Archive for March, 2007
« Previous EntriesCreate a new blank file of any kind with Quicksilver
Friday, March 30th, 2007If you want to create a file of any type in any folder you can do it with Quicksilver. This works great if you find yourself creating the same file type with some data over and over again, i.e. copy a file then rename it). I have been using it a lot lately for data processing by having many Excel templates all ready to paste my raw data into, and for basic HTML pages.
I read about this in this post on Lifehacker this week, so check out the original article for the full details. But here’s a short summary:
First put whatever type of file you want to create (Word, Excel, TextEdit, etc.; they can have text in them, too) into ~Library » Application Support » Quicksilver » Templates (create the Templates folder if necessary). Then Select a folder for the new file, and use Quicksilver’s Make New » Select Template, and choose the file type you want to cre…
Move QuickTime full screen controller overlay
Friday, March 30th, 2007OK, this one is in the ‘painfully obvious’ category now that I know about it … but just in case I wasn’t the only one…
When you are viewing movies in QuickTime’s full screen mode, you can move the controls box just by clicking and dragging it. I just never thought of a transparent overlay as a window, so I hadn’t ever tried it.
For those of you that don’t have Quicktime Pro (I do), there is also this hint (and associated comments) on how to watch movies in full screen mode even if you haven’t bought QuickTime Pro.
OWC ships On-The-Go drive enclosure kits
Thursday, March 29th, 2007Other World Computing (OWC) today unveiled two new Mercury On-The-Go Hard Drive Enclosure Kits for 2…
Is Apple TV self-healing and just how many TVs/display types can it work with?
Thursday, March 29th, 2007The most interesting buzz of the Apple TV seems to be about an ability to detect damage (or hacks) and restore itself to prime condition. It also seems that with the right adapters, it will work with a much wider range of devices that Apple officially supports.
Many users who spent hours over the weekend and earlier in the week hacking their Apple TVs to do things beyond what Apple shipped the device to do have begun reporting that overnight their Apple TV units are being reset somehow and that their hacks are ceasing to function. Initial discussion among many of these users assumed that Apple was somehow resetting their devices remotely. However, it is far more likely that Apple has built a security measure into the Apple TV that is resetting the devices. Since the Apple TV is a Mac OS X based network device, Apple likely included a series of automatically run tools to counteract network attacks, malware, or other damage - these tools are probably treating the hacks as damage to the operating system and repairing them.
A set of scripts to erase deleted files based on age
Thursday, March 29th, 2007I have always wanted to have the ability to remove files from the trash which were deleted a long time ago. I have just written an AppleScript which renames files and/or folders after they have been put into the Trash to help with this task. Date and time are added to the original filename. So for example, if the file XYZ.txt has been deleted, then the script renames it to _@_YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS_XYZ.txt. This gives me the possibility to sort those files and folder by date and time.
I had to put an identification string (_@_) at the beginning because the Repeat loop takes the newly renamed files into account, which produces a never-ending loop. Maybe somebody can find a better solution.
I used Folder Actions (implemented on OS X 10.3 and newer) on the Trash folde…
One way to help back up personalized system files
Thursday, March 29th, 2007It seems like every time I backup my home folder and then do an erase and install, I forget a bunch of system files: my hosts file, apache, mysql, and php config files. So I’ve come up with a handy solution. I’ve created a folder in my home folder, ~/.system. In that folder, I’ve created hard links to a bunch of system files:
hosts -> /etc/hosts
httpd.conf -> /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
my.cnf -> /etc/my.conf
sites.conf -> /etc/httt/sites.confYou create a hard link in Terminal using this syntax, assuming you’re in the directory where you’d like the link to be created:
$ cd ~/.system
$ ln /etc/hosts .A hard link creates two directory entries pointing to the same file on the disk. Deleting one directory entry doesn’t delete the file. Now when I back up my home folder, I also back up these personalized system files.
Making iPhoto easier to use with photo sharing sites
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007Apple’s iPhoto makes organizing all your photos easy. It gives you easy options for ordering prints as well as books, calendars, and cards made up of your photos. And while it does give you some nice options (online photo albums, integration with iWeb, and photocasting) for sharing photos online if you subscribe to Apple’s $99 .Mac service, there isn’t any built-in support for sharing your photos using other services. In an out-of-the-box configuration, you’ll need to export your pictures from iPhoto and then upload them to a photo sharing manually.
Thankfully, there are a growing number of iPhoto plug-ins that offer direct from iPhoto export to photo sharing sites. The following are your options if you want both the ease of iPhoto and the community and convenience of sites like Flickr and Yahoo Photos.
Web abuzz with CS3, but upgrades are unfriendly
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007This post is among many that have talks about the release of Adobe’s Creative Suite 3. CS3 is important for many reasons - it’s a huge update of nearly all of Adobe’s core (and best loved) software. For Intel users like me it will also be the first opportunity to get hold of a universal version of key tools like Photoshop.
As a past semi-pro photographer (and still a keen amateur), Photoshop is one of my most regularly used tools. And today I doubt I could live without Acrobat, which I use not only to generate documents but also and archival tool for all sorts of material.
A script to back up files to a single ISO image
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007I bring my iBook everywhere, and I store on its drive 80% of my important data, since I use it for studying, working, scripting, doing projects for university, listening to music, downloading stuff, browsing, printing nice articles found on the Web to PDFs, etc. Scared by the fact that hard drives fail when you least expect it — and trust me, they still fail if you (like me) love your hardware more than your girlfriend. So I spent some days thinking about and coding a little script-based backup system with the following features:
- low memory usage
- fast!
- capable of backing up several directories in a single .iso image, ready to be burned.
My files-to-backup and my backup files must be stored on the same hard disk (the 40GB one inside my iBook), at least until I burn them on CDs every weekend. So, to prevent useless duplicates floating in my laptop, and my confusion during my several daily Spotlight searches, I chose to back up to a disc image (i.e. a s…
Use Grapher to embed equations in Pages and Keynote
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007There is no equation editor available in Keynote or Pages, but it is possible to creat nice equations in the Grapher application (in /Applications » Utilities) included in OS X, and then copy/paste the equation(s) into Pages or Keynote.
However, I don’t know how to select a font color to match Keynote’s master. Perhaps there’s a better/free way to create nice equations to use in Keynote and Pages?
Recover from an incomplete Erase Free Space process
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007I was thinking of all the private information that I never have time to secure delete from my trash because I’m too impatient, and I thought it would be a good idea just to run Disk Utility’s Erase Free Space (35-Pass) feature overnight just for good measure. Unfortunately, it was not done in the morning, so I hit Skip, and I was in a rush, so against better judgement, I then used Force Quit. However, Disk Utility erases free disk space by simply making a giant file that is nothing but zeros or random data. It left that huge file, leaving me with 268Kb of free space, instead of 70Gb. What’s worse is that I had no idea where it left that file! A reboot didn’t clear it out, and I couldn’t find any help on the usual Mac sites … so I started messing around.
It turns out that the fix is simple: just throw some file away and empty the trash, and you’ll get the space back. If for some reason you can’t find a file to throw away, open Terminal and type touch ~/Desktop/throw_me_a…
Adobe CS3’s size 13 shoe leaves big footprint
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007With today’s announcement of Creative Suite 3, a massive software suite that now contains 13 applications, Adobe Systems Inc. unquestionably has the biggest footprint in both print and online publishing. The company’s rise to power over the past few years was predictable, but the speed with which is has consolidated its power has been astonishing.
Once a second-rate competitor to Quark Express, Adobe’s flagship InDesign product, tightly integrated with its Photoshop and Illustrator tools in its Creative Suite 2 package, has in just a few years marginalized its once invincible competitor.
Add chapter markers to ripped DVDs for Apple TV
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007There are several applications out there that allow you to rip your own DVDs in a QuickTime format compatible with Apple TV. However, as of today, only Cinematize Pro is able to add the DVD chapter markers to the QuickTime file. The problem is that Cinematize Pro is quite expensive, and the quality is not as satisfactory as the one achieved with Mediafork (nee HandBrake).
With the help of MetaData Hootenanny, however, you can add the original DVD chapters to your QuickTime file quickly and for free:
- Rip your DVD disc with MediaFork (or any other application of your choice).
- Open Metadata Hootenanny and drag the QuickTime movie onto the Library.
- Click on the book icon (it’s on the bottom right corner of Hootenanny’s main window).
- Click on the button ‘READ FROM DVD,’ select the VIDEO_TS folder that you just ripped,…
Easily convert photos to black and white in iPhoto 6
Monday, March 26th, 2007Despite having Photoshop CS2, I have one technique and one technique only for black and white conversion, and it uses iPhoto:
- Double-click to edit the photo in iPhoto (v6 required; I always use full-screen mode)
- Bring up the Adjust dialogue
- Slide the Saturation slider all the way to the left
- Slide the Temperature slider all the way to the left (towards blue)
- [Optional] Muck about with Tint and Exposure until I’ve got something I’m happy with
The saturation slider on its own results in a rather washed-out, infra-reddish monochrome image — the colour balance slider adds really satisfying contrast and tone. It does this by changing the colour balance of the underlying colour image, but the results can immediately be seen in the monochrome image on screen. The tint slider does the same thing, but results vary hugely from image to image.
I can’t be bothered with more sophisticated, fiddly and time-consuming techniques (suc…
Add contacts with names to Mail’s recipient list
Monday, March 26th, 2007You probably already know that Mail stores the name and email address of people who have sent you messages as read from the header content. What I didn’t realize is that this also works in reverse.
I hadn’t an opportunity to try it out until now, after loading a fresh copy of Tiger on my system. As I went to send a message, I realized that (of course…) my list of contacts was gone. Rather than typing in the email address, however, I ramdomly decided to type in my contact’s full name and then the email address, much like Mail does when you start to type the name of someone you’ve already been in contact with, like this:
Jane Smith <jsmith@somesite.com>When you do this, Mail will actually send the message to the proper address and add the contact’s name to its own little database (Window » Previous Recipients). This is great for me, because I can add these contacts to Mail for easy retrieval later without using Address Book, which I find so…
Bill Gates speaks… in 1989 (and movie title mashups)
Monday, March 26th, 2007Monday’s IT Blogwatch on every desk: in which we uncover a 1989 talk by Bill Gates. Not to mention movie title mashups…
The Computer Science Club of the University of Waterloo writes:
Bill Gates discusses the software and computer industry, and how Microsoft has contributed. Gates also discusses his views on the future of the computing industry. The talk was recorded in 1989 but was only recently digitized. Topics include:
- The start and history of the microcomputer industry
- Microsoft BASIC and the Altair 880 computer
- The transition from 8-bit to 16-bit computers
- Microsoft’s history with IBM
- 640k memory barrier and 16-bit architectures
The “n” stands for no problem setup and nasty fast!
Monday, March 26th, 2007I recently talked my administrative assistant into getting a Macbook. She opted for a top of the line Macbook Pro. Since she had a cable modem already installed and working, she also opted to buy the AirPort Extreme with 802.11n. And, as Ken writes in this review, she found this product has great range, was very easy to set up and is lightning fast. Her next investment will likely be a USB printer to connect to the Extreme. What else can I say but kudos to Apple
New FastMac power adapter for old laptops
Friday, March 23rd, 2007FastMac has announced a new power adapter in its TruePower line specifically targeted at older lapto…
A revised fix for the apropros long-entry problem
Friday, March 23rd, 2007I’m frustrated and surprised that the problems with apropos have still not been fixed. I noticed this was discussed here before, but apparently those fixes don’t work on my current install of Mac OS X 10.4.9. Using ideas from the prior hint, I added the following as a fix in my .bash_profile:
function aproposFunc() { width=`stty size | cut -d -f2`; apropos $* | cut -c1-$width;}alias apropos=aproposFuncBackground:
For those not aware, the problem causes many lines (or pages) of extra information to be printed when you execute apropos key. The prior fix involved limiting the line-length as a pipe after the $PAGER variable (i.e. less), or using the -S command-line option. The current implementation of apropos no longer uses the $PAGER variable, but instead becomes a grep on a large text…
One way to create elegant hyperlinks in Mail.app
Friday, March 23rd, 2007Hyperlinks in emails come in two flavours - a) short, informative and to the point, or b) ugly. Here’s an easy way to get around Mail.app’s apparently-limited functionality for inserting hyperlinks in your mail.
- Choose Add Hyperlink from Mail’s Edit menu and type or paste a typical ugly URL:
http://www.link-to/long/and/ugly/item/to-link-to.html
It appears in the email exactly as above, then turns into an underlined hyperlink when you press Space at the end. Ugly.
- Place the cursor after the first letter in the hyperlink and type what you’d like the link to say in the email, for example:
hClick Herettp://www.link-to/long/and/ugly/item/to-link-to.html
- Now delete the surrounding original verbose text, and you’re left with an elegant Click Here link that, when clicked, takes your web browser to the now-hidden URL.
A small amount of work for a better presen…
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