Ask TUAW: Remote file access, converting images to CMYK, VNC on OS X, Time Machine and more

In time around in Ask TUAW we'll be looking at several questions about Time Machine as well as VNC, how to remotely access files on your Mac, batch converting images to CMYK, cloning dual-boot Macs and more.

As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!

Alex asks

I have a PPC G5 running Leopard acting as my home server. However I travel often and would like to be able to remotely control and access my files easily and securely. Any suggestions? Also, is there a way to set up a wiki server without Leopard Server?

Well obviously this is what Back to My Mac was supposed to make easy, but as you probably know it hasn't really worked out that well, which you can use without .Mac. However, I recently came across a little application called FarFinder ($35) which may be worth a look if ease of use is a top priority (though I haven't used it myself). It essentially runs as a webserver on your Mac and presents webpages that basically look like finder windows. So you can get at your files basically from any computer with a browser.

As far as the wiki server goes, and as I've suggested before, you probably should check out MediaWiki on Mac OS X.

Steve asks

I have a Macbook Pro running Leopard and it thinks that I have a VGA monitor attached to my computer, even though I don't. I did plug in a VGA monitor to my computer a few days ago and it worked fine, but after unplugging it, my computer still thinks it's plugged in. I tried plugging in and unplugging different monitors of all sorts (VGA, DVI and even a Composite television), but afterwards it still thinks that a VGA display is plugged in. I've tried restarting my computer multiple times, and I've used the detect displays option over and over, but to no avail. How can I fix this?

This is almost certainly a hardware problem. You've already tried all the things I would have suggested. I think you need to take this into the Apple Store.

Jakus asks

I work at a printworks, and often we get alot of images in, that are large sizes, but low res. and normally RGB. This is useless for printing. Basically ive seen many batch convertors etc. But none that will both resize, and convert an image to CMYK! If you could help, it would be very usefull. Pls note, the CMYK bit is an important bit!.

This sounds to me like a job for Automator. If you have Photoshop, which surely you do, you can use Ben Long's Photoshop Automator Actions Pack to build your own custom workflow that includes both resizing and CMYK conversion. Ben has a tutorial on converting images from Aperture to CMYK that I'm sure you could adapt for your own purposes.

Maerlin asks

I am currently running Tiger on a Macbook Core Duo. For work reasons, I just bought a BlackJack 2 and would love for it to be able to sync with Entourage. Is there anyway to do this? The disk included does not run on my Mac and the only solution I have found thus far is through the MissingSync. Thanks!

There is no native syncing capability between Windows Mobile handhelds and Mac OS X. I have heard many horror stories about how badly the syncing offerings are for Windows Mobile, but there are basically two options for syncing with Entourage: 1) as you already discovered, Missing Sync for Windows Mobile ($39.95), and 2) PocketMac for Windows Mobile ($29.95), though only the Missing Sync site explicitly promises support. Perhaps you should contact the PocketMac developers if you're interested in their product.

megatrebuchet asks

I am basically running Leopard 10.5.2 on my beloved mac and Windows XP sp2 on a dell box on my home network. Is there a way that I can set it up so that I can remote login to my mac using the XP box. Please answer my question... just this once... googling did return a lot of result but it hasn't been particularly helpful. I need full access to my mac when remotely logged in.

As we've noted many times OS X has built-in support for VNC. Just turn on Screen Sharing in the Sharing Preference Pane and check the "VNC views may control screen with password" box in the "Computer Settings..." (obviously you'll need to define a password). You should then be able to access your Mac from a Windows box running a Windows VNC client (since I never use Windows I don't have any specific suggestions on that end). You'll also need to be able to find your Mac. If it's on your local network you should be able to just type in your Mac's local IP (e.g. 192.168.x.x). If you were doing it across the internet you'd need to open up the VNC port 5900 in your router and probably use a dynamic IP address service like DynDNS

kh asks

i know there's no way to use an imac as just a monitor right now (right?), but after seeing the story about the displaylink adaptor, would it be possible to use a usb-to-usb connection from a source to an imac to enable this? seeing as how there's no video input on imac, usb seems like it would be the only way. i'm just not sure if the tech works both ways. thanks!

No, unfortunately, it won't work that way; there would have to be different electronics in the Mac that make this possible. That said, you could uses your iMac as a kind of "second monitor" using ScreenRecycler which basically runs on top of VNC. Though frankly this is not exactly elegant.

foltzie asks

Can you use a Mac running Leopard connected to the internet via ethernet to share with other devices using the built in Wi-Fi? Specifically, I would like to use the internal Wi-Fi to share a connection using WEP, for a Nintendo DS which doesnt support WPA. This would allow me to turn on and off the sharing without having to reconfigure my router, which talks to everything else in WPA.

Yes, check out the TUAW Guide to using your Mac as a NAT router. The main difference with Leopard is that you need to turn on "Internet Sharing" in the Sharing Preference Pane.

Alex asks

Apple seems unable to make up its mind as to what hard drives are supported by Time Machine and what aren't. My question is, what does work with Time Machine? Will a network drive via Ethernet work?

The only officially supported network drives are Time Capsule and AFP shares from other Macs running Leopard (client or server). The most recent update to the Airport Extreme Base Station allowed users to selected a connected USB disk as a Time Machine location, but this is not officially supported and I would not recommend depending on it. There also hacks that will enable support for other network drives, but I also would not recommend them.

Sam asks

I have a Macbook Pro, 160GB hard drive. If I got a 250GB external hard drive, would it be possible to partition it so that I could use Time Machine on it, as well as put other items, say move things over to save space on my original hard drive?
Yes, you can put other things on the drive. The Time Machine backup will be kept in its own set of sub-folders at the top level of the drive, though that will obviously reduce the amount of space for the backup. It's better for the Time Machine drive to be larger than the drive you're backing up so that you'll have more revisions (i.e. be able to "go back" further in time).

Jethran asks

We all know there are some really good programs out there to make back ups (bootable or not) of a disk partition, CCC and SuperDuper for example. But is there anything out there that will make a disk image of an entire hard disk, boot sectors and all. Under Windows there are programs such as Symantecs Ghost which will do this for you but I don't know of anything on the Mac.

I believe NetRestore from Mike Bombich, the author of Carbon Copy Cloner, is something like what you're looking for. Be sure to check out his excellent tutorial on deploying dual-boot Macs.