It’s a new year folks, and it’s time to clean up those hard drives and develop some good habits.
In this article, we’re going to organize those millions of files and folders cluttering your poor little Mac and make it happy by using password protected disk images to archive and backup your junk!

Everyone from the newest Mac user to the grizzled veteran has run across a Macintosh Disk Image (DMG). The Disk Image, originated as a method of distributing multiple files in a secure and/or compressed format, has become the primary means of archiving installers for new software.

However, the DMG format has other uses, one of which we discuss in this article. By using the OS X included application ‘Disk Utility’ (/Applications/Utilities), you can easily accomplish the following tasks:

Put any number of files into a single file
Password protect that file
Compress it to save space

Some good reasons for doing this include:

Making system backups easier (instead of copying over 20,000 files, you only have one!)
Making your file system easier to navigate and manage
Securing private or sensitive documents

In this article, we’re going to do a little of each. We’re going to archive files collected into a folder into a password protected and compressed disk archive. By doing so, we can then have a nice, neat Documents folder that is easy to copy over to a DVD or backup drive, while still having instant access to our archived files.

Let’s begin! (As you progress through the tutorial, you can click any of the thumbnailed images to be shown a larger image.)

Ever been curious about what’s slowing down your system, only to open up Activity Monitor and see something like this:

Well, if you’re like me and have found Dashboard to be far less useful than we thought it would be oh so long ago, then you can disable it, using the helpful commands found over on Macworld.

Read on for instructions.

I love MacZot. I really, really do. I’ve spent about $300 there since mid-2006, and have gotten some great deals. But, the article linked is about how the owner acted very unprofessionally in regard to a deal he made with the developer of xPad.

Basically, Mr. Ball decided he didn’t want xPad any longer, and wasn’t going to pay for it. …

1/1/07 - And we’re live!

BabyGotMac (BGM) aims to be your source for Mac related news, commentary, reviews, rumors, discussion or anything else Mac related!

For our inaugural week, we’re going to make an open offer for content…if you have an original Mac related review, tutorial or article you’d like to submit, we will do the following for you (if we use …

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (subscription) and TUAW report that a single iPod vending machine sold a thousands of dollars worth of iPods in one month. A VP of Business Traveler Services is quoted as saying, “We’ve done about $55,000 in a month in gross sales just for the one on Concourse A. This is becoming the future for some high-end products in places like airports where space is at a premium.” If you’re willing to drop $349 plus tax, the iPod is yours. And it’s a change from all those salty treats you normally get at a vending machine.

Looking for some good, free content to throw on your iPod? Check out this massive list from OpenCulture.

Also, check out their comment section for links to even more free content. Some of the linked content includes:

* A Christmas Tale, Charles Dickens (iTunes)
* A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (iTunes)
* Aesop’s Fables, Aesop (mp3 download)
* Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (mp3 download)
* Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen (mp3 download)
* Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche (mp3 download)
* Call of the Wild, Jack London (mp3 download)
* Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (mp3 download)

Ever needed to boot your Mac to a firewire disk/drive, such as the Micromat Protege? Not a problem: hold down the ‘Option’ key while rebooting, and choose from the listed drives.
You can use the mouse to select the drive, then click the arrow pointing to the right to boot the system.