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    • Archive for May, 2008

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    Honest technology executives

    Friday, May 30th, 2008

    Wouldn’t it be nice if just for one day that the top brass of the technology companies would actually tell us the truth? Can you imagine what it would be like?

    Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer: “Hey, I’m just a sales guy who’s in over my head. I know I deserve to be fired, but I’m a great number two. Want to buy a copy of Vista with a free upgrade coupon for Windows Seven?

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    Rosetta-free makes life merry

    Friday, May 30th, 2008

    I’ve been ignoring Safari updates for years, sticking with an older version of the web browser that had proven to be stable. But eventually its limitations caught up to me, and I had to consider if the cost of running older, slower software was really worth it.

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    10.5: Avoid Gmail/Address Book sync issues in 10.5.3

    Friday, May 30th, 2008

    If you previously maintained your GMail contacts in sync with some application like A2G or whatever, enabling 10.5.3 Google contacts sync (in Address Book) may end in endless conflict resolution requests and duplicated contacts.

    So it is a good idea to delete all your Gmail contacts before syncing. The problem is that GMail does not authorize more than 20 deletes at a time, so this can take all night if you have thousands of contacts. The solution is to use the old Gmail version, which is still available — then you can select all your contacts and hit Delete and be done with it.

    [robg adds: There’s some confusion over this new feature in 10.5.3, as it doesn’t show up (in Address Book’s preferences) for all users. It seems it’s only available for those with an iPod or iPhone, and that the contacts are only synched w…

    Set Excel 2008 default zoom level via AppleScript

    Friday, May 30th, 2008

    I had a client ask how to set the zoom for new and existing documents to something larger than 100% in Excel 2008 because he finds it too difficult to read at the default size. While my vision may be a tad better, I still find the Mac version of Excel to be on the small side. Sure, the preferences allow for the setting of a default font and size for new documents, but this will alter printouts and returns us to our problem. The “simple” answer I came up with is an AppleScript “assistant” for zooming that runs in the background and quits when it senses Excel is not running.

    You can also drop files on it as a replacement for the Excel icon in your Dock! You can either download the script [24KB], or read the rest of this hint to view the source.

    [robg adds: I’ve also provided an alternative solution that’s not nearly as elegant, but which works for me, in the re…

    Set Excel 2008 default zoom level via AppleScript

    Friday, May 30th, 2008

    I had a client ask how to set the zoom for new and existing documents to something larger than 100% in Excel 2008 because he finds it too difficult to read at the default size. While my vision may be a tad better, I still find the Mac version of Excel to be on the small side. Sure, the preferences allow for the setting of a default font and size for new documents, but this will alter printouts and returns us to our problem. The “simple” answer I came up with is an AppleScript “assistant” for zooming that runs in the background and quits when it senses Excel is not running.

    You can also drop files on it as a replacement for the Excel icon in your Dock! You can either download the script [24KB], or read the rest of this hint to view the source.

    [robg adds: I’ve also provided an alternative solution that’s not nearly as elegant, but which works for me, in the re…

    Eject all locally mounted disks via AppleScript

    Friday, May 30th, 2008

    If you’re like me, you tend to install several updates and/or software packages at once. When through, I like to eject all my mounted disk images with a simple
    AppleScript:

    tell application “Finder”to eject (every disk whose ejectable is true and local volume is true and physical size < 1.0E+9)

    Technically, this doesn’t look for mounted DMGs but rather for ejectable, local (ie, non-network) disks with a size less than about 1GB. For most purposes, this will do the job. Copy and paste the above into Script Editor and save the resulting script in ~/Library/Scripts, then access it from the Scripts menu. Alternatively, add it to your tool bar, side bar, or assign it a hot key (with a third party hot key program), etc.

    [robg adds: As this script only checks for size and ejectable status, it may have unintended results depending on your system configuration. When I ran it, it ejected one (but not both) of my mounted CDs, but didn’t eject the T…

    Resize text with trackpad gestures on new laptops

    Friday, May 30th, 2008

    While I was within Safari, I was showing someone what the expand gesture was like for iPhoto, and discovered that the new trackpads resize the page font using that same gesture. Further investigation found that Mail does the same thing, and Preview resizes the whole page/photo.

    [robg adds: According to a friend with a new laptop, the Preview zoom feature is shown in one of the how-to-use videos for gestures, but the font resizing functions are not. If this turns out to be clearly documented somewhere, please let me know and I’ll remove the hint…]

    10.5: Override iCal ’scroll by day’ setting in 10.5.3

    Thursday, May 29th, 2008

    The 10.5.3 update adds a new preference (on the General tab) in iCal for scrolling the week view by Days or by Weeks. If you set this preference to Days, and then press the Option key when scrolling, you’ll scroll by week instead.

    [robg adds: This was one of the first things I tested in 10.5.3 when I found the new preference, but I couldn’t make it work, as I didn’t actually change the setting in preferences. It seems (on two machines here, at least) that this shortcut only works in one direction: you must have the preference set to scroll by days, and the Option key then overrides that setting to scroll by weeks. If you have the preference set to scroll by weeks, however, the Option key doesn’t then force scrolling by days.]

    Things to check if Audible files won’t import into iTunes

    Thursday, May 29th, 2008

    I have several .aa files (audio books from Audible.com) which won’t import into iTunes. Even more frustratingly, actually, is the fact that some will import, and some will not. Since there is no other Mac program capable of playing these files (i.e. QuickTime, etc.), it’s hard to diagnose what’s wrong. Neither Import nor Add to Library in iTunes, nor double-clicking on the file seems to help. iTunes comes to the foreground, but the audio book isn’t added to the library.

    I’ve tried all sorts of solutions, and it seems to come down to either one of two things:

    1. You downloaded format “1″ from Audible. Audible offers up to four formats in order of increasing quality and file size. The smallest size/lowest format reportedly will not work in iTunes.
    2. You have a corrupted download. This is the one that keeps getting me. The download appears to have completed successfully, but won’t open (as described above). If I download it again, it works. Note that thi…

      How to get the Zimbra iSync connector

      Thursday, May 29th, 2008

      Maybe you are lucky because your company or ISP uses Zimbra as its email server. Do you know you can synchronize your contacts and calendars with iSync? But if the required Zimbra iSync connector is not provided by your company or ISP, it’s quite hard to find. Here’s what you need to do.

      First, download the full OS X 10.4 or 10.5 server evaluation version from their downloads page (it’s 200MB). After it’s downloaded, mount the disk image and open the zcs.mpkg package with Pacifist. Dig down on this path in Pacifist: zcs.mpkg » zimbra-store.pkg » opt » zimbra » Jetty-6.1.5 » webapps » zimbra » downloads. Once at the bottom, extract zimbra-isync-5.0.6_GA_2301.MACOSX_UB.dmg somewhere on your drive.

      Finally, mount the disk image and install zimbra…

      Fix Monaco 9pt bitmap font in Terminal

      Thursday, May 29th, 2008

      The much-loved Monaco bitmap font doesn’t show up properly in the 9pt size in OS X. This issue is mainly visible when you do an ls -l in Terminal, as the letters ‘d’ and ‘r’ of the directory-permissions-indication stick to each other.

      An earlier hint shows how to fix this for Monaco 10pt by setting the font size to 10.1 by dragging a slider just a tad. The same could be done for the 9pt size, but you need to pull it up to 9.5 to separate the ‘d’ and ‘r’ — and by that time, the results are ugly because there is no 9.5pt bitmap.

      The Monaco 9pt bitmap is actually prettier than 10pt, and it needs to be fixed properly. To do this, open a saved Terminal window in TextEdit and look for FontWidthSpacing. You’ll find that it’s set to 1. Change this value to 1.001. You need to do this in either a saved terminalwindow.plist or the terminal.plist file. Further test…

      Fix Monaco 9pt bitmap font in Terminal

      Thursday, May 29th, 2008

      The much-loved Monaco bitmap font doesn’t show up properly in the 9pt size in OS X. This issue is mainly visible when you do an ls -l in Terminal, as the letters ‘d’ and ‘r’ of the directory-permissions-indication stick to each other.

      An earlier hint shows how to fix this for Monaco 10pt by setting the font size to 10.1 by dragging a slider just a tad. The same could be done for the 9pt size, but you need to pull it up to 9.5 to separate the ‘d’ and ‘r’ — and by that time, the results are ugly because there is no 9.5pt bitmap.

      The Monaco 9pt bitmap is actually prettier than 10pt, and it needs to be fixed properly. To do this, open a saved Terminal window in TextEdit and look for FontWidthSpacing. You’ll find that it’s set to 1. Change this value to 1.001. You need to do this in either a saved terminalwindow.plist or the terminal.plist file. Further test…

      Fix Monaco 9pt bitmap font in Terminal

      Thursday, May 29th, 2008

      The much-loved Monaco bitmap font doesn’t show up properly in the 9pt size in OS X. This issue is mainly visible when you do an ls -l in Terminal, as the letters ‘d’ and ‘r’ of the directory-permissions-indication stick to each other.

      An earlier hint shows how to fix this for Monaco 10pt by setting the font size to 10.1 by dragging a slider just a tad. The same could be done for the 9pt size, but you need to pull it up to 9.5 to separate the ‘d’ and ‘r’ — and by that time, the results are ugly because there is no 9.5pt bitmap.

      The Monaco 9pt bitmap is actually prettier than 10pt, and it needs to be fixed properly. To do this, open a saved Terminal window in TextEdit and look for FontWidthSpacing. You’ll find that it’s set to 1. Change this value to 1.001. You need to do this in either a saved terminalwindow.plist or the terminal.plist file. Further test…

      Sync Google Calendar and iPhone over the air with NemusSync

      Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

      I’ve discussed how Apple and Google need to play better in the enterprise space. So far neither company has made any overtures. But that doesn’t mean all has been quiet in this space.

      read more

      Move and resize app windows via AppleScript

      Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

      I’m a neatness freak, and I hate lots of messy overlapping windows everywhere. But I’m also a keyboard junkie, and I hate using the trackpad a lot. And I don’t want anymore background processes hogging memory, or more applications to open for such a simple task — so what to do? Answer: AppleScript. I wrote a collection of AppleScripts that use System Events to control the window size and position of the frontmost application. Also, the window snaps to a grid to make it easy to place next to other windows without overlapping.

      You can find the scripts on my iDisk public folder (Go » iDisk » Other User’s Public Folder, then enter phildooher). Download the zip file and put the (nine) scripts in your usual script folder. The scripts are known to work on OS X 10.4.11, but are untested on 10.5. [robg adds: I tested a few of these, but not all, on 10.5, and they seem to work as described.]

      Assign keyboard shortcuts to these scripts (using Quicksilver o…

      VPN connections in VMware virtual machines

      Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

      VMware Fusion provides two options for the network connections in a virtual machine: direct (Bridged) and by sharing the host’s connection (NAT).

      I have found that if you want to connect to a VPN from within a virtual machine, you must use the Bridged option. If you want the virtual machine to use the Mac’s VPN connection, you must use the NAT option.

      I have also found that connecting to the VPN from within a Windows Vista virtual machine on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.2 is not reliable — the connection frequently drops out. However, if I connect using the host machine (NAT), the virtual machine uses that connection perfectly, and I have had no disconnection issues.

      How to fix a high CPU usage issue with Quicksilver

      Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

      There’s one application I particularly love on my Mac: it’s Quicksilver. This week, for the first time ever, it started behaving oddly — my PowerBook was getting hot very quickly, and a check on Activity Monitor showed me that CPU utilization was at 100%, with Quicksilver using a varying amount from 20% to 90%.

      I tried quitting and reopening the application, deleting its preferences file, and manually rescanning my catalog: nothing seemed to work. However, while digging around on my machine, a quick search in the Library led me to the folder containing the indexes used by Quicksilver: /Library » Caches » Quicksilver » Indexes. I quit Quicksilver, moved the Indexes folder to the trash, and reopened Quicksilver … and it worked! Everything came back to normal (and I could then empty the trash, as the old files weren’t needed). You can read a bit more detail about the process in …

      How to fix a high CPU usage issue with Quicksilver

      Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

      There’s one application I particularly love on my Mac: it’s Quicksilver. This week, for the first time ever, it started behaving oddly — my PowerBook was getting hot very quickly, and a check on Activity Monitor showed me that CPU utilization was at 100%, with Quicksilver using a varying amount from 20% to 90%.

      I tried quitting and reopening the application, deleting its preferences file, and manually rescanning my catalog: nothing seemed to work. However, while digging around on my machine, a quick search in the Library led me to the folder containing the indexes used by Quicksilver: /Library » Caches » Quicksilver » Indexes. I quit Quicksilver, moved the Indexes folder to the trash, and reopened Quicksilver … and it worked! Everything came back to normal (and I could then empty the trash, as the old files weren’t needed). You can read a bit more detail about the process in …

      Restore Dashboard widgets’ locations after resolution change

      Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

      Widget positions can get mixed when you display Dashboard using a lower display resolution than your usual resolution. In order to restore your widgest back to their previous state, you need to first save their current positions. So prior to changing resolutions , copy ~/Library » Preferences » com.apple.dashboard.plist to another location.

      After doing whatever it is you wanted to do at a lower resolution, return to your original display resolution, then copy the backup you created back over the current file.

      Finally, type killall Dock in Terminal to force the system to reload the original positions of your Dashboard widgets.

      Disable single-click URL selection in Firefox 3

      Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

      When the user single-clicks in the address bar in Firefox 3 (currently at RC1 — download | end user features), the default behavior is to select the entire contents of the address bar. The expected behavior for most other OS X browsers, including Firefox 2, is to insert the cursor at the click location. To restore Firefox 3 to sanity:

      1. Type about:config in the Address Bar and press Enter.
      2. If you get a message warning you about changing advanced settings, click “I’ll be careful, I promise.”
      3. Locate the preference named browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll and double-click it to change its value to false.

      That’s it. Firefox should be back to it’s old behavior. Note that you can still double-click the Address Bar to select a word, and triple-click to select the entire URL.

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