Aint that special

Here’s a simple use for Quicksilver. Create a new trigger with the first pane set to your music library. Set the second pane to “Search Contents” and now you can load any song while working in any application. Shouldn’t iTunes come with this feature built in?

Update:

Another way to do this is with the iTunes plugin for Quicksilver. Invoke QS and start typing “iTunes”, then right arrow in to see a list available options like browsing artists, tracks, genre etc. This is a pretty nice interface as well.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Quicksilver, Tip, Trick

Those busy little coders over at Apple have whipped up an update for Tiger. That puts it at 10.4.8 for those that aren’t keeping count. They are still giving us sweet lovin’ even when the Leopard release is just around the corner.

I was reading through the release notes to see what to expect and came across this:

Resolves performance issues that could occur when connecting to a Comcast network.

Wow, and I just thought that Comcast was screwing my bandwith with packet shaping. I would say thanks for fixing this, but I haven’t noticed any difference in my internet speeds.

So far, it all seems pretty much the same. I still appreciate the effort. It’s way better than having to install security patches every tuesday. Just think how much better Windows would be if Microsoft didn’t have to spend all of their time making security patches.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Tiger, Software

If you’re not using keyboard shortcuts and tricks, you are wasting precious time that could be better spent on YouTube. Here’s a couple of my most used keyboard shortcuts for the mac.

Safari Specific shortcuts

to switch between tabs in Safari

to jump to the search field in Safari

command and ‘+’ or ‘-’ to change the size of text in Safari

General tricks

Hold down the ctrl key while scrolling the wheel/ball on your mouse to zoom your display in and out (I wish my PC had this)

to lookup a word in the built in dictionary

cmd and tab to bring up the application switcher

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac, OSX, Tip, Trick

Parallels has just released RC2 of Desktop for Mac. While the Mac Pro received some love a few weeks back with a beta release, Parallels has put some real quality into this release candidate. Not only is it compatible with Vista and developer builds of Leopard, but there is no longer a RAM restriction. Parallels was only recognizing 3GB before.

I have to ask myself though, are there people out there with $2K of RAM in their Mac Pro that do not have a PC sitting under their desk to run windows on?

Here’s the FAQ sheet for this release:

No RAM limitations

No hardware reconfigurations

while using Windows and it’s critical applications on new 64-bit Mac Pro towers and iMacs.

Other improvements & fixes that make Parallels Desktop even easier to use:

New! Compatibility with developer build of Mac OS X 10.5, code-named “Leopard”

New! Experimental support for Windows Vista

Solaris guest OS no longer hangs after suspend/resume

An improved Parallels Tools package

Full support for OpenBSD 3.8 as a guest operating system

G4U hard disk cloning tool now works in virtual machines

Better video output improvement and acceleration

Added multi interface USB devices support (including Windows Mobile 2005 devices)

Added isochronous USB devices support (including WebCam devices)

Keyboard support improvement: Eject CD key support, left/right Shift/Ctrl/Alt (Option)/Windows keys difference support

Added virtual disk cache policy option: Mac OS X performance optimized or guest OS performance optimized

Image Tool fixes

Optimized disk cache policy for Suspend/Resume feature

Windows ME Suspend/Resume fix

Shared Folders first time access acceleration

Clipboard synchronization tool fixes (unreadable symbols sometimes added during copy and paste)

Sound playback and recording improvement

“Unable to allocate virtual memory” during virtual machine power on fix

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Leopard, Mac, OSX, Parallels, Software, Windows

Remember back when Steve Jobs introduced us all to Spotlight. He did a demo that seemed like magic. He typed in a word and Spotlight found audio, video, photo and text documents related to that word. I was amazed and rushed to get Tiger installed on my mac. What a let down when I realize that this only works if you have tagged your files with Spotlight comments. That can be tedious to do. Normally you have to select the file, get info on it, then type in the tags and close the info box. With some basic Quicksilver skills, you can automate this process. Here is the documentation for the Tagging plugin of QS.

The only modification to this tutorial is to select some files to tag and then invoke Quicksilver. You can do this by navigating in the finder and selecting the files you want tag. Invoke Quicksilver (ctrl-space) and hit that super secret key combo cmd-g to bring them all into Quicksilver. I’m pretty sure that this is the fastest and easiest way to add Spotlight comments.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Productivity, Quicksilver

It’s been awhile since I posted about my journey into Objective C and Cocoa programming. It’s going a lot slower than I had hoped, but I up to page 260 in “Programming in Objective C” so at least I’m not a complete slacker. It doesn’t help that most of the really basic material is as exciting as a wet shoelace. But today on my commute to work I read about Functions and Structures. This is pretty darn cool stuff. Functions are really just quick and easy methods, but Structures are where it really gets interesting. A structure is a way to group related variables together and then assign or recall values really quickly. Here is an example from the book:

struct date

{

int month;

int day;

int year;

}



This bit of code intializes a set of variables named month, day and year which comprise the variable called date.

struct date today;



Now we have declared a new date named “today.” Here’s the cool part. It’s really easy to set the day and year of your date as follows:

today.day= 21

today.year = 2003



That’s it. Now your date variable contains a day and year that can be recalled and reasigned as needed. The period simply says to access the sub variable “day”

You can even set the entire date like this

struct date today = { 7, 2, 2004 };

I’ll try to add some more later this week. The other thing I found pretty interesting is the use of Definitions (#define).

Technorati Tags: Apple, Cocoa, Objective C, Programming

In case you’ve been on a deserted island talking to a volleyball and playing dentist with an ice skate, Apple released Aperture 1.5 this week. They had sent out a not so mysterious invite card that displayed the same camera lens from the front of Aperture’s packaging. The coolest feature is the integration with iLife, which seemed an obvious omission in previous versions. Aperture feels less like a “Pro” application and more like an add on for serious iPhoto users. You can check out my comparison with Lightszone here.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Photography, Software

Ok, this isn’t mac related, but it’s too damn funny not to share. Check out these Kama Sutra gingerbread cookies.

Technorati Tags: Funny

I tend to think that too many system tweak on your primary machine creates instabilities is just a bad idea. However, there are a few basic changes that just make the operating system better. Many of these are available through the judicious use of Onyx. Onyx is an automated system optimization application that also allows you to change some fundamental settings. One of my must changes is the image format type generated by screen captures. The default setting is PNG, but Onyx provides an array of alternative options. I set mine to JPEG as shown below.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Productivity, Software

A previous post showed how to use Apple’s Automator to create a workflow for taking a screenshot and sending it to iPhoto. Wouldn’t it be great if you could associate a hotkey to run this work flow? Enter Quicksilver.

First you must setup QS to catalog your Scripts folder. Go to the catalog preferences for QS and select Custom on the left side panel.

Now you can create a new Folder scanner. QS does not scan your entire hard disk as a default. Personally this can be good and bad. Speed of searching is greatly increased with a smaller catalog, but you may miss finding things that are not in the documents or application folders.

After you’ve created a new File and Folder Scanner, examine the info for this new catalog. Set the path to include ~/Library/Scripts and set the depth to infinite. Now you can access any scripts or Automator workflows that are in your script menu. While running scripts from within Quicksilver can really be a boon to your productivity, the exciting opportunity is assign Triggers within QS. Triggers are just like Quickeys (I loved it in the old OS 7-9 days) but who needs another application running when Quicksilver is such a Swiss Army Knife.

Go to the Triggers preference in QS and select Custom Triggers. And a new trigger and name it something descriptive. You’ll get the standard QS interface. Select your script or workflow in the first pane and “Execute Workflow” in the second. Save the trigger.

Get info on this new trigger. Edit the Hot Key setting. I’ve chosen something easy to use and remember (and that doesn’t conflict with any other Hot Key). What’s even nicer is that QS allows you to choose which application have access to this new Hot key trigger. This is convenient if an application already uses that particular key combination or if you only want the shortcut available under certain circumstances.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Automator, Mac, OSX, Productivity, Quicksilver, Software

I use a lot of Applescript when I use my Mac. I’ve learned quite a bit about the language over the years. Needless to say that it makes me a little snobby about using Automator. For the most part, I hate automator because it is so limited. What it has is pretty much all you get to do. However, once in awhile I gain an added appreciation for its simplicity. Here is an Automator “script” that takes a screenshot and then places the screen shot in my blog photos library within iPhoto. I’m sure if I worked long enough I could have come up with an Applescript to do it, but Automator allowed me to do it in about 10 seconds of work. Here it is (and yes, I used this automator “script” to take the screenshot)

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Programming, Automator, Software

Along with that dejavu firmware update, I also received notice that my favorite RSS reader Vienna has been updated to Version 2.1.0.2105. There’s no mention of the new features in this release and I haven’t played with it enough to figure it out yet. I’m sure it is just one step closer to being perfect. Free or not, this application is really starting to ROCK!

Update:

What’s New: Version 2.1.0.2105:

+ Add Blog With feature.
+ Fix bug where mouse was tracking wrong browser tab.
+ Fix bug: searching in ‘any’ smart folders wasn’t done
correctly.
+ Updated all localisation except Traditional Chinese.
+ Added Brazilian Portuguese localisation (thanks to Helvécio
Mafra).
+ Change URL with feed:// to http:// during refresh.
+ Fix bug with expanding file:// path.
+ Compare article titles case insensitively when looking for
updates.
+ Fix warning message for missing style.
+ Add hidden preference to disable checking for updated
articles.
+ After clicking link in article pane to open in foreground
of external browser, return focus to article list.
+ Fix bug in date parser.
+ If there are no connection errors during refresh, then set
the subscription’s last update date even if there is no
data. Could be http 304, for example.
+ Added Korean localisation (thanks to Lee Seung Koo).
+ Add AppleScript command for emptying trash.
+ “Text contains” in smart folders now matches partial words.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Software

Apple’s been working away patching the Mac Pro firm ware again. I just installed the firmware patch they had from earlier this week and now today I get this:

I’m not sure what these provide yet. Here is what the installer says:
“The SMC Firmware Update adjusts fan behavior in the Mac Pro. The updater application will be installed in the /Applications/Utilities folder. Please follow the instructions in the updater application to complete the process”.

The security update seems to be for the airport, which I never installed.

Update: This appears to be the same update from earlier in the week. The strange thing is that I already applied that update and received the comforting message telling me my Mac Pro firmware was up to date. This one, however, was applied without having to hold down the power button on the front. It was a smooth auto install. So maybe they are slightly different. I don’t care enough to check and my machine is running exactly the same anyway.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac, OSX, Security

The average computer user has a deluge of information to deal with on a daily basis. Sometimes just capturing the information is not enough. You need to be able to find it easily and quickly at some later date. I started out using Apple’s stickies back in OS 9 and then graduated to a notepad widget with the release of Tiger. Those are great options if you are going to use the information soon after capturing it. However, it’s like having a junk drawer at home. If you fill it up with enough crap, you will never find anything.

I began an exhaustive search for a new way to organize. Keep in mind that this was before Apple’s Spotlight saw the light of day, so a using some sort of file hierarchy just wasn’t going to cut it. I collect a lot of PDF files. Sometimes it is difficult to decide where exactly to file it. That’s where some good AI could help out and that’s why I settled on Devonthink Pro from Devon technologies.

It essentially uses a file structure to store just about any kind of information. It handles PDF files, bookmarks, text, RTF documents, media files (sorry, like most non-Apple applications it can not handle Pages documents). It also has a built in web browser using Apples webkit. It is fast and best of all, you can capture apple’s web archives. How many times have you saved a bookmark for some recipe or bit of code and found that the site has changed. How dare they! Storing web archives means that everything is still there. Also, with Devonthink, you can go back in and chop out any of the stuff you don’t want. Sidebars, ads, stupid comments, can all be deleted simply by selecting the area and hitting delete. It works just like Webstractor except it is a database as well.


The power of Devonthink is really in its search capabilities. The search options and AI are phenomenal. Lots of booleans for narrowing down your search as well. It even returns a kind of score to indicate how well the results match your query. What’s more, is that Devonthink uses that AI to automatically categorize documents that you add to it. Often, it does a better job deciding what folder document should go in. I’m not sure how, but it just knows.

This is definitely not your mothers scrapbook. It has a steep learning curve to really get your $80 worth and browsing really isn’t any better than using the finder. However, if you are a student, researcher or lecturer this product will blow your socks off! It has way too many features to list in one post but here are a few of my favorites:

• Excellent Applescript support
• Built in text editor with hi-lighting and formating
• Solid PDF display
• Sheets (similar to Filemaker records)
• One of the best supported forums for any non-open source application

That first feature really deserves more attention. Applescript support is an overlooked feature that can really make a mediocre product great. Not that Devonthink is mediocre, but some of my favorite features are implemented through Applescripts. For example, one built in script will scrape your De.licio.us account and pull back all of your bookmarks to give you a local copy. Another will archive all of your mail.

So download the Devonthink Pro demo and try it out. It’s like 150 hours of demo use. That should be more than enough to get you hooked.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Software

I haven’t quite finished the second part of “The catch all application” so in the meantime, here’s a couple more videos of Apple’s upcoming OS release code name Leopard.

This one is actually like a little commercial for Apple. It shows most of the new hotness we can expect. Although I don’t believe the Ipod web browser is real.

Here’s one of the synthesized voices.

And one of the next iteration of Expose that most people are calling a fake.

I have to ask the question: Why go to all the trouble to fake OS pre-release videos? It seems like more effort than it could possibly be worth. I guess it’s better than having those folks out writing viruses, worms or spam bots. Maybe those are the kind of artsy people that use the Mac. They would rather entertain than be malicious. More power to them.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Leopard, Mac, OSX

I came across more videos of Safari 3 features.

This one is of the built-in search and highlight feature and this one takes advantage of the custom widget creation tools. Another one is the search feature for the system wide help. Hurry and check them out before Apple demands that Youtube take them down.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Leopard

Now that iTunes 7 has incorporated the snazzy Coverflow album visualizer, your probablly wishing all those P2P files came with art work. Well, look no further than Art Collector by Specere software. Specere is the same company that put out Menuet which can also download artwork. However, Art Collector allows you more direct approach and is not a system control panel (I hate mucking up my mac with more control panels). After you launch Art Collector, you are presented with an alphabetical list of your artists in iTunes. Select the album and you get to see the tracks, current art work and artwork that Art Collector has found. There is a bit of a delay, and really no batch processing, but what do you want for $8.95? Check out the demo, which as far as I can tell is fully functioning.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, Mac, Music, OSX, Software

Here’s a new one for me. Did you know that if you hold down the command key while left clicking on a dock icon, you’ll get a finder window showing you the application? I didn’t. I have no idea when I would need it, but at least it is available.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX

I’m an avid reader of Anandtech’s reviews. They do a great job and aren’t afraid to push the limits. This week they swapped out the stock Xeon processor in a Mac Pro for a pre-release quad core from Intel. You gotta love those guys. How many of you would pry out your processor from a new Mac Pro let alone put in some pre-release chip in it’s place. Thankfully Anandtech has huge balls and Mac Pro owners now have an easy upgrade path in the future.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac

I’m not sure if any other Mac Pro users out there are experiencing this, but my apple issued mouse is acting wonky. It will randomly move the cursor and activate Expose. I’ve tried two different mice on both my G4 Powerbook and Mac Pro. It is definitely something with the Mac Pro (or maybe the apple keyboard it is plugged into).

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac