How to set up external hard drive on OS X

When you first attach a new external hard drive to your Mac, it should mount and be
ready to use; however, before relying on it,
consider first taking a couple of precautionary steps to ensure that the drive continues to work as expected.

One of the first things to take into account is
that the drive is likely preformatted to FAT32
instead of a more OS-specific format. Since
FAT32 is readable and writable on both
Windows and OS X systems, this is quickest
way for a drive to work on each platform;
however, it does have some limitations,
including the lack of journaling support that
would help prevent data corruption, and lack
of support for filesystem permissions. In
addition, FAT32 drives usually come with the
Master Boot Record partition scheme, which
does not work with Apple's CoreStorage
routines, and therefore will not allow OS-
supported encryption of the drive (among
other customizations).

Sometimes drives will come with special
drive management software on them that will
give you options for partitioning the drive
and backing up your files to it. While these
may be convenient, they are not the most
recommended approach to managing the
drive. For one, unless the drive uses a
special multidisk RAID setup, OS X already
comes with all the necessary tools for
managing the drive. Additional tools from
third-party manufacturers may lead to
compatibility problems, as was recently seen
when incompatible drive management
software resulted in data loss for a number
of people who had upgraded to OS X
Mavericks.

Because of this, if the drive you have
purchased is a special RAID array, then you
may have to use the manufacturer's setup;
however, if it is a single-drive device, then
before using it be sure to format it using
Disk Utility in OS X. If the drive is going to
be used only with your Mac and with other
Macs, then consider using Apple's Mac OS X
Extended (Journaled) format, and only use
FAT32 if you intend to use the drive with a
Windows system.

To format the drive, attach it to your system
and open Disk Utility, and then perform the
following steps:

1. Select the drive device in the list of
devices, which is the item above any
storage volumes on the drive, and which
may show the manufacturer name, media
size, and so on.

2. Choose the "Partition" tab that appears.
3. Select "1 Partition" from the drop-down
menu (or more, if you have specific need
for more than one volume).

When you select a new partition layout from the drop-down menu, each new partition will be formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) by default, but be sure to double-check this by selecting each in the partition diagram and then choosing the format for it.

4. Click the Options button and ensure "GUID" is selected as the partition scheme.

5. Click Apply to save the changes.
When this is done, the disk should unmount
and then remount with the new formatting
settings, and now be ready for use. Generally
a format of the drive in this manner is all
that is needed; however, some people may
wish to test drives further to make sure the
media does not contain any bad blocks or
other errors beyond the scope of the drive's
formatting.

For most in-depth testing of drives, a third-
party tool like Drive Genius or Tech Tool Pro
can be used, but Disk Utility does support
one option, which is to use the Secure Erase
option to write zeros to the disk surface. To
do this, select the volume, then click Secure
Erase in the Erase tab, and drag the Secure
Erase slider to the second position before
clicking OK. This will cause each available data block to be accessed and written to, and if one is bad then the disk will allocate a spare block in its place and ensure that the logically writable storage space is available for use. Secure Erase and other similar options that test each storage block of a device may take a number of hours to complete, but it reduces the number of potential problems with the drive.

Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them
below.
Like us on facebook and bookmark us today or contact usfollow us on twitter

Read More

How to e-mail Web pages in OS X

When browsing the Web, you may wish to share what you are viewing with a friend or colleague by sending him or her an e-mail that references the page you are on.
This is most commonly done by copying and pasting a URL link to the Web page in an e-mail message, which may suffice for most purposes. Sometimes, however, the contents of a page may change, so you may want to preserve it as-is. If so, then you have several options available to you in OS X's Mail and Safari (though not all options are exclusive to these programs).

• Screenshots
The first option is to simply take a screenshot of the page you are viewing. This can be done by expanding your browser window to encompass the contents of interest, and then pressing Shift-Command-4, or Control-Shift-Command-4, where the extra Control key will save the resulting screenshot directly to the clipboard instead of as a file to disk. Either hotkey sequence will invoke the "selection screenshot," so your cursor will turn into a crosshair which you can use to click and drag to select a portion of the screen to save.
Or you can press the Space bar when you see the crosshair, and the cursor will turn into a camera. Hover this camera over your browser window (or any window), and when the window highlights, click it to take a screenshot of only that window.
Unfortunately, screenshots result in a static image, which limits interaction. Additionally, the image is limited by the resolution of your display, which may be too grainy if someone wishes to zoom in.

• Web archive
A second option is to save the current page as a Web archive. This will preserve the page's HTML, images, and other resources in a single file that can be loaded directly from disk in Safari. This option has the benefit of preserving the layout and structure of the page as- is, and makes it easily transferable to others, but the archive may not work well with content that automatically updates, or if there are plug-in requirements to view content.
To make a Web archive, simply choose "Save As" from the File menu in Safari, and the default file format for the document will be a Web archive. Once saved to disk, you can then drag it to a Mail message or otherwise add it as an attachment.

• PDF
A third option is to use the OS X services to create a PDF of the page you are viewing. This option will preserve the current page as-is, and also have the benefit that text is selectable, image quality is preserved, and embedded URL links will work.
There are two ways to save a page as a PDF.
The first is to use the print dialogue, where you can use the PDF menu to open the page in Preview (for further annotation and editing), save it, or directly embed it as an attachment in a new e-mail message.
The second option is built into Safari, and allows you to use the Share menu, or press Command-i, to capture the current page view and open an e-mail with the PDF embedded.
All of these approaches will eventually allow you to send the PDF via e-mail to anyone.

• Embedded HTML
A final option is to embed the current page as HTML in an e-mail message. This approach takes more steps, but, like a Web archive, it often allows the page to be viewed exactly as-is, with links, menus, and other page elements working to at least show their contents.
Unlike the Web archive, however, this option allows the rendering to be done directly in the e-mail client instead of switching to the browser.
To do this, open a new blank Mail message, and then go to the desired Web page in Safari. Next, press Command-A in Safari to select everything (the page's contents will be highlighted blue). The click and drag the selection into the e-mail message window, or use the system's copy and paste functions, and it should embed in the e-mail message.
One benefit of this approach is that elements of the page can be edited and removed manually. For instance, if the page has an advertisement you would prefer to not include in your message, you can select it and press the Delete key to remove it. Some elements may show a highlight with a small "X" at the top corner, which, if clicked, will remove the entire element.

Read More