The Mac freezes every time I try to list a folder with over 1000+ files in it, why?
This is due to memory restrictions, and the amount of files you can have in one folder at a time. I suggest no more than 500 files & folders in a single folder, it'll take it forever to list (puts it in memory first) all of those files. Also, avoid saving custom icons onto files, eg. with Photoshop. Next, temporarily increase the size of the Disk Cache in the Memory Control Panel to 4-8mb (you may need to restart Mac emulation to enable it). This should give the System enough memory to list the contents of the folder in question.
If that didn't work, then I suggest you create a backup (or archive) of that file, and then restore only parts of the folder into more manageable sub-folders.
However if you still have no joy, then there is a utility that can fix very large folders, it's called Fat Folder Fixer from Alsoft's web site.
How can I convert PC truetype fonts to Mac truetype fonts?
Use a shareware program called TTconverter, this utility will convert PC TTF fonts to Mac, and Mac TrueType fonts to PC format. It can be downloaded from any shareware internet site.
When I double click on a iconified document, it loads the wrong program, what's happening?
This happens when either:
1) The desktop file has lost track of it's file association with some the applications. In which case you need to rebuild the Desktop File again, in order to rectify the problem.
2) Or.. You don't have the latest version installed on any local partitions or disks. Just re-install the program you require and then load the file up again.
Is there a Mac utility that can convert Amiga IFF images to standard picture formats?
Yep! I recommend a shareware program called GraphicConverter, it is capable of converting many different types of image file formats (SGI, Mac, PC and Amiga formats, to name a few). It also has image editing, slide show and batch conversion features.
Also note (to those who can afford it) that Photoshop 4.0 (last version that supports 68k CPUs) also caters for Amiga's IFF format - Photoshop 4 came out in the last quarter of 1997!
How do I make fonts available?
There are two methods; a simple way - for the occasional user; and one for managing a large number of fonts via 3rd party software.
First, the simple method: gather up all the fonts you want to use, they must be either Macintosh Type1 fonts with it's suitcase (screen fonts), or Truetype fonts. Then move them into the System's Font folder, there is no need to restart the Mac, but you will need to quit and reload the programs you wish to use them with.
Second method is to buy a commercial or shareware utility that will manage your fonts for you. These programs often allow you to open fonts that are not even on the same volume as the System Folder, so you can open and close them at the same time you are using a program.
Here are a few products available; Symantec's Suitcase (commercial), Master Juggler (commercial), Adobe's ATM Deluxe (commercial), or Font Manager (shareware). For an explanation of what Macintosh fonts consist of, see picture 6.1 and picture 6.2.
How can I secure data on my Mac?
You can either buy a commercial package, such as Norton Disklock, FileGuard or Private File, OR download a shareware program - these can take the form of a disk lock-out or a file encryption utility with a password protection. For 100% protection of sensitive data, I'd suggest you buy a commercial product (such as the one mentioned).
To erase data completely, you need a utility that overwrites the file with random binary so as to make it completely unreadable, as well as remove it from the disk's directory. Such as Norton Utilities' WipeInfo, or by simply saving unimportant text/data of similar size or more over the original file via any program, but not by placing a file of the same name over the original in the Finder. This will only delete the file from the hard disk's directory, and the confidential data will still be recoverable.
I cannot get a file to open, how can I get it to load?
It is most likely a default dog-eared icon, which you won't be able to open by double clicking on it.
Instead, load up the program you know can access it (if you know what type of file it is), THEN load-up the file via the Open dialogue box.
If it does not load at all, then it may be damaged. However you could;
1) Restore a previous version from your backups.
2) If the file is text based, then you can recover most of the text by using Norton Disk Doctor's Recover File (only text can be recovered) feature. This will save the text into a separate file.
Or, use this useful program called CanOpener from Abbott Systems. It can open any corrupted file, and has filters to remove most of the rubbish. See their web site for more info.
3) If it is a Quark Xpress document, then you can buy a repair program from Markzware, called MarkzTools2. See their web pages for more info.
When I copy files across to other disks, they become corrupted, what can I do?
This can be caused by one of two things; bad blocks or the hard disk's max. transfer is set too high, a limit of 0X1FE00 = 128k is an average setting. Use HDToolBox (Amiga) to reset the limit, in the advanced options window.
It could also be caused by faulty SCSI cables (internal or external), or the Mac's directory structure is damaged - run your repair program on the disk, just to make sure. And while you're at it, rebuild the Desktop(s) of your Mac hard disks. Scan your disks for viruses as well, it may have damaged the system file.
How can I transfer files (large or small) from a PC to a Mac?
To physically transport the files from the PC to a Mac;
1) Email the file(s) to your self.
2) PC formatted Zip disk (use the PC Exchange Control Panel to mount it).
3) Syquest removable disks (use the PC Exchange Control Panel to mount it).
4) High density floppy disks (use the PC Exchange Control Panel to mount it). If the file(s) are very big, you could split the archive over a number of floppy disks, then rejoin them once you've copied it onto the Mac.
To make sure they are not corrupted, when copied onto alien filing systems:
1) Copy them as they are, without modification. These type of files are cross platform compatible, such as, image file formats; JPEG, GIF, EPS, PCX and TIFF; text in ASCII format; and some program documents; Quark Xpress, MS Word, MS Excel, Pagemaker, Freehand, Adobe Illustrator, to name a few. However the file must have a 3 character extension, on the end of the file, for easy recognition.
2) As a hexadecimal encoded archive, known as a HQX file (this is it's dot file extension). This archive type uses ASCII characters to encode the data, which is also a universally recognised format, and therefore totally safe to store it until you can copy it to the destination computer.
It usually necessary to compress the file first, because a HQX archive can and often does, increase the size of the original file by as much as 30%. It might be a good idea to encode large individual files so that they'll fit on a 1.4mb PC disk.
Here are some programs that can encode and/or decode HQX files:
* Stuffit Lite (shareware)
* Stuffit Deluxe (Commercial)
* Stuffit Expander (freeware - expands; .cpt .sit .hqx .uu & .bin files)
* ZipIt (shareware)
* Compact Pro (shareware)
* BinHex 4 & 5 (freeware, expands & encodes HQX files only).
3) Use a cross platform compatible archive program, such as;
* pkZip (PC) and Zipit (Mac)
* LHA archive program (Mac shareware programs are available)
* Stuffit (both for PC & Macs).
What type of compression formats are there for the Mac, and how can I recognise them?
There are 10 common archive formats for the Macintosh, and they usually add a 3 character extension onto the end of the filename, eg. archive.sit. Stuffit Expander (now called Aladdin Expander) is THE program to have, it can expand 2 common Mac archive types, SIT & CPT, and 3 file conversion types, BIN, HQX & UU. You can download a free expander for all the other compression types, either from the publisher of the software or from any shareware site.
xxxx.bin
MB2P
MacBinary - combines the resource and data forks into one file
xxxx.dd
DD??
Disk Doubler - ?? = other various characters)
xxxx.cpt
CPCT
Compact Pro
xxxx.gz
Gzip
MacGzip
xxxx.hqx
ASCII
BinHex - there are lots of other HQX creation programs on the internet
xxxx.pit
PIT
PackIt
xxxx.sea
APPL
Self Expanding Archive - expands itself, when you double click it
xxxx.sit
SIT!
Stuffit Deluxe/Lite
xxxx.uu
UU??
UUencoded file, a bit like HQX archives in nature
xxxx.zip
ZIP
Zipit - is PC pkZIP compatible
How can I tell what type of file this dog eared icon is?
As you may have already found out, it is useless to double click on a file which has reverted back to a default document icon, it simply won't launch any program.
This is what you can do to correct the problem; rebuild the entire desktop or use Norton Utilities v3+ to update a single file or files. This feature can be found in the menu of Norton's Disk Doctor, under the heading "Add file to Desktop". If this does not produce an icon, then either you don't have the program that created the file (see File Type & Creator Codes, on how icons are created), or the file in question has no Creator code in it's Finder flags. However, you can view it's codes by using Norton Utilities, on the main menu screen, look in the File menu for Get Info For.. and highlight it, now find and select the file. Or you could find out via FileBuddy's Get Info screen, see picture 6.3.
The Creator or file Type may give you a good indication as to what it is, for example, File Type = JPEG, this means that the file is an image format.
There is a database document for the Mac, called Type/Creator Database which can be found on any Macintosh shareware internet site, or go to the authors web site.
How come all of the icons on my hard disks have defaulted to generic icons?
The Desktop file which stores information about all the icons on that hard disk has either become corrupted or it cannot update it any more, due to a bad block or bad Desktop file.
All you need to do is to rebuild the Desktop file. To do this, you have to restart the Mac and then hold down the Alt+Amiga (any combination) keys just before the last Extension is loaded. The Finder will detect this key combination, and will ask you if you want to rebuild the desktop for the main system disk and then for any other mounted volumes, everything should be back to normal.
If the Desktop fails to rebuild, you need to make the current invisible Desktop DB and Desktop DF files visible, these are located in the root directory. Use a File editor such as Norton Disk Doctor or FileBuddy to switch off the invisibility Finder flag, and then put them into the Trashcan. Then restart, the Finder should generate the Desktop file automatically. Now, empty the Trashcan.
TIP: If an application defaults to a generic form, you do not need to rebuild the entire desktop. Use any program that can add a file to the desktop, such as Norton Disk Doctor 3.5x, and update just the application with this feature. The rest of the apps associated files and documents will appear properly upon the next reboot.
Some fonts don't appear to work, or I cannot move them out of it's suitcase or folder Color?
It is more than likely that the bitmap or truetype font(s) in the suitcase (commonly known as a screen font if used in conjunction with Postscript Type-1 fonts, or Printer fonts) are damaged or do not work properly. This type of error does not effect the Printer fonts, they are separate files. There or two manual ways to find out if a font does not work; a) Try to move the suitcase to another folder, if an error message appears, then the suitcase is corrupted, or it won't let you move individual font sizes out of the suitcase - both good indicators that the suitcase is damaged, and usually cannot be repaired. b) Look inside every suitcase that is normally loaded up, including the System's Font folder, then double click on each font size icon to view the font style & size. Now see if all of the fonts inside the suitcase show the proper font. A bad font will always display a default font, such as Geneva. A dead give-away is that an italicised font is not only a generic font but also not in italics.
There is a way to get rid of any suitcases that refuse to be moved, simply create a file with the same name as the suitcase and move it into the same folder as the damaged file, it should overwrite it. Just in case the System does not allow you to do this, you can use a file eraser utility, ie. Norton Utilities-Wipe Info. You may have to startup with all Extensions disabled first.
On a further note: check that the Adobe Type Manager (ATM) Control Panel (if you are using it) has enough allocated memory for rendering text, something like 256k or above is usually adequate.
While I'm on the subject of ATM, is it functioning properly? This is another possible as to why fonts are not displaying properly. The only way to tell, is that large on-screen type is not being rendered accurately. Extremely blocky type means that ATM has been switched off or it is damaged, you may have to reinstall ATM again.
How can I make an invisible file, visible?
You need a utility to edit the file's Finder flags, such as File Buddy (shareware) or Norton Utilities (under File menu Get Info for..). I suggest you only switch on/off the 'invisible' flag only, the meddling with any of the other flags could damage the file. See How Files Work In MacOS, for more info concerning Finder flags and what they do.
How can I retrieve deleted files?
Use Norton Utilities' Filesaver and Unerase features, to manage deleted files. Filesaver remembers up to 500 files that have been erased. However, over a period of time, ie. up to 2 days of constant use, the oldest binned files will be over-written by the Mac, so if you need recover a trashed file, you better rescue it soon. If a directory search does not recover the entire file, you'll have to revert to a backup. See picture 6.4, for Norton's Filesaver.
TechTool Pro v2.5 has an file retrieval feature, which has a better implementation than Norton Utilities - it redirects the deleted file into an invisible folder on the hard disk it was deleted from. You can specify how big the files can be, and how many files it can store.
I recommend buying TechTool Pro v2.5 as a upgrade from Norton Utilities v3.5 (the last 68k compatible version), as TechTool still supports the 68k CPUs.
How can I convert a special text document, eg. Word, into another format?
You need a text file type converter program, such as MacLink+ from Dataviz (which can be found on the System 7.53 CD) or similar program. This program will convert any supported word processor formatted doc into a similar Mac format.
The only other way, is for the person who sent it, to resave it as an ASCII text file. This would remove any text formatting, or you could open this document with a text editor and remove the junk surrounding the text by hand, and then resave it.
