The MacXperts
Tips and Tricks

Smooth Running

The best way to keep your computer systems running smooth, and problem-free is to create a healthy environment for it. A healthy environment begins with clean, filtered AC power. Never use a surge protector with your computer. Only use an Uninterruptible Power Supply, sometimes called a UPS or battery backup. These are power rated in volt-amps. Generally, a laptop or mini will require at least a 350 va unit. An iMac 750 va, and a Mac Pro or server 1500 va. I recommend American Power Conversion (APC), and Triplite units

Repair Permissions

The life-blood of any unix system is the directory structure and permissions. Think of the directory as the table of contents to a book, with the hard drive being the book. If the directory becomes corrupted, it is not possible to find the desired data. Permissions specify who can read and write to files and folders. Damage to both is just part of the nature of computing, but can render your data and computer useless. To prevent small problems from snowballing, use Disk Utility weekly to repair permissions and to check your directory. Even better, use Mac HelpMate from The MacXperts to automate this and other routine maintenance jobs.

Crash Plan

It is not a question of if you will ever lose important data, only a matter of when and how often! Backing up your data is an essential part of computer support. It is vital to have at least one on-site and one off-site backup. In the event of catastrophic loss, such as fire or theft, your on-site backup will be lost. This is where your off-site backup becomes a life-saver. For Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 users, Time Machine is the ideal on-site backup option. Off-site solutions include Mozy, SpiderOak, Carbonite, JungleDisk with Amazon S3 Services, and CrashPlan.

Malware

Think your Mac is immune from malware? Think again. Sure, we don't get nearly as many infections as Windows users, but it does happen. Perhaps even worse is that your Mac can receive a Windows virus that can then be sent to a Windows user, destroying their system. Not such a good move if you are trying to build a business relationship with that person or organization. Every Mac should have a solid anti-malware utility installed. My personal choice is Intego VirusBarrier.

Office Alternative

Need a full-featured office application suite, but don't want the expense and bugs of Microsoft Office? Sun Microsystems Open Office, available for the Mac as both Open Office and Neo Office are terrific alternatives for many users - and they are free!

Bootcamp Partitions

Got Boot Camp? Now how are you going to backup your windows partition? WinClone to the rescue. WinClone will create a duplicate of your Boot Camp partition, saving it to your Mac partition. Then when your Mac side is backed up with TimeMachine, your Windows data is doubly safe.

Windows on a Mac

Think you need to go through the expense, hassle, and security concerns to install Windows on your Mac to run your Windows-only applications. Perhaps not. there are may alternatives to running Windows software without windows. Check our our blog "Running Windows on Macintosh".

Remote Access

Ever been out of town and just had to have that important document that was safely stored away on your home computer? There are now many free and easy options to have remote access to all of your Mac and Windows systems.

How to Install Fonts in Mac OS X

2010 | March | 17 | 11:18 AM mountain time

SUMMARY

Fonts got you down? It can happen and you don’t even know it. Fonts can be a source of many problems looking like system or document corruption. Follow these simple steps to ensure your fonts are installed correctly.

BACKGROUND

Perhaps the single most important thing that brought the Macintosh to success was fonts. Before the Mac, fonts were an after thought for computer systems. On many, if you wanted a font beyond the stock Times, Helvetica, Symbol, and Courier, you had to craft (program) it yourself! And even then most were bitmap fonts and looked anything but professional on the printed page.

Then along came the Mac, with dozens of fonts, and later PostScript to deliver razor sharp text to the printed page.

Life was wonderful. Right up until you started adding fonts to your system. Then the sky darkened. A document would display one font on the screen, but another in print. Page and line breaks changed. Perhaps the system would not even boot!

All due to improperly installed fonts, damaged fonts, or font conflicts.

Prior to Mac OS X, we had some severe limitations on the total number of fonts the system could handle. This was worked around by font management utilities such as Suitcase. With the release of Mac OS X, we no longer are constrained by these limits (unless you consider a few billion fonts a limitation). However, there are still best practices to installing fonts to avoid their wrath.

FONT STORAGE LOCATIONS

There are three primary locations where fonts may be stored for use, and a couple of secondary locations:

1. ~/Library/Fonts. This is the Fonts folder located inside the user home Library folder. This is the first place the system looks for fonts. The advantage of this location is that any
user may install fonts here for their own use (other users will not have access to these fonts). The disadvantage is that most users will install fonts here improperly, with problems
following (more on this later).

2. /Library/Fonts. This is the Fonts folder located in what is called the root Library folder–the Library folder found directly on your hard drive. This is the second place the system
looks for fonts. The advantages of this location are that fonts located here may be used by any user account on the computer. Also, only administrator accounts are able to install
fonts here. The assumption is that admins know the proper installation strategy. However most don’t, which results in problems (again, more on this later).

3. /System/Library/Fonts. This is the fonts folder located in the Library folder within the System folder. It is the last place the system looks for fonts. Though it is possible for any administrator account to install fonts here, it is intended only for Apple to work with, all others should keep away.

And lastly, some applications will install fonts in secondary locations. This can be within the application folder itself–common practice for accounting programs–or hidden within the application. They can also store fonts in either the ~/Library/Application Support or /Library/Application Support folders. For an example, if you have an Adobe product installed, check out /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts. This all allow the application to have exclusive access to a font by any user, but prevents other applications from using the same fonts.

HOW NOT TO INSTALL FONTS

Just say “no” to drag and drop. I know, you’ve done it for years without a problem. But you may have been living on borrowed time.

Apple has a better way... The Font Book!

HOW TO INSTALL FONTS USING FONT BOOK

Mac OS X includes the Font Book application, located in your /Applications folder. Use this simple utility to replace your drag and drop installation for fonts. But it does something that drag and drop can’t do–it validates your fonts to make sure they are not seriously corrupted, and modifies their font ID numbering so they don’t conflict with any other fonts you have installed.

1. Open /Applications/Font Book.

2. Select the Font Book > Preferences menu. Configure as here, then close Preferences:

Apple Font Book Preferences

3. Select the File > Add Fonts menu.

4. From within the Add Fonts menu, locate the fonts you want to add to your computer (on CD, copied to your Desktop, etc.), select them, then click the Open button. Your fonts are now repaired and installed into the /Library/Fonts folder

5. Quit Font Book

Tags: fonts, Font Book