Mac Tips n' Tricks

Automatically populate lyrics in iTunes

2011-02-21T14:19:00.004-06:00

Have you noticed that if your lyrics are populated in iTunes and you play the song on your iPod touch/iPhone or iPad it shows you the lyrics so you can follow along while it's playing? This is a nice little feature but a pain to add lyrics to every song in your library. Luckily it has become a very simple process with an application called Get Lyrical, this application will allow you to get the lyrics to all your iTunes songs, just the ones you select or just have it get the lyrics to the ones you are listening to. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in please check out the developer's site and download this amazing application.

Quick Look Zip Files

2011-02-18T15:26:00.004-06:00

Quick look is an amazing feature only made available recently on the newer Mac operating systems. Although brilliant in its original design there has been a few missing components to the feature. One of those is the ability to Quick Look a compressed file to see it's contents without actually having to decompress it. Click here to download the plugin.

Once you have downloaded the plugin and have decompressed it please follow these instructions to install.

From your Hard Drive (not user account) navigate to /Library/QuickLook
Drag the Zip.qlgenerator into /Library/QuickLook
To use the plugin simply hit the space bar with your compressed file selected or right click and select the option to "Quick Look"

Flash Cookie Removal Made Easy

2011-01-30T18:16:00.002-06:00

I've talked previously about the enhanced tracking capabilities of flash cookies over regular cookies. I even uploaded a video and provided the script required to remove them. Today I decided to take things one step further and distribute a very simple application I developed to move cookies and flash cookies to the trash and then empty the trash.

Personally I like to have this script run at startup so I don't have to bother with remembering to clear out my cookies and whenever I log on I know I'm starting with a clean slate. If you would like to do the same the instructions on how to do so are at the bottom of my original post on flash cookies. http://mac-tips-n-tricks.blogspot.com/2009/11/remove-flash-cookies.html

I hope this application comes in handy for you and please remember that it does empty the trash so if you have items in the trash you're not sure you want to delete do NOT run this application.

Download it here!

Display EXACT duplicates in iTunes

2011-01-18T10:42:00.005-06:00

The feature to display duplicates songs in iTunes is a nice feature in itself, however iTunes isn't very strict on what it considers a duplicate entry. As long as the songs have the same name and artist they are considered a duplicate song. Personally I have quite a few duplicates I want to keep because they are different versions or remixes of the same song.

This brings me to the meat of the post. How to only display exact duplicates of a song. With the file menu open you will see "Display Duplicates" now if you hold down the option key you will magically see that text change to "Display Exact Duplicates."

Mac Scheduled Start Up

2009-12-01T14:32:00.004-06:00

A few weeks ago I explained how you can shut down your Mac (or perform any task) using a text message. Sadly you cannot send commands to a powered off machine to turn it on so today's post will show you how to do the next best thing.

If you're like me you don't enjoy waiting for your computer to boot up. So what I like to do is have a task that will automatically turn my Mac on for me at a certain time. Since I usually start working at around 8:30 in the morning I like to have my Mac power on at 8:15 (just in case I'm feeling the urge to start work early).

To do this simply open up Terminal (Applications>Utilities>Terminal)

Then type in pmset repeat wakeorpoweron MTWRF 08:15:00

This will either wake your computer from the sleep state or power it on at 8:15 am Monday-Friday.
M = Monday
T = Tuesday
W = Wednesday
R = Thursday
F = Friday
S = Saturday
U = Sunday

Now if you want to cancel you're scheduled start up just simply type in pmset repeat cancel.

Mac Holiday Gift Ideas

2009-11-30T10:26:00.011-06:00

I know it's been awhile since my last post but I'm back and ready to continue with providing simple, easy to follow tips and tricks to better your mac experience. Since Black Friday has just passed us I thought I'd do an entry on great Mac gift ideas under $100.

Mac Software Gift Ideas

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Price: $24.95 (Free Shipping)
Definitely the best value for it's price. Give this as a gift to a Mac user letting them upgrade to the latest Operating System by Apple. Some of the features provide increased speed, improved reliability, and extra hard drive space. (Just make sure the person's Mac you are buying for has an Intel processor.)

Parallels Desktop 5 or VM Fusion 3
Price: $ 57.99 or $55.99
Do you or someone you know with a Mac occasionally need Windows (or another operating system) for one reason or another? Virtualization software from Parallels and VM Fusion is a great way to run a seperate operating system side-by-side with OS X. If you are interested in gaming I would recommend Parallels, where VM Fusion is what I would recommend more for developing.

Microsoft Office 2008 (Home & Student Edition)
Price: $89.99 ($99.60 with shipping)
No matter how anti-Microsoft you might be Office is an important tool to have to utilize the capabilities of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. Whether you like it or not these are the industry standards in both school and many work environments.

Mobile Me
Price: $59.99 ($63.98 with shipping)
The MobileMe service is a very useful tool to utilize when switching between macs or on your iPhone. It will automatically sync your data to all registered devices and has such features as online photo galleries and iDisk.

The Sims 3
Price: $39.99 (Free Shipping)
The best-selling computer game of all-time. Sometimes it’s fun to escape your life and play god to virtual people and control their lives. This newest version of the ever popular game The Sims comes with a variety of new features which includes online capabilities.

Pixelmator
Price: $14.99 (plus Shipping)
It’s no Photoshop, but it’s features are close. This has just about everything a non-professional would ever want to edit images. The user interface is very mac friendly making it easy to use for novice and advanced users.

Mac Hardware Gift Ideas

Mac Magic Mouse
Price: $68.95 (Free Shipping)
The latest wireless Bluetooth mouse developed by Apple referred to as “the world’s first Multi-Touch mouse.” This mouse uses Multi-Touch gestures like those found on the iPhone and recent MacBook trackpads to make your mousing experience smoother and simple.

500 GB External Hard Drive
Price: $89.99 (Free Shipping)
An external hard drive is a great gift in that you will be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't want more space to hold pictures, music, or other data. Even if they have more than they can handle on their Mac wouldn't it be nice to be able to back that up? Sure Apple does offer a 1 TB Time Capsule External Hard Drive but that will run you $299.99 plus tax.

CyberPower 7 Port Hub
Price: $32.99 (Plus Shipping)
It's no secret that Macbooks are very short on USB ports. A USB hub could be just be just the solution you're friend needs so he can connect his printer, camera, flash drive, external hard drive and whatever else he might need a USB for all at once. Not only does this work with Mac OS X but Windows as well.

Bose Companion 2 Series II multimedia speakers
Price: $99.00 (Free Shipping)
Pushing the envelope on our $100 cut off mark these speakers are well worth it. Mac users are aware that their internal speakers are adequate for casual listening but if you really want to hear that music a decently priced external set of speakers is a must. This could be just what the doctor ordered for music lovers.

Speck SeeThru Laptop Case
Price: $30 - $50
Those Macbooks you and your friends carry around are very expensive and valuable machines and deserve to be protected from the world. Speck offers hard covers for just about all brands of Mac and even iPhones and other devices.

These are just a few ideas you might want to take advantage of. Also note if you shop through ebates you can get cash back with your purchases. Just one more way to save the most this holiday season. If you have any ideas for gifts not mentioned here I would love to hear them. Thanks and Happy Holidays.

Sync Apple remote with Apple TV or Mac

2009-11-15T13:52:00.002-06:00

I know this topic isn't really exciting but it is a problem my sister ran into when she bought her new iMac and wanted to use her old apple remote with that 24" display. This is also a good tip to hold onto when you have multiple Macs close by and you start using the remote. It can be a pain when both start responding.

Syncing your Remote
The syncing process is the same whether it's with the Apple TV or a Mac. Simply hold Menu and Next/Fast Forward buttons for a few seconds until the confirmation appears on the screen.

Un-Sync your Apple TV
From your paired remote go to Settings > General > Remotes and select Unpair Apple Remote.
Some of you unfortunate people might of lost your paired remote. So in order to un-sync your lost remote you will need to use a different apple remote and hold Menu and Previous/Rewind button for a few seconds.

Un-Sync your Mac
Open System Preferences and go into the Security pane. Now all you have to do is select Unpair in the General tab.

How To Mass Rename iPhoto Pictures In 10 Easy Steps

2009-11-14T13:03:00.009-06:00

I've actually had a lot of people asking me about this so it seemed like a good post to make. iPhoto grants you the ability to do batch changes which will allow you to apply a change the title, date or description of photos. The only problem with this is it only shows up in iPhoto information on the picture. What if you want to take all those picture and have them renamed? iPhoto hasn't evolved to the point of letting us do that but luckily we can use other Mac OS X software to accomplish this goal.

So want to change all those picture names from their cryptic P0519091825.jpg to names? Well you've come to the right place. This way might seem a little roundabout but it works perfectly.

First we want to take all the pictures we want renamed and place them into a folder. It doesn't matter what the folder name is.
Now we want to open up Automator from the Applications folder
Select to create a new workflow and drag the folder you just created into the empty workflow space
Now Select the Files & Folders pane and add the Get Folder Content action into your workflow by click and dragging or double clicking.
Once this is done check the "Repeat for each subfolder found" checkbox
Add the Rename File Items action to your workflow. (At this point a pop up will ask if you if you want to copy these files to preserve their original names. I would suggest doing so and once you're done you can just delete them)
Change the first drop down menu from "Add Date or Time" to Make Sequential
Click the New Name radio button and type in the name you want to give your files
The rest of the options are completely preferance related so I will stop instructing for those. (At the bottom of that action you can see an example of what it will look like to help you decide which options you want to choose.)
Now Run your workflow and it will rename all the files in your folder.

At this point I would go back to the first action in your workflow "Get Specified Finder Items" and remove the folder you have in there. Then save your workflow so you can come back to it whenever you want and just drop a new folder in there to rename different files. This of course works with any group of files or folders and not just pictures.

If you don't care to learn the process and just want to use it Click Here to download the workflow with simple 3 step instructions.

Remove Flash Cookies

2009-11-13T12:22:00.008-06:00

Whenever you clean out your browser cookies you might not know this but you aren't removing the Flash Cookies. Flash Cookies are stored in an entirely different location making them non browser specific and can track where you go on the web long after you leave the site you got the cookie on and even on a different browser.

These little guys need to be dealt with and you can either remove them manually or create a script or workflow to remove them for you. If you just want to remove them manually here are the two path locations in which they are stored.

HD/Users/Your Username/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects

HD/Users/Your Username/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys

And just delete every file and folder in those two locations.

For those of you who do not want to remember this exact location and have to come back to it on a regular basis to remove these cookies I will show you how to create a workflow to do this for you.

If you want to get even fancier you can save your workflow as an application and have it run automatically whenever you login so you don't have to remember to run it from time to time.
Here's how:

Open System Preferences

Select Accounts

Click on the Login Items tab

Click the Plus Sign and navigate to the workflow application you just saved

Check the Hide checkbox

And you're done. In just 5 minutes you've created a workflow, saved it as an application and set it up to run automatically whenever you login. Now you will never have to worry about deleting the flash cookies on you're account again.

How To Keep Yourself Safe On WiFi Networks

2009-11-12T14:52:00.002-06:00

Whenever joining your computer to a public WiFi network you are putting the contents of that machine at risk. There are some precautions I suggest taking to help keep these pesky attackers away from your files.

Free WiFi access is becoming more popular than ever. A lot of people depend on these hotspot areas like airports, hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and even southwest airlines has been testing free WiFi on some of their flights. I know a lot of Mac users who like to believe they are safe from any kind of internet attack. This is not true. Sure most viruses are aimed at Windows operating systems but I'm referring to transmitting your personal data over a public network, which can easily be pulled down by someone else on that network if they know what they are doing.
So lets dig into what we can do keep them away from our data.

First thing is to make sure you are connecting to a reputable WiFi provider. There are people out there creating fake networks in order to lure in and steal unsuspecting users information. On more than one occasion I have seen networks go by the name of "Free Public WiFi" which can very well connect you directly to the hackers computer.

Now that you've found a reputable WiFi provider to join open up your System Preferences, click on the Security pane and choose the firewall tab. Make sure the Mac's built-in Firewall is on. Now click the advanced button and be sure that "Black all incoming connections" and "Enable Stealth Mode" are checked. I prefer to keep stealth mode turned on all the time, not just when trying to hide from attackers on a public network.

Our third step is going to greatly increase our protection over a public network. We are going to establish a secure VPN connection using a free utility called Hotspot Shield. Hotspot Shield encrypts your web session and hides your IP from potential attackers. This is a free application that works on both Mac and Windows.
Once you launch it from the Applications folder a new browser window and menu bar pop up and you will see a shield icon displayed in your menu bar. You can either click the "Connect" button in the browser and watch the red shield in your menu bar change from red to green. If that doesn't tickle you then you can right click the red shield in the menu bar and select "Connect."

Once you're done just select disconnect from the shield icon in the menu bar and that's it. You can now connect to a public WiFi network and keep all your transactions safe and secure.

Show Hidden Files Easily With Automator

2009-11-11T18:11:00.003-06:00

Macs make it a little more difficult to review hidden files than windows. This isn't a bad thing since unless you know what you're doing you really don't want to be playing around with them anyway.

But when the time does come where you have to edit a hidden file it would be nice to have a simple workflow to run instead of memorizing terminal commands. This is where Automator comes in.

Open up Automator (Found in Applications) and start a new Workflow
In the Left Side Pane Under Library select Utilities
Now in the other pane select Run Shell Script and double click it
You should now have a new Shell Script in your workflow, delete anything that is in there and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles True
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit';
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to activate';

5. Now Save your workflow. (Hold on we're not done yet)
6. Go back to the script you just typed in and change the word True to False
7. Now Save As Hide Hidden Files

Changing the True to False will once again hide the once hidden files. We do not want them always visible so it is a good idea to have a workflow to do both. Now whenever you want to see your hidden files for whatever reason just run your Show Hidden Files workflow and when you're done run your Hide Hidden Files workflow.

Have Dashboard Widgets On Your Desktop

2009-11-08T12:12:00.002-06:00

I love my widgets, but I know a lot of people who don't love having to open up dashboard every time they want to see them. So today's mac trick is for them.

To get widgets on your desktop follow these simple steps.

Open Terminal (Applications>Utilities>Terminal) and enter defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
Log out of your user account and log back in
Open up the dashboard and click and hold the widget you want to place on your desktop
Now hit the dashboard shortcut key (usually F12 or F4 on the mac)

You should now have the widget on your desktop. To reverse this do the exact same thing only backwards. Click and hold while on the desktop and then hit the dashboard shortcut key.

Create Custom Folder Icons

2009-11-07T15:17:00.007-06:00

Stacks are a great way to keep your folders organized and easily accessible. What isn't so great is how they are displayed. If you right-click on any stack you can change how it is displayed, through folder or stack. This isn't good enough when you have a few that look the same. So here I am to help you initiate a third alternative.

I thought it would be fun to show an example along with the instructions, especially since I recently photoshoped an image and have been waiting for a purpose to use it.

1. Download a free application called Img2Icns. This application can be used for much more than what we are using it for today but I don't want this entry to go on for too long so we'll stick with just this one example of how we can use it.

2. Drag the image you want to use as your icon into the application. Once this is done you should see an image like the one below. Notice How I have a file called "Mac Files" right above the application you are using and how it is just a boring Folder icon.

3. Now that your picture is in place drag the folder you want to change the icon for into the application. In my example you can see that the folder icon on Mac Files is now the Mac Pirate picture I created a few days ago.

4. This step is to help change the stacks on the doc so you know what is what. As you can see I have 3 stacks on my dock. The first is applications, the second is documents (where I just placed my mac files folder) and the third is downloads.

Of course you can get a lot more creative than this and make some really cool looking folder icons. But for example purposes I hope this did a good enough job of showing you how to change icons on folders and in stacks.

Navigate Dialog Box Using Only Your Keyboard

2009-11-05T14:27:00.002-06:00

I'm sure we have all experienced this, you want to close something out and a dialog box pops up asking if you are sure you want to and you have to mouse over and click on close. It can be a real pain. If you are familiar with Windows then you are aware that in the same situation all you have to do is hit the tab key and it will cycle through your options.

What you might not be aware of is that Mac has this same capability but for some reason it isn't the default setting. Whatever the reason may be for this it is a real easy fix.

Open System Preferences
Select Keyboard from the Hardware Section
Click on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab
At the bottom where it says "Full Control Access" select the All Controls radio button

That's it. You can now cycle through all the options with the tab key and no longer need to mouse over to close out those pesky dialog boxes.

Trash Talk 102

2009-11-03T21:56:00.004-06:00

If you've read my entry called Trash Talk 101 you are aware of a few useful bits of information about deleting files. This of course relates to files on the local drive where Trash Talk 102 is relating to files on a network drive.

As you might of realized from earlier posts I am big into external drives. What I'm not big into is having a warning box pop up every time I go to delete a file off my NAS. To make it worse the dialog box has the "Cancel" button the default option so you actually have to mouse over and click "Continue."

Since I only delete files that I am sure I want to delete I like to skip this annoying step. So what you do is press Command + Option+ Delete. This will delete the file immediately, without putting it in the trash and no warning box.

View Free Disk Space, Quick and Easy

2009-11-02T21:46:00.004-06:00

Ok, I'll admit my last post wasn't the easiest tip but hopefully it wasn't too hard to follow. Today I'm going to just mention a quick little something that a lot of people aren't aware of.

With older versions of Mac OS X if you wanted to view your available disk space you had to open up the Activity Monitor or open the Get Info tab. Well with 10.6 all you have to do is select the disk in Finder and press your spacebar. Doing this opens up a quick look of the disk providing you with the total and free disk space.

Put Your Mac To Sleep With A Text Message

2009-11-01T22:58:00.013-06:00

Have you ever been out and realized that you forgot to either turn your Mac off or put it to sleep? I know I have. Luckily you have the ability to put it to sleep, turn it off or do just about anything with a text message.

To start send a text message to your email address, if you aren't able to do this then there is no need in continuing reading this post. I'm pretty sure 99% of all phones are capable of doing this so there shouldn't be a problem there.

Next check your email and write down the address that your text came from (e.g. 12225551234@vtext.com.) In that example I used vtext.com which is Verizon's text message extension.

Next we need to create a script that will put your computer to sleep or shut it down. If you are not interested in creating the scripts yourself you can download them simply by click on the links above. If you do want to create them yourself then here is the syntax. Open up your Script Editor and type or copy the following green text.

For Sleep:
tell application "Finder"
sleep
end tell

For Shutdown:
set userCancelled to false

try
set answer to display dialog "Shutting down in 15 seconds." giving up after 15
on error number -128
set userCancelled to true
end try

if userCancelled then

else if gave up of answer then
tell application "Finder"
shut down
end tell
end if

Moving on. Once you have the script you want to use saved we are going to open the Mail application located in the applications folder. Once open click on the Mail tab in the top bar next to the apple and select Preferences.
You should see something like the screen shot above. Now Click on the Rules tab all the way on the top right.

It's time to fill in the conditions of our new rule. In the screen shot below I provide an example of everything I'm about to go through to make things more visually appealing and easier to follow.1. Give your rule a description (Sleeper Spell is used here)
2. Select all in the "If __ of the following conditions are met:"
3. Select Subject and either Contains or Is Equal To in the second drop down menu. (contains will leave room for forgetfulness for instance you could type in sleeper spell execute and it will still work where with is equal to, the subject of your message must be exactly what you type in here.)
4. Type in the subject that you want to activate your sleep/shut down command (I used Sleeper Spell) and click the plus sign.
5. Select From and either Contains or Is Equal To in the second drop down menu again.
6. Add the email address you collected earlier from when you sent the text message from your phone. (Again I am using the @vtext.com example.)
7. Select Run AppleScript and with the Choose... button navigate to the script you created or downloaded.

When you've done all of this and yours looks like the one in the picture above you can click OK. Here you will be prompted if you want to run this rule on messages already in your inbox. Since It shouldn't apply to anything in your inbox just select do not apply.

Take a deep breath because you're done. Now whenever your mail application is open and you receive a message from the email address you specified with the subject you specified you're computer will run either shut down or go to sleep. You can use this newly learned feature to execute just about any command you want with a simple text message or email.

One last note I would like to provide before ending this blog entry. If you downloaded or created the Shutdown script like I provided it is set to to warn the computer that it will shut down in 15 seconds. A user can interact with this and stop the shutdown from occurring in that time frame. If you do not want this small safety net just use the sleep command and replace the word sleep with shut down.

Encrypt Files with Disk Utility

2009-11-01T13:16:00.003-06:00

Don't want wandering eyes to see important or personal files? No sweet, Mac OS X comes free disk encryption capabilities. Watch his tutorial to find out how to keep your files secure.

Soundflower for Snow Leopard

2009-10-31T15:40:00.003-05:00

The current build of soundflower doesn't seem to work with snow leopard...Until now. Here is the snow leopard soundflower package. If you don't know what soundflower is it is a virtual audio routing device that can be used either alone or in concatenation with another device set up to maximize your systems audio bus. In particular relation to QC it is used to route your iTunes into a QC audio patch so you do not need to adhere to apples visualizer protocols. Since iTunes has lifted its security protocols to allow things like 3rd party plugins and video input to their protocol is not all that bad however as it is now you still need to have a visualizer running in itunes to get an audio spectrum running through quartz which will hog your CPU.

I personally use soundflower for recording system audio when making videos/tutorials on my mac. It is a useful tool for those who are interested in it.

New Mac Literally Pays For Itself

2009-10-30T17:36:00.004-05:00

the Mac Mini has proven that it pays for itself in just around 2 years time. Don't believe me? One new Mac owner put it to the test. You can read his blog here or just skim through this for the details.

He upgraded from an HP Pavilion (a6567) to the Mac Mini for the main purpose of saving space in his apartment. So once he switched he decided to put Apple's claim that the Mini is "the world's most energy efficient desktop."

Just take a look at his electric bill and see for yourself. He compares the previous months with his HP against more recent months with his Mac Mini (and no he did not change any other electronics or have an AC unit during the HP months.)

Freeware Video Conversion

2009-10-26T18:06:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I was talking about All2MP3 which is used to convert audio file formats. Today I want to focus on videos.

As some of you are probably already aware there is an add-on in the Firefox browser so you can download movies from youtube or anywhere else they are streaming online. (For those of you that weren't aware of this add-on it's called dwhelper.) The only problem is a lot of those videos you find are in a format you either can't view or can't do anything with (like throw on your phone or MP3 player.) This is where a good video conversion tool comes in handy.

I've messed around with a few tools, some free and some paid and I'd say my favorite is HandBrake. As far as the supported files you can convert it has a large variety, basically any DVD-like source, such as Video_TS folders, dvd images, or even real (unencrypted) DVDs. It also works on some .vob and .ts files along with almost any multimedia file it can get libavformat to read and libavcodec to decode.

Now for what it's output options are:

File format: MP4 and MKV
Video: MPEG-4, H.264, or Theora (1 or 2 passes or constant quantizer/rate encoding)
Audio: AAC, MP3, Vorbis or AC-3 and DTS pass-through (supports encoding of several audio tracks)

Personally I used this software to output all of my DVDs into .avi so I can stream it through the xbox 360 and never have to worry about where my physical DVD is. You can add all the options that are available on the disk such as dubbed or subtitled (depending on the DVD.) It also has specific options to enhance the conversion for your iPod and iTunes if that's what moves you.

I highly recommend this tool to anyone looking to do video conversion for free and want a nice GUI interface to use.

Macintosh Free Audio Conversion

2009-10-26T10:02:00.003-05:00

iTunes on Windows allows for you to convert your WMA files to MP3, however the Mac version of iTunes doesn't have this feature. This can be rather frustrating for those switching over to a Mac or for those who just have a bunch of WMA files for whatever reason.

I'm pretty sure we've all googled an audio conversion tool at least once and most likely you found something that either crashes a lot, tries to charge you money or just doesn't do the trick.

In my search for the best free app to convert my audio files I came across a program called All2MP3. I'm not going to lie, this little application isn't the fastest one I've seen but it is able to convert WMA, WAV, APE, MPC, FLAC, WV, OGG and AIFF to MP3 like a charm.

All2MP3 works on OSX systems 10.4 and 10.5 respectively. I came across some issues on 10.6 but I'm sure these bugs will be sorted out in no time. In the meanwhile if anyone running Snow Leopard needs an audio conversion tool just let me know and I'll track down the best I can find.

VMware Fusion 3, a new way to virtualize

2009-10-20T11:07:00.004-05:00

VMware Fusion 3 will make it's global debute next Tuesday Oct.27. This new version will optimize on Snow Leopard's 64-bit kernel and has full support for Windows 7 including Aero. They have announced more than 50 new features and enhancements to include greater support for intesive graphics games on Windows.

VMware Fusion has provided Mac users with a great way to virtualize a windows machine on their Macintosh although in previous versions such things as game-play were not highly supported. The new version which has the 64-bit core engine will allow for the "ultimate Windows 7 experience," offering both Aero and Flip 3D.

The 3D graphics support is being extended to OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3. This should allow for gamers to run their favorite games without Boot Camp, Parallel or rebooting.

VMware Fusion 3 is retailing at $79.99, those upgrading from previous versions can get it at a discounted price of $39.99 and those who bought version 2 of VMware Fusion after October 1st will get a free downloadable upgrade after proof of purchase.

I hope all you other snow leopards out there are as excited to try it as I am. I will be sure to post an update as soon as I have it up and running and tested.

If you click on one of These Links to get VMware Fusion 3 you can save 25% so it will only cost $59.99!!!

Mac OS.... Know Your Roots

2009-10-18T15:25:00.004-05:00

Introduced in 1984 this was the very first Mac OS, for it's time it was revolutionary in that it set forth a GUI layout that would inspire many operating systems from here on.

In 1985 came System 2. The only big improvement was that they introduced the MultiFinder allowing more than one application open at the same time.

In 1988 Apple introduced System 6, which greatly resembles it's older brothers but came out with some new features. However most of the advancements were on a system based level not a user interface.

1991 was the year System 7 was born. This was when Mac first had color title and scroll bars in their applications and folders. It also came with 256-color icons and improved multimedia support using Quicktime.

Three years later in 1994 System 7.5 was released. It was very similar, however came with some nice improvements. OS Stability and internet connectivity were the main goals of System 7.5 but they also introduced AppleTalk with this version as well. It was one of the updates of System 7.5 (7.5.3 exactly) that Apple first referenced their operating system as "Mac OS" instead of "System #."

Later in 1997 came Mac OS 7.6. This was the first system to reference "Mac OS" in the startup screen. Basically the same as 7.5, Mac OS 7.6 also included the new "Platinum" interface which came from Apple's project Copland, which was meant to be a new OS delivered by macintosh with improved features and functionality back in 1996.

1997 was also the release year for Mac OS 8. This operating system had many improvements, most of which were focused on multimedia and internet connectivity. This was also the first macintosh operating system to bundle Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which would continue on through OS X 10.3

One year later in 1998 Mac OS 8.5 came out and with it came many improvements in a variety of areas.Included in this new system was improved 32-bit platinum icons and themes. This was also the system that introduced Sherlock (a program that would search the internet and local files of a system.) It was also the first Macintosh system not to support 68k Macs.

In 1999 came Mac OS 9. This operating system was basically OS 8.6 with a few fixes. This was the first publicity released version of the Macintosh OS to support multiple users. It was also the introduction of Sherlock 2.

2001, Mac OS X 10.0 is released.... This was the system that adopted the Feline Naming Convention. OS X 10.0 or "Cheetah" was the beginning of the new-age Mac. It was based on the NeXTSTEP operating system manufactured by NeXT company which Apple had recently bought out. It's brand new GUI was called "Aqua" and did away with many features common in all previous Mac OSes. Mac OS X ran on top of a BSD UNIX variant called Darwin instead of the classic Mac OS core. Since it adopted this UNIX base, it provided Mac OS with true multitasking for the first time. This system however was rather bugged and most Mac users continued with OS 9 instead of upgrading to Cheetah.

Mac OS X 10.1 also know as "Puma" came into play later in 2001. This was primarily a bugfix release operating system, but still came with some new features such as dock positioning and was a free upgrade to all those who had 10.0.

Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar", introduced in 2002, was a big update from previous versions of OS X. Apple used this system to fix hundreds of bugs, increasing stability and speeding up the system. Aqua received a makeover and according to Apple, 100 new features were added. Most consider Mac OS X 10.2 to be the first usable OS in the Mac OS X family.

2004 was the year Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" came into play and with it came an array of updates. This is when new features such as Exposé, FileVault, Fast User Switching, iChat AV and an improved Finder. This was also the last Macintosh operating system to bundle Microsoft Internet Explorer. Many consider the update to 10.3 to be the biggest upgrade yet. Aqua also had a major upgrade giving it a completely new look and feel.

Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" came out in 2005. With 10.4 came new features such as the Dashboard, Core Image, Safari 2.0 and a new style on the Mail application. Most of the upgrade on this version was "under the hood," cleaning up and speeding up the Operating System. With 10.4 came Spotlight which was a revolutionary tool for searching for files quick and easy. Aqua also experienced a few minor updates with this new release. This would be the first Mac OS X revision to have publicly released x86 (Intel) variant.

Near the end of 2007 Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" was released. Leopard was a massive increase from 10.4 with over 300 updates including but not limited to Boot Camp, Front Row, Photo booth, and Time Machine. Making it so Macintosh users could run both Mac and Windows on their computers was a revolutionary step.

2009 was the year Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" was released. This operating system was focuses on improving performance, efficiency and reducing its overall memory footprint. This is the first Mac OS release since System 7.1.2 that does not support the Power PC architecture. Most applications in this version were designed to leverage the 64-bit architecture.

No one really knows what 10.7 will bring or what feline it will be named after. My favorite guesstimate is Mac OS X 10.7 "Ceiling Cat" provided by this flickr image.

Hackintosh users rejoice no more "CPU Unknown"

2009-10-16T20:07:00.003-05:00

I really don't care to focus too much about hackintosh computers on this blog but this seems like a revolutionary step for the hackintosh to be more like a regular apple computer. For those of you who have them I'm sure are aware that there has been a problem where in the About This Mac section it states the CPU as Unknown.

There have been many threads on how to cosmetically fix this but until recently none to actually resolve the issue making it so you can virtualize and install silverlight on your hackintosh.

Like I said I don't really want to get too deep into it so here is the article for those who are interested.

Snow Leopard's bug problem hasn't gone away yet

2009-10-15T20:21:00.002-05:00

It's in most of the mac commercials, the customer just wanting a computer that 'works' without all those problems that make a PC such a dreadful thing to use. Ever since the release of Snow Leopard there have been some issues that we still haven't seen fixed even with the 10.6.1 update.

Apple has acknowledged that there is a problem with Snow Leopard in that for no reason at all it will lose great amounts of data when logging into guest accounts. So if you have some important information on your mac running snow leopard I hope you've invested some money into backing up your files.

This isn't a common issue but better safe than sorry. It has been going on two months since the release of Snow Leopard and since the beginning of September there has been this problem where they say "the bug involves the home directory — the Mac’s primary user folder — being replaced with an empty folder after users log in with a Guest account. That resulted in loss of documents, downloads, pictures, music and other types of files, the affected users claimed."

So back up your data regularly and be sure to let Apple know if this happens to you.

Browser Wars 1.0

2009-10-09T19:32:00.002-05:00

Ok so there are a lot of browsers out there to choose from, some have more add-on's and cooler themes but which one is the fastest? Now my computer isn't the same as yours on a hardware or software level, which both strongly manipulate the results. However here is what I came up with trying to make this test as fair as possible. All default settings on the browsers are left alone during this test.

Today we are going to compare

Firefox 3.0.4
Safari 3.2.1
Chrome 1.0.154.36
Opera 9.63

The lower the bar the better the score

As you can tell from the graph Google's Chrome browser won this speed test. Now lets go into detail about each test performed.

Cold Start
A cold start is the time it takes to do a cold load. Now this means when you first log onto the computer and all of my startup items have initiated the browser is the first program run.

Warm Start
Once the cold start is done the browser is closed and then launched again and timed how long it takes to start. This is done a few times and an average is what gets recorded.

CSS Speed
This test measures how long it takes for the browser to render a page consisting of almost 2500 positioned DIVs. Again an average is taken for the these times as well have the page load initially and then reloaded multiple times.

Script Speed
For this test I load a browser, clear its cache, enable popups (a must) and then start testing. I use a special tool for this which tests an array of things including DHTML, string manipulation, image swapping, table manipulation, window management and so forth.

Since browsers are always updating their versions I'll do my best to keep up to date with testing their speeds and posting the results.

Don't use Microsoft for online banking!!!

2009-10-09T18:44:00.003-05:00

I came across an interesting article today stating "Cybercrime expert endorses Linux, iPhone when banking online." You can find the article here but for those of you who just want the gist of it here it goes....

There are two rules to follow when banking online
1. Never click on hyperlinks to the banking website
2. Avoid Microsoft Windows

The iPhone, which is "quite safe" is the second best choice to Linux in that it can only run one application at a time.

So Many Files, So Little Space

2009-10-05T22:10:00.002-05:00

"I spent over $1,200 on a brand new macbook and only got 160GB of storage."

It's one of the sad truths about Macintosh computers, they lack adequate hard disk space. When I bought my macbook (almost 3 years ago) I bought the $1,200 version one and it came with an amazing 70GB of storage. With only 70GB and a love for music and movies I filled that baby up pretty fast, in the mean while learned a few fancy way to clear up some extra space to post-pone getting an external drive...

The very first thing I suggest doing before clearing up space, or drastically changing/deleting things from your computer is to BACK IT UP!!! That's right, too many times have I heard something go terribly wrong when someone deletes an important system file by mistake, or they change it in some horrific way by accident and lose some if not all their data.

Ok, so now that you've backed up all your data onto an external drive, if you have one, lets move on. There is a program called JDiskReport which takes an awfully long time to run but will scan your computer and tell you what space is being used where. I did find a mac os x version of treesize, however it is in German so if you are fluent in German it would definitely be a great alternative to JDisk.

Now that we can see where the problem documents are we can take care of them. See what files can be deleted, compressed or even archived. I found I actually had a lot of wasted space on old projects I forgot about or a movie file I no longer cared for.

Once you've done a thorough cleaning of your mac it is time to get down and really pick out those wasted megabytes. If you still need to free up some room I suggest a program called Monolingual which will allow you to remove all those other languages from your computer that you will never use.

Still not enough space to install that brand new application you want? Time for you to try out a program called Xslimmer. This handy application will go through and remove unnecessary binaries to really put your operating system on a diet..… There is one drawback however. This program is only free for the first 50Mb. After that they expect you to be a decent, respectful person and purchase this application they spent so much time developing.

As you can see by the screenshot that is a healthy chunk of space I can save just with a few applications I have laying around. But is $15 really worth clearing up 1GB of storage? I don't think so. In this case I'd most likely pick up an external hard drive which you can now get an 80GB external drive for $37. More than twice the price but it's also 80 x the storage space. Better yet if you go through a website like ebates you can save even more money.

I hope this has cleared up a few things on a fast simple way to clean up your mac. Later on I might go into some crazier ways involving terminal but we'll see where things go.

Trash Talk 101

2009-10-05T20:09:00.002-05:00

Everybody knows how to move items to the trash with Mac OS X, and how to ‘delete’ them, however not everyone is aware that this does not completely delete the files from your system. What happens when you click on Empty Trash is the system makes those files available to be overwritten, they can still be recovered with special software.

So if you REALLY want to delete something and make sure it’s gone there is an option to do so. Click on the Finder menu at the top of the screen next to the apple logo and select Secure Empty Trash. This will permanently erase whatever items you have in the trash, so make sure you won’t need them or have them backed up somewhere else.

Ok that was fun now how about those obnoxious warnings you get every time you try to empty the trash. We can take care of those too. Simply click on the Finder menu again and select Preferences. Now you want to click on the Advanced tab and you will see a check box that says “Show warning before emptying the Trash.” Simply uncheck this box. You will notice from here you can also select to empty the trash securely if you want all of your deletes to be permanent.

Until next time…. Thanks for reading!

Apimac Tutorial

2009-10-04T19:01:00.002-05:00

I threw this together pretty fast so I apologize for the video quality.

Click here to go the the download page.

"Perfect" iTunes Equalizer Settings

2009-10-04T15:38:00.002-05:00

My friend found this picture on Flickr called “Perfect” and is suppose to be the perfect iTunes equalizer set.
If you’re like me you will feel the urge to try this configuration out for yourself and see how it is. So to save you some time here is a simple applescript code to edit the equalizer to create this “perfect” setting.

tell application "iTunes"
 tell EQ preset 1
  set band 1 to 3
  set band 2 to 6
  set band 3 to 9
  set band 4 to 7
  set band 5 to 6
  set band 6 to 5
  set band 7 to 7
  set band 8 to 9
  set band 9 to 11
  set band 10 to 8
  set preamp to 0
 end tell
end tell

It should look the same as the one in the picture. I personally really like this setting so thought I would share it with you. Also here is a link to the Flickr image which also has a link to an article about this setting in case you're interested.

Switch Tabs With a Flick in Firefox

2009-10-04T15:29:00.004-05:00

There is a setting that allows you to switch tabs in Firefox by using a twist motion on the trackpad. Of course this only works if you have one of the multi-touch surface trackpads on the newer MacBooks.

To do this first make sure you have the latest version of Firefox installed.
Then in your address bar type about:config It should give you a warning message saying “this might void your warranty”
Click “I’ll be careful, I promise!” and don’t worry you can always ctrl+click and reset whatever changes you make.
Now type twist into the filter box at the top of the page to make it easier to find.
Double click on browser.gesture.twist.right and change the value to Browser:NextTab
Now Double click on browser.gesture.twist.left and change the value to Browser:PrevTab

Sorry about the picture size but this trick should work instantly. If the response time is sluggish you can change the browser.gester.twist.threshold to a smaller value.

I hope you enjoyed this little trick, you can also use the filter again to search gestures to see what other neat tricks you can do.

Add Space Between Dock Icons

2009-10-04T15:22:00.004-05:00

Adding spaces between icons on the dock is a useful organization trick. There are a few ways to do this.

Open up Terminal and either type or copy this command:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps-array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'

Now to see the changes take effect you need to restart the dock with the command

killall Dock

Please note that this little trick works for 10.5 and later not 10.4.

The second method is simply dividers that you can drop into the dock, they work for all versions of OS X and personally I think they look better. Click here to download the dividers.

Stop Time Machine Harrassment

2009-10-04T14:12:00.001-05:00

It doesn’t matter what type of operating system you run, we all know it is very important to backup your data. I personally have a few different drives (internal, external and network attached.) The only annoyance is whenever I connect a new drive to my mac it automatically assumes I want to use it for Time Machine.

Here is a helpful little command to stop Time Machine from harassing you every time you connect a new drive. Open the Terminal and enter the following:

defaults write com.apple.TimeMachine DoNotOfferNewDisksForBackup -bool YES

How To: Eject a Stuck Disk

2009-10-04T14:06:00.001-05:00

When my best friend bought his mac he didn’t get the apple care, ever since he has been having problems with it. One of his problems is that once he inserts a disk into the CD drive he has a hard time getting it out. I wrote a simple script for him that will go through all the procedures I am about to post, hopefully these are helpful. They will be listed from easiest to more advanced.

1. Hold down the eject key

2. Click and drag disk to the trash can.

3. Ctrl+Click the disk and select Eject

4. Select the disk icon and type Command+E

5. Launch Disk Utility (Application>Utilities,) select the disk from the icon and click the eject icon at the top of the Disk Utility screen.

6. Open Terminal (Application>Utilities) and type the following command drutil eject

New Blog, Same Great Content

2009-10-04T14:02:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone, for the past few weeks I have been starting to build a blog on all things Mac. This blog was on Wordpress.com, where today I went to upload a new video blog entry I created and it said I had to pay for a video upgrade. On that note I left....

So here I am, trying to rebuild my blog. The first few entries will be a recap of some of the previous ones I had posted on EverythingMacintosh.wordpress.com