Seattle Web Promotion will help you with your Business Web Basics
(206) 286-8438 MailTo:SeattleWebPromotion@Gmail.com
Seattle Web Promotion will help you with your Business Web Basics.
| Google Places | Superpages | Manta |
| Yahoo Local | Yellowpages | Whitepages |
| Bing Business | Local.com | MerchantCircle |
| Yelp Business Page | CitySearch | About.me |
The above are some of the most popular and useful directories.
These accounts may already exist, we will verify your claim and enhance them.
The Introductory Investment for this Business Web Basics is $150.
You can read a more complete description at http://seattlewebpromotion.weebly.com/business-web-basics.html
The Best TED Talks listed by a TEDx organizer
Oh man! As a TEDx organizer and as a general fan, I’ve been waiting for this question all my life.
Let’s break this up a bit.
- In the mood to see demographic data come to life in front of you?
It’s the talk I send people to introduce them to TED. A classic.
- In the mood to learn something new about music and be inspired?
The second talk I send people. Just an incredible speaker, I’ve never met someone who didn’t love this talk. Got me to listen to classical music in a whole new way.
- In the mood to feel excited about the education system?
My favorite talk ever. Bill Gates comes on at the end and calls his method the “future of education.” If you like data/engineering, you’re especially likely to fall in love this this video.
- In the mood to wonder at the mysterious nature of the human brain?
One of the talks to put TED on the map. Harvard neuroscientist happens to gets a stroke, achieves a nirvana-like state, and then studies what happened to her to figure it out.
- In the mood to laugh and also reflect on how schools work and don’t?
Another classic TED talk, Robinson discusses the importance of creativity. The talk is both charming and deeply thoughtful.
- In the mood to reconsider how society treats creativity?
Another classic, the top talk for people interested in writing/the arts. Basically, we pressure artists in subtle and unfair ways with our modern conception of what it means to be a ‘genius.’
- In the mood to watch an incredible tech demo?
I don’t know what’s happened to this since then, but this technology was all the buzz when the talk came out. The MIT Media lab has a lot of good talks – I recommend the “Siftables” talk as well.
- In the mood to smile and laugh at clever advertising?
One of my very favorite talks, it’s a clever look at how advertisers actually add value to the world. Also, hilarious. I recommend his other talk as well.
- Interested in thinking about the role of women in business?
One of the most discerning discussions of the state of women in society I’ve seen, by the COO of Facebook. Discusses the reasons that women hurt themselves professionally, encourages them to take charge.
- In the mood to think about the dynamics of peace negotiations / be inspired?
On how to “get to yes” in a negotiation. Good stuff.
- In the mood to just be entertained with some sweet juggling?
An old one. Long, but worth it – the ‘father of juggling’ does some crazy stuff.
- In the mood to see a talk about Reddit?
Can’t leave this one out of this list!
There are many, many more, but this is more than a good start.
The Best TED Talks listed by a TEDx organizer
Oh man! As a TEDx organizer and as a general fan, I’ve been waiting for this question all my life.
Let’s break this up a bit.
- In the mood to see demographic data come to life in front of you?
It’s the talk I send people to introduce them to TED. A classic.
- In the mood to learn something new about music and be inspired?
The second talk I send people. Just an incredible speaker, I’ve never met someone who didn’t love this talk. Got me to listen to classical music in a whole new way.
- In the mood to feel excited about the education system?
My favorite talk ever. Bill Gates comes on at the end and calls his method the “future of education.” If you like data/engineering, you’re especially likely to fall in love this this video.
- In the mood to wonder at the mysterious nature of the human brain?
One of the talks to put TED on the map. Harvard neuroscientist happens to gets a stroke, achieves a nirvana-like state, and then studies what happened to her to figure it out.
- In the mood to laugh and also reflect on how schools work and don’t?
Another classic TED talk, Robinson discusses the importance of creativity. The talk is both charming and deeply thoughtful.
- In the mood to reconsider how society treats creativity?
Another classic, the top talk for people interested in writing/the arts. Basically, we pressure artists in subtle and unfair ways with our modern conception of what it means to be a ‘genius.’
- In the mood to watch an incredible tech demo?
I don’t know what’s happened to this since then, but this technology was all the buzz when the talk came out. The MIT Media lab has a lot of good talks – I recommend the “Siftables” talk as well.
- In the mood to smile and laugh at clever advertising?
One of my very favorite talks, it’s a clever look at how advertisers actually add value to the world. Also, hilarious. I recommend his other talk as well.
- Interested in thinking about the role of women in business?
One of the most discerning discussions of the state of women in society I’ve seen, by the COO of Facebook. Discusses the reasons that women hurt themselves professionally, encourages them to take charge.
- In the mood to think about the dynamics of peace negotiations / be inspired?
On how to “get to yes” in a negotiation. Good stuff.
- In the mood to just be entertained with some sweet juggling?
An old one. Long, but worth it – the ‘father of juggling’ does some crazy stuff.
- In the mood to see a talk about Reddit?
Can’t leave this one out of this list!
There are many, many more, but this is more than a good start.
Business Web Basics | Seattle Web Promotion | David Anders
Business Web Basics
Claim Your Business’s Google Places Page.
http://google.com/placesforbusiness
This should be your first priority, this Google Search has links to show the wide spread consensus of the importance of this step.
http://www.google.com/search?q=claim+your+google+places+page
Video About Google Places by Google http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpZan96KHOM
Claiming your Google Places page requires you have a Gmail Account – you will be prompted to create this on the Google Places webpage. Once you have the Gmail Account you can add the other options that a Google Account offers.
Claim Your YELP Business Page
Claim Your Yahoo Local Page
http://listings.local.yahoo.com/
Claiming your Yahoo Local page requires you have a Yahoo Account – you will be prompted to create this on the Yahoo Local webpage.
List Your Business on SuperPages Directory
http://www.superpages.com/about/new_chg_listing.html
List Your Business on YellowPages Directory
http://listings.yellowpages.com/Services/ServiceClaimSearch.aspx
62 things you can do with Dropbox
http://www.macworld.com/article/161311/62_things_you_can_do_with_dropbox.html
62 things you can do with Dropbox
Ask Macworld editors to name our favorite apps, and most of us would mention Dropbox. The file-synchronizing service has revolutionized the way we use our Macs; we’re always looking for new things it can do.
Towards that end, a couple of months ago we posted a note on Macworld.com, asking readers, “How do you use Dropbox?” The response was incredible: Between our forums and email, we received nearly 250 suggestions. We sorted through them and then boiled them down to our 60 favorites. (We added two tips of our own at the beginning, to establish the basics.)
The Basics
1 Go to Dropbox and set up an account. Next, download and install the Dropbox app. Put files and folders that you need to access from various locations and devices into your new Dropbox folder. Then repeat these steps on your other Macs, Windows PCs, and iOS devices. One benefit of storing important files in Dropbox is that it automatically retains older versions of your files, so you can revert to them if necessary.
2 Create folders in Dropbox, and then create symbolic links to those folders on your Mac. Once you’ve done this, whenever you appear to be saving a file to a folder on your Mac (to ~/Documents/Work, say) you’re actually saving it to Dropbox (/Dropbox/Work).
There are a couple of ways to create symbolic links. To do it manually, open Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities) and enter ln -s ~/Dropbox/newfolder ~/path/to/symbolic/link (adjusting as necessary for the locations of your folders). So, for example, if you wanted to move your Documents folder to Dropbox, you could do so and then enter this command in Terminal: ln -s ~/Dropbox/Documents ~/Documents.
If you’d rather not futz with the command line, you could instead use utilities such as MacDropAny (), SymbolicLinker (), or DropLink to accomplish the same thing.
What you store
3 It’s probably impractical to put your entire user folder in Dropbox, but you can put the most important folders there: The Documents folder is an obvious one. The Music and Photos folders might work if you have enough Dropbox space. (Remember, you can upgrade from the 2GB that Dropbox gives you for free to 50GB [$10 per month] or 100GB [$20 a month] paid accounts.) Create symbolic links to those folders from your various machines, and you’ll have essentially the same Mac wherever you go.
4 If your hard drive is especially small, make room on it by moving some of your files to Dropbox.
5 Many of us store the files and folders for active projects on the desktop. Put them in Dropbox instead.
6 Scan important personal documents—your passport, driver’s license, marriage certificate, and so on—and store the scans in Dropbox; that way, you can get to them anytime you need to provide a copy.
7 Archive the original installation files of your apps so that you can install (or reinstall) them as necessary on any of your Macs.
Store copies of user manuals (see #8).
8 Download PDF copies of the user manuals for products you own—appliances and home-entertainment equipment especially—from the vendors’ Websites, and then save them all to Dropbox.
9 As long as your music collection is small (or your Dropbox storage allotment sufficiently large), store your iTunes media in Dropbox: Create an iTunes Media folder in Dropbox and copy your media files to it. In iTunes, go to iTunes ▶ Preferences, select the Advanced tab, and select the Dropbox folder as the iTunes Media Folder Location. (You shouldn’t sync the iTunes Music Library.xml file; doing so can reportedly make iTunes unstable.)
10 Synchronize Address Book contacts by moving the ~/Library/Application Support/Address Book folder to Dropbox and then creating a symbolic link from its old location to its new one.
11 If you use an inventory app such as Home Inventory () or My Stuff () to keep track of your belongings, save its data files in Dropbox. If the worst should come to pass, you’ll have a full list of items to refer to for insurance purposes.
12 Several third-party utilities—notably 1Password () and TextExpander ()—let you store their data files in Drop- box; you make the change in each program’s preferences. Even if there isn’t explicit Dropbox support, you can sometimes synchronize an app’s data files by (a) finding out where those files are stored and then (b) using the symbolic link trick to move them to Dropbox.
13 Add an extra layer of protection to Dropbox’s own security by creating an encrypted container within your Dropbox folder. Several third-party utilities—including TrueCrypt—will help you do so; or you can use OS X’s own Disk Utility to create an encrypted disk image. Don’t use OS X’s FileVault with Dropbox; they do not get along.
Sync data for apps like TextExpander (see #12).
14 Programmers: Check an Xcode project out of the source-control system at work and into a Dropbox folder. At home that night, fire up Xcode, pointing it at the same Dropbox folder, and continue working. When you get back to work the next day, check the project back into source control.
15 Web developers: Use Dropbox to store “local” copies of files you’re working with on live servers. As you change those files, from different locations, they’ll synchronize, so you’ll always have current copies to work on.
16 Move the Web Receipts folder to Dropbox, and then edit the Save To Web Receipts Folder workflow so it points to the new location. Unfortunately, because that workflow is actually a Python script, editing it is nontrivial; you can’t use Automator to do it. The instructions are available online, if you care to search. It’s probably simpler to just create a new Save Receipts shortcut instead.
To do so, navigate to /Library/PDF Services and move the existing Save PDF to Web Receipts Folder.pdfworkflow script somewhere else for safekeeping. Now move the Web Receipts folder from your Documents folder to Dropbox. Make an alias of it (not a symbolic link), and drag that alias into /Library/PDF Services. If you want to, you can rename the alias to make it more active—‘Save To Receipts Folder,’ perhaps.
17 Keep your iWeb domain files in Dropbox. (By default, they’re in ~/Library/Application Support/iWeb/Domain.)
18 Store all your plain-text notes in Dropbox. Plain text is the ideal cross-platform format, and there are many, many text editors (for both OS X and iOS) that are Dropbox-friendly.
19 Synchronize your browser bookmarks. If you use Safari, that means moving the folder ~/Library/Safari to Dropbox, and then creating a symbolic link from the old location to the new.
Firefox stores its bookmarks in a file called ‘places .sqlite,’ which is buried in the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/randomsequenceofcharacters.default. You could synchronize that one file in Dropbox as you do other files. Or you could synchronize your entire profile‚ which includes your history, saved tabs, and more, in addition to bookmarks, by synchronizing that entire folder.
20 If you’d rather not go to the trouble of synchronizing bookmark files or profiles, you can always sync .webloc files linking to specific Websites.
Keep iChat logs in sync (see #21)
21 Sync instant-messaging transcripts: If you use iChat, move the iChats folder from Documents to Dropbox. Then open the Messages tab in Preferences and select that folder from Save Chat Transcripts To. If you use the Adium IM client, its logs are kept in ~/Library/Application Support/Adium versionnumber/Users/Default/Logs.
One file, many places
22 Keep your grocery list as a text file in Dropbox, where it will be accessible from anywhere via a smartphone or an iPad. You can add to it from anywhere; if you share it, so can your housemates, say.
23 Before you leave for a business trip, save work documents you’ll need in Dropbox. You can then access them from virtually anywhere via a Mac, an iPhone, or an iPad.
24 If you use both Macs and Windows PCs (whether they’re in the same location or in different places), you can access files stored in Dropbox from all of them. That doesn’t apply to data alone: Some cross-platform apps use the same format for their settings files on both Macs and PCs; Mozilla’s Thunderbird email apps is just one example.
25 Set up a Drop- DAV account, and then synchronize files from the iWork suite on the iPad with Dropbox.
26 Sync files with Android phones, using that platform’s Dropbox app.
27 If your company has more than one location, and you frequently shuttle between them, keep important files in Dropbox so they’re available wherever your office is that day.
28 Give meeting participants iPads, and sync all of those tablets to the same Dropbox folder. You can then distribute meeting agendas and background materials instantly to everyone at the same time.
One file, many users
29 Take advantage of Dropbox’s LAN Sync feature to directly synchronize Macs that are on the same local network. It’s simpler than configuring standard OS X file sharing.
30 Set up separate folders in Dropbox’s Public folder for different clients or coworkers, and then send the separate URLs to each. Alternatively, set up a different shared folder for each project, and then distribute that URL to all project participants.
Share files for different projects from Dropbox’s public folder (see #30)
31 If you outsource some work to outside contractors, post the work files they’ll need in Dropbox and mail them the URL; you can then disable the links when the job is done.
32 Many email services have size limits on file attachments. To send files that are too big for email, post them to a shared folder in Dropbox instead.
33 Working with someone who doesn’t have a Dropbox account? Are the regular shared folders or the Public folder not working for you? Then use AirDropper (airdropper.com) to send and receive files. It’s Dropbox-compatible, so files transferred by AirDropper are accessible in Dropbox.
34 Instead of writing the minutes of a meeting by hand, record everything in audio and then upload the resulting .wav file to Dropbox. From there, you (or someone who works for you) can download it for transcription.
35 To share work files among coworkers, store them in Dropbox’s Public folder; Control-click (or right-click) on a file in that folder, select Copy Public Link, and share that URL. Or share a folder: At dropbox.com, Control-click on a folder, and then select Invite To Folder and provide an email address. Or select Share A Folder from the top menu.
36 You can save money on postage by scanning large documents and then depositing the scans in Dropbox. It’s a lot cheaper than sending those same documents via mail or some other delivery service.
37 If your teleconferencing service doesn’t have its own file-sharing tools (or if you use a generic VoIP service like Skype for your phone meetings), use Dropbox to share the files you’ll refer to on the call.
38 Have traveling workers store scanned receipts and expense reports in a Dropbox folder to which your accountants have access.
39 In projects that require multiple iterations of a document, use Dropbox’s built-in backup as an ad hoc versioning system; if you need to roll back to an earlier version of a work file, you can.
40 Store your company-wide help files and policy documents in Dropbox. That way, when you update one of them, everybody can access the same new versions at the same time.
41 Copy photos to Dropbox, and share the URL with family and friends.
42 Keep your resume in a Dropbox folder and then send out a link to it to potential employers.
43 Post PDFs of the menus (take-out or otherwise) for local restaurants in a shared Dropbox folder, and then use that to coordinate meals out with friends and family.
44 Share a Dropbox folder with parents, and point their Macs to that folder as the source for desktop and screensaver images. Then, when you post pictures of your kids to that folder, they’ll show up on the grandparents’ machines automatically.
Create an Automator workflow that moves selected Finder items to Dropbox (see #56)
45 Keep a far-flung family up-to-date on the latest goings-on by posting personal newsletters to a shared Dropbox folder.
46 Use Dropbox to collaboratively care for aging relatives: If the people who are collaborating on an elder’s care live in different places, everyone can post updates to medical and personal information in Dropbox, so everyone has the same information; you can also leave notes for each other in a text document.
47 Share photos from your travels with folks back home by posting the pictures from your iPhone to a shared Dropbox folder.
48 If you’re the default tech-support person for your friends and extended family, create shared help documents or screencasts that answer the most frequently asked questions.
49 Collect family history documents and photographs from widely scattered relatives in one shared folder.
50 Ask each student to create a Dropbox account and then submit their homework to a shared folder in it; no more “I forgot my computer” excuses.
51 Store reading assignments that are in PDF or some other digital format in a Dropbox folder. If you make annotations in an app like GoodReader, your notes will then be available from anywhere.
Beyond the basics
52 Go to the Send to Dropbox Website (sendtodropbox.com), click on Connect To Dropbox, and provide your Dropbox credentials. You can now email files to Dropbox. That makes all sorts of scenarios possible. For example, create a document in Google Docs and then opt to share it. In the Share drop-down menu, select Email As Attachment and provide your Send to Dropbox email address; the Google Doc will appear in Dropbox’s Attachments folder.
53 Open email attachments on the iPad in GoodReader. Review the document and then save it from GoodReader to Dropbox. When you get back to your Mac, a copy will be waiting for you in your Dropbox folder.
54 Use Dropbox as a backup for your backup. Assuming that your Time Machine backup sets aren’t too huge, periodically save one of them to Dropbox. If both your computer’s hard drive and your backup drive should fail, you could still recover some data. Or, if you notice that your Mac is acting funny, quickly copy important files to Dropbox, in case your Mac really falls apart.
55 Save incrementally between Time Machine’s hourly backups: Save a copy of whatever you’re working on at the moment to Dropbox, adding some sort of time-stamp to its filename.
56 Create an Automator service that copies or moves selected files in the Finder to Dropbox (with permission to overwrite existing files), and then launches the Dropbox app for immediate synchronization.
Create a rule in Hazel to automatically process files that are saved to a specific Dropbox folder (see #59)
57 Normally, Dropbox saves versions of your files for 30 days. If you have one of the for-pay Pro accounts, you can install the Pack-Rat add-on. Dropbox will then save those files indefinitely.
58 If you have a file on a remote Mac that you need to access from your iOS device, use SSH or a VNC app like LogMeIn to connect to the Mac and then copy the file to your Dropbox folder; when you next sync, the file will be available on your iPhone or iPad.
59 Automate Dropbox folders by using OS X’s Folder Actions or Noodlesoft’s Hazel (). For example: Save iPhone photos to a Dropbox folder that Hazel monitors. When it sees that a new photo has been added to the folder, it can then apply some image processing and copy the processed version to another folder on your Mac or in Dropbox.
60 Forget about complicated file-sharing settings: Just install the Dropbox app on all of your devices.
61 Configure your BitTorrent client to monitor a Dropbox folder and immediately initiate downloads when a new .torrent file is added to it. You can then copy a file to that Dropbox folder to initiate the download. (Just make sure your client is configured to save those downloads to somewhere other than Dropbox.)
62 If you need to give the same message to a bunch of different people, don’t call them one by one and read from a script. Instead, record the message and post the recording to a public Dropbox folder. Then email the link to everyone.
What You Shouldn’t Sync
Users have reported problems when they’ve tried to synchronize some files via Dropbox. One common thread among those problems is that if a program checks for conflicted copies of its data files, Dropbox could confuse it.
The three biggest apps for which we’ve seen reports about problems are:
- iTunes (the iTunes Music Library.xml file);
- iPhoto (its libraries);
- and Quicken (its data files).
No matter which apps you’re synchronizing via Dropbox, you should be careful to close those files as soon as you’re done with your immediate editing session. That way you won’t inadvertently leave a file open in one place and create file conflicts when you try to open it from another.
Mac OS X Lion Info Center – Tidbits | The Compter Guy David Anders
Mac OS X Lion info Center – Tidbits
Upgrade to and Learn Lion with New Take Control Ebooks
http://tidbits.com/article/12364
Our Favorite Hidden Features in Mac OS X Lion
http://tidbits.com/article/12320
Finding a Replacement for Quicken
http://tidbits.com/article/12392
Lion Awakens Three Sleeping Utilities
http://tidbits.com/article/12393
Lion Is a Quitter
http://tidbits.com/article/12398
Video Viewing in Lion Freezes New iMacs
http://tidbits.com/article/12394
Dealing with Lion’s Hidden Library
http://tidbits.com/article/12306
Update Migration Assistant before Upgrading to Lion
http://tidbits.com/article/12350
How Long Will Lion Take to Download?
http://tidbits.com/article/12301
The Two Faces of Lion
http://tidbits.com/article/12237
Application compatibility wiki for Mac OS X Lion
http://roaringapps.com/apps:table
Rosetta and Lion: Get Over It?
http://tidbits.com/article/12191
Preparing for Lion: Find Your PowerPC Applications
http://tidbits.com/article/12156
Mac OS X 10.7.1 Fixes Just a Few Bugs
http://tidbits.com/article/12429
Claim Your Google Places Business Listing Links – Seattle Web Promotion
A simple list of links of mainly blog posts urging you to claim your Google Places Business Listing.
The Google Search was a simple “claim your google places business listing”.
Google Places and subpages were #1 thru #4
http://www.google.com/places/
How To Claim Your Google Place, and Why You Should July 20, 2011
http://todaymade.com/blog/how-to-claim-your-google-place-and-why-you-should/
Claim Your Business Listing on Google Places for Better Local Search Results
http://salonbuilder.com/google-places-local-search-listings.asp
Google Places: How to claim your local business listings YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-GR0IVJW9M
How To Claim Your Google Places Page For Your Local Business May 23, 2011
http://www.quickregister.net/wordpress/2011/05/23/how-to-claim-your-google-places-page-for-your-local-business/
Ten Advantages of Google Places For Your Business Feb 6, 2011
http://socialmediapathways.com/google-places/ten-advantages-of-google-places/
How to Claim Your Google Places Local Business Listing Apr 12, 2011
http://getblissed.com/blog.php?view=detail&id=201104121705338320
Today, more than one in five searches are local and your business is impacted by customers searching the internet ….
Those are the results from the first page of the Google Search.
These are my blogs where I am using ScribeFire to post this
The Seattle Web Promotion online identity was started Aug 1st and is intended to be the example used when I sell my services.
The blogs are at
http://SeattleWebPromotion.wordpress.com
http://SeattleWebPromotion.blogspot.com
http://SeattleWebPromotion.posterous.com
http://SeattleWebPromotion.tumblr.com
Hands on with Lion Recovery Disk Assistant Macworld Dan Frakes
Hands on with Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
by Dan Frakes, Macworld.com Aug 10, 2011
Apple this week released a free utility called Lion Recovery Disk Assistant that provides an easy method for creating an official Lion Recovery drive from any 1GB (or larger) USB hard drive or thumb drive. You can download Lion Recovery Disk Assistant from Apple’s Support site; it’s about 1MB in size. Apple provides some brief instructions for using this utility, but those instructions don’t give you the whole story—while the utility is indeed simple to use, there’s a lot more you should know about creating and using a recovery drive.
Apple – About Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433
About Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
Built right into OS X Lion, Lion Recovery lets you repair disks or reinstall OS X Lion without the need for a physical disc.
The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant lets you create Lion Recovery on an external drive that has all of the same capabilities as the built-in Lion Recovery: reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari.
Note: In order to create an external Lion Recovery using the Lion Recovery Assistant, the Mac must have an existing Recovery HD.
To create an external Lion Recovery, download the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant application. Insert an external drive, launch the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, select the drive where you would like to install, and follow the on screen instructions.
When the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant completes, the new partition will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility. To access Lion Recovery, reboot the computer while holding the Option key. Select Recovery HD from the Startup Manager.
For detailed information on this update, please visit: About Lion Recovery Disk Assistant.
Lion Disk Maker – build a bootable USB key from Mac OS X Lion’s Installer
http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/
What is Lion Disk Maker?
Lion Disk Maker is a small application programmed with AppleScript that you can use with Mac OS X 10.6 or 10.7 to burn a DVD or build a bootable USB key from Mac OS X Lion’s Installation programm.
Download the application ( ZIP file, 380 KB).
As soon as you launch the application, it checks the presence of Mac OS X Lion Install in the /Applications folder, or tries to find one using Spotlight. Then, it proposes to build a DVD or create a USB bootable install disk.
To burn the DVD, you’ll need a SuperDrive and a writable DVD (single layer, 4,7 GB). To build a bootable disk, you’ll need a 4GB (minimum) USB or Firewire drive or an SD-Card. WARNING! The whole contents of the drive (including every other volume from this drive) will be erased! Please backup any data on another disk if necessary.
If you have any question, or wish to report a bug, please send an e-mail: webmaster AT gete DOT net.
FAQ
I am told I have no copy of Mac OS X Lion Install available.
Mac OS X Lion Install is automatically erased after you upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion. If you need to download it again, open the Mac App Store, open the Purchase page while pressing Option (Alt) key. You’ll be able to download Mac OS X Lion Install again.
The best time to use Lion DiskMaker is when you just finish downloading Lion from the Mac App Store.
I encountered the following message :
The disk could not be created because of an error : An error occured : 1. hdiutil: attach failed – No such file or directory
This happens if you chose the wrong Mac OS X Lion Install application, or if you mounted manually the InstallESD.dmg file first.
The simple answer is: don’t do this 
Lion DiskMaker is clever enough to detect your copy of Mac OS X Lion Install itself. Then it will mount the DMG file itself.
Yes, that’s cool, but I don’t have the complete Mac OS X Install app and I just kept the InstallESD.dmg file. So do I have to re-download Lion again?
There is a clever trick, courtesy of hardmac.com, which allows to use Lion DiskMaker even if you kept only the DMG file :
1) Create a folder « Install Mac OS X Lion » in /Applications.
2) Add the Contents/SharedSupport folders in it.
3) Add the InstallESD.dmg file in the SharedSupport folder.
4) Now add .app at the end of Install Mac OS X Lion folder. There should be a Forbidden sign on it, but it does not matter.
Now, Launch Lion DiskMaker and it should detect the app automatically. Then choose your USB key, and… GERONIMOOOOOOOOOO!
I just bought a brand new Mac with Lion pre-installed and no boot disk, can I use Lion DiskMaker?
No, sadly, it won’t work. You won’t be able to reinstall Lion from the Mac App Store… You’ll have to use the Recovery disk to reinstall Lion from the Internet, as explained in Apple’s Knowledge Base. Or use Apple’s own Recovery Disk Assistant.
Can I use a FireWire or SD-Card?
Yes, you can, though the USB drive is « universal » and works on any Mac.
My drive was completely erased!
Yup. This is how the software works, and you are warned before choosing the drive. Backup any file on your drive before using the software if necessary. And use a dedicated, small drive (a 4 GB USB key is incredibly cheap these days).
Can I redistribute this software ?
Sure, as long as you mention the author and don’t suppress any comment or change anything in its package.
Booting from the DVD is slooooow as hell…
A DVD will always be slower than a USB key, and it seems Lion’s disk image is not optimized for use with optical disks. If you can avoid it, well… avoid it, and use a USB key.
Lion DiskMaker is donationware
If you found this program useful and wish to make a donation, you can use the Paypal button below (I also accept iTunes Store vouchers 
). However, if you wish to use it without paying, I am totally fine with this. I intend to keep the software free of charge.
The Computer Guy, Seattle David Anders 
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