy display in the bottom of your Finder window:
Not too long ago I read this tip on MacOSXHints.com. It talks about using a 3.5″ floppy disk to remove a stuck CD from a slot-loading optical drive. Since I couldn’t find a 3.5″ floppy, I got an idea after reading ericdsa’s comment.
Instead of a CD or DVD as ericdsa suggested, I used two credit cards (well, the same size, shape, and material as credit cards); one wedged below the stuck cd or dvd, one wedged above the stuck cd, applied tension, and voila!
About a week ago, I was working on a MacBook Pro with a dying hard drive. I was able to access the drive via Firewire Target Disk in order to repair the drive using Disk Warrior. The whole process was expected to take at least five hours.
While in the past I’d always just left the LCD display open, in this case I accidently closed the lid. Shiz, I thought! I’ve just waisted the last few hours of hard drive repair; but when I check Disk Warrior, I noticed it was still working perfectly!
I tried opening and closing the display a few more times, the MacBook Pro kept running with the display closed. I just tested closing the lid on my Powerbook G4 – it worked too! I can only assume that all Mac displays can be shut when in Firewire Target Disk Mode — only wish I would have learned this years ago.
I just stumbled upon a method for moving contacts (Address Book), calendar events (iCal), and bookmarks (Safari) from your iPhone to Mac. This will be useful if your hard drive died, computer was stolen or lost, or if you’re moving from a PC to a Mac (i.e. your iPhone was previous synced with a PC and you want to move the synced info to your Mac!):
1) Open iTunes (update first if you don’t have the latest version)
2) Connect iPhone.
3) Select your iPhone (under Devices) and click the Info tab at the top. Read more…
Although much hasn’t changed with the iDisk after the switch from .Mac to MobileMe, I have noticed a couple welcome changes:
About a week ago, I was working on a MacBook Pro with a dying hard drive. I was able to access the drive via Firewire Target Disk in order to repair the drive using Disk Warrior. The whole process was expected to take at least five hours. 