Please select from the following:
 

I am getting an "Access Denied" message when I try to add a Photo Directory.  What could cause this?

I don't understand the naming convention of the Computer Name, Share Name, user account name, Short Name, and Username.  Can you explain?

I am trying to use NFS on a Macintosh.  Do you have any suggestions on how to make this work?

I am using NFS on a Macintosh and can't seem to make a Photo Directory inactive.  What should I do?

How do I configure the PhotoVu with a Mac and an external hard drive?

How do I configure the PhotoVu with iPhoto and an external hard drive?

I am trying to use iPhoto 6 but the Photo Show does not display any photos. What could be happening?

What happened to the Years Album functionality in iPhoto?

How do I rebuild my iPhoto Library and database?

I am getting an "Access Denied" message when I try to add a Photo Directory.  What could cause this?
 
First, you must turn off all firewalls, spyware, anti-virus or other programs that monitor your internal network.   In most cases, these programs are located on your computer.  Many of these network monitoring or protection programs will automatically turn back on in minutes after you disable them.   Please ensure these programs are completely off.   Once you have the PhotoVu configured correctly, please consult the user manuals for these products to setup a rule or permission to allow the PhotoVu to communicate with your computer.

If you have upgraded from Mac OS X Jaguar (10.2.x) to Panther (10.3.x), this support tip might be useful.

In the PhotoVu Web Administration program, when you add a Photo Directory, it is possible that you will receive the following error: "The Computer and Share Name requires a valid Username and Password".  When you click on the "More" button, you should see "Access Denied" at the end of the message.

If you receive this error, please take the following actions:

1. Using Mac OS X 10.3.x or 10.4.x, open the NetInfo Manager.  This can be found by double clicking your hard drive icon on the desktop.  Click the Applications folder on the left hand side of the window.  Go into the Utilities folder and find the NetInfo Manager.  Start this application.
    
2. Click on the "users" directory.  In the column to the right, find the username of the account that you are trying to use as a Photo Directory.  Remember, once you enable Windows Sharing, your Short Name becomes both the Computer Share Name and Computer Username when you add a Photo Directory.
    
3. When you click on your username in the NetInfo Manager, you should see a number of Properties displayed below.  Look for the Property called "passwd".  If you see a number of characters in the Value(s) and do not see "********", continue with the following steps below.  If you see asterisks then this Support Tip does not apply to your "Access Denied" issue.  For these users, make sure you have Windows Sharing enabled and you are using your Short Name and log in password for this account when adding a Photo Directory.
    
   
    
4. Open System Preferences and go to Accounts.  Click on the username of the account you are trying to use as a Photo Directory.  In the "Password" field, select and retype your current password.  Do the same in the "Verify" field.  This will NOT change your password but update it using the correct format in OS X.
    
5. Go back into the NetInfo Manager and check the username to see that you now have "********" in the "passwd" Property under Value(s).
    
   
    
6. Log out of this account then log back in.
    
7. Try to add the Photo Directory again using the PhotoVu Web Administration program.

Technical Summary
When you upgraded from Jaguar to Panther or Tiger, it is possible that your user account passwords were not updated to a format that works with the PhotoVu.  Panther/Tiger added "shadow" passwords whereas Jaguar used standard "Unix hashed" passwords.  The process above will convert the user account password from a standard Unix hashed password to a shadow password.

[Back to Top]

1. Computer Name: 
   For the purposes of the PhotoVu, the Computer Name is the IP address of your Macintosh.  In a pure Mac environment, there are other names that can be used to communicate between computers.  Since the PhotoVu is based upon Linux (a close cousin to Mac OS X), we need a common way, over the network, to link your Mac and the PhotoVu.  The solution is to use your Mac's IP Address as the Computer Name when working with the PhotoVu Web Administration program and the PhotoVu.
    
2. Computer Share Name: 
   A Computer Share Name tells the PhotoVu where on the Mac to look for your digital photos.  The Computer Share Name will always refer to the place on your Mac that contains your personal or user account data files.  The confusing part is that the Computer Share Name is your Short Name.  The Short Name is found under System Preferences, Accounts.  Click on your account and you will see the Short Name grayed out.  The Short Name will always work for the Computer Share Name.
    
3. User Account Name: 
   This name refers to a specific user that has an account on the Mac.  Some times, this appears as a long, "friendly" name, other times it is the same as the Short Name.
    
4. Short Name: 
   When you created your user account name, the System Preferences, Accounts program asked you to (or automatically) create a Short Name.  It is a very simple name that only accepts alphanumeric and only a few special characters.  The Short Name is always used in the Computer Share Name and the Computer Username.
    
5. Computer Username: 
   Enter the same username and password as you use to login to your Mac.  The Mac login screen is shown after you start up your Mac.  Most of the time, the Mac Short Name and the full Mac username (Name) will match.   If not, always use the Short Name for the Computer Share Name and Computer Username field.
    
6. Computer Password: 
   The Computer Password is used in conjunction with the Computer Username to access your Mac.  Enter the same password as you use with your User Account Name.
    

As a rule of thumb, when adding a Photo Directory, enter the...

1. IP Address as your Computer Name.
    
2. Short Name for the Computer Share Name.
    
3. Short Name for the Computer Username.
    
4. Mac User Account login password for the Computer Password.

[Back to Top]

Before answering this question, please be aware that PhotoVu does not provide any technical support on third party products.  This information is provided for informational purposes only and is not a product recommendation.

Based upon feedback from  customers, some people use NFS Manager from a company called Marcel Bresink Software-Systeme.  This software can be found at www.bresink.de/osx/NFSManager.html.

[Back to Top]

At times, NFS mount points can become busy for a variety of reasons (change of IP address due to DHCP, movement of folders on your Mac hard drive, etc).  When this happens, you might not be able to make a Photo Directory inactive.  The best way to correct this problem is to restart the PhotoVu.  If this continues to happen, there is a problem with your NFS configuration on the Mac.

[Back to Top]

How do I configure the PhotoVu with a Mac and an external hard drive?

There are two configuration steps in using a Mac external hard drive and the PhotoVu: 1) Create a symbolic link to a folder on your external hard drive that contains your photos and 2) Use this link within your Photo Albums setup on the PhotoVu.  Make sure the symbolic link is to the top level folder that contains all of your photos.  This will provide you with the most flexibility when using Photo Albums.

Create the Symbolic Link

There are two ways to create a symbolic link on the Mac (not a Mac Alias).  First, you can use the "ln -s" command from a Mac OS X Terminal.  At a Terminal prompt, type "man ln" for more information.  Second, you can use a program like Symbolic Linker to create the link for you from a single right click of the mouse.

• Terminal and the ln Command:  Open the Applications, Utilities, Terminal.  Type "pwd" to confirm you are in the top level user account folder.  Type "mount" to determine the Volume for your external hard drive.  In this example, we are going to use our external hard drive at "/Volumes/40 GB".  Within that Volume, we have folder named "photos".  To create a symbolic link called "photos Link" within the top level user account folder, you would type the following command into the terminal:
   
  ln -s /Volumes/40\ GB/photos photos\ Link
   
  The backslashes are to escape the spaces so they mean something on the command line.  If you are familiar with the Terminal or Unix, this will be very straight forward.  If this looks extremely complicated, see the next bullet point.
   
• Symbolic Linker:  Download and install Symbolic Linker.  You will now have an extra menu item when you right click with your mouse.  From the Finder, find your "photos" folder on your external hard drive.  Right click on the "photos" folder and select Make Symbolic Link.  In a few seconds, you should see a file called "photos symlink" (if not, refresh the Finder).  You can rename this file to something more descriptive if needed.  For this example, we will rename this to "photos Link".  Copy this file into the top level folder under your user account.

Configuring the PhotoVu

In both cases above, you need to know where the symbolic link is located and its name.  In this example, the symbolic link will be located in the top level user account folder and named "photos Link".  When you setup Photo Locations, Albums and use Photo Directory as Albums, you would see the following configuration.

The PhotoVu does not support Mac Aliases so you must use a symbolic link instead.  The end result is that we want a "live" reference to the photos on the external hard drive and you do that with the symbolic link we created above.  When you click on Get Albums, you should see your iPhoto albums listed below.  If not, there is a problem with your configuration...most likely the symbolic link.  If you see your Albums, you should be ready to go!  Please click here to go back to the prior Quick Start section.

[Back to Top]

How do I configure the PhotoVu with iPhoto and an external hard drive?

In order to use an external hard drive with iPhoto and the PhotoVu, you must be using iPhoto 5 or 6 and have Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) installed.

Please note, you must have the option "Copy files to iPhoto Library folder when adding to library" checked in iPhoto 6, Preferences, Advanced tab in order for the PhotoVu to work with iPhoto 6.  The PhotoVu does not support Mac Aliases.

There are two configuration steps in using an external hard drive with iPhoto and the PhotoVu: 1) Create a symbolic link to your external hard drive iPhoto Library and 2) Use this link within your iPhoto setup on the PhotoVu.  The symbolic link must be to your iPhoto Library and not to a folder below it.

Create the Symbolic Link

There are two ways to create a symbolic link on the Mac (not a Mac Alias).  First, you can use the "ln -s" command from a Mac OS X Terminal.  At a Terminal prompt, type "man ln" for more information.  Second, you can use a program like Symbolic Linker to create the link for you from a single right click of the mouse.

• Terminal and the ln Command:  Open the Applications, Utilities, Terminal.  Type "pwd" to confirm you are in your user folder.  Type "mount" to determine the Volume for your external hard drive.  In this example, we are going to use our external hard drive at "/Volumes/40 GB".  Within that Volume, we have folder named "iPhoto Library".  To create a symbolic link called "iPhoto Library Link" within your current user folder, you would type the following command into the terminal:
   
  ln -s /Volumes/40\ GB/iPhoto\ Library iPhoto\ Library\ Link
   
  The backslashes are to escape the spaces so they mean something on the command line.  If you are familiar with the Terminal or Unix, this will be very straight forward.  If this looks extremely complicated, see the next bullet point.
   
• Symbolic Linker:  Download and install Symbolic Linker.  You will now have an extra menu item when you right click with your mouse.  From the Finder, find your iPhoto Library folder on your external hard drive.  Right click on the iPhoto Library folder and select Make Symbolic Link.  In a few seconds, you should see a file called "iPhoto Library symlink" (if not, refresh the Finder).  You can rename this file to something more descriptive if needed.  Copy this file to a folder under your user account.

Configuring the PhotoVu

In both cases above, you need to know where the symbolic link is located and its name.  In this example, the symbolic link will be located in the user account folder called "Pictures" and named "iPhoto Library Link".  When you setup Photo Locations, Albums and use iPhoto 6, you would see the following configuration.

The PhotoVu does not support Mac Aliases so you must use a symbolic link instead.  The end result is that we want to replace our local iPhoto Library reference with the symbolic link we created above.  When you click on Get Albums, you should see your iPhoto albums listed below.  If not, there is a problem with your configuration...most likely the symbolic link.  If you see your Albums, you should be ready to go!

[Back to Top]

I am trying to use iPhoto 6 but the Photo Show does not display any photos?

iPhoto 6 added the ability to import photos to its library without importing the physical image.  In iPhoto 6, Preferences, Advanced tab, you will see this option.  If the option "Copy files to iPhoto Library folder when adding to library" is not checked, the PhotoVu will not work with this iPhoto Library.

The PhotoVu does not support Mac Aliases.

[Back to Top]

What happened to the Years Album functionality in iPhoto?

The Years Album functionality was a PhotoVu work around for older versions of iPhoto that did not support Smart Albums.  PhotoVu recommends using Smart Albums to organize your photos if you would like to play by years.

[Back to Top]

How to I rebuild my iPhoto Library and database?

Please see the Apple support link at: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107947

[Back to Top]