How to disable Skype automatic startup

Since moving abroad, I starting using Skype quite frequently. If you haven't tried it before, I highly recommend giving it a try. Now I contact all my friends and relative abroad. You can download a copy for free from the Skype website.

The application itself is wonderful and the only complaint I have is the auto startup. I hate applications running in the background when I am not using them. Especially ones that are using your system resources and actively connecting to the Internet taking up your valuable bandwidth.

You would think that the option to disable this would be in the preferences but it is not. To disable this you need to go to the Account settings in System Preferences. This walkthrough will show you how to do this very easily.

Disabling Skype automatic startup:

1. From the apple menu (), select System Preferences
2. Under System, select Account
3. You may need to click on the lock in the lower left hand corner to change these settings. For this you need to have access to an Admin account
   
4. Select the account you want to disable the automatic startup from the list of accounts in the left column
   
5. In the account settings click on Login Items
6. From the list of items, select Skype
   
   
7. Below the items, select on the minus sign (-) to remove the application from starting up
8. You have just disabled the settings. The next time you log into your account, Skype should no longer start up

After changing these settings, Skype will only be running when you want it to. Not only will it reduce the resources used on your Mac but also reduce the bandwidth stolen from this application. Hope it helps!

Follow-up: iPhone Sync for Google Calendar & Contacts - Mojibake (文字化け) issues

I previously wrote a post about sync'ing your Iphone with Google calendar & contacts. Since then, I realized that this configuration can cause issues for Japanese users. For certain emails, it causes Mojibake (文字化け). For receiving, I have first hand experience and suspect it is the cause for sending issues I had too.

I would suggest to follow the previous walkthrough only for the calendar & contacts. For email, continue to use the Gmail configuration wizard instead of Microsoft Exchange.

After reconfiguring my email settings, all the emails which had issues were downloaded correctly, without any Mojibake (文字化け) issues.

How to change the hostname of your Mac

When you first bought your Mac, you may have been in a rush to set it up and named your Mac something you wish you could change. Well, it is not so difficult to do, you just need access to the terminal application and run a few commands.

Three commands are required to change your hostname.

So start by launching the Terminal application located in the Utilities folder of your Applications.

To set the display name of your Mac (in my case MacBook Pro) in the command prompt, type the following command:

macbook-pro:~ mactimes$ sudo scutil --set ComputerName "MacBook Pro"

To set the host name of your Mac (in my case macbook-pro) in the command prompt, type the following command:

macbook-pro:~ mactimes$ sudo scutil --set HostName "macbook-pro"
macbook-pro:~ mactimes$ sudo scutil --set LocalHostName "macbook-pro"

Thereafter, if you wish to view the names configured, use the following commands:

To view the diplay name of our Mac (in my case MacBook Pro) in the command prompt, type the following command:

macbook-pro:~ mactimes$ sudo scutil --get ComputerName
MacBook Pro

To view the diplay name of our Mac (in my case MacBook Pro) in the command prompt, type the following command:

macbook-pro:~ mactimes$ sudo scutil --get HostName
macbook-pro
macbook-pro:~ mactimes$ sudo scutil --get LocalHostName
macbook-pro