MacHackShack.com

BootCamp keys and invert scroll fix for Windows

2011-11-10T19:04:00.001-05:00

The new direction of the scroll wheel in OS X 10.7 Lion is reversed, which seems a little insane at first, but quickly becomes obvious that this is the proper direction. What were we thinking?!

Parallels nicely inverts the scroll wheel for you when running Windows virtually. However when you run raw BootCamp on your Mac or perhaps you still have to use a Windows machine, there appears to be no standard scroll wheel inversion method.

Meet AutoHotKey. With a simple script you can have the mouse scroll wheel functioning in Windows the way that God intended. And while you are at it, why not map the Windows/Command key to the Control key.

I haven't quite figured out how to make Command+Tab map to Alt+Tab without messing up the Command/Windows to Control, so send in your solution if you have it.

WheelUp:: Send {WheelDown} Return WheelDown:: Send {WheelUp} Return LWin::LCtrl ;Optionally you can also map the ctrl to the Win/Command key: LCtrl::LWin #MaxHotkeysPerInterval 200 ^q::Send !{F4}

Capturing the screen in OS X

2011-08-30T03:43:00.000-04:00

Cmd + Shift + 3
Will capture the current visible screen(s) into file(s) onto the desktop in PNG format.

Cmd + Shift + 4
Will enable a cursor to select a section of the screen for capture into a file onto the desktop in PNG format.

Cmd + Shift + 4, space, click
Captures the entire active application window into a file onto the desktop in PNG format.

Skitch
Cmd + Space, "Skitch"
or select the heart shaped icon on the menu bar if sketch is running.
Upload to skitch/evernote or export to jpg/png. Skitch is a free app from the OS X app store which adds excellent annotation to screen capturing. Go get it now!

There are many more OS X command keyboard shortcuts that can really help your productivity. Keep good notes and keep the notes handy!

iTunes Connect auto ingress tool script

2011-08-24T09:40:00.002-04:00

Looking for a script to execute the iTunes Connect auto ingress tool Apple just made available?

The script is simple - it just downloads yesterday's daily report or some other day depending on the parameters and then unzips. The script is available here from github.

Usage: suck.sh
Gets yesterdays's report

Usage: suck.sh 20110822
Gets the report from 22nd August 2011

The auto ingress tool downloads daily or monthly reports from iTunes Connect using a java class. It requires Java 1.6 or later. The tool can be downloaded here, as reported in the App Store Sales and Trends Guide. This is just a java class. Put it in a folder you want the reports delivered to and run the script.

Review of 10 iPad Dictionary apps

2011-05-28T05:25:00.015-04:00

Dictionaries are an excellent resource for solidifying meaning, aiding understanding of texts and sorting out scrabble conflicts. There are plenty of iPad apps with excellent content, many are free. One of the major issues is the interface. Copying text out of some dictionary apps is impossible. Some don't store bookmarks or histories or have a "back" button. Another shortfall is discovery, the lack of serendipity in the app interface which you get when just flicking through the pages of a paper based dictionary. I have performed a small test with a number of dictionary apps, including a range of word look ups and a feature list. There is a reasonable variation among the apps, but fortunately many good ones are actually free.

I have used the paper based Macquarie Dictionary (2nd Ed) for years, however the iOS version is iPhone only and very basic, however the developers have said that an upcoming upgrade will be a universal app. I decided not to test the Oxford, as it was expensive and although tempting, I already had the Australian version which appears to be identical in operation. Note that Collins and the Advanced English apps use the same MSDictViewer engine. Also most pay-for dictionaries often have a cheaper "essential"/"concise" version available. Do you really want to pay for a reduced number of words? Why are you buying a dictionary with some of the words missing?! How are you supposed to read Melville if the dictionary doesn't have "grapnel", "Tophet", "copestone" and so forth.

Words tested: Piccaninny, Load, Tweet, Muggle, Oberon

My paper based Macquarie Dictionary (2nd Ed) has "piccaninny" with three definitions: 1. a Negro or coloured child. 2. an Aboriginal child. 3. A small child. For some reason, piccaninny (also pickaninny) is now considered offensive. So my favourite breakfast dish at Pancake Manor has recently been renamed to "Picadilly Dawn". I was taken aback by the offensive categorisation, so investigating current dictionary definitions was included in this research. Sadly the tested apps came up short compared to the paper based Macquarie definitions. All dictionaries that had the term also noted the word was (possibly) offensive. I assume this is a U.S. issue where any word that contains even a hint of ethnicity is considered offensive. Sadly, even the MacQuarie app did not have definition (3).

I used the number of definitions for the word "Load" to sort the list. "Tweet" was examined for the definition of short message on the Twitter internet service; this is a new word officially added by Oxford ... but oddly not in the Australian Oxford Dictionary. "Muggle" was also used for similar reasons. Finally "Oberon" was examined to see if both the Shakespeare character as well as the satellite of Uranus was listed; the MacQuarie app had only a definition for a town called Oberon, no Shakespeare, no moon; the paper version included a second definition of the name of an Indian actor born in 1911.

The apps usually report number of words stored in the dictionary, but have different ways of measuring this metric which makes comparison invalid. I did include the reported number at the end of the notes section, but this should be seen as a rough guide only.

This blogger's choice

All of the listed dictionary apps fail at some level. Because of this, I would suggest acquiring a couple of the free dictionaries no matter what you end up getting. For a recommendation from the selection below I would suggest the offering from Dictionary.com and the free offering from Merriam-Webster, they have a paid version if you don't like the advertisements. I liked the Collins for content. The Australian Oxford kept having temporary freeze sessions, even after rebooting, reinstalling, but otherwise had good content. WordBook XL is for the scrabble/crossword fiend with it's handy solver function.

iPad app name	Cost	Size	Advert	Include iPhone	Works Offline	Piccaninny	Load	Tweet	Muggle	Oberon
Dictionary.com	free	50Meg	Yes		Yes	1 def, origin	39 defs	No	Yes	Yes
Dictionary.com		Output: Email, facebook, twitter				Notes: History, bookmarks, voice input, shake for a word, 2000K
Chambers Dictionary	$10	25Meg		Yes	Yes	No	36 defs	No	No	No astro
Chambers Dictionary		Output: none				Notes: Bookmarks, random word, 260K
Macquarie Complete Australian	$35	19Meg		Only	Yes	3 defs, origin	31 defs	No	No	No
Macquarie Complete Australian		Output: Copy enabled				Notes: iPhone app tested, upgrade expected, 210K
Collins English Dictionary Unabridged	$37	21Meg		Yes	Yes	2 defs, origin	28 defs	Yes	No	Yes
Collins English Dictionary Unabridged		Output: none				Notes: Bookmarks, History, random word, cross references, 500K
Free Dictionary	free	1Meg	Yes	Yes	No	2 defs, origin	27 defs	No	Yes	Yes
Free Dictionary		Output: Copy enabled				Notes: Thesaurus, translation, download offline dictionary, bookmarks
Meriam-Webster	free	21Meg	Yes		Yes	1 def, origin	24 defs	No	No	No astro
Meriam-Webster		Output: none				Notes: Voice search
Australian Oxford	$30	166Meg		Yes	Yes	2 defs, origin	18 defs	No	No	Yes
Australian Oxford		Output: none				Notes: History, bookmarks, 170K
Dictionary Free	Free	27Meg		Yes	Yes	1 def	14 defs	No	No	No
Dictionary Free		Output: Copy enabled				Notes: Link to wikipedia, bookmarks, history, 140K
Dictionary! for iPad	free	11Meg	Yes		Yes	1 def	14 defs	No	No	Yes
Dictionary! for iPad		Output: none				Notes: Links to wiktionary, ugly, 200K
WordBook XL	$4	20Meg			Yes	1 def	14 defs	No	No	Yes
WordBook XL		Output: Email				Notes: Bookmarks, Notes, Solver (word puzzles), 220K
WordWeb	free	29Meg		Yes	Yes	No	14 defs	Yes	Yes	No astro
WordWeb		Output: none				Notes: Bookmarks, random word, cross references, 285K
Advanced English Dictionary and Thesaurus	free	22Meg		Yes	Yes	No	12 defs	No	No	No
Advanced English Dictionary and Thesaurus		Output: none				Notes: Bookmark, random word, word of the day, 140K
Oxford English Dictionary	$37	203Meg		Yes
Oxford English Dictionary		- not tested -				Notes: Similar to Australian Oxford.

55 iPad apps to knock your socks off

2011-04-18T19:19:00.003-04:00

Gina Trapani recently acquired her iPad and tweeted the question "What apps should I install? Knock my socks off." The following table is a crudely analysed list of recommended iPad apps. The number in the left column is the count of people who recommended the app.

65	Flipboard
39	DropBox
37	InstaPaper
34	Reeder
31	GoodReader
28	NetFlix
27	Twitter
22	EverNote
20	Kindle
17	Zite
13	Penultimate
12	Plaintext
11	Pulse
10	Garage Band
9	Pandora
8	Omnifocus
7	TwitPad
6	SimpleNote
6	Google Reader
5	iThoughts hd
5	Facebook
5	Angry Birds hd
4	Stanza
4	Pages
4	Keynote
4	iBooks
4	Amazon
3	Zinio
3	iAwriter
3	Words With Friends
3	Weather Channel
3	Uzu
3	Todo
3	TextExpander
3	Textastic
3	Ted
3	Sworcery
3	StarWalk
3	SpringPad
3	SketchBook
3	Scrabble
3	Plants vs Zombies
3	Photogene
3	Osmos
3	Omnigraffle
3	Noteshelf
3	Newsy
3	Mlb
3	iSSH
3	Hootsuite
3	Fruit Ninja
3	Echo fon
3	CNN
3	Atomic browser
3	Adobe photoshop express

Letterbox

2011-01-19T19:21:00.000-05:00

Stop what you're doing and install this now!

Finally someone has come up with a way to view Mail.app with a vertical reading area. You know, like Outlook has been doing FOREVER.

Letterbox is a Mail.app plugin and it puts Mail.app into a three vertical column format - perfect for reading on widescreen displays. Folders on left, list in middle, email on right.

Thank you Aaron Harnly, much appreciated.

I use gmail more and more in Chrome on Mac and PC but with MsgFiler, copy and paste and IMAP you can get a lot done in Mail.app.

Taskpaper vim script to insert @done tags

2010-08-27T21:04:00.005-04:00

While I by no means think this will be WILDLY popular, screw it, I like it so I'm posting it here.

Perhaps you use the Taskpaper iPhone app. You want your notes everywhere so you sync your notes with Dropbox. You might even use a judicious symlink. I use a Notational Velocity fork and sync with that as well.

You might end up using Vim or MacVim to edit. You want to complete those notes using the @done(YYYY-mm-dd) tag.

And now you can with just one keypress! Insert this handy function in your .vimrc! And the @done tag with date will be inserted after the current line.

Oh my god this is niche.

But here it is:

http://gist.github.com/554493

:fu! Taskpaper()

:return setline(line("."), getline(line(".")) . "@done(" . strftime("%Y-%m-%d") . ")")

:endf

:map <F8> <ESC>:call Taskpaper()<CR><ESC>

:imap <F8> <ESC>:call Taskpaper()<CR><ESC>

love,

@themachackshack

Cheap git repositories with Dropbox

2010-07-24T22:05:00.005-04:00

If you want professional source code repository hosting there are great providers like http://github.com out there where you can create free public or cheap private repositories.

But if you want something to back up local development or to collaborate in a small team for free, you might consider Dropbox and git.

Now one (perhaps big) proviso - you may have data sync issues if using this between more than one person so you'd have to coordinate commits.

You can download git for mac, pc or linux. See here:

http://git-scm.com/

There's a on OS/X git installer available on google code:

http://code.google.com/p/git-osx-installer/

I use Gitbox app for the Mac:

http://gitbox.pierlis.com

And msysgit for Windows:

http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/

So you'll want to put your project under git source control first. There are plenty of tutorials to tell you how to do that.

Let's call the project mygitproject. Let's assume we're using a Mac to do this. Back up your source before trying this in case of errors.

Now, create a cloned git repository in our Dropbox account. The repository doesn't use a working folder as well, it just has the git system files. We will use this cloned repository to push changes to from our local project folder and it'll eventually sync to the Dropbox servers.

Change directory to your Dropbox folder:

$ cd ~/Dropbox

create a folder to hold the git repositories

$ mkdir git
$ cd git

create a folder for mygitproject

$ mkdir mygitproject

Now clone the mygitproject (assume it's in ~/projects folder). The mygitproject has to already be under git source control. Use the --bare switch so the working folder isn't used (just the git system files).

$ git clone --bare ~/projects/mygitproject

This will clone the repository to the ~/Dropbox/git/mygitproject/mygitproject.git folder.

Change to your project folder and to make it easy, create a remote link to your Dropbox repository called dbgp:

$ cd /projects/mygitproject

$ git remote add dbgp ~/Dropbox/git/mygitproject/mygitproject.git

If you want to push changes to the repository, perform your commits to your mygitproject then push them:

$ git push dbgp

You can do any change you like to your local repository and push the changes to your Dropbox account, including branches and tags and all the git magic. It's also pretty fast.

Only one warning - make sure Dropbox has finished caching the changes to its server before trying to refer to the repository from elsewhere.

You could go to another computer that had the same Dropbox account and do a:

$ cd ~/projects
$ git clone ~/Dropbox/git/mygitproject/mygitproject.git

This would check out the mygitproject to the ~/projects/mygitproject folder. You could then push or pull from it to collaborate. Again, beware the sync issues! I know this approach works but I waited for the dropbox syncing to stop first. Another user may not.

You can also share a Dropbox folder out to another Dropbox user and they see it in their ~/Dropbox folder, so this sharing approach might work too (though I haven't tested it).

But anyway, it's useful for making an offsite backup of your git repository.

If you need something more, try github, it's excellent. Dropbox is great software too.

Command-line calendar info goodliness with iCalBuddy

2010-07-19T10:32:00.003-04:00

If you want your calendar in text and sent anywhere you like, like to your desktop via Geek Tool then use iCalBuddy. I'm using it and love it.

Another great tip I got from onethingwell - excellent blog: http://onethingwell.org/

Open a terminal window from Finder

2010-07-13T10:39:00.003-04:00

If you want to open a terminal window in the current Finder folder, this will do it.

Tiny, but handy if you drop to Terminal often.

via @onethingwell

IPad Review 2

2010-05-07T15:47:00.000-04:00

The iPad, after a week

So I've had the iPad for a week today. I'm writing this review with the wireless bluetooth keyboard and Pages sitting in a comfortable chair with the device just resting on the arm of the chair and the keyboard on my lap. It's actually pretty comfortable. [And now I'm continuing to write this while sitting on a chair at the airport with the iPad propped up in a baggage trolley and typing on the bluetooth keyboard. Geek points ++]

So what do I think after a week of using the device? I wouldn't be without it now. It definitely is not the best for some tasks, but it's perfect for others. And the flexibility is it's real selling point. There's just so much you can do with this device and it's only been available for a month. To really understand what this means, wait for 2 years and when the weight and price drops to $200. Wait until children are glued to these devices for playing games and learning. And wait until there are apps that make 50 types 30 second tasks almost instant and this device (and the inevitable copies in the market) is here to stay.

First the stuff I don't like. It desperately needs to solve the file system problem. The market is bifurcating around online solutions like Dropbox and that's fine but the connecting interfaces between applications has been purposefully stymied and it shows. Not having a unified approach to filing actually cripples this functionality. I know it'll change, but it's half-baked right now and it's annoying in practice. The iWork apps are great but don't import/export very well and always drop formatting detail or just plain detail. Advanced Excel formulas like sumproduct() just get stripped when converting and most Word styles get stripped too.

Can't wait for the iPhone 4.0 changes, but fall is a long way away. Multitasking and apps that take advantage of the multitasking interfaces will be very welcome as that's one of the constraining characteristics of this device. The other missing piece is having to reach and touch the screen when you've got the bluetooth keyboard activated. Right now you have to do the same with a computer but you have a mouse. While it's totally possible to implement a bluetooth mouse driver and render a mouse cursor on the screen, I really doubt Apple would do that too, even though it would go a long way to not making the user reach up and touch the screen. It would make a lot of sense though as the bluetooth keyboard and stand make this quite a dockable computer. Being able to command-tab would be HUGE although I doubt Apple will implement the support when using a bluetooth keyboard (but how many hundreds of times a day do I use that keyboard combination).

Apps need to catch up, though I'm not complaining much. Wait another 1-3 months and we'll see a landslide of incredible functionality. A big thanks to those people that have made awesome iPad apps already. Here's a list of the apps I use and love:

Kindle, IMDB, At Bat 2010, Now Playing, Amazon.com, Marvel and Comics, Plants vs Zombies HD, GoodReader, Instapaper, Labyrinth 2 HD, ABC Player, Brushes, Pinball HD, Pandora, Bubbles, Time Editor's Choice, Guardian Eyewitness, GoToMeeting and of course my app, Reef Fish Book HD :).

iPhone apps I'd love to see for iPad are:

Skype, Taskpaper, Files, Tweetie, digg, Wired

I was listening to a talk on a gdgt round table podcast and people that had tried to make the iPad a laptop replacement have felt constrained but this device is about context and specific use-cases right now. For example, watching streaming video by just standing the device up against the wall while cleaning the kitchen is totally possible. The speakers are so clear and so good you can hear the video over the sound of running water. The screen is so bright and clear you can see it easily from across the room. It's great for quick google searches for recipes.

I love reading on this device - the huge screen and brightness control means I'm consuming a bunch of material via kindle, safari, instapaper and via twitter. Comics are great to read and there's a few free ones (I'm yet to buy one). It's a far more pleasurable device to read this material on than a laptop screen. You can hold it closer to your face than you would a laptop. The device does get a bit heavy but it's not so bad. You just lean it on things or prop it up.

My wife loves the brushes application. She's artistically inclined and was drawn to this app immediately. Watch out - if you think you won't have to share the iPad with your the family members, think again. This thing is seriously fun.

The pinball HD app with it's speedy graphics and pinball sounds is so great on the iPad. The Labyrinth app is wonderful for kids. And don't get me started on Plants vs Zombies. I have to ration myself on that app because it's so much fun. Your hands blur over the screen in this gameplay - if you think it's the same as a regular computer then imagine using both hands and multiple fingers to capture falling sunlight and using another hand to drag new plants down to the field. It's so much fun and so much more tactile than the ordinary computer experience.

People have complained about needing to touch the screen to do certain things - you can't use the keyboard for everything. But it's not bad - the cursor keys work, as do option-arrow to jump word by word and even option-shift-arrow to highlight by word. So I think keyboard support will get even better over time.

Something else that's really significant is that this is a device that is to be shared with others. I actually prefer to download pictures from my camera to the iPad to view them - it's so much better than on a laptop screen. I guess on a 27" iMac you might find a better experience for viewing but this one is very good. The iPad photo app desperately needs editing and favourites though because it's such a good way to vet photos. If you could mark photos and then upload them to Google/Picasa I'd be in heaven but I may need to wait awhile for that to be a reality.
Okay well we're now at the boarding gate about to head to Australia. While the honeymoon is definitely over, this device is fitting into my life in all sorts of great ways. I'll upload this to the blog over my 3G connection. The tweet about it. Maybe I'll write more later - there's more to say.

Copying movie files to the iPad from an external hard drive

2010-05-01T13:26:00.004-04:00

I know this might seem ridiculously obvious to some but if you need to copy a bunch of movie files from an external drive to your iPad and you don't have space on your laptop, this approach will work.

I use a laptop as my primary iTunes syncing device and even though it has a 300 gig drive, movie files eat that up fast so I use an external Drobo with 6TB of space to hold large media.

If you want to copy your videos to iTunes but don't want to copy the movie file to the local iTunes collection, go into iTunes, Preferences and under the Library tab *uncheck* "Copy media when adding to iTunes library". Then drag your movies directly from the external drive to your iTunes library.

Click on the iPad when connected in iTunes and choose the Movies tab. Check the movies you want on the iPad and click apply. This will copy the movies to the iPad.

Remember to re-check "Copy media" option above if you want this to be the default when adding music (I do this because it's convenient).

If you disconnect the drive and re-sync it throws an error but the movies stay on the iPad and you don't lose all your laptop hard-drive space.

iPad review

2010-04-04T18:37:00.004-04:00

So I finally got to use the iPad. Here are my first impressions.

It's heavier than I thought. At about a pound and a half you really feel it when you hold it continuously for about an hour or so. When you first hold it it just feels slightly heavy, like a hardcover book - you'll definitely want to rest it on your knee when reading a book on this device.

It's fast. Feedback is immediate and highly responsive. There were a couple of situations where button presses didn't respond straight away but for the most part everything screamed.

After launching Safari, the device's speed is immediately apparent - when you two finger pinch to expand the text, you can pan the page while holding the pinch magnification steady. When you drop the pinch, the resolution fills in the detail. Same with Google Maps - pull down and pinch out and the the image balloons under your fingertips like magic, with the map tiles coloring in like patchwork. It's a lazy async loading pattern and beautiful to watch.

The screen is so big and you hold it so close to your face that the apparent size is far bigger than the screen size belies. When you're using a computer you normally sit a lot further back from the glass. It makes for an impression of size that's huge. This is really obvious when playing games. Playing plants vs zombies is so much fun on the big screen. You find your eyes darting all over the real estate. And labyrinth 2 - the marble and wood tilt game - is gorgeous, eye-popping. The unused space while you're concentrating on one corner of the game seems indulgent.

Games are going to be huge on this device. Apple have overcome a bunch of technical hurdles to make handheld gameplay cheap for consumers and given developers the tools and speed they need. The only drawback is the controls, though accelerometer and virtual joysticks go a long way. I couldn't tell you how fast I would buy a bluetooth game controller for the iPad. The car racing game, Real Racing, is so in-your-face, it's hard not to be immediately drawn in to the action. Let's hope Prince of Persia makes it to the iPad!

The book reading app is fast and functional - with special attention paid to the bookshelf, page-turns and searching. The screen is definitely easy to read and if reading my kindle books on the iPhone is anything to go by, it will be pleasant to read on this too, but if you're lying in bed you'll want to rest it on something cause it'll get heavy. The hardware orientation lock will come in handy for books and web browsing - this is a constant frustration in safari on the iPhone (I'm sure we'll see this in the next iteration of the iPhone OS).

The built-in apps are polished and so fast. Photos flick by and load almost instantly, stacks can be opened and closed with a pinch, held and moved about the screen. Touch gestures have been given a very stable state system that allows the users a great deal of control. Given the ad-hoc nature of gestures, this was important for Apple to nail so it felt intuitive and stable.

The maps application is a world in itself (although I'd love to see the ability to change routes or search alternate routes, perhaps draw a projected route on the screen). The calendar app real-estate will be very welcome. The contact app is functional rather than mind-blowing. Notes still has the same lame comic sans font and the text doesn't even line up with the lines so that app is obviously not getting much love. Given the amount of great notes apps (including taskpaper, my favourite), that's fine by me.

There is a new Videos app by itself dedicated to showing movies - despite the squarish aspect ratio, the screen is so crisp they look great. And over 10 hours of battery life with movie playback is very desirable. Many children and adults will use these devices on long trips - unless motion sickness is an issue (that remains to be seen).

The iPhone felt puny when I'd finished using the iPad for a length of time. That's not to say I don't love the speed and richness of functionality I can get on the 3GS but for web browsing, there's not comparison: the iPad is what you want to have in your hands. It will remain to be seen how well that experience plays out for the vast variety of web pages out there. (Can anyone say Chrome for the iPad? Yeah right :)) Interestingly, when I went to google and put safari in landscape mode, google mail had an Apple-like mail web app waiting for me - at iPad launch day, that's pretty impressive. There was a list of mail on the left and detail on the right. I hope I can turn that on in Chrome.

Touch is here to stay. A generation of users, especially children, will be growing up with touch-based computers. We are still at the infancy of this technology but it's clear after using the iPad that you are starting a new paradigm of computer interaction. Gestures are going to become more and more intricate. The computer gurus, instead of using keyboard shortcuts will use little-known gestures and combinations to make the computer fly.

The simplest example of this effect was when I tried to pull up the control menu in Pages. I couldn't get it to work with gestures in the side bar, double-tap, swipe - nothing worked. I then later realized I had it in landscape mode - only turning it to portrait would yield the menu bar and controls. The gestural nomenclature has been extended to orientation.

Keynote, Pages and Numbers are a good reminder of how far this device might be pushed. With a bluetooth keyboard and a way to prop the device up you could easily do basic word processing, write a book or create keynote presentations on the road. People might use it to take meeting minutes and so on. The on-screen keyboard will suffice for short bursts of text or be useful for editing, but is still not so good for touch typing IMHO. (Early hint: take a rubber non-slip mat with you to let you prop the device up against things - would work well on a tray-table in a plane).

I'm holding out for a 3G model. Given the limited options for transferring files on and off the device, I suspect copy and paste mechanisms as well as online services like dropbox and iDisk will become more popular. When opening a keynote/pages/numbers document from mail there was a button to "open in keynote/pages/numbers" for each filetype but it didn't do anything. With any luck this will be enabled so a Dropbox app can use the built-in viewer and then launch pages or keynote and open the file. Without wifi or 3G your options are very limited - you might have a file stuck in the device until you get into wifi range or can connect it to your computer. If you're on the road - get the 3G version.

I've never had a computer experience so responsive and fluid. Perhaps once when playing a first person shooter on a tricked-out PC with a fast graphics card and decent processor, the mouse controls finely tuned, where every twitch yielded instant results. But never with a general user interface. To be able to turn a computer on and immediately get to precisely the task you want is going to be very welcome to most users. Being able to run one app at a time may not bother people too much in this context.

The iPad is an experience as well as a device - I enjoyed every minute of it.

Convert your mail.app notes to text files for use with Notational Velocity and sync

2010-03-28T22:24:00.005-04:00

Recently I wanted to move my notes from mail.app and the notes app on the iPhone to text files. This would then allow me to use Notational Velocity with markdown hack and simpletext.ws that I use with the excellent Taskpaper iphone app by Hogg Bay Software.

You can download the script files here or copy and paste from the article.

Here’s how I got it to work. I really hope I’m not missing a trivially easy way to do this but this way did work for me!

Export from Mail to an archive. This is a plain text file.
Download MacVim
Run a script over archive file to reduce it to text
Run ruby script in new folder to convert notes to text files

Export from Mail.app to an archive

Click on notes
Mailbox | Archive Mailbox
Choose a new empty folder like ~/Downloads/Notes
Copy the Notes.mbox/mbox file to ~/Downloads/Notes. You won’t need the table_of_contents file.

The ~/Downloads/Notes/mbox file contains all the notes in a single text file with a bunch of markup.

Download MacVim

Download MacVim
Drag to applications folder and open

Run vim script to convert mbox text file

The script:

   :%s/&nbsp;/ /g
:%s/<br class="[^"]*">//g
:%s/<br>//g
:%s/=\n/ /g
:%s/<div>\([^<]*\)<\/div>/\r\1/g
:%s/^X-Universally.*\n//g
:%s/^Content-Type: text\/html;\n//g
:%s/^\tcharset=us-ascii\n//g
:%s/^X-Uniform-Type.*\n//g
:%s/^Message-Id: .*\n//g
:%s/^X-Mail-Created-Date.*\n//g
:%s/^X-Mail-Generated.*\n//g
:%s/^Content-Transfer-Encoding.*\n//g
:%s/^Mime-Version:.*\n//g
:%s/^X-Apple-Base-Url:.*//g
:%s/^X-Apple-Mail-Remote-Attachments:.*//g
:%s/^From: .*\n//g
:%s/ -0400$//g
:%s/<span [^>]*>//g
:%s/<\/span>//g
:%s/=?MACINTOSH?Q?//g
:%s/=CA? Date: .*//g
:%s/^\tcharset=.*\n//g
:%s/<div>\([^<]*\)<\/div>/\r\1/g
:%s/<div>//g
:%s/<\/div>//g
:%s/<[^>]*>//g
:%s/=CA//g
:%s/?  //g
:%s/_//g
:%s/=92/'/g
:%s/\s\+$//g
:%s/#\(\a\+\)/@\1/g
:%s/^Subject: /!!!\rSubject: /g

Save the above vim script to a file, like ~/notes.vim using a text editor.
Right-click on the plain text mail archive file you created above (~/Downloads/Notes/mbox) and choose: Open With | MacVim. You can also launch MacVim and open the mbox file with File | Open.
Type:
```
:so ~/notes.vim
```
Or whatever you named the vim script.
This will convert the file to text. You may need to do some small other adjustments - this script worked well on my file.
What is remaining is a list of Subject: *, Date: * and message body blocks with the !!! separating the entries. We’ll use this in the ruby script to convert them to text files.
Choose File | SaveAs to save the modified file to the filename “notes.text”, let’s say ~/Downloads/Notes/notes.text

Run ruby script to convert to text file

Most mac systems these days have ruby. To test, open the Terminal and type:

    ruby --version

It should return something like:

    $ ruby --version
ruby 1.8.7 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 72) [universal-darwin10.0]

Save the script below to ~/Downloads/Notes/n.rb

    class WriteNotes
     @counter = 0
     def WriteNotes.writeout(subject, note, date)
        # write out new file
        if subject != ""
          # make subject the filename
          filename = subject
          # limit file names to 50 chars - make longer if required
          if filename.length > 50
             filename = filename[0..50]
          end
          # strip out filename-unfriendly characters
          filename = filename.strip.gsub(/ /,"_")
          filename = filename.gsub(/[?:,@="'.\\\/]/,"")
          # check if we have a date in the date field (basic check)
          d = date[0..1].match(/[0-9]/)
          # default a current date if date not found
          if !d
             date = Time.now.localtime.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")
          end
          if date.strip.length == 0
             date = Time.now.localtime.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")
          end
          # remove comma from date if it's non-standard, like "Aug, 2"
          date = date.gsub(/,/,"")
          # filename template - change to taste
          filename = "zan-" + date + "-" + filename + ".txt"
          # write out file
          notefile = File.open(filename, "w")
          notefile.puts note
          notefile.close
          @counter = @counter + 1
          # puts "__filename[#{@counter}]: " + filename
          puts "Subject: [#{@counter}]" + subject
          # puts "__note: " + note
        end
     end # writeout
     subject = ""
     note = ""
     date = ""
    file = File.open("notes.text", "r")
    while (line = file.gets)
        if line[0..2] == "!!!" # at a new note
          # write out new text file
          writeout(subject, note, date)
          # init vars
          subject = ""
          note = ""
          date = ""
        else
          # collect data into subject, note, date fields
          m = line[0..7]
          # puts m
          if m == "Subject:"
             subject = line[8..line.length].strip
             note = ""
          else
             if line.strip[0..3] == "Date"
                date = line.strip[6..15]
                date = date.gsub(/:/,"")
                date = date.gsub(/ /,"_")
             else
                note = note + line
             end
          end
        end
     end # while
     writeout(subject, note, date)
     puts "total files: #{@counter}"
    file.close
rescue => err
    puts "Exception: #{err}"
    err
end

Open terminal (under Utilities in Applications folder) and type:

    cd ~/Downloads/Notes

Now we can run the script, type:

    ruby n.rb

If the script runs correctly, the notes.text file will be processed and each file will be written out in the format:

    zan-YYYY-MM-DD-.txt

If there is a problem, just remove the text files generated and start again (rm *.txt)

Good luck! The vim script and ruby script may require a little tweaking. Please leave a note if you found this useful.

Get etude and learn the piano

2010-03-19T19:05:00.007-04:00

Want to learn the piano and download free sheet music? This great app will help. etude is US$3 (introductory price) and has a selection of music for free in the in-app store. You can download sheet music like Moonlight Sonata and Fur Elise to your bookshelf. The range is limited, but the app only just came out. The same developer (Wonder Warp Software) has released Shovebox Mobile.

Etude really shines when you open the score. It will play at different speeds and shows a keyboard with lit-up keys. You can move the play cursor along at your own pace and work the keys out or have the app play the music for you.

The app needs better music management and a search feature and it should remember your position when you exit the app but for a beginner learning sheet music, it’s still excellent.

MacHeist NanoBundle

2010-03-05T18:26:00.005-05:00

Well MacHeist is over, but MacUpdate Promo is now on.

MacHeist is running another bundle for only US$20 for the next couple days.

I am a user of RapidWeaver, which was part of a previous bundle, and can highly recommend it for developing pretty web sites fast.

My main reason for purchasing was the inclusion of MacJournal which looks to be a rather neat way to write and maintain a journal and publish the journal online should you wish.

I am very interested in using the file transfer software Flow. The other utility software, like Tracks and RipIt look cool enough to give a try.

There is also Clips and CoverScout which might be useful to someone.

The Tales of Monkey Island are old games, but damn they were entertaining back in the day. AirBurst Extreme is somewhat awkward to control. Burning Monkey Solitaire is a colourful entertaining version of Solitaire with a very wide range of Solitaire rules and random noises and jokes thrown in - surprisingly fun.

To:Mail.app From:MacHackShack.com Subject:Advanced keyword searching with Mail.app and spotlight

2010-01-12T15:09:00.007-05:00

Thanks to @rands on twitter, I now realize you can use the gmail-style keyword text search queries in mail (Command-Option-F). This technique also works in spotlight.

Try:

to:someone from:someone subject:something

The "someone" part seems to work with full names or email addresses.

The only confusing thing is the mail search bar should switch to "Entire message" when you're using a keyword-style search rather than the "From", "To" or "Subject" buttons.

It's a very limited syntax and not well publicized but welcome anyway cause what's there works. These tests done in Snow Leopard 10.6.2 and Mail.app 4.2.

How to restart a hung Finder in Mac OS/X without rebooting

2010-01-06T19:19:00.006-05:00

Warning this is HIGHLY UNAUTHORIZED. Proceed at your own risk.

So: save everything first before going on.

Okay - to do this, it's pretty basic. We're actually not sending it the kill signal, instead telling it to restart itself or in unix signal parlance: SIGHUP. I learnt this doing some BSD coding on HP/UX systems years ago.

So first, we need the Finder's pid. This will get it:

ps -e | grep Finder | grep -v grep | cut -c1-6

And then pass that to the kill command with -sighup switch:

kill -sighup `ps -e | grep Finder.app | grep -v grep | cut -c1-6`

This will clobber Finder and it will reopen fresh(ish) as a daisy.

Put it in a script for reuse call this restartfinder.sh

#!/bin/bash

kill -sighup `ps -e | grep Finder.app | grep -v grep | cut -c1-6`

chmod +x restartfinder.sh

And you're done.

There's a better way to access your emails from everywhere - use IMAP

2009-12-28T22:03:00.003-05:00

If you haven't heard yet, IMAP is the best method for accessing and organizing your email.

Here's why:

You can access and modify your email from web, phone or local computer applications and have the changes synced automatically.
It's faster and more efficient to access emails and email headers.
Folders are synced between the server and all clients.
Move an email to a folder and it gets moved everywhere.
Most popular email clients support IMAP.
Emails can be copied between server and locally very easily using drag and drop (even large volumes).

These reasons were enough to convince me. So turn off your POP3 access and convert to IMAP. I use gmail as my mail client, but yahoo supports IMAP as well. The iPhone, Android and Blackberry use IMAP. Mail.app, Outlook and Thunderbird all support IMAP too so there's no excuse. And you can connect to your IMAP account and copy your existing POP3 emails over.

Do it, do it now. Or when you've got a few hours to kill. You won't regret it.

iPhone apps worth looking at

2009-12-28T21:56:00.000-05:00

These apps have worked their way into my life and are worth checking out.

Everyday or frequently:

Safari, Tweetie 2, Now Playing, Amazon.com, YoContacts, iTalk, IMDB, Squarespace, Analytics, Tumblr, Mint, Kindle, Google, RedLaser, AroundMe, Files, Labyrinth 2, Dragon's Lair, TheDeep, Kayak, Zenbe, Facebook, Todo

Sometimes but good:

1Password, BeejiveIM, Darkroom, Driver, Flickr, GPS Drive, GoodReader, Google Earth, Gowalla, Instapaper, Lose It!, Matches, NOVA, OpenTable, PAC-MAN, Pandora, Postman, Pzizz Relax, Remote, Rotton Tomatoes, Shazam, Skype, Taxi Magic, Trails, TripIt, Yelp, Zipcar, iTimeLapse, iWant

Upgrading? Archive your old iPhone backup folders and save space

2009-12-20T14:55:00.003-05:00

I upgraded my old iPhone 3G to a 3GS and lost about 8 gig of disk space. If you have successfully upgraded your iPhone to a new version the old backups are retained here:

$HOME/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

Look at in Finder, sort by date and then just move those folders to an external backup drive you aren't using any more. Note, you will definitely want to keep the most recent folder as that is the active backup of your iPhone. This worked for my setup, but please use caution cause these are your iPhone backups - move, don't delete!

It's worth it to get 8 gig or so back.

Finding open files on a Mac: lsof

2009-12-20T14:29:00.006-05:00

If you want a way to find open files on a Mac, you can use the "lsof" command at the terminal (located: /usr/sbin/lsof). Open Terminal (under Applications | Utilities) and type:

lsof | more

This will list all open files and be a long list. To restrict the list, say, to all files on mounted volumes, use grep:

lsof | grep "Volumes"

I wanted an alternative to the useful windows "handle" command-line utility to locate open file handles. The new Snow Leopard finder tells you what program has open files on a mounted volume, but earlier versions of Mac OS/X won't.

The application name is the first item in the list and the file is the last.

SQLite database browser

2009-11-06T20:33:00.003-05:00

If you're looking for a SQLite database browser, the SQLite Data Browser sourceforge project may be what you're looking for. It's developed in Trolltech QT so runs on Windows, Mac and Linux but needs to run under Rosetta so performance may be a little slow. It's great on Windows though so I thought I'd give it a try on the Mac.

You can get it here.

Chrome beta for Mac is available!

2009-11-06T14:00:00.003-05:00

Chrome is now available for download on the Mac, in beta form.

I know I shouldn't be as excited as this but, okay, I'M EXCITED. Chrome is SO MUCH FASTER than Firefox or Safari on the Mac. Finally, a really quick browser. So far, so good.

Get Google Chrome for Mac (beta) here.

I use Chrome on my work PC all the time and apart from excessive swapping when many (30+) tabs are active, it's a great, fast browser to use.

And being able to close tabs consuming too much CPU is SO WELCOME.

I still use Firefox because it's a nice browser but Chrome is fast and stable, and that matters.

I'm going to have a little lie down now.

Down memory lane with a TrueType VT 220 Font

2009-10-31T12:15:00.005-04:00

Viacheslav Slavinsky created a DEC VT 220 truetype font so you can take a nostalgic trip down memory lane when using Terminal. Just download the font, double-click and install in Font Book. Then go into terminal, duplicate your current profile in preferences and change the font. Size 20 works best on Macs. Change the color to green and we're walking back down memory lane. Or change it to any color you want :)

Thanks to Simon for the tip.

Looking for a free SQLite database manager?

2009-10-27T20:22:00.002-04:00

Since developing for iPhone OS 3.0 I've been creating, editing and maintaining sqlite databases. The command-line tool "sqlite3" is quite nice to use but sometimes you just want a graphical editor.

Mike Titlebaum has created the ridiculously literally named: "Mike T's SQLite Database Administrator Tool". It's free and even goes further than the basics to offer an import function, SQL query autocomplete, a comprehensive schema view and export functionality. You can also create new tables and edit data.

It does have its quirks but for a free app it's worth a look.

Snow Leopard disk eject quirkiness

2009-10-26T23:02:00.000-04:00

After installing Snow Leopard the eject button in the Finder for external hard disks occasionally fails. If you click eject and nothing happens (repeatedly) the solution is to right-click on the drive and choose the "Eject" menu entry. This will just about always eject the disk (unless it's still spinning up and Finder is waiting for the control signal to kick in). You would think the selectors for the widget and menu item are the same, but they mustn't be. I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone else had the problem.

Convert any text to your own mp3 automatically!

2009-10-24T14:39:00.009-04:00

I heard Andy Ihnatko on MacBreak Weekly saying you could convert any text to an audio clip using an automator action in the services menu. This is handy for any time you want to hear something read back to you but listen on your iPod (in the car, for example). Andy was right - this is an awesome feature of Snow Leopard. Here's how to do it.

Launch Automator or if in Automator, File | New

Choose "Service" type of workflow
Make sure the service receives "text" in "any application"
Search for "audio" in the Variables pane
Choose "Text to Audio File" and drag to workflow workspace (right-hand pane)
Choose a voice (default is Alex)
Choose a file name: TextRecording
Choose a location (default is desktop)
Search for "audio" in the Variables pane
Drag "Import Audio Files" under the "Text to Audio File" workflow action
To save space, check "Delete source files after encoding".
Click Save, call the service "Text to mp3"

The service will now be available. To test, go to mail, highlight some text and choose from the menu: "Mail | Services | Text to mp3". The automator action will take the text, convert it to speech and convert that to an mp3 file in iTunes. The file can then be played straight away or synced to your iPod or media player.

If you want to run the automator action, search for "Get Specified Text" from the Actions pane and drag "Get Specified Text" above the "Text to Audio File" action. This will let you type text and run the workflow in Automator. You will have to remove the "Get Specified Text" action to save the workflow as a service.

Thanks Andy and thanks Apple for this amazing, easy feature.

(And if you were wondering where this magically puts the services entry, go to System Preferences, Keyboard, KeyBoard Shortcuts, Services and you'll see a list there you can modify)

Gatting and iPhone - the joke's on you

2009-10-11T17:41:00.006-04:00

The iPhone's auto-correct mechanism makes Gatting (a famous English cricketer) out to be an arse. As you can imagine, Australians particularly like this joke.

Gatting auto-corrects to be farting. The keys are close together... many thanks to my Aussie friend Michael for pointing this out.

Warning: Parallels 3.0 does NOT work with Snow Leopard and upgrading will cost you $50

2009-10-01T18:47:00.006-04:00

I found out that Parallels 3.0 doesn't work with Snow Leopard when I tried running it today. This is highly annoying because version 4.0 costs $50 to upgrade. If you don't upgrade, your virtual machines will be inaccessible under Snow Leopard.

Parallels will not support version 3.0 under Snow Leopard in the future according to their website.

So I'm stuck with the forced upgrade. I wonder how many other customers feel annoyed at being forced to spend $50. Not cool Parallels and not appreciated. VMWare Fusion works fine on Snow Leopard. I'll be moving my machine to that as soon as I can.

Taking out the trash - keyboard shortcut to empty the trash

2009-10-01T18:20:00.002-04:00

Ok, this is trivial but how do you empty the trash using a keyboard shortcut?

command-shift-delete
empties the trash with prompt.

and if you're really sure:
command-shift-option-delete
empties the trash WITHOUT a prompt.

Note: A friendly warning, if you rely on this too much, it'll become a habit so beware! You might lose something you want.

The most annoying Xcode error ever: The Info.plist for application at (null) specifies a CFBundleExecutable of (null), which does not exist.

2009-10-01T18:08:00.003-04:00

If you're developing an iPhone application in XCode and getting the error:

“The Info.plist for application at (null) specifies a CFBundleExecutable of (null), which does not exist.”

here's how to fix it:

In Xcode, choose "Executables" from the project hierarchy. Click your project executable then press Command-I. Choose the General tab and set the working directory to "Build Products directory".

This fixed the problem. The advisory from Apple did not help much, but did mention the Build Products directory. Under SDK release notes for iPhone OS 3.1, XCode/Developer Tools:

"Changing an iPhone Executable's working directory from “Build Products directory” may cause the application not to install properly with the error message “The Info.plist for application at (null) specifies a CFBundleExecutable of (null), which does not exist.”"

Hope this saves you a little time. It frustrated me for a while.

Snow Leopard, Message Filer, Mail ActOn

2009-08-29T08:39:00.004-04:00

I just installed Snow Leopard and most things are working (except calendar sync unfortunately). My version 1.0 version of Mail ActOn was incompatible in Mail.app. I checked the Mail ActOn site and they are now $25 to buy version 2. Mail Acton is a great product but it's worth $10 or maybe $15 at the most to me so I didn't buy it. There's a 30 day trial if you want to try it.

I looked around and Message Filer works with Snow Leopard. There's a free working version with nag screens every now and again. It just lets you move messages to folders, has a nice search feature in the pop-up window and works on multiple highlighted items. So I recommend it.

And even better, it's $8 which is the right price.

A keyboard shortcut to add hyperlinks in Mail.app

2009-07-13T16:33:00.003-04:00

Finally! For years, I wanted an easy way to press COMMAND-K to add a hyperlink in Mail.app instead of using Edit | Link | Add.

Hawk Wings has a how-to. Just follow the directions and it will work.

Thank you! I will use this every day...

The trick is to set the Mail.app keyboard shortcut through the system preferences then reference the menu item through it's title "Add...". This, amazingly, works. You can now press COMMAND-K, paste in the link and it's done.

MacVim: vi never looked so pretty

2009-03-25T14:41:00.006-04:00

Vi is a text editor with an absolute bastard of a vertical learning curve.

It's so tough, you'll think you're crazy learning it.

And now its lickable on the Mac thanks to the MacVim Mac app!

MacVim adds a slick wrapper of services around the familiar gvim interface including auto-updating with Sparkle, nice integration with Mac copy and paste, Apple-N for new windows, a multiple window interface and transparency (:set trans=10).

Vi is powerful and fast and awesome. It's search and replace regex support is rich and you can run vim commands as scripts. It has syntax highlighting, spell checking and limitless undo. You can navigate without moving your hands from the keyboard. And the keyboard movement controls are used again and again on computers, from unix man pages to Boston.com's The Big Picture.

This little app is so famous, you can run Microsoft Outlook, Word and Visual Studio 2008 with vi editing in-line on a PC using viemu (that app's not free like vim unfortunately).

Thanks to Bram Moolenaar at vim.org for his awesome work and for an application I wouldn't want to live without. Look on vim.org for vim on your operating system.

Growl, email and potential insanity

2009-03-24T07:45:00.002-04:00

If you use Growl for system-wide notifications, then you may want to check out the MailMe notification. This is only useful for people that reserve Growl for important notifications or it will REALLY irritate you. WARNING: Dial down your notifications in subscribing apps first.

Once turned on, you give permission for Growl to send emails. When a Growl notification happens (like an IM chat starting in Adium), a message will be sent to the nominated email account.

This has come in handy when I've been away from my computer (like at lunch, in a meeting, out) and want to know what my system is up to. I have an iPhone so I get email everywhere.

Use it as you will - but dial down your notifications to things you really want to know about or it will drive you nuts.

Top - find those greedy processes using Terminal

2009-03-24T07:30:00.000-04:00

Want to find those greedy processes? Wanna bet it's Firefox? Just kidding. Sort of. Just run this at the Terminal window (Applications folder | Utilities folder | Terminal, or just launch Quicksilver and type "Terminal"):

top -ocpu

This will list all your running processes by CPU utilization. The offender will be at the top.

Press "q" to quit. The PID can be used to kill the process as well, but that's probably only for more advanced users. I use this technique occasionally when I need to SSH into my mac box and kill some process that's sucking on the resource pipe a little too hard :)

Suspend your virtual machine - it's faster!

2009-03-16T17:30:00.001-04:00

If you still need the occasional windows world application, consider using suspend to speed up the process.

When I need a Windows application I can boot up Parallels or VMWare Fusion, press play and the virtual machine is available within about a minute or so. This is much faster than a cold boot.

When you’re done, just go to Virtual Machine | Suspend and within about 30 seconds you can quit the app and you’re done.

It’s on-demand computing, fast and convenient.

NTFS for Mac

2009-02-25T08:05:00.000-05:00

NTFS for Mac (Paragon) is a file system plugin for Mac OS/X allowing access to Windows NTFS drives. I've got history with this product. The current version I'm using (v6.5.1) works very well. I can access my external NTFS drives and read and write to them.

The previous version I installed didn't work - in fact it messed with random files during file operations rendering them useless after copying. I'm very glad I did tests first. It didn't destroy the file allocation indexes, fortunately, but I immediately uninstalled the product and it took me months to get the courage to try again. I just used a gigabit local network and a windows laptop to copy files in the meantime.

Paragon support was responsive and offered a new version to try but I didn't try it immediately because if there's one product that must not fail, it is filesystem driver software!

Months later I downloaded their updated version and tried a few tentative tests and it worked fine for me. Since then I've used it for over six months and it's been good.

So my advice: buy it if you work with external NTFS drives. But test thoroughly first before using with your hardware. And if the data is REALLY important, use a gigabit network or NAS (network attached storage) device to bridge the Mac-PC divide.

Git now available on Mac OS/X

2009-02-06T17:23:00.002-05:00

If you love git or want to try git, you now can on Mac OS/X.

Get the git installer on Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/git-osx-installer/.

Git is a (relatively) new source control system that uses crypto hashes to guarantee the consistency of the repository and do some magically-fast branch comparisons. It also facilitates local commits, cheap branches and fast distributed workflow for teams.

Find out more on http://git-scm.com. There's a windows (cygwin, msysgit) version available and of course linux, where git was originally borned :)

Right now I can only see support on the Mac for a subset of git commands {git, git-cvsserver, git-shell, git-upload-pack, gitk} so git-svn and git-daemon are missing but it's a great start and works very well - much quicker than the windows cygwin-based version. Props for getting gitk to work - that's a great branch visualisation tool.

Thanks to the team that put the installer together - git is great for tracking changes to local projects even if you don't have an upstream workflow to push or pull from.

Switching to minimized windows with Apple-Tab

2008-10-24T12:29:00.002-04:00

I finally figured it out after years of frustration when writing the previous article...
If you want to bring up a minimized window with the task switcher (Apple-Tab key combination):
HOLD DOWN THE OPTION KEY before LETTING GO OF THE APPLE KEY!
Oh my god, why isn't this the default instead of buried?!
Sigh.

Witch - better task switching

2008-10-24T12:22:00.003-04:00

If you're annoyed with the way the Mac switches running programs with the key combination, look at Switch. It looks a little different but has one important feature:
IT MAXIMIZES DOCK-MINIMIZED WINDOWS when you switch to them.
Read a later post on how to do this without Switch...

When Time Machine fails: Seek-click-spindown-retry

2008-10-06T23:08:00.003-04:00

My Macbook hard drive died recently. No warning - one minute fine, the next the familiar and nauseating seek-click-spindown-retry cycle I’ve come to dread. Dearly departed was a Seagate Momentus 120Gb 5400 RPM drive. What I didn’t know at the beginning was my Time Machine backup drive was faulty too.

My external half-terabyte drive stored 9 months of history as a Time Machine backup.

I’d googled for the restore process and it seemed painless. Just boot off the Mac OSX installer CD, System | Restore from Spotlight Backup and Voila - done!

Which of course, wasn’t how it went at all.

First, the hard drive. I live on the eastern US coast and my local Apple store would only replace the hard drive with one the same size as my original Macbook, a measly 60 gig or something. They would also charge $350 so I forgot that idea immediately - it’s easy to put it a new cheap 2.5” SATA drive although Apple won’t sell you one.

The only proviso: the hard drive bay is attached to the hard drive with Torx T8 screws - you’ll need the right screwdriver.

I bought a 320GB 2.5" Seagate Momentus 7200 rpm drive (finally, plenty of space) and got it installed. Insert Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard disk, reboot. I chose the menu option to restore from a Time Machine backup and after some playing around rebooting (it seems my internal drive wasn’t recognized straight away) I got to the restore process.

Time Machine started reading from the most recent backup, got to 30% and then the hard drive stopped reading, span down like someone cut the power then started back up again. The Time Machine drive had a mid-read hardware failure causing it to “reboot”. Of course, Time Machine couldn’t handle a violent read interruption and so gave the helpful “sorry, folks, reboot and try again” message.

What follows involved reinstalling OSX from scratch, then writing some ad-hoc bash scripts to get rsync to copy my home drive from the time machine backup disk to my new home directory. This needed to be done piecemeal as an iterative copy process to cater for the random drive brown-outs.

The script looked something like this:

#!/bin/bash

while [ "foo" == "foo" ]; do
rsync -av /Volumes/TimeMachineDrive/Backups.backupdb/My\ MacBook/Latest/Mac/Users/myuser/Photos/ ~/RestoreFolder
sleep 10
done

So rsync would just start where it left off after waiting 10 seconds for the drive to restart.

Although a broken drive isn’t Apple’s fault it would have been nice if the restore process could be a little more robust. I eventually got all my data back and replaced my defective Time Machine drive.

Kudos to Apple for providing an elegant folder-based backup solution accessible from the Finder and command-line. Without that, it would have made my life a lot harder. The scripts above were trivial to write.

The use of hard links by Time Machine is clever - it allows space to be used optimally and makes full use of the existing operating system resources and is fully backward compatible.

Sometimes Apple does things right - this is an elegantly engineered solution, even if they did give the GUI designers WAY too much leeway... gimmicky, much?

Upgrade to Leopard

2008-04-14T02:27:00.003-04:00

I waited until 10.5.2 came out before getting the Leopard update for my old CoreDuo 20" iMac and my MacBook Pro both running Tiger. I wiped the iMac20 and installed Leopard fresh, but I upgraded the MacBook Pro because it is my work machine and I didn't want to mess with the system. A few days later my 24" iMac turned up; so I had iMac24 with preinstalled Leopard, iMac20 with a fresh install of Leopard and my MacBook Pro with upgraded Leopard.

Upgrading is a mistake. I highly recommend telling your Leopard update DVD to wipe everything off the disk and install fresh. My upgraded MacBook Pro was running like a police officer in love with jelly doughnuts; which is more of a waddle than running. The system was constantly accessing the hard drive, I had regular crashes in parallels and a number of kernel panics. There is something very deflating about productively using software only to have it all go away in a blink. I thought I had left that behind when I escaped the foul grip of Microsoft's Windows. This situation peaked at three incidents in one day, where I just spat the dummy.

Both my iMacs were purring along with their modern feline titled operating system, why not the MacBook Pro?! So I bit the bullet. After a session of Time Machine I reformatted the MacBook Pro with a fresh new copy of Leopard. Then I copied across my document files, pictures, etc form Time Machine. And lo, the system is better than it has ever been, the sky is bluer, grass is greener and the birds are singing.

I am unsure what exactly the problem was. I did have a lot of extraneous pieces of software that I was using or testing, but everything was functioning fine in Tiger and changed to a pig when I upgraded to Leopard. So if you don't want Pig-Leopard you have to wipe the slate; tell your Leopard install process not to upgrade but to wipe that ugly disk clean of the previous beast and grow your Leopard from scratch.

TrueCrypt for Mac released!

2008-02-18T11:35:00.003-05:00

Finally, TrueCrypt, an excellent open-source encryption application, is available on the Mac!

You can download it here:
www.truecrypt.org

This is a highly recommended open-source encryption application and makes encrypted files available on Mac, PC and Linux.

Thank you TrueCrypt team!

Zen and the art of Google Search (it will help)

2007-05-29T10:07:00.001-04:00

This article will help you find what you want - these techniques have helped me. After talking with friends that don’t use Google (or other engines) too often I found I knew lots they didn’t so this will probably help.

At first, it seems simple - you type in the first thing that comes to your mind and then hunt and peck and wait and back and peck again.

But there’s a better way - here’s how. Take the advice: JFGI and find it.

1. Search assuming you’ll find your target.

When searching for something, try and imagine the text that would appear on the perfect web page about what you want to find. Sometimes it’s useful to search using a question but for certain queries, search for the text you think would appear in the result of the search.

For example, I heard a podcast (internet radio show) that talked about a photo of Al Gore’s office that had three screens and was part of a profile of Al Gore in an online article (didn’t know where it was published). I started by typing:

“al gore photo” - that didn’t help

then, “al gore photo profile” - much miscellaneous stuff

It was only when I thought of what someone might write in an article about this photo or link to it that the search:

“al gore photo screens”

That I found the link to the Time article. What is remarkable about this photo is that he’s got three huge Apple Cinema displays on his desk - this is the first thing you’d mention and what you’d expect would HAVE to be in the text of a blog or news entry about this photo. In fact, “al gore screens” might have found it as well because it’s an unusual association of ideas and makes this search a unique hit.

2. Search shallow, look deep.

Narrow down by starting broad then scanning keywords in the description of each result that’s better or closer to what you want. Start by typing a word that must result in a close (ish) result and scan for better words that will narrow down the result. This technique works well when you’re not sure of the terminology of something but will know it when you see it.

I could suggest you use a dictionary to find synonyms or further refine some of the keywords you’re looking for but most search engines (if they’re any good) should display snippets under each link containing heaps of relevant words.

e.g. You’re looking for a particular schooling habit of dolphins. Type in “dolphin school” then look for keywords that will narrow your search to exactly what you want. This usually only means two or three attempts rather than five to ten. Starting broad helps here but choose keywords that will put you in the ballpark.

3. Use google to search a specific site.

If you know the site the content comes from, DON’T search for it on the site. Use google.

Digg.com is a classic example of this - it’s search feature absolutely sucks (sorry Kevin, but it does). Google will find it instantly. If you remember the title or the gist of the article, then just type:

“toxin site:digg.com”

The site: tag will only search that site and it’s far faster than just about every site’s search engine. Who has 150k machines (or more) to grep with? :)

4. Sometimes you can hold on too hard. Let go.

This is related to point 2 but it deserves it’s own point and it’s a bit Zen :). If you’re typing in too many keywords you can assume a result that leads you 10-15 levels down a path that’s restrictive.

Occasionally on a difficult search, it’s best to just back up and type the best two words you’ve used. Use the results to coalesce the result to something that’s closer to what you’re looking for. So search shallow but look deep.

5. Can’t find what you want after many searches?

Occasionally, you’ll find that the result eludes you. Sometimes it’s helpful to vocalize what you want to find (to yourself) like you’re trying to explain it to someone then choose the best keywords. Or just type the lot in. In expressing what you want to find you’ll either form a question or express the matter you want to search and it’ll present new words and ideas you can use.

6. Nouns are you’re friend. Verbs and adjectives are your fast index.

Remember that people are emotive. Computers aren’t. If you’re looking for something with action then use the words that best describe the *action* of what you’re looking for. You’ll find it immediately because this will become (in combination with the more mundane nouns) an instant emotive pointer to the dynamic as well as the actual descriptive meaning of what you’re trying to find.

7. Use questions, when appropriate.

If you’re sure someone, somewhere would have asked the question you’re asking online either in an FAQ, a use-group or in a rhetorical question on a blog then this can find it for you very quickly.

e.g. I wanted to know what the term “stat” meant in medical dramas (I’m a big fan of the House series). I knew it probably mean “quick!” but wanted to know the background. Given that this has GOT to be a common question of anyone laptop-surfing in front of the TV, this query found a very good answer straight away:

“what does stat mean”.

It found a Yahoo Answers question “What does the term STAT mean in medical situations?” and gave this response: “Stat, from statim is a medical term meaning "immediately" (from Latin) or Sooner Than Already There.” Ref: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006012206384

8. Some sites have so much, just use them.

If you’re looking for a film, actor or director then just type their name in or use imdb.com or wikipedia.com. Google will take you there instantly anyway.

Sites like youtube etc have video and music videos as well - in these cases it’s best to use their search engine as Google might not keep up with their rate of change.

Finally:

I think search engines will eventually use these types of approaches in algorithms to refine searches without us having to apply these sorts of techniques. But while google and other search engines are amazing now, these little search hacks will help you find stuff more quickly now.

Kernel Panic, Mac style

2007-05-13T05:20:00.000-04:00

When Macs have a kernel panic, they do it Mac style.

It's not a blue screen of death, it's a bit prettier. Only thing you can do is power-cycle your computer though.

This was caused by a bluetooth driver problem after a resume from a suspend. It probably didn't help that my other Windows PC was fighting the Mac for the mighty mouse connection :)

First I've seen - certainly not common.

Xee, The best photo browser on Mac: with apropos to ACDSee

2007-05-11T05:13:00.003-04:00

[update 4-Mar-2008. Xee v2.0 fixes this problem, as pointed out in the comments below. Get the update here]

[update 7-Jan-2007. Xee still has a bug in Leopard with full-screen mode, but works fine windowed. If you need something to tide you over until this is fixed, Sequential is a good, simple photo browser.]

Xee

I've been looking for an excellent, fast photo browser for Mac OS X that doesn't make you import your photos first. This is just a waste of disk space (especially if you're using a laptop). So the problem is to browse through thousands of photos on network, external or local volumes without any stuffing around. This is definitely the best I've found so far.

I really wanted something like ACDSee. Xee uses the Finder to choose the folder to browse. You can see thumbnails in that view if you set it (though it's not perfect). Once the first image has been selected Xee has all the features to quickly flick through a set of photos in a folder.

It's a universal binary and really, really fast probably because it uses OpenGL to render the images.

It also has customizable keyboard commands, which is an essential feature IMHO. It also has great full-screen and zoom support. The only feature it lacks (apart from thumbnails) is the ability to reassign the mouse scroll wheel to program functions but I'm sure they'll add it soon.

[Update, you can set the app to pan rather than progress through images in Preferences, General Tab, "Scroll wheel: {Browses images, Scrolls images}". Didn't see that! So that feature has been implemented. Now we just need mouse button allocation!]

It's incredible to me that Aperture doesn't allow a incremental zoom in their application - it's the most basic feature and the Loupe control and 100% zoom feature doesn't always cut it. They should really add that feature.

Download Xee here. There's a Google Code project on this as well and you can get the full source. You can then play with it in Xcode if you want.

It'd be nice to see a fast thumbnail generator so you don't have to rely on the Finder to browse but traditional implementations of this have been very, very slow and introduced high overheads with the database management. ACDSee has spent a lot of time making this aspect of their application fast but don't do a modern Mac version. The older version for Mac isn't worth trying - it's only for PPC and obviously very early code.

So from all the Mac users, thanks for this great application.

Review: 13 Mac OS X Password Managers, two that don't suck

2007-05-09T05:33:00.002-04:00

[Added 6 more password managers thanks to user feedback]
Nobody wants to have their online accounts stolen. This article reviews 20 password managers for my requirements. Only four of them got a good grade so there's room for improvement. Firefox will happily show any user sitting at your computer all your web site passwords unless you secure it (and has had security vulnerabilities in 2.0.0.2 - fixed in 2.0.0.3).

But first, some tips to maintain the higher level of security. This advice depends on your paranoia level and how much you want to avoid identify theft and scams.

For the average user, good security usually means strong passwords, using different passwords for different sites ... and other measures such as:

avoid responding to instant messaging/email phishing scams
don't believe that you have won a lottery or that you can help some African smuggle millions out of his country,
don't run anything on your computer except software you have specifically intended to install,
never buy anything from spammers, anything that comes from non-family oriented image sites is always infested with nasties than the girls themselves would have
NEVER open email attachments from anyone except for items you have specifically requested (this means you do NOT open the joke file that your friends have just sent you)
have anti-virus and anti-spyware installed
have your computer behind a NAT router and/or install a software firewall.

So, most of this is simple experience/education. Let's look at passwords.

What makes a good password?

There are plenty of sites about the place that can tell you about the quality of passwords as a function of recovery speed. Basically, you should use upper and lower case, you should include digits and some punctuation/symbols, your password should be at least 10 characters long, better to be 12 to 16 and contain no dictionary words. (Although apparently windows passwords should not be 14 characters). You should have different passwords for different sites. You should never leave a password set to the default. Never write passwords on post-its.

You can also try using a pronounceable password generator like Xyzzy. This isn't perfect but it's one way to remember moderately complex passwords. It runs on Windows and Mac.

My OS and/or browser remembers passwords for me!

Most browsers will remember your password for you if you let them. I don't like this feature and recommend against it. Like the dark side of the force, this feature can be very tempting as it is so easy but introduces a couple issues that you have to be aware of:

Backup of passwords - your hard drive could crash at any time. Maybe right now!
Anyone with access to your browser when you are away from the keyboard will be able to access all of your sites - do you lock your machine?
You will be unable to use the protected websites when you're away from your beloved password enabled browser.
How does your browser protect your passwords?
How vulnerable are these stored passwords to web script attacks?
What about passwords for things other than the web - eg: encrypted documents.
I will kill a kitten for every person I find using this feature.

Safari has wonderful synching via .Mac account which will Synch you keychain with all your other Mac computers. This assumes that you have other Macs, that you are willing to pay to have the .Mac account and that you are using Safari for your secure browsing.

Firefox has a good friend in Google who developed BrowserSync that will synch your bookmarks, passwords, cookies and history on any firefox browser that has the plug-in installed. HIGHLY recommended.

Also, for Firefox users: Firefox -> Preferences, Security Tab, Show Passwords, Show Passwords ... exposes passwords!!! Not many people know this, but now you do. This also works on the Windows and Linux versions of Firefox as well and is the default setting unless you change it ... so if you insist on having Firefox storing your passwords then tick the "Use a master password" setting and set that master password!

I was turned off browser password storage back in the early days of Opera, where it stored certain passwords in clear text files. I'm sure they don't do that now.

Keychain access is awesome for all sorts of OS related items but lack convenience and features of most of the password managers listed below. Obviously Keychain is part of the solution for OS X but would be a discussion all by itself and this article is already way too bloated and still terse.

Authentication questions.

Often a site will have questions that you have already pre-answered that will identify you if you forget your password. Things like “what town were you born in?” and such. These sort of questions will allow an attacker who has some knowledge about you to get into your account. Also, if the hosting site is hacked then this question and answer may be exposed to the hacker which gives them more information about you. My suggestion is to lie in a random way. For the “what town were you born in?” question, just make up a password unique to that site and use that as the answer "jgdalpitwburg".

So, now you have strong passwords for all of the web sites you visit ... how do you remember them all? Well the answer is – you most likely can't. You need some sort of password manager.

Password managers expose you to another set of problems:

someone who can crack your password manager will have all of your passwords and access to everything.
- give your password manager a really strong password to open (this can be open to a keylogger attack though - a combination of GUI-based input can help).
- choose a password manager that uses good encryption and has a good security model.
you won't be able to access your sites unless you have the password manager with you.
- remember the passwords to the most important sites (eg: webmail). The Xyzzy application might help (see above).
- have the encrypted data file available online.
- choose a password manager that can link to a mobile device, or export to text file that you can encrypt on your PDA.
if you lose your password manager data then you won't be able to access anything.
- back up your data. You MUST do this anyway.

Password manager features I would like to see:

password required to open password manager. if it uses a keylogger-safe method, even better.
do not expose password at any time, only password out is copied to buffer to allow pasting into fields.
auto lockout : timeout (duration configurable in prefs) that closes password manager or requires re-entry of password.
clear buffer (if still contains the password) after n seconds.
export of data in encrypted form for backing up.
export of data in plain text for ... whatever use (to PDA).
autofill web forms
logging of activity. Logs not available from any menu item - just log file location specified in the documentation.
take an isight photo at the beginning of each session of activity (limit of n images set in prefs)

Not all of these features are essential, although the first couple are. I didn't note any password manager that had the last two features.

I would not use a password manager that exposes your password as part of the normal procedure to open the associated web site. This means that anyone with you can see the password, which makes the password manager a security hazard rather than a security aid. I was shocked at how many of the password managers actually did this.

Of the 20 password managers that I looked at, I found that only four were good (5/5) and two more were worth considering (4/5). Two of the 20 were from web sites that were so dodgy-looking that I was afraid to install the software. Note “My rating” is purely subjective and based on my requirements. The “Notes” column is far from comprehensive but gives a guide to notable things that struck me as I was looking at the software.

Software	Cost $US	My rating	Notes
PasswordWallet	$20	5/5	+ never exposes password + heaps of features + autotyping (clever) + synch with PalmOS device
1Passwd	$30	5/5	- exposes password on edit - auto lock tied to keychain access - expensive + excellent autofill + wonderful memorising of forms + Palm + Excellent Export/Import
PasswordVault	free / $15	5/5	- free limits to 15 entries - expose password with click in edit mode + funky interface, skinable + mac + windows + linux versions + great export options
Yojimbo	$39	5/5	- very expensive - no launch URL - no auto lock + password req to copy/view password + excellent documentation + feature rich + more than a password manager + very slick
Password repository	$25	4/5	- exposed by button. - butt ugly. - expensive. - lacking features. + file handling. + good documentation.
Vault	$5	4/5	- limited prefs, features. - no auto lock. - no auto clear buffer. - no export ... but obvious data file. + never exposes password. + simple interface.
info.xhead	$15	3/5	- exposes password on entry/edit. - buggy exposure of password. + autofill web sites (clever). + funky interface. + lots of features.
PasswordPlus	$30	3/5	- exposes password on edit or via show click in view - expensive - doesn't auto open URLs + Good documentation + OS X/Windows/Palm OS.
KeyMinder	$20 (£10)	3/5	- exposes password on click - unknown preferences (have to register) - no auto lock + OS X/Windows
AutoID	$5	2/5	- exposes password on entry/edit. - butt ugly. + autofill web sites (clever). + option to hide password, but still exposed on dbl click.
iSafe Lite/Pro	free / $20	2/5	- exposes password as you copy. - doesn't export. - no preferences. - no copy password to buffer. - poor documentation. - time out is fixed time ignores activity. + encrypts docs.
Wallet	$15	2/5	- exposes password - clunky interface + autofill
KeePassX	Free	2/5	- expose password on click - no launch URL - no auto lock - buggy conversion to OS X - no help (probably a URL function) + Linux/KeePass:Windows/Palm
SafePlace	$10	2/5	- exposes password to copy it. - no preferences. - butt ugly. - data file location?
Pastor	free / donate	2/5	- exposes password mouse-over - clunky interface
PasswordMaster	$10	2/5	- exposes passwords by default. + pref option to hide passwords. - pref doesn't hide entry of password. - doesn't force password encryption of data!
DataGuardian	$20	2/5	- exposed by click. - butt ugly. - totally undefined initially. - ugh, fricken waste of time. + very configurable.
WebConfidential	~$27 (20Euro)	2/5	- exposes password on mouse over - expensive - butt ugly + autofill - very cool! + excellent net application integration + OS X/Windows/Palm OS
SecureNotes	$30	*1/5	- expensive. - site looks dodgy, example of downloading movies. (*did not install it) + can store files.
KeyMaster	free / donate	*1/5	- exposes password - weak description, dodgy (*did not install it)

Make Safari load pages faster?

2007-02-11T23:06:00.000-05:00

Top tip from Digg but easily done via the terminal by just typing (close Safari first)

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25

The "Dugg" article wants you to download and install some software which does this and a number of other things, but you have to pay for the software while the above command is free to use.

Check out how fast the pages load. Seems faster? If you're happy and like to remain happy then stop reading here.

Apparently the effect is not real. A blog post from the alleged Safari developer claims that this option is no longer used by anything. So they left the option in the plist file to deceive people, or backward compatibility, or maybe they are just lazy.

So I tested the option by setting the delay to 1.0 and then 6.5 ... and there is no perceptible difference on the handful of pages I tried (some large and slow, some small and fast). Bugger. All the testimonials on the original digg article where people are so happy that their browser is running faster are apparently just a placebo effect. Surprising that nobody actually did benchmarks.

Yes, I use Safari. I tried using Firefox a while back on my old G3 (with OS X installed) and it didn't understand right and middle clicks properly (it does now). I configured Safari to function the way I wanted and found I didn't really miss any particular feature that Firefox had except advertisement blocking, but thanks to Pimp My Safari I have all that I think I need with Safari. I must say it will be a shame when I let my .Mac account expire (too expensive); I like the bookmark synchronising feature. I might switch back to Firefox at that stage and use Google's BrowserSync.

9 apps $49 including Delicious, Newsfire, Textmate @ MacHeist

2006-12-15T19:42:00.000-05:00

Visit MacHeist - you can get 9 applications for US$49 plus a percent of that goes back to charities you can nominate.

It's a good deal - so support indie software developers donate to well-respected charities and get some great software.

The list includes Delicious Library, TextMate and Newsfire which by themselves brings you out ahead...

Plus, they're up to $93,000 donated to charity - if they go to $100,000 in the next 2 days everyone gets TextMate free...

[Thanks to Simon for the tip...]

Dell vs Apple

2006-12-15T04:32:00.000-05:00

We went ahead and purchased our laptops. I went for the cheaper option of the Apple MacBook Pro, the statistician likes red, and went for the Dell XPS M1710. Orders were placed at exactly the same time. Apple replied to me immediately via email saying they had received my order and I should expect the laptop in 6 days. Dell responded a week later with no delivery date. In fact they responded three times in quick succession, each time with the same order, just the laptops specs rearranged and never a delivery date. Odd. Well the day before we had the first response from Dell, I had already received my MacBook Pro from Apple. The statistician was upset that she hadn't received her M1710 when my Mac appeared, and we sent two queries to Dell over the next week that went unanswered.

The 17" MacBook Pro is stylish beyond what I deserve! The first thing I noticed after opening the sweet box of joy was how thin the notebook is. The quality of the build, the backlit keys, the richness of the speakers, understated and neat. Compared to the M1710 which appeared quite garish with all of its red glowing lights. The M1710 was much thicker although they both feel about the same weight.

After having set up Parallels and transferring across all of my old system smoothly, I began to feel just how nice the MacBook Pro is to use. I definitely do miss the individual PgUp, PgDn, Home, End keys, and would really like to have a Del key (rather than Fn + Delete). But as users have said: you get used to the combinations.

Note, that I have parallels running on my iMac but had never installed the "Parallels Tools" because (a) I didn't know they existed, and (b) I don't use parallels on my iMac that much. But I use Windows/Parallels on my MacBook a LOT and had a bit of frustration with copy and paste between the two environments ... until I installed the "Parallels Tools" ... Joy! Very easy to find and install, and makes Paralllels so much more useful.

Eventually, 10 days after I received my MacBook, we get a response from Dell, but only after I sent a final email to our contact and Cc: his boss, stating that our statistician was considering a change to Apple if Dell couldn't get their product shipped. The Dell equipment was already on the way and turned up within three days from Dell's reply.

We had ordered a Dell XPS M1710 and a 30" Dell monitor. Oh baby this is one sweet monitor. I thought 24" was huge but the 30" monitor makes 24" look way smaller than this difference between them sounds. Our contact at Dell assured us that the XPS M1710 would work with the 30" monitor at full resolution. In fact, the specs of the graphics card say this is indeed the case. However the laptop does NOT support the full resolution or, in fact, any resolution above 1280x800 on the 30" LCD monitor. Not good when we were promised the full resolution of 2560x1600. Dell support knew about this problem, but apparently the sales staff do not. Our statistician was livid.

To add to this pain, I attached my Apple MacBook Pro to the Dell 30" monitor ... and it just worked. Sweet mother of God how gloriously it worked. 2560x1600 on the 30" and 1680x1050 on the local 17" LCD. Words fail to describe the joy of that big screen on my desk with OS X spread out over the place. I want one.

So let me state this again: the top of the line Dell XPS laptop does not support the top of the line Dell 30" LCD screen. But the Apple MacBook Pro did.

I am producing so much smug right now.

MacBook Pro better value than Dell or HP

2006-10-30T01:13:00.000-05:00

I have been given the task to get a couple of the highest powered laptops I can for some researchers I work with. Fortunately I can get education pricing from all the major manufacturers and my University has negotiated special pricing on top of that. I approached each of the companies that we deal with and asked for 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo laptops with 2Gig of RAM and 17" screen. The following is a list of the laptops and prices that I received. The Toshiba dealer I approached said that Toshiba Australia don't sell Core 2 Duo laptops at this stage.

Surprisingly Apple comes out as the best value. There are some differences between the systems that may or may not worry you, such as hard drive speed, size, graphics speed (if you are a gamer), screen resolution etc.

	$4,585	$4,068	$4,912	$3,871
Company	Dell	HP	HP	Apple
Model	M1710	nx9420	nw9440	17"2.33
CPU	T7600	T7600	T7600	T7600
CPU Speed	2.33GHz	2.33GHz	2.33GHz	2.33GHz
RAM	2G	2G	2G	2G
HDD	120G (5400)	100G (7200)	100G (7200)	160G (5400)
DVD Write	DL	DL	DL	DL
Display Size	17" wide	17" wide	17" wide	17" wide
Display Res	1920x1200	1440x900	1920x1200	1680x1050
Weight (kg)	4	3.36	3.4	3.1
Battery	80Whr	68Whr	68Whr	68Whr
Grf Make	NVidia	ATI	NVidia	ATI
Grf Model	7900GS	X1600	FX 1500M	X1600
Grf RAM	256M	256M	512M	256M

What does worry me is the lack of Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys. I do a lot of code editing and frequently use these keys. Before investing in the system I am going to have to be sure that I can comfortably and quickly navigate around a document. I should also mention that the 7200rpm hard drives are very interesting - and I would like to benchmark the difference with some of our statistical analysis software. Dell and Apple mentioned that they could install the 7200rpm drives. Do 7200rpm drives have heat or reliability issues?

Just confirming that all prices are in Australian dollars and have the educational discounts offered by the respective companies (usually available to institutions, staff and students).

Using iPhoto to resize photos

2006-09-30T23:35:00.000-04:00

It isn't immediately obvious how you get photos out of iPhoto for use with other applications, let alone resize them. I didn't think to look in Export for this feature.

Select the album or images within an album you want to export then select File | Export.

You'll be presented with this dialog - just choose "Scale images no larger than" and type in a width or height. It will preserve the best aspect ratio for each photo.

You can also choose the QuickTime tab to export photos to a QuickTime slideshow as well.

iPhoto is not without its trials but this is a good feature. There just needs to be a button to do this so it's more obvious.

Apple did employ the coverflow guy (or at least his software)

2006-09-12T18:02:00.000-04:00

It seems Apple did like the coverflow product - and even kept it's name while integrating into iTunes (must have read my post :). Now it seems clear why the Coverflow stand-alone software only worked until September - in time for the big Apple iTunes 7.0 release. You can see Steve Job's keynote "It's Showtime" on Quicktime on the Apple site.
Congratulations on a great product - and on Apple recognising it.

First top 10 Mac OS X applications (alright maybe a few more)

2006-09-11T08:30:00.000-04:00

Coverflow

I can't say enough good things about Coverflow. It's simple, elegant and intuitive and provides the best GUI front-end to an application I've seen. You can flick through your album art fast and search with a few keystrokes. Apple should employ this guy. With the new animation framework Apple is developing, I'm sure this sort of app will become common-place after the OS X 10.5 Leopard is delivered but you can have this slick interface free (it's time limited though so try it out now!)
Download one of the widgets that collects your album art (like Amazon Album Art) to complete you collection.
Now if only you could turn the CD around and see the tracks :)

Adium

Adium is so well integrated into the Aqua interface it's a pleasure to use. You can sign in with all the major chat clients and it's feature list is comprehensive, even down to customisable alerts and Growl integration. It'll even read you your messages if you want or just amuse you with it's icon animation.

Smultron

Apart from having the best icon, this text editor is feature-rich and easy to use. It's got syntax-highlighting and loads of other features like multiple document editing but mostly it integrates well with the Aqua interface and doesn't get in your way. Peter Borg, my compliments!
Of course, VIM is the best editor, but that's my bias and the learning curve is vertical so I wouldn't recommend that here :)

Growl

Growl publishes an event interface that any application can subscribe to. A huge number of applications provide hooks into Growl and expose application events. You take these events and customise the sort of on-screen notifications you want to see. It'll do sticky notifications too if you want to check them off and not miss them.

Firefox

If you're looking to move from Windows to Mac and feel at home, then Firefox fills that gap. It's got everything the Windows version has including the extensions framework that's become indispensible for me. Camino has adopted the aqua interface but it doesn't have extensions out of the box and I don't feel like hacking my browser. It's true, the forms screen controls suck under Firefox (they look their lickable best in Safari) but for a web browser I'd rather a pocket knife than a sabre. If I feel like browsing with style, I can always fire up Safari anyway to get my fix :)

FFView

There's a yawning lack of a good, fast thumbnail-based photo browser on the Mac. iPhoto just doesn't cut it - I don't want to import everything in my photo collection (and with 10s of thousands of photos you wouldn't want to) - sometimes you just want to browse. This goes some way towards that goal. It's browsing interface could be better but the controls and keyboard shortcuts are comprehensive and customisable so this app is still in the dock. It was designed to view Manga comics easily but it works pretty well as a photo browser. I'm yet to find the equivalent of an ACDSee or FastStone Image Viewer on the Mac yet though.

Parallels

VMWare will be available as a beta for the Mac later this year but Parallels is almost the same - in function and even looks (I won't call it a copy but it's so close). It runs all the Windows apps you'd want and can also act as a virtual machine for other OSs like Linux. Mostly, it just works fine but a couple of things bug me - it doesn't have USB 2.0 support yet and there's long delays when browsing the host drives through shared folders. However, for those Windows apps you want to run without having boot into Base Camp it's invaluable.

iLife: iMovie HD

I've been looking for an application like this in the affordable price range for years. I'd pay the full cost of the iLife suite just for this application. I created an amazing video the first time in about an hour without looking at any sort of help file - it makes video editing simple, no mean feat. You can do video animation using built-in templates, drop photos in with professional-looking transitions and then burn it all to a DVD with iDVD nicely integrated with iMovie. Make sure you download MPEG Streamclip for those camera MPEG movie files that don't make it into iMovie - it lets you convert to DV or Quicktime MOV format with ease. Macs have trouble with the sound codecs on some MPEG files.

Quicksilver

Quicksilver is an application launcher with full application integration and scripting capabilities. It also allows you to bind AppleScript commands to a keystroke combination (see earlier post).

Its UI is polished and slick, with even the most mundane tasks like loading add-ins getting a spinning-cube effect. Nice.

Highly recommended - this joins Automator and AppleScript as a set of useful tools you can use to get immediate results without reading any documentation.

The iTunes current-playing track (quick popup) is a nice feature too.

iCal

iCal is the built-in calendar application for the Mac. It's simple and good to use but the best thing is it will pull down and display your Google Calendar calendars and display them all on a single page. It'll even keep them updated every x minutes. It's pull only at the moment though - it'd be SO nice if it supported push back to Google Calendar as well. We'll just have to wait for Leopard for that :)

Pac The Man X

If you're a fan of Pacman, try this - it looks great and has Ms Pac man as well as interesting game levels.

Super Duper

It's always wise to back up and this free shareware app lets you dump your whole drive or part thereof to network or USB drive storage. It's easy to use and cheap to upgrade if you want to do incremental backups. This has saved my data through one DOA Macbook and a hard-drive upgrade. Now if Apple could get the restore working on their boot disk, I'd be even happier (see previous post).

Delicious Library

I had to mention this. It isn't quite my cup of tea - I'm not quite retentive enough to use a USB bluetooth scanner (or maybe I don't have large enough collections) but I'll admit the idea is cool and the interface is very nice. If you have a large collection of CDs/DVDs/Books you lend out all the time, then this app lets you organise and browse in style.

Connecting to network shares with a click

2006-09-08T23:04:00.000-04:00

It used to be a pain connecting to my common windows network shares. Now it's instant. Just use the Automator aproach in the picture below, save as an application and create a symbolic link on the desktop. You'll see the share mounted as long as you've saved the credentials in your keychain.

Refreshing Finder with the keyboard

2006-09-08T22:20:00.000-04:00

Simon blogged about how to use a small piece of applescript to refresh the Finder window using an automator action.

Here's an extension to this functionality that makes it even better.

Take the existing applescript:

tell application "Finder"
 tell front window
   update every item with necessity
 end tell
end tell

Save this to a file in your ~/scripts folder under a name like "refresh.scpt".

Use the application Quicksilver to assign a trigger and key combination to the script and you can use something like "Command-R" to refresh the window - works beautifully.

You can find Quicksilver here (link: http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/).

Thanks to the original poster of the applescript: Eric "Heavyboots".

Two finger scroll on the trackpad

2006-09-08T22:11:00.000-04:00

I was a bit slow to find this one - so here's a quick tip. If you want to easily scroll through web pages or documents, just drag on the track pad with two fingers (if you have a Macbook). Simple and very effective. And it's smart enough to be reliable - no gesture-related false positives.

Oh, and you can also scroll sideways. Awesome.

[Update, thanks for the comment Anonymous. You can turn this on and off in the System Preferences. Just choose "Keyboard and Mouse", Trackpad tab and check "Use two fingers to scroll".]

AVI no-sound problem solved today (finally)

2006-09-08T21:42:00.006-04:00

[Proudly brought to you by: Doggie Go Go for iPad and iPhone]

No sound when trying to play back an AVI clip on your Mac? This could be the solution.
If you want to play back avi using quicktime that contain mp2 mpeg1, layer 2 audio (popular when encoding on windows using the divx format and common tools) then this app adds the necessary sound codec (a52).

Download the A52Codec as part of the Perian install and all those movies that played with no sound in quicktime will now work. It's a universal binary as well. I used to have to play these files with VLC (which is great for some file formats) but now you have the option with Quicktime too and they'll play in Front Row.

Fantastic - my movie experience going from Mac to Windows is complete.

The other amazing application I use to get some older mpeg1/mpeg2 movies from my camera into iDVD HD is Mpeg Streamclip. This also does "save-as" style converts to Apple Quicktime, H264 etc. Excellent application. I export my mpeg2 clips to DV format and the go into iDVD HD really well.

The A52Codec used to be available as a separate download - it's now part of the Perian development effort. Many thanks to the Perian team.

Root on a Mac: sudo -s

2006-09-07T09:59:00.000-04:00

I like a melodramatic MOTD when logging in. Here's apple's take when doing a sudo -s.

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
#3) With great power comes great responsibility.

Nice :) Makes me feel like Frodo.

Don't even think about 512mb of RAM

2006-09-03T09:38:00.000-04:00

When I first got my MacBook it had 512mb of RAM in it. This lets you run about 2 applications at once (maximum) and if you want to load 5000 photos into iPhoto, you can forget it - it just crashes.

I've since upgraded to 2 gig and never hit the memory limit. It's easy to consume over 1 gig though so 2 gig is highly recommended, especially for an operating system that is meant for media like OS X is.

And you have to buy the memory in pairs so it's probably better to upgrade when you buy the machine unless you want 2x256mb chips sitting around.

Restore broken on Intel Mac OS X 10.4.7

2006-09-02T11:25:00.000-04:00

Un-farking-believable!

This is amazing news - you can't restore from the OS X boot disk if you own an Intel Mac.

Not because the feature isn't there, but because there's a bug. A bug! If there's any place you don't want bugs it's in the system restore.

Disk Utility should let you drag your destination device to the destination field but a screw-up in the mode of the list of devices renders them as a text list complete with copy/paste menus. So you can't drag and drop - it just does a multi-selection! (see image)

I thought I was going mad until the truth dawned on me - it's broken.

The work-arounds in the article are completely unsatisfactory. Apple should offer a replacement bootdisk for download that just contains Disk Utility at the very least.

I'm glad time machine has been created - that might make up for a stuff-up of this magnitude. I had to mount the disk and restore the Users and Applications manually under a different user to get around this (it was necessary after getting a replacement Mac when battery problems made it DOA).

[Note: You might be able to create your own boot disk and fix the Disk Utility app problem by visiting tuaw.com and reading this post].

[Update 2: You can create an OS X install disk by creating a DMG from the OS X install disk using Disk Utility, remove unnecessary files from the install disk image, then use Disk Utility to restore the smaller OS X Image to a DVD-sized blank sparseimage (just ignore the error 22 at the end). I updated the Disk Utility as part of the process and before booting on the new boot disk - it still failed as above. So this process isn't worth doing and there isn't a way to do a restore. Over to you Apple...]

OS X doesn't support writing to NTFS volumes (only read)

2006-09-02T11:15:00.000-04:00

A warning: if you have external hard drives formatted under NTFS, you may need to reformat them as FAT32 or MAC OS Extended filesystem. OS X won't write to an NTFS drive.

This was a problem for me because my external HD has all my iTunes music. I used a great free utility called fat32format - it formats FAT32 drives > 32GB.
You can find the utility here.

I think you can format the external disk specifying an MS-DOS filesystem using Disk Utility, but I didn't try that.

Useful startup (boot-time) shortcut keys

2006-09-02T11:03:00.000-04:00

There's a couple of important shortcut keys when you boot up your Mac:

1. Holding down Option shows the boot menu so you can specify booting from a CDROM or USB/Firewire disk (picture shows bootup menu when inserting the Mac OS X Install Disc and holding Option key down on boot-up).

2. Holding down SHIFT ejects any discs in the drive.

Get to know Disk Utility

2006-09-02T10:23:00.000-04:00

At first, I dismissed this as a lightweight system tool, but it turns out this is quite a versatile utility.

You can copy DVDs and create disk images (DMG) files. You can also restore files from those images.

It will check the health of disks (like chkdsk) - I presume it uses something like fsck under unix.

You can also partition the drive and format drives as Mac OS Extended filesystem, MS-DOS (FAT32) or UNIX file system.

[It's not as versatile when you boot the OS X install disk on Intel, see next post]

Windows Remote desktop for the Mac

2006-09-02T10:18:00.000-04:00

I didn't know!
It's available... just go here. It's a little klunky but works okay - you can only have one session open at a time though (AFAIK), which isn't the best but it works and you can transfer files too if you don't want to use network shares.

Maximise key and Quicksilver

2006-09-02T09:17:00.000-04:00

There's no maximise key or action in OS X. This truly sucks - if only you could change the double-click on the title bar to maximise. Argh! That's one thing that Windows got right.

So as a work-around (and this takes some highly pleasurable fiddling), you can assign a key to maximise the current window. See this article from the macosxhints site.

Part of this work-around is to install Quicksilver (link: http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/).

Quicksilver is an application launcher with full application integration and scripting capabilities. This is what allows you to bind the AppleScript command to a keystroke combination.

Its UI is polished and slick, with even the most mundane tasks like loading add-ins getting a spinning-cube effect. Nice.

Highly recommended - this joins Automator and AppleScript as a set of useful tools you can use to get results from without reading any documentation.

The keys to know

2006-09-02T08:55:00.000-04:00

There are a few keys that make life much easier on the Mac. Just knowing these make the move from Windows far easier.

F9 - THE BEST KEY
Separates all windows in a scaled, top-down view and allows easy selection on a busy desktop. Pressing F9 again restores the original window positions.

F10 - Same as F9 but for the current application.

F11 - Move all windows to the edge of the screen to reveal the desktop. You can interact with the desktop then press F11 again to restore the original window positions.

F12 - Reveal your widgets.

The main modifier keys used on a Mac are the Control, Alt/Option and Command/Apple keys.

Command-Tab: Same as Alt-Tab in Windows - switch between running applications. The difference is that on the Mac it doesn't swap between application (MDI) windows - like multiple Pages or Word documents. To do this, see below:

Command - ~ (Command-Tilde): This swaps between the active windows in a single application rather than between applications like Command-Tab does. Makes it easy to cycle through Finder windows or multiple word processing documents.

Command-W: Close open window (not application - like CTRL-F4 in Windows).

Command-Space: Open spotlight search.

(See Expose to change these assignments in System Preferences)

The computer is your friend, the printer is your enemy

2006-09-02T04:33:00.000-04:00

Printing to a Windows network using a Mac can be frustrating. While there's obviously been work on making this an easy process, there's still some bugs.

This page from Apple explains how to use an advanced dialog to customise the underlying Samba connection string.

In summary, for the A-type personalities out there:

Hold down the Option key while clicking the "More Printers" button then choose "Advanced" from the first drop-down menu (this isn't that obvious and looks like a hack).
Create a user with little or no permisisons on your Windows PC except printing rights. Your Windows PC has the printer attached.
Edit the Samba connection string. I used: smb://user:password@server/sharename where sharename is the printer share. The security of this will worry some. Apple mumble moment.
Choose your printer from the list of drivers, if it exists.

Simple!

Don't ask me how to manually specify a printer not in the list - the process is baffling even for someone technical.

The problem with the automated process is that it tries to use smb://workgroup/server/sharename and then doesn't authenticate properly giving a samba authentication error.

If the above doesn't help, read the article. I got it working in the end and although I don't have advanced print options available, it prints fine.

Startup woes - vertical coloured lines and PRAM

2006-09-02T04:14:00.000-04:00

During my battery problems (see previous post), I had trouble starting up my Mac, even when the battery was in and had charge. I'd get one of two problems: either a grey screen when powering on and then... nothing or vertical coloured lines as below:

An extended Google search found the solution on the Apple site - the PRAM needed resetting.

If that doesn't work, try resetting your computer's PRAM (parameter random access memory), then repeating the X key steps above afterwards.

Restart your computer and immediately press and hold the Command, Option, P, and R keys simultaneously before the gray screen appears.
Continue holding these four keys until you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys to allow your computer to start up normally.

Unfortunately, the original machine I received needed resetting so often that I'd always start up while holding the above keys.

Luckily, the replacement machine doesn't have this problem.

Wherefore art my battery?

2006-09-02T04:13:00.000-04:00

As you can see, it's a bit hard to go to sleep when you have a new computer :)

This was the first indication the battery or power management unit (PMU) wasn't well - the "Calculating ... Remaining" persisted.

The battery charge indicator on the power supply plug was displaying orange rather than green even though it had been connected all day. It also displayed a small cross in the battery toolbar icon indicating the battery wasn't installed (as below).

The battery was holding charge but the OS wasn't able to read the levels so it resulted in some erratic behaviour like the PC shutting off cold rather than going to sleep like it should when battery power gets low.

I took the machine back to the store and they arranged for a new battery. After three days of running on power I picked up the new battery and saw the same thing happen... annoying.

Apple have a 10 business-day DOA (dead on arrival) policy. Originally the Apple store was saying I'd have to leave it at the store for 2-3 weeks until Apple picked it up but after talking to a couple of other stores, I realised they have to replace it if it's faulty within this period. The laws may differ in your country, so it's worth checking.

I highly recommend doing this if your Mac is playing up.

I returning my Mac on day 10 of the 10 day DOA period and got a brand-spanking new machine.

This one turned out to be good:

First Impressions

2006-09-02T03:31:00.000-04:00

The first thing you notice is the presentation and attention to detail. The MacBook is packed snugly in a soft filmy cover and the remote control, power supply and instruction manuals are all neatly arranged and in easy reach. Unpacking all this is tech-porn for a geek with any new computer, but Apple makes it high-class.

The machine itself is very thin and feels relatively light and compact. I got the 13.3" dual-2GHz model so the screen is smaller than I'm used to and limited to 1280x800 resolution but it's bright, crisp and very readable.

The setup proces with the revolving box effect is made exceptional with the login photo taken on the spot with the built-in iSite camera.

I've got a home network with an Apple Airport Express 802.11g network and it was smart enough to detect all settings and alert me that the MAC address wasn't registered with the hub. It let me progress and I configured the wireless later after doing a quick "ifconfig" from the Terminal app. Using a bash shell under all this eye-candy is pretty thrilling and makes you feel like there's endless possibilities under the hood to play with.

The startup was painless and fast. Before long, I was logged in and faced with the challenge of re-learning all the UI shortcuts and methodologies I'd gotten used to on Windows. Fortunately, that only really takes a day or two. It helps if you've got friends to give you tips as well :) I'll discuss that in a future post.

Not all things went right though - it was obvious from the start that the battery indicator wasn't registering the battery even though there was one installed. That was the start of many trips back to my Apple store to work it out. It figures. 2006 should be called "Year of the battery", apart from being "Sony's year of hell".

Welcome

2006-09-02T02:39:00.000-04:00

I've finally switched over to using a MacBook after working on Windows machines for years. Macs are now competitively priced so I took the plunge. So far it's been a good experience, but not without its trials.

Welcome to Mac Tech, YASB (Yet Another Switching Blog).