This brief tutorial will show you how to automatically mount a Windows shared folder when OS X starts.

Posted by Mirko at 10:33 PM | Permalink

Merlin Mann writes about the smart folders he's been using in Mail.app. Very useful and it just could make you more productive.

Posted by Mirko at 08:14 PM | Permalink

Have you ever wanted a custom icon for a hard drive or folder? It is easy to do, even if you can’t make an icon from scratch.

Posted by Mirko at 09:30 PM | Permalink

Here’s how to get excerpts of your SuperDuper! log file to display on your Desktop.

Posted by Mirko at 04:24 PM | Permalink

Some TextMate automations interact with the user via GUI dialog boxes they display. Others show the user a web page with links that can trigger actions. We will take the road less traveled, though, and ask TextMate to respond to normal typing operations, turning it into a semi-interactive environment. This wouldn't be ideal for all commands, but it could be a useful technique for creating tools like a TextMate-savvy IRb (Interactive Ruby) clone or the shell worksheets some other editors have. It also makes fun calculators.

Posted by Mirko at 10:16 PM | Permalink

One nice thing about Mail is the Redirect feature, which lets you forward mail to a particular address so that it does not appear to have been forwarded from you. The final recipient sees the message just as you did when it arrived in your inbox.

One annoying thing about Mail’s Redirect feature is that it cannot be used on more than one message at a time. You can’t select, say, the entire contents of one mailbox and tell Mail to redirect all those messages to your Gmail account. If you select more than one message, the Redirect menu item is unusable. Here's the solution.

Posted by Mirko at 11:54 AM | Permalink

Downloading your favorite TV show is much easier than it was a few years ago with the help of torrent indexing sites and great software. With the arrival of the open source TVShows application, the whole thing just got even easier.

Posted by Mirko at 12:56 AM | Permalink

Switching to a Mac infrastructure may sound like an expensive proposition for a small-business owner. However, some businesses who have made the change say they made the right choice. The cost savings on security and ease-of-use quickly paid off incurred expenses, they said. Relearning some tasks that operate differently on a Mac may be a barrier, but Parallels comes in handy.

Posted by Mirko at 03:10 PM | Permalink

More information here.

Posted by Mirko at 09:53 AM | Permalink

There may come a time when you have to bid a fond farewell to an old computer. Perhaps it just doesn’t have enough processing power or drive space to cut it as a message center or a backup server. Or maybe your small living area can’t hold yet another machine. Whether you want to sell it, donate it, or simply recycle it, you should take steps to protect yourself and the environment.

Posted by Mirko at 08:43 AM | Permalink

With GarageBand, you can create your own music, whether or not you play an instrument. Use your imagination to choose, combine, and arrange prerecorded pieces of music called loops to make your own composition. GarageBand includes a loop browser that lets you try out, or "audition," loops and a timeline where you can arrange loops into a song.

Posted by Mirko at 08:40 AM | Permalink

Just two weeks after Apple released its streaming media box to the public, hackers successfully installed OS X, Apple's desktop operating system, on the $300 device, making it the cheapest PC Cupertino has ever sold.

"The breakthrough is done, OS X runs on Apple TV!" wrote "Semthex," the anonymous hacker responsible for the mod, at his website. "Now we got (the) low-budget Mac we ever wanted."

Posted by Mirko at 03:39 PM | Permalink

Let’s say you’re reading an article online, and you read a sentence that you want to email to a friend. Don’t do the copy-and-paste thing. Instead, just highlight the text and drag-and-drop it right on the Mail icon in the Dock. It will open Mail and put that sentence into a new mail message.

Posted by Mirko at 09:21 AM | Permalink

Despite what Apple wants you to think, your Mac isn't invincible. While Macs may be less vulnerable to viruses and spyware than PC's, they're just as likely to get stolen or suffer from a hardware failure like a hard drive crash. When that happens, will it be a catastrophe, or just an inconvenience? It depends on whether or not - and how well - you back up your Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Independent UK developer Ben Bird has upgraded his video surveillance system for Mac users, SecuritySpy. The system offers powerful video surveillance features for Mac users aiming to protect their home or business – motion detection, real-time compression and network video streaming.

Posted by Mirko at 12:18 AM | Permalink

There are two huge advantages to off-site backup on a server. First, if something catastrophic happens, like a fire or theft, I need to have my critical files stored in some other location. Secondly, it enables you to access those critical files from any computer, anywhere. This tutorial has a pretty high geek rating - it requires you to use some programs you might not be familiar with, like Terminal, and the Applescript Editor. It’s written to be understood by casual computer users.

Posted by Mirko at 04:55 PM | Permalink

Many of you would love to take your Internet access with you as you travel on family vacation or spring break; for others, terrestrial broadband (cable modem or DSL) is unavailable or prohibitively expensive at your fixed location. Good news for all: the choices on the wireless access front are better than ever before.

Posted by Mirko at 04:45 PM | Permalink

The Apple TV comes with a stripped-down version of Apple's OS X, but retains many of its basic features, such as directory structure and file format. In just over a week, hackers have been able to upgrade the Apple TV's 40GB hard drive (derided by many as being too small for any serious media collection) and enable secure shell access (SSH) to the machine, among other things. Most recently, and the most practical hack so far to date (announced on March 29) is to enable the USB port, which had been disabled by Apple in software.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

So you've made the switch to Mac, but kept your old PC, and now you've got both connected to your home router. How do you access your Windows files from OS X? Sure you could set up an FTP or SSH server, but that's overkill for a regular home network. Turns out that Mac OS X can connect to Windows shared folders very easily. Read on to find out how.

Posted by Mirko at 12:25 AM | Permalink

No doubt you know that sharing your internet connection on your Mac is easy. For instance, if want to turn any Mac with a built-in Airport card into a wireless router (e.g. with a cable or DSL modem plugged into the built-in ethernet port), all you have to do is go to the Sharing pane of your System Preferences select it and hit start. However, what if you want to do something a little bit more complicated? This tutorial covers some other ways for turning your Mac into a router, including over FireWire and adding a second ethernet port via USB (which can be really tricky).

Posted by Mirko at 09:22 PM | Permalink

Jason writes: "With the arrival of my Apple TV yesterday I needed a solution to get my Xvix/WMV/Divx files converted and imported into iTunes so that I can watch them. I already have Quicktime Pro, which with the recent release added the ability to “Export to Apple TV”. Since I have a lot of files, and no desire to sit around and convert these one at a time, it seemed like a perfect job for Automator."

Posted by Mirko at 01:45 AM | Permalink

Knowing how to investigate a security breach, potential crime, or policy violation on a Mac computer or server is crucial for understanding the incident and building a chain of evidence that clearly identifies the culprit. In this article, Ryan Faas describes data forensic methods as they apply to Mac OS X and shows you how to ensure that evidence on a compromised Mac is not contaminated during an investigation.

Posted by Mirko at 12:24 PM | Permalink

Home automation is a topic that both excites and daunts some of us. Gordon Meyer from O'Reilly's Mac DevCenter has incorporated some of those "hacks" to interface with Twitter. Twitter, for those who aren't familiar, is the (infamous?) microblogging platform that allows users to update their statuses via a multitude of platforms—IM, SMS, e-mail, web—as well as receive notifications from friends via those same platforms.

Posted by Mirko at 01:36 AM | Permalink

The fusion of web services and desktop software is a holy grail of computing bliss that few can claim. Anyone who has ever gone back and forth on whether to use the convenience and innovation of Gmail on the web vs. the power and integration of a desktop email client like Apple's Mail.app knows what we're talking about. While the melding of these two universes might seem like an impossible hope to some, Mailplane is a new desktop Gmail client in private beta that just may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Posted by Mirko at 01:43 AM | Permalink

Apple’s Aperture application is an extremely versatile digital photography workflow tool. In Aperture, once an image has been imported into a project in the library, the original file, called a master, is never modified. As images are adjusted and edited, instead of the space-intensive duplicate-edit-save cycle of Photoshop and other tools, Aperture’s workflow stores changes as very small recipe files called versions. When a particular version of an image is displayed or exported, Aperture reads the master from disk and applies the recipe. Changes to a recipe can be made and unmade at any time and in any order, resulting in a non-linear, non-destructive and very flexible workflow.

Posted by Mirko at 09:52 PM | Permalink

Ed Eubanks writes: "Every now and then, my Macs begin to feel a little sluggish. There are many potential reasons why: I tend to run 8-10 applications all the time - and sometimes push 15 or more. This alone will bog down any Mac. When those don't speed things up, I've found a number of things I can do to encourage my Macs back to their youthful snappiness. Here are a few tips I've found for restoring my Macs to full speed without spending a penny."

Posted by Mirko at 07:32 PM | Permalink

In this howto, the author will show you some things he has done to secure OS X beyond it’s default settings. There are very basic, and some advanced things in here.

Posted by Mirko at 12:54 AM | Permalink

Many of you may have heard of the supposed power of Mac OS X that it gains from Unix-y underpinnings. Like one of those proclamations that make you seem smart, but you’re not sure why, the BSD-like innards of OS X are something that Mac enthusiasts like to cite, but rarely get their hands dirty in. So for those of you who have always wondered how to make your life a little easier or more powerful or impressive with command line voodoo, check out this little beginner’s guide.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Your receipts, ebooks, scanned newspaper articles, tax forms, gadget manuals and client contracts can be available at your fingertips whether or not you're by your filing cabinet. And you can organize them using iTunes.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

This blog post will show you how to make a firewall-related workflow more intuitive.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

One of the often overlooked features of Safari is its Activity window, hiding in plain sight in the Window menu (or just press Command-Option-A for fast access). The Activity window shows activity related to the Web pages you are viewing. If you try to load a page and it stalls out with “loading,” for instance, the Activity window will show you exactly which item is causing the problem—just click the disclosure triangle next to the page in question, and you’ll see entries for every item on the page, and (if those items are loaded) their size or (if they’re not loaded) a message showing their status.

Posted by Mirko at 09:27 PM | Permalink

If you create slideshows with your photos and burn them to DVD for playback in set-top players, you might want to enhance your packaging with a nice album cover and liner notes.

Posted by Mirko at 09:10 AM | Permalink

Some times sensitive data needs to be sent via email and as it travels to it’s destination it can be intercepted by hackers, ISPs, the office IT geek or even a strict government. In this tutorial, we’ll discuss how to use Apple’s Mail application to send secure emails that are signed and encrypted. How does it work? Both parties get a free personal certificate from a trusted source and then we let Mail do the rest.

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Hard drives have a way of filling up—especially laptop drives. Install OS X and your favorite apps, and then add your music collection, photos, and videos—and that space can disappear in a flash. If you can’t get a larger hard drive for your portable Mac, the easiest way to get more storage space is to get rid of stuff you don’t need. To start the process, consider the following suggestions.

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 AM | Permalink

You may not realize it, but every time you save a PDF in OS X, you’re potentially sharing at least a bit of personal information: your name. This may not be a big issue to you, but for someone whose job is, for example, to anonymously review and comment on manuscripts, it could be a problem. Read this article to get tips on how to make some of the information disappear.

Posted by Mirko at 11:10 PM | Permalink

While how fast a browser can render a web page is certainly an important weapon in the browser war arguments, the difference is usually a matter of seconds at the most. To my mind, a more important measure of speed is how a browser affects the overall speed of your SYSTEM.

Posted by Mirko at 12:04 PM | Permalink

Encryption can be used to keep the contents of the email safe from prying eyes. It can also be used to certify that the message a person receives was actually issued by the individual listed in the messages from field. Email encryption is a complicated process that is simply convoluted for the average computer user. Mac users are no exception, so here’s a rundown on the ins and outs of encrypted email.

Posted by Mirko at 03:57 PM | Permalink

EyeTV-compatible tuners, like those offered by Elgato and Miglia, are the television tuners of choice for the Macintosh. These tuners provide analog and digital, standard and high definition solutions for Mac TV-watching. You can sit in front of your Mac and watch your shows as they record. But say you want to watch a show in your living room or bedroom? Sure you can wait for the show to finish recording, copy it over your local network, and then watch it. Or you can put on your hacker's cap and stream it in real time.

Posted by Mirko at 02:19 AM | Permalink

Pierre Igot writes: "Mac OS X’s Mail has a pretty long history of sheer idiocy when it comes to sending e-mail messages. But there is one aspect that has always been particularly irritating to me, not just as a Mail user myself, but as someone who provides Mac tech support services to other Mail users."

Posted by Mirko at 12:02 AM | Permalink

With the introduction of AirPort Extreme 802.11n base stations, Apple announced that the majority of its current machines are compatible with the draft of that standard via a drive update. On the other hand, the MacBook and MacBook Pro Core Duo aren't likely to get compatible Airport modules. For Apple, these machines are condemned to always remain at 802.11g. Read on to discover how this situation can change.

Posted by Mirko at 01:43 AM | Permalink

Everyone loves the iPod. Not everyone loves iTunes. It's not that iTunes is a bad application, but it does limit what you can do with your iPod. This article will show you how to free yourself from the one computer, one music library shackles of iTunes using alternative software for managing the iPod. When you're done here, you'll be able to add music and movies to your iPod from any computer - and retain almost every other useful feature iTunes brings to your iPod.

Posted by Mirko at 01:34 AM | Permalink

To replace the swirly blue background image that normally appears behind the login window, simply replace the Aqua Blue.jpg file stored in /Library/Desktop Pictures with an image of your own. If the file isn’t named properly, or the file type is wrong, you’ll see a solid blue screen instead of your custom image.

Posted by Mirko at 11:42 AM | Permalink

If you want to run Windows applications on your Intel powered Mac, you will be happy to learn that there are three different ways. The first method is by using Crossover for Mac, the second is using Parallels, and the third method is using Boot Camp. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. This article will explain the differences between these programs and from there you should be able to figure out which method works best for you.

Posted by Mirko at 12:51 AM | Permalink

When you create a new empty folder in OS X (Shift-Command-N), it’s created with the name untitled folder. With just a bit of mucking about in the Finder’s internals, you can set the default name for new folders to anything you like.

Posted by Mirko at 03:51 AM | Permalink

If you need to have a collection of vital information always in your pocket but you don't want to carry a notebook around, you can always use PagePacker that enables you to use the technique of cutting and folding pieces of paper into little books.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

To enable high-quality video calls with Skype for Mac, first download the latest version of Skype for Mac. You need version 2.5.0.85 or newer. Then follow these instructions.

Posted by Mirko at 02:11 PM | Permalink

JC writes: "As an admin, sometimes you want to tweak the dock a bit when you can't sit at the Mac or VNC in to it. Luckily, the Dock is governed by a plist that's a bit cryptic, but is otherwise fairly easy to tweak. I used this quite a bit, back in the day, but when a friend asked me for it recently, I had to dig around quite a bit to find the darn thing."

Posted by Mirko at 01:36 AM | Permalink

If you use Mail.app a lot, this series of five tutorials are something to check out. The tips, ideas and workflows that demonstrated will be useful to everyone. Hawk Wings has all the details.

Posted by Mirko at 05:27 PM | Permalink

If you find yourself typing the same thing over and over again when answering emails, Ryan Carson has a real time-saving tip for you. Watch the video below to see how Text Expander can save you time on when answering emails.

Posted by Mirko at 01:18 PM | Permalink

In a nutshell, a Smart Folder contains items in the folder based on search criteria that you set in the preferences of the folder instead of grouping the contained items by location, like a regular folder. This makes it very easy to better organize your Mac. Say, for example, that you have a lot of word documents or keynote presentations spread out in different folders on your Mac but you want to get them all in one location without physically moving them on the hard drive, then making a smart folder is your solution.

Posted by Mirko at 01:05 PM | Permalink

Scott writes: "My goal with this was to do the simplest thing possible while still ending up with something useful. It's a relatively short read by design — probably about twenty minutes. Essentially, you're shown how to launch Xcode, create a project, launch Interface Builder, add a few items and compile the result. There's no code, but we do bask in the glow of NSTextView's rich text handling."

Posted by Mirko at 01:27 AM | Permalink

If you’ve spent time in Terminal, more than likely you’ve made a typo or two—or two hundred thousand, if your typing accuracy is anything like mine! It’s one of the banes of working in Unix—after years of point-and-click, having to type sometimes long and complex commands by hand leads to inaccuracies. And, sad to say, Terminal isn’t nearly as lenient with my typos as are Word and my other text editors!

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Here’s a little hack that makes the main window use a 3 vertical pane view, like the letterbox plugin does for Apple Mail.

Posted by Mirko at 03:45 PM | Permalink

FUSE stands for Filesystem in USErland, and it provides a generic interface that lets the operating system see virtually anything as a filesystem. Historically, adding new filesystem recognition to an operating system has meant modifying the kernel for each new FS. FUSE, though, provides a single interface that filesystem modules use to interface with the OS. Best of all, anything that provides the correct interface can be interpreted as a filesystem. One enterprising Python programmer even developed a script to let users mount their GMail accounts and use the extra space in their accounts to save files.

Posted by Mirko at 01:36 AM | Permalink

This article is for people who just want to figure it out and get going but fully realize that their initial questions are only going to annoy veteran users.

Posted by Mirko at 05:59 PM | Permalink

There are many ways to remotely initiate BitTorrent downloads, but most are complicated and require tweaking. Here’s an easy way to remotely download torrents with only an instant messaging application and a BitTorrent client.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

What can you do when your iBook suffers from a problem that is well documented but the warranty expired a long time ago? Use candles, literally :)

Posted by Mirko at 04:26 AM | Permalink

This is a sure fire way to clean your beloved Mighty Mouse you spent $50 for.

Posted by Mirko at 01:12 AM | Permalink

If Amazon's hot holiday seller list is any indication, a lot of you got new Macs this holiday season. If you switched to a Mac from a PC, you've probably noticed that there are a lot of differences between the two. This article will get you up to speed quickly on the differences so do take a look, this is very good material for new users.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Task List is the simple way to manage your homework. After all, it's bad enough that you have to do homework in the first place - why should keeping track of it be difficult too? It makes it easy to actually do something about your homework, with features such as multiple file attachments for each task, a built-in tabbed notes editor, and convenient reference information and links, just like your composition notebook.

Posted by Mirko at 04:04 PM | Permalink

Among the best security practices that everyone should adopt, choosing strong passwords is at the top of the list. If you're reading this, then you have access to the Internet. You likely have accounts on various web sites. You might even be doing some on-line banking. All of these systems, systems not under your control, store your password somewhere. Should someone get their hands on that password file, it's not at all difficult to crack some of the passwords in that file.

Posted by Mirko at 03:15 PM | Permalink

Upgrading the DVD burner to a newer model will not only bring shorter burn times, but also Dual Layer capabilities. Opening the PowerBook is considerably more complicated than the Mac Mini - some experience working inside laptops will be useful if you intend to crack open an Apple notebook. First, though, you’ll want to make sure a new drive will fit.

Posted by Mirko at 03:13 PM | Permalink

It turns out that it is possible to install Windows to a USB disk without using Bootcamp at all. Here’s the recipe.

Posted by Mirko at 01:10 AM | Permalink

Ever wish you could disable your keyboard? For example, so you could clean it without making a mess of whatever it is you’re working on? If you’ve got a desktop Mac, the task is as simple as unplugging the keyboard’s USB cable. But if your Mac is stowed away under a desk, unplugging that cable can be a hassle, and if you’re a notebook user, it’s not an option at all. You could shut down your Mac, but many of us are fans of sleep mode—my Macs are turned off only when I’m out of town.

Posted by Mirko at 01:07 AM | Permalink

One of the areas in which Aperture excels is in managing, applying, and searching metadata about your images. To get the most of this feature, however, you need to make sure you add the appropriate metadata to your images in your library. It doesn’t take much time to edit the metadata for each image, but it does add up. There are several places in the Aperture workflow where you can work with metadata, but the most used place is the Metadata View panel.

Posted by Mirko at 03:50 PM | Permalink

Adam Knight writes: "It's a matter of seeing who is starting what and why, but almost everything can be changed if you work hard enough. First, ask yourself if this is something you need to do. Most services that aren't active have been paged out and just the run loop portion of the code is in memory and running, which isn't that bad of a tax on the CPU. If you're doing it to do it, don't."

Posted by Mirko at 01:25 PM | Permalink

You can use the built-in audio units AUNetSend and AUNetReceive to generate audio on one computer and have it play back on another computer. Moreover, these computers do not need to be on the same local network, and the created audio can be though any program from GarageBand to VLC to iTunes.

Posted by Mirko at 12:36 AM | Permalink

Mitchell Lawson writes: "Sometimes I’m away from my laptop, and as in the case of emailing myself To-Dos that I want created automatically in iCal, there are times I jot down notes from something and want to email myself those notes. It would then be nice for Mail to automatically detect those emails, and create a new Note in Yojimbo with the appropriate title and contents. I hacked together a little script which does just that."

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

One of the great joys about a device like the iPod is that it doesn't just do music. It does videos. It does text. It does games. It does pictures. You can use it as a portable hard drive. With the proper hardware, it can do radio and it can record voice memos and do even more. The device is so flexible, one is constantly finding new ways the Apple engineers have thought of to break out of the MP3-player box and give more power to both developers and end users. The iPod's Notes feature is a great example of this power.

Posted by Mirko at 11:52 AM | Permalink

If you’re sending a handful of files to another Mac user they should go in a clean-looking DMG volume. There’s no easier way to look polished and professional. The video is here.

Posted by Mirko at 02:25 AM | Permalink

The ImageIO framework, introduced in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, allows applications to read and write popular image file formats. ImageIO works in conjunction with Quartz and is designed for maximum performance, convienient metadata access, and color management. As the definitive way to access image data on Mac OS X, you should consider using ImageIO in your application as a high-performance substitute for Image Importers or other image handling libraries. This article gets you started working with ImageIO, shows how to read and write data to and from Quartz, and points to some of the capabilities in working with Core Image that you can explore further on your own.

Posted by Mirko at 02:15 AM | Permalink

ClusterSSH is a small Perl/TK utility that controls a number of xterm windows via a single graphical console window to allow commands to be interactively run on multiple servers over an ssh connection.

Posted by Mirko at 11:05 AM | Permalink

James Duncan Davidson writes: "If you use Aperture, you probably really care about your photographs. You might be a pro with a library that ranges into the 100’s of GBs, or you might be an amateur with 20GB of data, but you care enough to take the time to do the right thing with your images so that you can fulfill your vision of what those images should be. So you calibrate your display, right? And you do it frequently, right?"

Posted by Mirko at 01:26 AM | Permalink

If you take a lot of photos, having them organized on your workstation may be a challenge. Fortunately, there are bloggers out there with the same problem and one of them wrote a good article on the subject so do check it out. He also provides some sound advice on backup, I like the man! :)

Posted by Mirko at 12:35 AM | Permalink

Even if you're using Gmail as your primary e-mail account, there are many instances where having an offline version of all your messages is very handy. This article shows beginners how to do it.

Posted by Mirko at 01:12 AM | Permalink

Dave Jewell writes: "I’ve been fascinated by cross-platform programming for more years than I care to remember, and my interest has recently been sharpened by the acquisition of a number of Apple Macs – both Intel and PPC (PowerPC). This article focuses primarily on some technical aspects of Qt, Trolltech’s cross-platform C++ toolkit which, as you may know, is the architectural core behind the KDE desktop on Linux. At the end, I show how easy it is to create a simple application without writing a line of code."

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

JC writes: "For a variety of reasons, the Boot Camp Assistant sometimes fails to let you do the things you want to do. It doesn't work, for instance, if your drive is already partitioned. Many early adopters partitioned their drives before Boot Camp, hoping for an eventual dual boot solution either from Apple or elsewhere. In my case, I used Boot Camp to repartition my hard drive, then used that partition to install another copy of OS X for a test. Unfortunately, Boot Camp Assistant refused to reclaim that partition when I was done. That's 20GB down the drain!"

Posted by Mirko at 03:36 AM | Permalink

Jürgen Schweizer writes: "There are some rather useful, although somewhat non-obvious, Cocoa classes that are most helpful for writing a web server. In this article I will show you what they are and how to use them. I will also show you when it is necessary to (or when some additional benefits can be gained) use Unix or Core Foundation APIs. This article assumes a basic knowledge of Cocoa, so I won't explain any Cocoa topics here, but will show everything you need to get started with networking."

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 AM | Permalink

Sure, you can easily listen to your iPod in your car. However, if you want to take your hacking skills to the next level, this hack gives you the knowledge you need to give your iPod the props it deserves by integrating it into your car’s interior. Once you’ve completed this hack, your iPod will have a permanent place in your car, integrated with the car’s electrical systems.

Posted by Mirko at 01:37 AM | Permalink

Ryan Faas explains how to secure your mail server, prevent spam and viruses from reaching users' mailboxes, and configure your mail server to support email accounts across multiple domain names.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Ask heavy users of iTunes for their biggest complaints, and you’ll soon compile a lengthy list of “I wishes"—as with any tool, the more you use it, the more things you find that it can’t do. Many users are surprised to learn that you can address many of iTunes’ power-user shortcomings, especially those relating to media and metadata management, via AppleScript.

Posted by Mirko at 02:34 AM | Permalink

Apple's forthcoming iTV promises to place all your digital media on your TV. But what if you don't want to wait months before enjoying your iTunes music and video or iPhoto pictures in your living room? And is iTV really worth the price? Ryan Faas looks at the options that exist right now and tells you why you might actually be able to spend less money and get a more rounded solution today.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

If your Mac system temperature is too high, Mac users can adjust and modify the fan speed to higher speed in order to make the Mac machine runs cooler at lower temperature. There are a few GUI based utility software that can help users to control and adjust the speed of the fan cooler.

Posted by Mirko at 12:40 AM | Permalink

This article shows you how to get control of a very large iTunes library — to save space by getting rid of stuff you’re not enjoying or listening to, as well as bubble up stuff you may not even realize you like. If you are an iTunes packrat but feel overwhelmed by your collection (or are simply running out of drive space), try these recipes for Smart Playlists to help you get it together.

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 AM | Permalink

Apple laptops are hot items—particularly when they’re sitting on your lap. Does the recent switch to Core 2 Duo processors in Apple’s high-end laptops do anything to help beat the heat?

Posted by Mirko at 03:34 PM | Permalink

This may be nothing more than a simple curiosity to most, unless you're trying to debug some subtle email problems, when some of these settings can become quite useful. Mail.app has a number of settings which allow watching of the activities it is doing.

Posted by Mirko at 05:32 AM | Permalink

Using a handy Quicksilver plugin, you can access every menu item in the currently active application. It may not sound useful just yet, but do read this article for more information.

Posted by Mirko at 09:10 PM | Permalink

Paul Burd writes: "After setting up the account through my host, and setting up the IMAP account in Apple’s Mail, I found that items weren’t being synced as they should. Anything I did through the webmail client did show up in Mail, but things I did in Mail did NOT show up in the webmail client." Read on for helpful hints.

Posted by Mirko at 12:13 AM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "Here’s a little tip to help you keep track of all those backup CDs and DVDs you’re burning. (You are making regular backups, right?). If you’ve got a full-bore backup strategy going, you’re probably copying most of your data to another hard drive (or perhaps to tape), and not to CD/DVD media—at only 700MB or 4.3GB, CDs and DVDs are not the most efficient storage solutions for today’s gargantuan hard drives."

Posted by Mirko at 08:54 PM | Permalink

There are several ways you can force quit an application. The easiest method begins by clicking the application’s icon in the Dock. If the top-most item is "Application Not Responding," chances are you must force quit to set things right again (see the following figure). Quit is usually the bottom-most item in this menu, but if an application isn’t responding or you press Option, it changes to Force Quit.

Posted by Mirko at 12:22 PM | Permalink

The Intel Mac mini's case is just like that on the PPC model and can be opened by prying upward with a sharp putty knife while working your way around the bottom of the case.

Posted by Mirko at 12:26 AM | Permalink

Giles Turnbull writes: "Tips on using your editor of choice are easy to find, but we thought it would be fun to gather a whole bunch of them together for the first time; not only to spread the word, but to invite our readers to add their own tips and time-savers. We've also asked a handful of Mac users to contribute their own favorite text tricks.You have probably encountered some of these already, but we hope there's a few gems that are new to you."

Posted by Mirko at 04:02 PM | Permalink

Productivity, both at home and at work, is something everyone would like to increase, and Mac users have a plethora of applications that can help you do just that. Here is a list of 10 apps that can help you increase your productivity. From burning disk images, to managing your time, giving your mouse and Apple Remote additional, time saving, functionality, and much, much more.

Posted by Mirko at 02:15 AM | Permalink

Apple has been shipping two types of burners in the MacPro. The first is far from being unknown, as it is a Pioneer DVR-111D. The second, which one finds more often, is a Sony DW-D150A. However, this burner does not exist in any of the manufacturer's catalogues. Read on to discover how to hack your way to more burning speed and DVD-RAM support.

Posted by Mirko at 04:47 PM | Permalink

Adam Knight writes: "I've been playing with teleport a bit as I again have multiple machines at my desk and no KM switch to go between them. Being an iMac, an external display, and a MacBook Pro, I have three screens to use for a lot of things and teleport is phenomenally useful and suited for this task. I just really wasn't prepared for the unexpected benefits it can have in this case."

Posted by Mirko at 02:12 AM | Permalink

Steve writes: "The laptop is used when the user is on the road, and the tower for all of the internal office heavy lifting. The challenge for a user like this is finding a way to keep data in sync. This has been my situation for many years. In order to keep a smooth workflow, I had to find a way to keep my files mirrored between the two machines."

Posted by Mirko at 10:33 PM | Permalink

In this article you learn how to bring vertical movies into a workflow designed for horizontal ones, and how to embed movies in a web page without messy wads of code. Before reading, chech that QuickTime is indeed installed on your machine and fasten your seatbelt, it's a cool ride.

Posted by Mirko at 12:26 PM | Permalink

Adam Pash writes: "Recently Apple announced that you can buy video games for your 5G video iPod for 5 bucks a pop. But what if you don't own a video iPod? What if you're stuck in the world of pre-video obsolescence? Worse yet, what if you don't have 5 bucks? The new games for sale at the iTunes Store aren't for you, and that's not quite so cool. Luckily, you can still play video games like Texas Hold 'Em, Tetris, and Bejeweled (all of which are for sale at the iTunes Store) on pretty much any iPod with a little bit of virtual elbow grease for free. Here's how."

Posted by Mirko at 02:45 AM | Permalink

This tutorial teaches you how to write a Mac OS X application with Microsoft Visual Studio Express (Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++ or Visual J# Express). This article is not to suggest replacing Apple's Xcode with Microsoft Visual Studio, but in hope to provide Visual Studio programmers a faster way to port Windows applications to Mac OS X.

Posted by Mirko at 07:14 PM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "iTunes 7 sports a number of interface changes—everything from the reorganized sidebar to the black highlight bar to the vanished Equalizer buttons. Overall, I like the new appearance quite a bit, though my opinion isn’t shared by everyone. It seems many love the new look, many hate it, and there’s a large group in the middle who probably like some of the changes and dislike others." Well, you can always personalize it a bit.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 AM | Permalink

Adam Pash writes: "Using Parallels Desktop for Mac, you can run Mac OS X and Windows (XP, Vista, you name it) side-by-side. Here's how I've set up my Parallels installation to make working in multiple OSes easy and fun." This a pretty good guide with several screenshots that will enable new users to get up to speed fast.

Posted by Mirko at 01:03 AM | Permalink

Derrick Story writes: "Unfortunately iPhoto doesn't let you add straight audio files to its library. There has to be an image attached the audio file. So the dream of having voice memos associated with your pictures is only that, a dream. Or is it? By using this easy technique and QuickTime Pro, you can include voice memos with your images in iPhoto."

Posted by Mirko at 12:41 AM | Permalink

Adam Knight writes: "It comes up often enough that being an admin on your computer is a dangerous affair and that the recommended way to handle it is to not be an admin. When I mention this to people, they seem to get the impression that the first slot, the user with the ID 501, must be an admin. As such, they lament about moving files to a different account and ownership issues and all kinds of silly crap associated with some big fiasco of moving accounts around like I was telling them to change their account short name the long way or something."

Posted by Mirko at 05:38 AM | Permalink

Merlin Mann writes: "Mail Act-On is a very clever Mail.app plugin that lets you create key commands that execute Rules you’ve generated in your Preferences. Sounds pretty dull, right? Absolutely. Until you start putting this stuff into action and learn how painfully slow all that draggy mc drag drag business is. Here’s how I’ve set mine up."

Posted by Mirko at 03:12 AM | Permalink

Having accurate information about the computers in your company can be critical for any number of tasks. General inventory, purchasing decisions, software license compliance, tracking usage patterns, theft identification, upgrade planning, and update deploying rely on knowing as much as possible about the computer you manage. Constantly keeping track of that kind of information is typically a daunting challenge unless you make use of Apple Remote Desktop's vast reporting capabilities. In this third article, find out how easy it can be to have detailed and current reports on everything you need to know.

Posted by Mirko at 04:23 PM | Permalink

This new guide includes a step-by-step in how to rip the 640×480 resolution for the new iPod 5G software, well-known iPod video conversion guides, and how to categorize the movies more efficiently.

Posted by Mirko at 02:46 PM | Permalink

QuickTime gives filmmakers many ways of protecting their movies from casual copying. Apple's developer documentation discusses methods of copy protetcing movies. These methods are in common use for the QuickTime movies available online. This guide is intended for honest hackers, not thieves. With the iPod and the iTunes Music Store, Apple has shown that respecting customers – rather than treating them like criminals – is a winning strategy. This guide is offered in the same spirit.

Posted by Mirko at 02:57 AM | Permalink

Scott McNulty writes: "iTunes 7 has really breathed some new life into that venerable jukebox software. One of the most useful new features is 'Back Up to Disc,' which is located under the 'File' menu of iTunes. This feature allows you to back up all your tracks to either CD or DVD. Sounds great, right? But is it easy? Yes, yes it is. Read on for a detailed step by step tutorial."

Posted by Mirko at 02:30 AM | Permalink

This article contains a few interesting tricks, I'm sure there's at least one you don't know about.

Posted by Mirko at 05:06 PM | Permalink

With iPhoto 6 and a compact photo printer, you can create stunning postcards right at your desk. In previous posts, I've talked about using the greeting card function in iPhoto to create title graphics for slideshows, and then how to animate them. Now you have another use -- print your own postcards.

Posted by Mirko at 03:09 PM | Permalink

Adam Pash writes: "While there's no easy way to bring down the starting price of a new Mac, there are ways to save money if you're looking to go top-of-the-line on extras, specifically memory. For example, when I bought my MacBook Pro last month, I saved over $300 by upgrading the RAM myself, a process requiring only a few minutes. Here's how I did it."

Posted by Mirko at 02:50 AM | Permalink

Tim Gaden writes: "Jim Correia of Bare Bones Software has posted a script to the Yojimbo mailing list that will pipe a selected email from Mail.app into Yojimbo. This is handy, (a) if you use Yojimbo and (b) like me, you find it a bit of a pain to import emails with the “Save PDF to Yojimbo” option in the PDF section of the Print dialog."

Posted by Mirko at 02:33 PM | Permalink

Although iTunes makes it easy to share media between multiple machines on a home network, you might want to keep more than one physical copy of your music library synchronized. Perhaps the most common example involves a family's home network consisting of a desktop and a laptop - each containing subsets of what is really a single music library.

Posted by Mirko at 12:36 PM | Permalink

Chanpory Rith writes: "With a little tinkering, I’ve put together an AppleScript to let FlexTime use the Growl system to gently remind you when a new activity starts, such as when to work and when to play. I call the script, FlexTimeGrowl. (Imaginative, huh?)"

Posted by Mirko at 03:57 AM | Permalink

Derrick Story writes: "Here's a great graphics trick that many people don't know. - you can easily build fantastic slideshow titles right within iPhoto 6. You have lots of design control. You can change backgrounds, switch themes and even change fonts and size."

Posted by Mirko at 05:10 PM | Permalink

Do you like to know what’s going on “under the hood” of your Mac (stuff like your CPU usage, disk activity, memory usage - you know, total geek stuff)? If you do, you can keep an eye on things right from within the dock using Mac OS X’s Activity Monitor.

Posted by Mirko at 12:52 AM | Permalink

Did you know you can use the application switcher after starting a drag operation? Start your drag, press Command-Tab, and there’s the switcher. Why might you want to do this? Say you want to drag and drop something into a TextEdit document, but you’ve hidden TextEdit, so you can’t see its windows. No problem; drag the object you wish to drop, activate the switcher, and then Tab over to TextEdit (still keeping the mouse key depressed, so as to not cancel your drag operation). Release Command-Tab when TextEdit is highlighted, and it will activate and unhide. Now you can complete your drag operation, dropping your dragged item into the TextEdit window.

Posted by Mirko at 05:01 PM | Permalink

Let's say you are designing or documenting a Web site and you want to take a screen shot of a Web page. That's no problem if the page fits comfortably within the confines of your browser's window. Just snap the shot using the traditional tools at your disposal and you're done. But what if—as is often the case—the Web page is taller or wider than the browser window? Here are some solutions.

Posted by Mirko at 10:15 AM | Permalink

The Retouch tool in iPhoto 6 has more capability than most people realize. The default mode is a frustratingly blunt cross hairs that provides very little control. You can, however, enable an advanced mode that lets you set the diameter of the brush for more precise retouching.

Posted by Mirko at 01:58 AM | Permalink

TubeSock grabs YouTube videos from the web and copies them to your video iPod, Mac, or PlayStation Portable. TubeSock knows how to convert the video using the codecs and bitrates best for each device. It can even add the video to iTunes for you.

Posted by Mirko at 11:24 AM | Permalink

By reducing the resolution in the Display pane of Displays preferences, you can make everything appear larger at the expense of the amount of information that can be displayed simultaneously. If you’re unwilling to sacrifice the pixels you’ve paid for, you might be able to get away with selectively enlarging only the troublesome items. To do so, you must explore the magnification options and font size preferences available in the programs you use. Here are details on how to adjust various popular programs.

Posted by Mirko at 11:16 AM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "With the release of iMovie HD 6, part of iLife ‘06, Apple included many nice new features. While these features are, for the most part, well documented, some are not necessarily obvious. Such is the case with today’s tip—it’s a documented feature in iMovie HD 6, but it’s one that you may not be aware of unless you’ve dug through the documentation. And just what is the feature? The ability to create time-lapse movies. Time-lapse techniques are used to condense very long periods of time into something that will fit into a typical movie. So instead of staring at a flower going through its bloom phase for three days, you can watch a time-lapse film of the event, condensed down into only a few minutes."

Posted by Mirko at 12:51 AM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "Do you work with text clippings? Perhaps a better question is actually “Do you know what a text clipping is?” In case you’re not familiar, text clippings are a staple of the Mac OS, having been around for a very long time. They’re nothing more than snippets of text that have been dragged out of applications and then dropped in the Finder somewhere—typically on your Desktop. Many people find this to be a good way to store little tidbits of knowledge they intend to use in the future in another program."

Posted by Mirko at 12:42 AM | Permalink

Anybody who packages software (or other files) for distribution on the Mac is probably familiar with the tedious process of setting up the icons “just right” in the Finder so that when your customer opens the folder for your app, they see things neatly organized the way you left them. Problems are solved with the NudgeFinderSelection scripts that simply ask the Finder to move all the selected icons in a given direction.

Posted by Mirko at 10:23 AM | Permalink

Everyone has a to-do list. And everyone has a favorite way to handle it. No matter how you manage yours, your Mac can help. Here are some to-do list tips for Apple’s iCal, Microsoft’s Entourage, and plain old text files.

Posted by Mirko at 12:43 AM | Permalink

Adam Knight writes: "Do you need to shell out hundreds of dollars for something like Apple Remote Desktop to see what’s happening to every machine in your home or small business? Do you have to SSH to each and leave a window open just to put uptime in a loop to see what it’s doing? Do you have to install something like Webmin and setup a monitoring cluster? Or even setup email reports in cron to get the output of the commands? Not really, no. Remote load and usage monitoring is built-in to Mac OS X."

Posted by Mirko at 01:53 AM | Permalink

Jochen Wolters writes: "For a geek, the second best thing to finding a new solution to an existing computer problem, is finding a new problem to an existing solution. While fiddling around with Mail.app a few weeks ago, I stumbled over the window that pops up if you choose “Get Info” from the action menu at the bottom of the mailboxes column. Its most interesting feature is a list of all the messages stored in the selected email account on the server."

Posted by Mirko at 12:49 AM | Permalink

Jonathan Briggs writes: "Metadata is the power behind Aperture’s ‘stacking’ system, which is designed to do some of the organising for you, and is especially effective when you’ve captured a series of images or bracketed your exposures. This guide offers tips and tricks on how to import effectively and get stacking."

Posted by Mirko at 01:05 PM | Permalink

Whether you're taking digital photographs, putting your home videos on DVD, or writing your own songs, iLife ’06 has an easy solution for you. With these tutorials, you can watch step-by-step movies that will help you learn the great things you can do with iPhoto 6, GarageBand 3, iTunes, iMovie HD 6, iDVD 6, and iWeb.

Posted by Mirko at 12:07 AM | Permalink

Merlin Mann writes: "The truth is, iCal works great with kGTD (mostly of course), and once you make your peace with the perplexing stasis of its feature set, there are some not-bad hooks and affordances hiding in its pastel, roundy corners. Here’s a few I like."

Posted by Mirko at 07:38 PM | Permalink

A blogger writes: "More and more Apple MacBook users are complaining of a “squishy” or unresponsive trackpad button. Some of the Apple Macbooks have a very crispy and responsive feel when you click down the button on the trackpad, however some Macbook owners are unfortunate to be stuck with a button that doesn’t press down quite right." Here is a quick solution to that problem.

Posted by Mirko at 09:15 AM | Permalink

Dustin MacDonald writes: "With all the excitement around the preview of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard at this year's WWDC, everyone is just a little anxious to see what will come before Steve Jobs' keynote. In fact, creating fake screenshots is all the rage these days. Wouldn't it be cool to make your very own Leopard screenshots and be featured on all the rumor sites? You're damn right it would. Here's how to do it."

Posted by Mirko at 12:14 PM | Permalink

Adam Knight writes: "Sometimes you have a folder of data that you really don’t want someone to see or use on your computer. Whatever it is, you need a way to keep others out of it and so I’ll run over some tips and tricks for keeping prying eyes from poking around."

Posted by Mirko at 10:24 AM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths writes: "Have you ever wanted to print a number of e-mail messages in Mail? You can do so easily; just hold down Command, click each message you want to print, and then press Command-P. Simple. However, there’s a downside. Each message will print on a full sheet of paper, so if you print four 10-line e-mail messages, you’ll waste nearly four full sheets of paper. Ugh. There must be a better solution."

Posted by Mirko at 01:28 AM | Permalink

Daniel Jalkut writes: "It’s summer! The sun is out and the sky is (leans right to peek outside), well, sort of greyish. While the world celebrates the changing seasons, we’re all leaning over our keyboards and squinting into the screen, working on our LCD tans. All this warm weather puts me in the mood for Xcode tips! I’ve been saving up a few “gotta share” revelations. Are these tips no-brainers? Maybe for some of you. But it took me a while to “get it” and I’m hoping some of you will also giggle with glee when you learn out about them."

Posted by Mirko at 05:17 PM | Permalink

Christopher Breen was thwarted by an AirPort network that would not extend. Though both the AirPort Admin Assistant and the AirPort Setup Assistant acknowledged the existence of her AirPort Extreme Base Station, neither saw the AirPort Express Base Station that was meant to extend the Extreme’s signal into the family rumpus room.

Posted by Mirko at 12:25 AM | Permalink

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a secure way to connect to web sites and email while using wireless networks. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to a VPN, so what do you do? In this article you'll learn how to secure your online activities without a VPN.

Posted by Mirko at 04:37 PM | Permalink

The only aspect we actually care about is the disk drive, at this point nothing else matters. Open Firmware [OF] (the “bios” used by Apple’s OS X) is sneaky enough not to show the different boot options; actually if you don’t know about OF you most likely won’t even notice it’s there and that’s why Apple loves it so much as it provides a smooth boot sequence without many pointless information, flashing screens and colors unlike PC BIOS’es which are known to be a bit more “loud”.

Posted by Mirko at 12:07 AM | Permalink

If you need to make a Photoshop document of your application icons complete with the transparent background there is a quick way to create them.

Posted by Mirko at 11:11 AM | Permalink

When you enable FileVault, the system creates an encrypted disk image of your user folder, which is automatically mounts when you log in. You can copy this disk image from machine to machine, which transfers your entire user folder in one blow. There are some setup gotchas though, so read this articlein order to get all the details.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Paul Stamatiou writes: "While getting things settled down on my MacBook it became apparent that I did not want to rely on the calendar widget to find out the numeric date. I simply wanted to view the date alongside the time in the menu bar. Unfortunately this is not an option in OS X. However, with a slight of hand, you too can easily display the date in the OS X menu bar without the need of additional applications."

Posted by Mirko at 03:39 PM | Permalink

Need a great present but can’t afford to spend a lot of money? Why not create a custom hanging wall calendar using your own photos? It’s easy to do with iPhoto, and the results are very professional. Best of all, your friends and family will love receiving a personalized present you created.

Posted by Mirko at 03:30 PM | Permalink

The following instructions will help you to extend the range of a Linksys WRT54G using an AirPort Express Base Station (AX). With minor modifications, these instructions should also work for an AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS).

Posted by Mirko at 01:40 AM | Permalink

This article describes the best way to clean an LCD panel such as those used on PowerBook computers and Apple flat panel displays.

Posted by Mirko at 02:34 PM | Permalink

You’ve dreamed of having your own Web site - a place where you can share your photos, movies, and life events. But who has the time to learn how all the pieces fit together? Now, thanks to iWeb, you don’t need to write a single line of HTML, CSS, or JavaScript code. All you need is a free weekend and this handy guide.

Posted by Mirko at 03:45 AM | Permalink

If there’s one thing that can bring a document (or your system) to its knees, it’s using a corrupt font (meaning a font that accepts bribes — sorry, that was lame). Anyway, finding out which fonts on your system might be corrupt was no easy task, but in Tiger, it just got a whole lot easier.

Posted by Mirko at 12:52 AM | Permalink

When Philip Hollenback, a Linux fan himself, needed to upgrade his aging PB 667 from Panther to Tiger, he used an approach that kept costs down and value high, while preserving his Linux/OS X frame of mind. Here's how he did it.

Posted by Mirko at 02:27 PM | Permalink

If you’re ready to start playing with Lightroom, you can tap your iPhoto library to provide the source material. It’s really simple, and you have plenty of options along the way.

Posted by Mirko at 12:08 AM | Permalink

To access Box.net in Mac OS X it requires no additional software or special configurations. This article will give you all you need to get it running.

Posted by Mirko at 02:08 AM | Permalink

Paul Stamatiou writes: "There is a reason why I’m always that guy using one of the few Macs stranded away from the sea of PCs in the library. It’s not because Apple’s OS X is superior to Windows in terms of stability and speed, but more along the lines that OS X lets me be extremely productive with several key features. I am adept in utilizing each system to its potential, having used both for years on end. Macs just let me do more. Here’s why."

Posted by Mirko at 12:31 AM | Permalink

When it comes to hacking WordPress on your Mac, this article gives you some very good info on the subject. Daniel Jalkut writes: "By integrating my WordPress hacking with Apple’s Xcode, I can treat the technical underpinnings of my blog just like I would any other code project."

Posted by Mirko at 02:36 AM | Permalink

The ubiquity of email today makes it easy to send small files to anyone—you simply attach the file (or several files) to an email message and the recipient receives the files a few minutes later. But what if the files you need to send are large? Many email providers have limits on attachment size, and even when they don’t, trying to receive (or even send) a 20MB file can be a hassle.

Posted by Mirko at 12:43 AM | Permalink

In this article, Ryan J. Bonnell will show you how to use Adobe GoLive's additon of Movable Type template tags to visually manage Movable Type's default templates.

Posted by Mirko at 03:27 AM | Permalink

Sixty gigabytes don't amount to much in this day and age. That's the size of the drive that comes stock in the 13-inch (white) MacBook. So it's likely you'll want to replace it for something larger and, possibly, faster. Here's a step by step guide for doing just that.

Posted by Mirko at 02:21 AM | Permalink

Finally there’s a plug-in for Mail.app that splits your screen into three vertical columns, one for folders, one for the mail list, and one for the message. You can download the plug-in from here. This is a perfect solution for anyone using a widescreen display. I wish Apple would consider making this a standard part of Mail.app features.

Posted by Mirko at 11:08 PM | Permalink

John Hicks writes: "When it comes to testing and debugging sites, it seems that Firefox can’t be beaten. Other browsers have useful tools though, which gave me an idea for an ad-hoc series highlighting useful web development features, starting with Safari. While it doesn’t have an official plugin architecture like Firefox, that hasn’t stopped developers finding ways around it and providing excellent plugins."

Posted by Mirko at 01:31 AM | Permalink

Let's say you have a cool slideshow but you need a professional touch. The first thing that comes to mind is a voiceover. The problem is, what to use in order to make one? There's so much software on the market. Don't get ahead of yourselves, there's always iMovie. It does the job well and it's really easy to use.

Posted by Mirko at 06:49 AM | Permalink

Bryan Veloso shows you how to replace the icons within Mail.app using anything you might want to see in your mail client in a step-by-step tutorial that uses Pixadex and Candybar.

Posted by Mirko at 06:33 AM | Permalink

I came across a number of situations where I needed to access my business e-mail from an insecure environment. I am talking about conferences, exhibitions, as well as airports and open WLAN hotspots. Majority of free e-mail providers, such as Google GMail and Yahoo! have options to login by using a https connection over secure sockets layer (SSL) or transport layer security (TLS). However, in my case, a couple of business mailboxes can be accessed via a webmail that doesn't offer any kind of encryption. The solution is pretty simple - create your own SSH Tunnel.

Continue reading "HOW TO: Securely access your webmail using SSH tunnels" »

Posted by Berislav at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Are programs running on your computer that you don’t know about? Could a mischievous installer have plunked an unknown application in your Login Items list and set it to hide each time it launches at startup? If you’re curious, there are a number of ways to find out.

Posted by Mirko at 12:30 AM | Permalink

Although AppleScript is easy to learn, and considered a high level language, it is remarkably versatile at reducing or eliminating repetitive tasks, organizing files and projects the way YOU want, or moving data automatically from one application to another. Head over to this page and start learning some new stuff.

Posted by Mirko at 02:28 PM | Permalink

Derrick Story writes: "Many Mac OS X Tiger users don't realize that they have a powerful RAW converter bundled with their operating system. Every 10.4 Mac comes with a handy application called Preview that most folks think of only as a PDF viewer. Even Apple touts its PDF capabilities without going into much detail about its hidden powers. The most notable of these lesser known features is Preview's ability to decode RAW files and convert them to other formats."

Posted by Mirko at 02:09 PM | Permalink

Tyler Hall writes: "I’m a paranoid person when it comes to backing up my files, but it took a hard drive crash of my own to make me realize how important backing up can be. Since then, I’ve gotten very good at making sure my data is secure. The setup I’m about to describe works for me. It’s based on how I prioritize my data and on the budget I’m willing to spend to keep everything safe. It’s not perfect for everyone, so take what I say with a grain of salt - an example of where to start and what’s possible."

Posted by Mirko at 01:19 AM | Permalink

If you have a very large screen - or use a multiple-monitor system - DejaMenu is a program you'll definitely want to use. It allows you to pop up the current application's menu directly underneath your cursor, eliminating long treks to the top of the screen to make choices from the menu bar. It's very simple, convenient, and best of all, it's free.

Posted by Mirko at 01:45 PM | Permalink

The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) can be traced back to 1998 to the Intel Boot Initiative (IBI) program. The EFI specification, which was developed and maintained by a consortium of companies (including Intel and Microsoft), defines a set of APIs and data structures to be exported by a system's firmware, and to be used by a variety of clients such as the following.

Posted by Mirko at 12:45 AM | Permalink

Here is a list of short tips on using various UNIX tools under Mac OS X. Some of them are also applicable to other flavors of UNIX.

Posted by Mirko at 09:11 PM | Permalink

New Macs, new versions of Mac OS X, new software, and new school years all translate to one thing for Mac IT staff: determining the best way to roll out the new computers, software, classrooms, or configurations. Ryan Faas gives you an overview of the variety of tools available from Apple and third parties, and tells you how to roll out with less hassle and fewer headaches.

Posted by Mirko at 11:54 AM | Permalink

If you have a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2 than this tutorial is going to get you closer to your own OS X style desktop.

Posted by Mirko at 12:19 AM | Permalink

With the release of Skype for Mac 1.4.0.49, Mac users now have the ability to show Skype status on the Web or email signature. It turns out that Mail.app’s signature editor isn’t HTML friendly and just pasting in HTML to the signature editor will not work as you might expect.

Here is a crash course to get you up an running with a presence enabled Skype button in your signature in Apple Mail so your friends can Skype you back instead of replying in email.

Posted by Mirko at 09:22 AM | Permalink

By now, you've probably heard that Adobe's new Lightroom application simplifies your photography workflow, especially if you shoot Raw. In this seven-minute podcast, O'Reilly editor and photographer Derrick Story interviews Julieanne Kost, and they discuss how Lightroom could change photography as we know it.

Posted by Mirko at 11:30 AM | Permalink

The file we’ll need to edit is the Apache configuration file. It is located in ‘/Library/Apache2/conf’ and is called ‘httpd.conf’. For this configuration example, we’ll assume that you have your web sites located in separate folders in the ‘/Library/Apache2/htdocs’ directory. Read the entire tutorial here.

Posted by Mirko at 09:47 AM | Permalink

Robert Daeley writes: "Last year, I worked out a method to create custom Mail.app announcement sounds by using the say program on Mac OS X, a CLI utility that converts text to speech and can output aiff sound files. And while nowadays I’m of the opinion that a totally hidden email program is a better way to go, it occurred to me earlier this week that it would be cool to have the equivalent of cellphone ringtones for Mail."

Posted by Mirko at 12:28 AM | Permalink

Thanks to a stupid law, every DVD player is sold being able to play only discs with the same region as the country it was sold in. That includes Macs too, sort of. On a new Mac, the DVD drive is automatically locked to the region code of the first DVD it is used with. From then on, this can only be changed four more times. Here's a solution to this problem.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Two UK based hospitals (St. Johns, Sussex Hospital) have created small mp3 files to carry around that teaches you how to perform CPR, treat burns, shock, fractures and other basic first aid. Now you can carry with you an audio equivalent of a first aid guide wherever you are.

Posted by Mirko at 08:40 AM | Permalink

How does ssh work with kerberos in a directory environment (like Active Directory)? Can it be restricted to specific network groups, perhaps via use of Mike Bombich's saclutil script? Read this article and find out.

Posted by Mirko at 09:36 AM | Permalink

Andrew Escobar writes: "Enabler is back online and available for download. I no longer believe the email from Apple is legitimate. Now, if the email was legit and Apple can communicate with me through a more verifiable method (am I the only person who digitally signs emails?) then I would be willing to straighten this matter out."

Posted by Mirko at 09:30 AM | Permalink

Nobody likes to think about it, but it is a fact of life that theives like notebooks. Follow these 7 tips for traveling safely with your notebook and protecting the intellectual property contained within.

Posted by Mirko at 10:14 PM | Permalink

Mac OS X includes many open source projects that contribute to the stability and robustness of the system. While Apple provides working versions of these for both PowerPC and Intel architectures, sometimes you want to build your own to tune performance or enable custom features. Plus, distributing a single binary is often preferable to keeping track of separate, architecture-specific binaries. These objectives can be accomplished by building the project as a Universal Binary, a file that contains code for both the PowerPC and Intel architectures.

Posted by Mirko at 01:26 AM | Permalink

Robert Daeley writes: "I had occasion recently to need to remotely delete a user — let’s call him “George” — on a Mac OS X box that is running the Client version of Tiger. I have ssh access to that machine and, since I keep meaning to learn how to do it, I decided to take the time to make a few notes on the process for the next such occasion."

Posted by Mirko at 06:52 PM | Permalink

This chapter introduces Interface Builder, a tool no less important to Cocoa development than Xcode itself. IB is used as a straightforward tool for laying out windows and views. You'll see how to set the many options for automatic sizing of embedded views and how to use Interface Builder's own simulation mode to verify that your layout and sizing choices work.

Posted by Mirko at 06:48 PM | Permalink

Allan Odgaard writes: "Mac OS X has a keychain which is intended for storing and retrieving passwords in a secure fashion, and this service can fortunately be accessed from shell, so that is what I use for my passwords. The command to access the keychain is security and it has a manual page. But let me save you some time and give you the gist of it."

Posted by Mirko at 01:12 AM | Permalink

Andrew Escobar writes: "A big eyesore for me is the “Podcasts” list in Front Row. Here’s a quick fix to make Front Row a little more aesthetically pleasing."

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

This article walks you through installing Subversion (also called “SVN”) on Mac OS X. Subversion is a free/open-source version control system. It remembers every change ever made to the files and directories in your projects. This allows you to recover older versions of your data, or examine the history of how your data changed.

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Through no fault of your own, your Mac may one day decide not to work, displaying anything from odd behaviour to a truculent refusal to do pretty much anything. Don't be tempted to reach straight for the phone and book it in for a spot of expensive repair; try these two simple steps first. They solve most problems with Mac OS X.

Posted by Mirko at 12:36 AM | Permalink

Dan Frakes writes: "For the most part, Mac OS X doesn't need a lot of day to day maintenance -- it crashes less than the "classic" Mac OS, and individual application problems are less likely to affect other applications and the operating system itself, so most users will find that serious file, drive, and directory damage are fairly rare. That being said, don't forget Murphy's law - eventually something will go wrong. When it does, you may as well be prepared, so it's a good idea to have the right tools handy and to polish up on your troubleshooting skills. You can kill a number of these birds with a single stone using the handy utility AppleJack."

Posted by Mirko at 01:03 AM | Permalink

On machines with more than 4GB of RAM, the Disable VM Buffering plug-in can eliminate pauses during painting operations at some cost in performance with very large documents. It will have no effect on machines with 4GB or less of RAM.

Continue reading "Performance tweak plug-in for Photoshop CS2 Mac available" »

Posted by Mirko at 10:33 AM | Permalink

Melvin Rivera writes: "The default interface for Mail signatures allows you to do rich text signatures using the fonts and colors palette. You can even drag an image into the compose signature window and it will be included in every email as an attachment. This is fine for most people, but attachments should be just that, an attachment of a file I am sending, not an image in my signature. So here’s an easy guide on how to do CSS signatures referencing images on an outside server and not as an attachment."

Posted by Mirko at 07:55 PM | Permalink

You’ve taken the leap and bought a new Mac with an Intel processor. But does Intel inside mean brand-new troubleshooting issues, too? Yup. Here are five you should know about.

Posted by Mirko at 12:39 AM | Permalink

Unixgeek writes: "A complaint I've frequently encountered on some Mac OS X Server related forums and mailing lists is that there is no documentation on how to enable VNC access in the Terminal. A good number of former Windows-only businesses have purchased an Xserve G5 without a video card because they needed to use both PCI slots for other components or they naturally assumed that a computer would come with a video card. Some people familar with Mac OS X Server might read this and say, "Hey, just run the server administration tools on your Mac desktop or laptop. Er, you don't have another Mac?""

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

What strikes the most fear into the hearts of Mac users? When the computer fails to start up at all. It’s hard not to wonder whether you’ll ever see the contents of your hard drive again - especially if you’ve failed to back up your drive!

Posted by Mirko at 03:40 PM | Permalink

Andrew Escobar writes: "I dread the days when Mail decides it doesn’t want to work properly. This particular bug drives me insane. Mail keeps rejecting my email password, even though its correct, to the pint of utter insanity. Every couple of weeks, Mail will actually interrupt everything with a dialog box telling you that your e-mail password is incorrect or has been rejected, and asks that you re-enter the password –even though the existing password is perfectly correct, of course!"

Posted by Mirko at 12:21 AM | Permalink

Ted Landau writes: "Just as unwelcome as the application freeze is the application crash. In this case, you’re not trying to force a program to quit; you’re trying to prevent it from quitting on its own. When an application crashes, you typically see a dialog box informing you that it has “unexpectedly quit”. As with application freezes, the good news is that these crashes rarely bring down an entire Mac—they usually affect just one application. But you’ll still want to end this ailment. Try these methods, one by one, until the problem disappears."

Posted by Mirko at 03:39 AM | Permalink

James Duncan Davidson writes: "While sitting in the back of the room at the Portland Rails Studio, I poked up my hand during Getting Started section of the day. Dave was discussing setting up your database for a Rails application and here were two little configuration tricks I've started using of late that I wanted to share. And of course I was reminded that I should probably get them up on my web site."

Posted by Mirko at 01:12 AM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "You can use the groff tool to convert manual pages into PostScript, PDF, or HTML form for pretty viewing, printing, posting to a webpage, easy searching with Spotlight, or any other purpose, if you like. Manpages are stored in a simple mandoc format for which the groff formatting tool has an understanding (indeed, groff is used by man to display the page in the first place). groff also has an understanding of a wide variety of other formats to display things in, however man only uses the normal display format so only the few that look into such things would notice the fun to be had."

Posted by Mirko at 01:35 PM | Permalink

James Eagan writes: "In the course of writing my email un-attachment plugin for Mail.app, I found that Apple has a capable, but entirely undocumented, plugin API. I’m providing this tutorial in the hopes that it may be useful to anyone else considering implementing a plugin for Apple Mail."

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Enzo Sparacino writes: "I leave my PowerBook G4 (running OS X 10.4.5) mainly unattended, and I want to be able to access it remotely; to do that, it has to be always online. From time to time, my Internet connection drops and I've come up with an AppleScript which reconnects to the Internet by performing all the necessary tasks. The script is launched automatically every half an hour by iCal."

Posted by Mirko at 01:24 AM | Permalink

The Mac OS X platform utilizes the RSS format in many ways. Read this article to learn how to provide content through RSS in your application or on your website, and the tools that can help you manage RSS delivery.

Posted by Mirko at 03:45 AM | Permalink

If you’ve recently updated Mac OS X to 10.4.6 and you’re having an issue with Adobe Photoshop CS2 saving files over a network (to a server), an interim fix has been found until Apple releases and official fix.

Posted by Mirko at 12:33 AM | Permalink

Joe Barr writes: "The software for the Nano and most fourth- and fifth-generation versions of the iPod is experimental - but, well, you know me - Linux on my desktop, workstation, laptop, Tivo, and router. I had to have it on the Nano, too. Here's my report how I converted my stock iPod Nano into a dual-booting, sweet MP3-singing, iDoom-playing monster. "

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

In this article you'll learn how to use a few simple home automation techniques to have your Mac send you a message when your mail is delivered, your kids come home, or your dog uses the pet door to go into the backyard.

Posted by Mirko at 08:50 AM | Permalink

Derrick Story writes: "Producing good prints that even come close to what you see on your computer monitor is still the most frustrating aspect of digital photography. It doesn’t have to be, however. Just remember these three steps: calibrate your screen, image edit your photo, and configure your printer."

Posted by Mirko at 12:33 AM | Permalink

You've heard that Apple's iWeb is easy to use, and you've seen some great examples of iWeb sites. But can you really create those great sites in half an hour, even if you don't know anything about HTML and have never tried designed a Web page? Yes, you can. Ryan Faas takes you through the process step by step.

Posted by Mirko at 11:56 AM | Permalink

When troubleshooting, performing maintenance, or otherwise starting up your Mac OSX computer in an abnormal fashion, there are a few keyboard shortcuts that you may or may not know about that can help you. Here is a list of them with an explanation of what they do.

Posted by Mirko at 02:05 AM | Permalink

Pierre Igot writes: "This is a tip that I was completely unaware of, in spite of my years of experience with Mac OS X. So I figure there might be other Mac OS X users who might not be aware of it and might find it useful. In a Finder window in column view, the file/folder names are often truncated because the columns are not wide enough to display them in full." Here's a way to deal with this.

Posted by Mirko at 05:44 PM | Permalink

Chris Breen offers solutions to your most vexing Mac problems - he takes a look at how to deal with an insomniac Mac, doing diagnostics, a more reasonable Reason, the cure for missing Key Caps, an imageless Outlook and old-school drives.

Posted by Mirko at 02:21 AM | Permalink

Sven Semmler writes: "I recently switched from Mail.app, iCal and Address Book to Entourage. This has no hard consequences for me since Entourage now has Spotlight support for mails, contacts and events. It also automatically synchronizes the contacts with Address Book and the events and tasks with iCal." Check out this article for some tips from a fresh switcher.

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "Have you ever thought that having that emergency partition on your desktop was hackish and ugly? Or have you thought that it would be truly handy to have a boot DVD available via NetBoot for recovery purposes? Well, good news, Mac OS X can act as a NetBoot server just as well as Mac OS X Server itself can. All a Mac needs to NetBoot is a server running TFTP and either NFS or HTTP, and all are built in to a normal Mac OS X machine."

Posted by Mirko at 12:30 AM | Permalink

The author of this video packs his 12" with a Tech 16X Dual Layer Superdrive upgrade for the Powerbook G4, upgrades the hard disk to 100GB, installs some third party speakers with added bass response, and adds some flavor to the apple logo on the lid. This video was created entirely in iMovie ’06 and documents the reassembly process at a 10-times speed increase. A high resolution version that has more detail is available for download as well, which is good since the small one is filled with effects and you don't see the whole thing.

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 PM | Permalink

You .mac subscription is coming to an end and you wonder whether you really need it. Maybe you're a new user that is thinking about what you could use it for. In any case, with some knowledge and inexpensive hardware you can make something similar to .mac by yourself. This article shows you how to build an alternative that retains the popular Disk, iSync (between computers), iCal sharing, and Backup features.

Posted by Mirko at 01:03 AM | Permalink

This tip covers how to get Command and Option in the right place on an external PC keyboard, without stuffing them up on the built-in keyboard of a PowerBook. This is of great use to people who dock their laptop with a Windows keyboard, but don't like the "wrong" keyboard layout it produces and tire of constantly changing it back and forth in the system prefs. It would work with iBooks too.

Posted by Mirko at 11:03 AM | Permalink

Erica Sadun writes: "Apple's free developer tool collection contains many overlooked gems. These aren't limited to programming-specific utilities. Mac enthusiasts of all stripes and all experience levels can regularly find tools to help them enhance their day-to-day use of OS X applications. It's just a matter of knowing where to look. Take Quartz Composer, for example. It's a free utility that can bring new life and interest to your iMovie projects. In this article, you'll learn how to use your own pictures to create a simple but flashy animation." If you find this interesting I suggest you take a look at this article over at the Apple Developer Connection.

Posted by Mirko at 03:35 AM | Permalink

Mohit Muthanna writes: "One significant productivity-enhancing feature that arrived with Tiger was Spotlight that has many advantages over traditional file-searching tools. It is a complete indexing and search framework that is tightly integrated into the OS. In addition to filenames and paths, it also indexes by file metadata and content and returns query results based on what's inside the file. Spotlight benefits can also be enjoyed on the command line, and this article explains how you can take full advantage of it from inside the OS X Terminal window."

Posted by Mirko at 02:56 AM | Permalink

Cyrus Farivar writes: "With a digital video camera and Apple’s iMovie HD, anyone with the inclination and the creativity can become a movie producer. But making the movies is only half the battle—you also have to find an audience. How? Create a video Podcast. Viewers sign up for your video feed once, and any new movies you create are downloaded to their computers automatically. It doesn’t get much easier than that."

Posted by Mirko at 12:35 AM | Permalink

Jacob Rus writes: "Apple’s Cocoa text system is a complicated beast, but also extremely flexible, and with a bit of work, it can be molded to match many working styles. This how-to covers the 2 major ways of customizing the text input system: Default key bindings, and for still more control, input managers. I’m writing this guide because nothing like it currently exists. There is incredible room for flexibility in customizing the Cocoa text environment, but most users—even power-users—have no idea of the available options."

Posted by Mirko at 12:02 AM | Permalink

Rob Griffiths offers the insiders’ tips you won’t get from Apple, including ways to drag and drop print jobs between printers, cycle random Mail signatures, build smarter iPhoto albums, control Exposé via voice and much more.

Posted by Mirko at 02:35 AM | Permalink

The Java Native Interface (JNI) lets developers mix Java code with C or C++ source code. It provides access to platform-specific features that Java does not provide, so that Java applications on Mac OS X can take advantage of the wide range of powerful Apple-only technologies to provide the best possible user experience. Using the JNI, your Java application can access a user's Address Book, make Spotlight queries, take advantage of Core Image and Core Video, and leverage many other rich features unique to Mac OS X.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Personal Information Managers (PIMs) rank high on most users' lists of software they use every day. If you're switching to a Mac, you might be worried about the availability of productivity software. Microsoft's Entourage for the Mac works a lot like Outlook on Windows, with only a few subtle differences. There are other games in town as well, in both the commercial and freeware category. Paul Ferrill looks at a number of options for anyone making the switch from the PC to the Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 02:28 AM | Permalink

This document describes how to setup a system for automatically backing up a Mac (OS X 10.2 or later) to an external drive using the freely available rsync utility. This applies to any kind of external drive including FireWire, USB and network drives. It does not apply to CD-R or DVD-R media. It also does not apply if you want to implement an incremental backup system.

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

Tom Negrino writes: "These days, e-mail is so essential to the way we work that even the slightest hiccup in the flow of messages can ruin your day. You don’t have to put up with a cluttered, creaking inbox or attachments you just can’t seem to send. Here’s how to deal with common pet peeves."

Posted by Mirko at 04:10 AM | Permalink

Every iBook G4 model prior to the mid-2005 model from Apple can be Build To Order (BTO) with internal bluetooth support. The problem starts if you did not BTO a bluetooth model when you purchased your iBook G4. First of all, Apple might not want to sell you the neccessary four parts needed in order to install bluetooth yourself. And if they do want to sell it to you, it usually cost over $80 in parts only. What would you say if I told you there is a way to add internal bluetooth support to your iBook G4 for under $10?

Posted by Mirko at 02:30 AM | Permalink

Ken Collins writes: "I will be first to admit that I am really just learning how to tap into the power of my shell environment and to be honest, I've spent way to many hours reading man pages and figuring out how to do some really neat things that help my automate my workflow and system administration. When you get right down to using a UNIX-based operating system, you cannot escape using the shell environment. This is a good thing, its your friend, and getting your feet wet sooner than later is a good idea."

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 AM | Permalink

Mathew Honan writes: "The iPod is a deeply personal device. The music, contacts, calendars and notes you store on it reveal much about your personality. From playcounts to playlists, our iPods can tell others what we enjoy, how we think and even who we are. But if you truly want to transform your iPod into an engine of extreme personal expression, why not customize it?"

Posted by Mirko at 06:58 PM | Permalink

While you're working in your Mac OS X environment, often you need to make an operation that requires a password (access e-mail, a password protected website, etc.) or you need administrator access to perform a certain task. As you use more services and access more systems, over time this entails the input of a multitude of passwords during your daily work.

Continue reading "Mastering your passwords with Keychain Access" »

Posted by Mirko at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (1)

Every item on your computer belongs to, or is owned by, an account. In addition to being owned by a particular user account, every item on your computer carries with it a set of permissions that control which user accounts can access it and what kind of access they have. Permissions control who can do what to which files, folders, and disks. In this excerpt from Take Control of Permissions in Mac OS X, Brian Tanaka details ways to ensure your permissions are in order.

Posted by Mirko at 08:17 AM | Permalink

Ray Robertson of Scripting Matters will be leading free seminars in New York City Thursday, March 23, at the Adobe Customer Briefing Center on 8 West 40th Street near 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Learn how to use AppleScript with the Adobe Creative Suite and see demonstrations of scripts for InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

Continue reading "Free seminar: automating Adobe CS 2 with AppleScript" »

Posted by Mirko at 06:11 AM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "This is kind of crazy, but it works like a charm. I was trying to find a way to just encrypt and password-protect my mail without going and putting my account in FileVault (evil). I noticed that Mac OS X would mount a disk image to open a program it knew was once on that disk image and, well, I put two and two together: what if my mail was on an encrypted disk image that also held the only working copy of the Mail application?"

Posted by Mirko at 12:57 PM | Permalink

Matthew Russell shows you how to add better bookmarks to your audio books, add slideshows to your music files, create enhanced podcasts, and share your favorite mods with others - even if they're on protected audio.

Posted by Mirko at 12:52 PM | Permalink

Keith Robinson writes: "What you’ll find here will show you, regardless of what flavor of Mini you have, a bunch of cool ways to upgrade, hack and modify your little machine into the coolest computer in your home."

Posted by Mirko at 01:18 AM | Permalink

David Chartier writes: "Quicksilver's website says it is a "unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data." Basically, that means it's an easy way to search for just about anything on your Mac and *do* something with it - kinda like Spotlight except, as of this writing, Quicksilver can't really search inside of files like Spotlight can. Quicksilver rises above and beyond Spotlight in that it allows you to do far more with Mac OS X and the items you search for, as you'll soon find out."

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

Do you have access to a shell account on a unix server with some spare space? If so it's pretty easy to incrementally backup your files securely with SSH. While we're on the subject of backup, you might be interested in taking a look at an older article here on Non Stop Mac that discusses secure backup and storage using a disk image and an iPod.

Posted by Mirko at 09:15 AM | Permalink

Most people would prefer not to see the spinning beach ball when working in Photoshop. Although eliminating it is not always possible, you can go some way toward doing that by managing your resources wisely. To that end, it’s worth spending a few minutes fine-tuning Photoshop to squeeze the maximum performance out of it.

Posted by Mirko at 12:45 AM | Permalink

Yes, Apple Remote Desktop offers more than just observation and management tools. Ryan Faas gives the skinny on how non-IT Mac users and professionals can use Remote Desktop's least-known features for teaching, presentations, and collaboration. These are, without a doubt, its most overlooked uses, yet they may be the most innovative (and they are certainly the ones that can have broad application for users in any number of professions).

Posted by Mirko at 02:06 AM | Permalink

David Chartier writes: "Yesterday Quicksilver started acting a little goofy, and I wasn't surprised; I have just about every beta and extra turned on as I just can't stop exploring all the neat stuff this app can do. During my troubleshooting efforts I resorted to the simple trick of quitting Quicksilver and simply moving its preference file (located with other preference files in ~/Library/Preferences) to my desktop, forcing Quicksilver to re-create a clean new preference file. This fixed the issue, but it also forced me to dive back into my preferences to tweak, toggle and change some of the options I use to make Quicksilver do what I want."

Posted by Mirko at 05:27 PM | Permalink

This article is all about file content and what you can do with it from the Unix command line. Several projects are featured that will show you how to search the file system for specific content, view files, process them, and compress them.

Posted by Mirko at 12:04 AM | Permalink

JC writes: "I have talked up my Mac mini running OS X Server quite a bit in regards to how I use it as the center of my home entertainment center, but I never really touched on why I use OS X Server. The mini is a great little beast, and I use it heavily. Aside from running Front Row on it via a neat little hack, it also acts as my sandbox webserver, my torrent box, and my backup server."

Posted by Mirko at 12:33 PM | Permalink

Almost every picture has some details burried in the high resolution abyss. As much fun as it is to have all your photos on an iPod, most details are lost due to screen size and image resolution. SplittingImage joins the game and splits the high resolution image into several smaller tiles so you can scroll through your photo and zoom away!

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

Automator Workflow Additions is a group of Automator Actions designed to enhance Workflows and overcome some of their limitations. At the heart of Automator Workflow Additions are three new Actions: Save Result, Open Result and Resave Result. These new Actions allow results from Files/Folders and URLs data type Actions to be saved, opened and/or resaved in any Workflow. The ability to save a result in one Workflow and open it in another creates new possibilities in automating your everyday tasks.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

This page has some interesting photos on how to integrate an iPod nano into your work desk.

Posted by Mirko at 06:16 PM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "While I classify this as a "Development" article, I mean this for anyone interested in getting more out of their drag-and-drop experience within Mac OS X. I'm going to talk a little about how DnD works behind the scenes because I've noticed that after implementing DnD in some of my programs that I've become a more pervasive user of it because I know what it's doing and what will react to it."

Posted by Mirko at 06:11 PM | Permalink

Ruby on Rails lets you create great web applications backed by SQL databases. Read this article to learn why Mac OS X is the preferred platform for this dynamic new tool. It should come as no surprise that Mac OS X is a favored platform for Rails development. Rails and its supporting cast of web servers and databases thrive on the rich Mac OS X environment.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Keyboard shortcuts can not only improve your efficiency in Photoshop, but they can even provide you with functionality that might not be available by any other means, like zooming while a dialog window is open, or inserting a "Select forward layer" into an action. This PDF contains a myriad of shortcuts.

Posted by Mirko at 03:00 PM | Permalink

If you’re using Mac OS X Tiger and Flickr, you might be interested in the ability to send images to Flickr by right clicking and hitting send. This is useful if you use Flickr for image hosting for your blog or you just want a really quick way to upload images to Flickr.

Posted by Mirko at 12:32 AM | Permalink

For anyone that has been wishing to switch to Apache 2 on their Mac, this is the time to do it. PHP 5 has also recently been updated and this tutorial describes in detail, the best method to both build and install these programmes on your Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 12:08 AM | Permalink

Quicksilver never ceases to amaze! You can now create mouse gestures to do anything Quicksilver can do using a plugin called Abracadabra.

Posted by Mirko at 12:21 AM | Permalink

PDF Kit lets you handle PDF documents in your Cocoa application without writing a lot of custom code. Read this article to get started with this important Mac OS X Tiger technology.

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 AM | Permalink

Joe Kissell writes: "While OS X may be pretty well tuned for performance, individual applications aren’t. You can tweak your apps in plenty of ways to make sure they’re operating at top speed. Here are a few of our favorite tricks."

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

Mark Shead writes: "There are several situations where you might want to dump a DVD to your hard drive to watch later. For instance, I get significantly better battery life when watching a video from my hard drive than I get when watching it from a DVD. If I’m stuck in a plane for several hours, having my movie on the hard drive can be the difference between finishing the show, or running out of power halfway through. I use a PowerBook and in OS X 10.3 and earlier you could just use the built in Disk Utility to copy a DVD to your disk, but it stopped working in 10.4. However with a few free tools you can accomplish the same thing and more."

Posted by Mirko at 03:05 AM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "It's time to take the pain out of backups. I'll discuss some solutions for both of these problems and I'm sure some of them will fit your workflow. First, however, I'll talk about the types of backups – especially the kinds you don't need as a consumer."

Posted by Mirko at 12:26 AM | Permalink

Unfortunately, while iTunes can display half-star ratings there is no way within iTunes to set half-star ratings. Using simple AppleScript though, a song’s rating can quickly be increased/decreased by half a star.

Posted by Mirko at 12:42 AM | Permalink

You don’t really understand the importance of backups until your hard drive crashes. With most backups, you’ll need to reinstall the operating system and then restore all of your data. OS X comes with a handy tool that will let you create a live copy of your hard drive that can be started up and run just like it is your computer. While we're on the subject of backup, you might be interested in taking a look at an older article here on Non Stop Mac that discusses secure backup and storage using a disk image and an iPod.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Codepoet writes: "Mac OS X is a secure operating system in that it's multi-user and has limits on what some user accounts can do. If an account is setup as a basic user, that user can only hurt himself, not the whole system or other users. However, in the interest of being "friendly" to new users, Apple leaves of a lot of the secure bits off for the first user created and this means that Trojans like this week's can cause some pretty nasty problems on your system."

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 AM | Permalink

The Apple Blog has a great list of Quicksilver tutorials that will suit every level of knowledge. If you want to work in a more productive environmet I suggest you take a look at Quicksilver right now.

Posted by Mirko at 02:01 AM | Permalink

iTunes 6 has a feature that enables you to convert your existing QuickTime videos to iPod-compatible movies. This is a great feature that a lot of folks don't know about. Previously, you either had to buy third party software or upgrade to QuickTime Pro to easily rip to this custom .m4v format.

Posted by Mirko at 01:21 AM | Permalink

Did you know you can use your keyboard to quickly accomplish many tasks in Mac OS X Mail? Apple has built into Mail many shortcuts for common commands, look in the menus of the Mail application or see the menu shortcuts below. To do an action, press the keys indicated below. Keep in mind the list is pretty long and it will be quite hard to remember them all.

Posted by Mirko at 12:31 AM | Permalink

Mindful of the questionable legality of decrypting commercial DVDs, Cinematize 2 leaves that task up to you to perform separately using a DVD ripping tool. If you wish to extract clips from an unprotected DVD (such as one you authored with iDVD), there's no need to rip the DVD content to your hard drive first; Cinematize can read it directly from the original DVD or mounted disc image.

Posted by Mirko at 02:41 AM | Permalink

Scott writes: "Those Intel-based MacBook Pros and iMacs will soon be in your hands. But before you open those boxes and fire them up, there’s a few things I think you should know." Very good article aimed at fresh switchers that covers a lot of ground.

Posted by Mirko at 01:35 AM | Permalink

With many people looking at their bottom lines this year looking to trim the fat from their budgets, it should come as no surprise that many eyes are on .Mac, a nominally good service without significant applications for many Mac users. The problem is that it's more expensive than many of its counterparts in the webhosting space, and that's something that's been discussed here in the past. What about using the WebDAV capabilities in Tiger Server, to broadcast your calendar?

Posted by Mirko at 12:44 AM | Permalink

Dan Benjamin writes: "Over the last year or so, as the user of both desktop systems and a laptop, I’ve had to deal with the challenge of trying to keep all of my data in sync between the machines I use, as well as maintaining a good, reliable backup of all my files. I thought I might share how I solved these problems using a few homegrown tools, some web-based software, and a commercial service."

Posted by Mirko at 12:29 AM | Permalink

Though almost anything can be fixed, replacing multiple major components like the LCD or the hard drive may not be economical. Besides, for technophiles, a broken part may be just the excuse to upgrade to the newest model.

Posted by Mirko at 03:32 AM | Permalink

Aniel writes: "Simply put, this box acts as a splitter for a VGA signal. It effectively takes one VGA input, and splits each horizontal line in half, and feeds one half to one VGA output, and the other half to the (you guessed it) other VGA output. Unfortunately, according to Matrox, it's only supported under Windows. Well, I'm happy to say that this jigger works great under OSX too."

Posted by Mirko at 12:39 AM | Permalink

Ken Collins writes: "Like most people that create networks I did not realize that the Mac Mini includes 3 high speed network interfaces and that with a little bit of work and the right architecture they can be used to operate in much the same manner one would see in a high-end network operations centers. I manage one such NOC and I wanted my home network to function like most companies who do serious business online."

Posted by Mirko at 12:49 AM | Permalink

David Battino writes: "In this article, I'll look at several free programs that will pump up any screenshooter's utility belt. I'll also share a hack I developed for capturing OS X windows with custom shadows."

Posted by Mirko at 05:44 PM | Permalink

When it comes to upgrading your Mac, RAM is the easy choice. It’s inexpensive, it’s relatively easy to install, and it can make a noticeable difference. But as a quick visit to just about any Mac forum will tell you, RAM upgrades can also be horrifically frustrating. Here’s how to do it right.

Posted by Mirko at 12:55 AM | Permalink

apple_turnover writes: "Now I know there are lots of ways to keep desktop clutter to a minimum, like changing default download folders, etc. However, I didn't want to sacrifice the convenience of working with archives, files, and such on the desktop in the short run. Instead, I created an Automator workflow (my first such endeavour) to automatically purge my desktop and file that mess for me, and it does the job very well!"

Posted by Mirko at 03:04 AM | Permalink

Chris Barylick writes: "Filling in where Apple left off, MailTags inserts metadata functionality into Mail.app, allowing for additional functionality and features that otherwise wouldn't be available to the program. Once installed, metadata allows for full search functions of all your e-mail messages through Mac OS X 10.4's Spotlight feature (which is, ironically, metadata-based)."

Posted by Mirko at 02:03 AM | Permalink

Giles Turnbull writes: "I've spent the last couple of days messing around with iWork 06, getting to know the new features and writing an article about them at the same time, and I noticed an interesting little something. One of the nicest new features in iWork is the ability to do the same kind of image editing within Pages and Keynote that you can do in iPhoto, using the Image Adjust panel we've grown accustomed to."

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

With her AirPort Express, Maria Langer has figured out a way to get some phenomenal sound from some of that ancient Mac equipment collecting dust in her living room (along with the more modern stuff, of course).

Posted by Mirko at 01:29 AM | Permalink

So iTunes has a unique position. It is much, much more than a music player. It is Apple's representative to the non-Mac world, a focal point for Apple's growing media empire, and a pioneering combination of desktop application and online service. With all that in mind, let's ask ourselves: how can we mess around with iTunes? Read on.

Posted by Berislav at 02:32 PM | Permalink

Rory Prior writes: "How do you get your application to launch in one or two bounces? It's pretty easy if you have a small application, with a fairly simple window layout. But what happens when you have a whole bunch of complex windows and a big data set you need to load? Here are some tips I learned while optimising NewsMac Pro's start-up performance."

Posted by Mirko at 01:37 AM | Permalink

This howto describes how to set up ftp only accounts using Apple Mac's built in ftp server (lukemftpd). This outline requires you to use the terminal, NetInfo Manager and have admin privileges on the machine in question.

Posted by Mirko at 12:27 AM | Permalink

Smart folders disguise Tiger’s convenient and dynamic Spotlight searches as good old-fashioned folders. You can use a smart folder to keep track of almost anything. Even better, smart folders give you access to hidden metadata and advanced Spotlight features. This article shows you how smart folders can reduce your need to organize.

Posted by Mirko at 06:10 PM | Permalink

If you feel you aren't getting the most out of your iPod battery, perform this simple test before considering battery service or replacement. This test will help you determine how much life (playback time) you are truly getting from your battery.

Posted by Mirko at 04:43 PM | Permalink

This article covers the conceptual and practical aspects of how Mac OS X workstations and servers use Apple’s Open Directory architecture to store and make use of user account information. It also includes information about computers and other resources within a network.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Maria Langer writes: "I’m always poking around Mac OS and Apple’s support documents to see what little-known features I can explore and share with readers and listeners. In this article, I’ll discuss five Finder features you may not have noticed. Although I’m working with Mac OS X Tiger, some of these features may be available in previous versions of Mac OS, so don’t feel completely left out if you haven’t upgraded to Tiger yet."

Posted by Mirko at 01:38 AM | Permalink

Follow these easy tips to maximize the battery life and lifespan of your PowerBook or iBook battery.

Posted by Mirko at 01:01 AM | Permalink

The bloggers over at Lifehacker know that you’ve put down a lot of good money for that shiny black or white monolith, so they strive to help you work your new iPod to its fullest potential.

Posted by Mirko at 01:20 AM | Permalink

Browse the Web quickly, make your Mac sing, view a calendar, watch Star Wars, and make a banner with the Terminal.

Posted by Mirko at 12:25 AM | Permalink

This document is designed to help developers determine exactly how much work needs to be done and provides useful tips for general as well as specific code modification scenarios. It describes the prerequisites for building code as a universal binary and shows how to do so using Xcode 2.2. It also discusses the differences between the Intel and PowerPC architectures that can affect code behavior and provides guidelines for ensuring that universal binary code builds correctly.

Posted by Mirko at 12:39 AM | Permalink

Secret shortcuts. Hidden helpers. Mysterious menus. You could spend months tracking down all the undocumented features tucked away in Mac OS X 10.4, Apple’s newest operating system. But chances are, you’re too busy using Tiger for more-important tasks—such as doing your job. So Macworld sent in a team of specially trained spies to uncover Tiger’s darkest secrets.

Posted by Mirko at 05:06 PM | Permalink

Emily Hambidge writes: "Since iTunes has become so popular, I thought it might be nice to have a basic tutorial on how to use it. There is a plethora of functions available with the application, and Apple is constantly improving it. To help you get the most out of your iTunes experience, I have outlined the most popular and important functions."

Posted by Mirko at 09:23 AM | Permalink

Everyone knows Powerbooks have terrible Wi-Fi reception. Unfortunately, only 15" and 17" Powerbooks facilitate adding your own external antenna. With just a few quick cuts you can modify a 12" Powerbook to take an external antenna as well.

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

The MiniPsi is a little robot that Joscha Bach, from the Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabruk in Germany, created out of a Mac mini, an iSight camera and a little Java code. Designed for research into artificial intelligence, the MiniPsi is capable of avoiding obstacles as it rolls around the floor.

Posted by Mirko at 12:07 AM | Permalink

Since Gmail is all the rage, here’s another way of getting your contact information out of Address Book and into Gmail’s web interface or into Thunderbird.

Posted by Mirko at 12:04 AM | Permalink

Don't have a shiny new iMac G5? But you want to make a Mac the center of your home entertainment system? Don't despair. Instead of shelling out thousands for a system, use this guide to connect an existing Mac to your home stereo and television. Emory Christensen shows you why it's not as hard as you think.

Posted by Mirko at 12:06 AM | Permalink

While browsing, I often send interesting links to a colleague of mine. Every time I want to do this I need to copy the URL, open the Mail.app, fill in his info, paste the address and send the e-mail. As I am doing this about 4-5 times a day, it starts to be a little annoying to do all these repetitive steps. There is an easier way to do this by using Automator.

Continue reading "Use Automator to enable faster web link sharing" »

Posted by Berislav at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

In this article Emily Hambidge shows you how to unlock the power behind your digital pictures with Apple's iPhoto 5. She covers importing, editing and sharing your photos among other topics.

Posted by Mirko at 02:17 PM | Permalink

This article shows you how to set up Mac X 10.4 Server to function as a VPN server. It also looks at the client configurations needed to connect to that server from Mac OS X 10.4 client (the non-server version of the OS) as well as from Windows XP.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

If you are using the Safari web browser, you probably either have your own solution for this, or you are in a desperate need to solve the little thing that gets on your nerves. I am talking about preventing Safari from automatically closing all tabs if you accidentally click the Quit Safari key combo.

Continue reading "Taming the Quit Safari keyboard shortcut function" »

Posted by Berislav at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here are the detailed instructions on how you can replace the hard drive of a 4th generation iPod by yourself and get it up and running for less than $100.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

The battery life on the new 5G iPods is much better than the previous versions. Apple states that you can get up to 20 hours of music playback with the current 5G iPods, under optimal usage. Do you know you how to get the best performance out of your iPods battery though? Follow these tips and you will be rocking for up to 20 hours just like Apple says.

Posted by Mirko at 08:38 AM | Permalink

Being an icon and wallpaper junkie I want my desktop to have a new feel at least once a week. This leads me to search high and low for all the design elements I need to gather in order to make the perfect OS experience.

Listed here are the very best resources I use to grab free stuff all the time. There's something in these links for everyone, all styles are represented.

Continue reading "The best places to download wallpapers and icons for your Mac" »

Posted by Mirko at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

Here’s Tim Gaden's list of the top 10 plug-ins, add-ons, scripts, and helpful apps that every Apple Mail user should have. If you're a Mail.app user this is a must read.

Posted by Mirko at 05:40 PM | Permalink

Tucked inside Tiger’s Applications folder is a slew of free apps. Mail and Safari get all the attention, but an often overlooked application - the humble Address Book - can also save you time every day. Here are Scott Kelby’s tips for making the most of Address Book.

Posted by Mirko at 02:05 AM | Permalink

David Chartier writes: "I've always heard about these "background maintenance tasks" that OS X performs in its omniscient glory, but I never knew much about what they actually were or when they were performed. This weekend I finally did some digging and thought I'd post a few thoughts that might help give some Mac users insight into maintaining OS X beyond simple permissions repairs and emptying the trash."

Posted by Mirko at 05:05 PM | Permalink

Backpack is a powerful web service that offers its users a great way to organize their files, write personal and business notes, create reminders, collaborate on business ideas etc. Its structure is based on specific pages, where you can write or upload your files.

This article will guide you on how to create an Automator application that you can use for very fast and efficient backup of your local files to your online Backpack account.

Continue reading "Use Automator to backup files to Backpack web service" »

Posted by Berislav at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

To change the settings that may be helpful to anyone who is hard of hearing, begin by choosing Apple > System Preferences, click Universal Access, then click the Hearing tab.

Posted by Mirko at 12:59 PM | Permalink

Here's a conundrum: last time you switched on your Mac OS X computer, did you have to enter a password before it loaded up your user account and desktop? No? Funny, because the computer asked for one. You didn't see that part, nor did you see your computer provide a password for itself--but that is, in effect, what happened. Your computer comes with a neat collection of security features built-in, but if you have it set up to automatically log you in every time you boot it up, you're bypassing one of the most basic of them.

Posted by Mirko at 01:34 PM | Permalink

Podcasting has exploded over the past year. Justin Williams gives you an introduction to creating your own podcast using Mac OS X and Apple's Soundtrack Pro. Keep in mind that this is part 1 of 5 - I expect this series to be very in-depth when complete.

Posted by Mirko at 11:45 AM | Permalink

Are you Mac-savvy? Many Windows administrators and technicians have never had to support Macs on their networks, so the idea of suddenly having a handful of Mac workstations might seem really challenging. Luckily for you, it's an easier task than you probably think. Here's a simple guide to supporting Mac workstations and Mac users within your Windows network.

Posted by Mirko at 12:35 AM | Permalink

Although its capabilities are limited compared to a laptop, it is possible to use a full-sized, color-screen iPod to run presentations developed in PowerPoint or Keynote. You’ll need to attach the iPod to a projector or a TV so that everyone can see the presentation, and to speakers if you have a soundtrack or narration to go with the presentation.

Posted by Mirko at 12:01 AM | Permalink

In this synced-up, wireless world, keeping information at hand has never been easier. But having your calendar in your PDA doesn't mean that you won't forget to look at said calendar and notice that you're supposed to pick up your cousin's son from soccer practice! With a little help from Mac OS X Tiger's Automator, however, you'll never miss an appointment again.

Posted by Mirko at 11:09 AM | Permalink

Apple has a series of articles that will be of interest to anyone moving from the PC to the Mac and I'm sure many will after the holidays :)

Posted by Mirko at 04:06 PM | Permalink

If you are running Firefox on a Mac, you’ve more than likely came across the problem that it has no idea what to do with a .dmg file. Ideally we’d want it to open the .dmg just like it does a .zip file and here you can find out how to do that.

Posted by Mirko at 04:02 PM | Permalink

This tutorial will walk you through a complete Dashboard implementation of Virtual Earth.

Posted by Mirko at 11:32 AM | Permalink

Dan Frakes writes: "Mac OS X has been firmly established as “the” Mac OS for a few years now. Still, even today, one of the most frequent requests Mac writers hear is, “How can I get back the Mac OS 9 Application Menu?” The questioner is referring, of course, to the menu that resided on the right-hand side of the menu bar in Mac OS 9, displaying the name and icon of the frontmost (“active”) application and allowing you, via its menu, to switch to any other running application." Well, here you can find the answer.

Posted by Mirko at 01:12 AM | Permalink

The good thing about sites like this is that you are always in the loop with news on the latest Mac software. Yesterday we were informed by one of our visitors about a new software that adds up to 5 new-mail indicators to the Mail.app dock icon. I always wanted to have this feature, so I promptly bought it. Here are my thoughts...

Continue reading "Review: DockStar 1.0 - make Mail.app more powerful" »

Posted by Berislav at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Life used to be simple: Your company was a Mac shop or a Windows shop. These days, the line between the two platforms is blurring, with many organizations using servers and workstations of both platforms for various functionalities. Ryan Faas explains some simple ways for system administrators to reduce the headaches of a multiplatform business.

Posted by Mirko at 12:04 AM | Permalink

I'm not really that into stuff that can make your warranty suddenly become void but this page has some very cool information.

The author presents a slideshow where you see step-by-step how you can change the color of the Apple on your PowerBook.

Posted by Mirko at 01:18 AM | Permalink

Want to break free of the iDVD pre-set themes and create your own disc menu screen for your DVD masterpiece? With new features and options, iDVD 5 makes it easier than ever to create professional-looking DVDs - from choosing background music to creating your own screen layout. Jaemi Loeb will help you take the best of what iDVD has to offer and make it yours.

Posted by Mirko at 12:38 AM | Permalink

Phillip Torrone is in the process of building a $100 laptop using an old Apple eMate. He writes: "I need to find a laptop like device that had great battery life, tons of free apps, the ability to use Wifi and would work with a hand crank to charge it. It might not work out, but here is what I have so far."

Posted by Mirko at 12:23 AM | Permalink

Giles Turnbull wrote a very interesting article detailing the questions his brother asked him after purchasing a Mac for the first time. It's an insightful view on what you can expect to hear from people that you manage to turn over to the Mac. Also, if you're a lurker that's wondering what would it be like to move to Mac OS X, this is the perfect article to read.

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball delivers a quick tip for those of you developing web sites on your Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 12:30 AM | Permalink

Dan Benjamin writes: "What follows are updated instructions for manually building and installing Ruby, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and LightTPD on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Compiling and installing these tools this way is well worth the effort, as the end result delivers an easy-to-upgrade, system-independent, stand-alone development platform that is impervious to potential problems that can be caused by system updates, operating system upgrades, etc."

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink

This article will show you how to easily setup a free DNS service that will give your Mac computer a static hostname. There are a lot of possibilities you can use this for, as most of the Internet connections offer dynamic IP addresses. Having a dedicated hostname can make it easier to remotely connect to your computer and run any kind of server.

Continue reading "Give your Mac OS X computer a hostname with DynDNS" »

Posted by Berislav at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

Robert Daeley writes: "Last year, I worked out a method to create custom Mail.app announcement sounds by using the say program on Mac OS X, a CLI utility that converts text to speech and can output aiff sound files. And while nowadays I'm of the opinion that a totally hidden email program is a better way to go, it occurred to me earlier this week that it would be cool to have the equivalent of cellphone ringtones for Mail."

Posted by Mirko at 09:44 AM | Permalink

Whether your Mac has a CD-ROM drive, a Combo drive, or a SuperDrive, how it behaves when you insert a disc in the drive is entirely within your control. However, since the default behaviors make sense for most users, you may not even have realized that you can change these settings.

Posted by Mirko at 01:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

All you need is an old Mac Plus with 4 MB of RAM, a hard drive, System 7 or later, some free software, and an Internet connection. Oh yeah, and this article to get you started. You can have your very own web server for your website, and even a Mac Plus can handle a decent load, but not a whole lot.

Posted by Mirko at 12:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Much new stuff awaits switchers that come from Windows to Mac OS X. What's interesting about Mac OS X is that unlike Linux, things are much more intuitive and you get accustomed to the new environment in a snap. This article offers some suggestions for the new Mac user. As you can expect, not everything is covered but these really are some of the things that can trouble new users. If that's not enough, and it never is when you're a new user hungry for knowledge I suggest you take a look at the comments below the article, there's more to explore there.

Posted by Mirko at 12:25 AM | Permalink

If you’ve got an iPod photo, iPod with color display, iPod with video, or iPod nano, you know that you can put photos on your iPod for viewing on the iPod’s color screen. But how do you get photos off that iPod? Read this article and find out.

Posted by Mirko at 02:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Kevin Schmitt writes: "Ah, yes...the venerable Aqua buttons Apple unleashed on the world lo those many years ago. Sure, they may seem a little turn-of-the-century these days, but you still see them littered about like so much confetti. And since the basic Aqua button was heretofore unattainable in Flash without the use of some creative Photoshopping, I can't think of a better model to use for a tutorial on how you can implement Flash 8 's new filters and blends to create clean, scalable interface widgets like our old friend the Aqua button."

Posted by Mirko at 01:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Reading your favorite RSS feeds on iPods is a piece of cake. Naturally there will be questions regarding the actual need of reading RSS items on your iPod, but you should know that a lot of web sites offer full articles inside their feeds. I just tested a free utility called iFeedPod and it does the trick.

Continue reading "Use your iPod to read RSS feeds" »

Posted by Berislav at 07:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a whole hidden side of text modification that is stashed away, yet right at your fingertips. If you go to the Application menu (if you're in Safari, click the menu 'Safari') -> Services, a whole list pops down. You've probably disregarded this in the past (if you've ever seen it) because most of the options are grayed out, or unclickable.

Posted by Mirko at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Many have opted for a GMail account because of its storage size and ease of use. Now let's assume you would like to really take advantage of the 2.6+ GB storage space and import all of your existing e-mail into your GMail account. GMail Loader and this tutorial will help.

Posted by Mirko at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While reading online content, I usually prefer opening all links in new tabs. While right mouse button click on the link opens a menu where you can chose "Open link in new tab", there is a faster way of doing this. Just hold the Command button and click on the specific link - it will automatically open in a new tab.

Posted by Berislav at 06:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Dock is that strip of icons across the bottom of your screen, and you'll find it to be one of your most important tools. In this article you'll experiment with using the Dock, adding icons to it and takings icons out, resizing it, and more.

Posted by Mirko at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Atomic Learning offers a variety of free video tutorials covering many aspects of Mac OS X 10.4. Here you can learn about the Dashboard, Spotlight as well as other new features.

Posted by Mirko at 01:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Do you ever go out and forget to put your Mac to sleep? This article explains how to do it by sending an MMS message. Ah, the wonders of Automator :)

Posted by Mirko at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Robert Daeley writes: "When it comes right down to it, HTML editing is text editing. There will be times - such as SSHing into your server - that being able to do things via the CLI will be invaluable. Even if you're working on your local development box, having some powerful utilities in your tool belt can't hurt at all. I'll be focusing on how these few utilities can help while working with HTML on Mac OS X." Read the entire article here.

Posted by Mirko at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The iBook 12" is an excellent compromise between mobility, robustness, performance and price. It can also be transformed to become a strong competitor for its brother, the PowerBook 12". However, it is impossible to equip the iBook 12" as a PowerBook 12" via the BTO from the Apple Store. So, it can be tempting to buy a basic iBook 12" model and upgrade it yourself into a highly performing mobile computer. This article is intended to provide you help to perform such transformation.

Posted by Mirko at 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Google Analytics looks like a cool product. I was thinking about replacing the current web statistics software on one of the sites I am working on, but I was turned down by the inability of viewing the reports in Safari. MacTips has published info on a simple workaround: "Try to force a reflow of the page, e.g. by hitting “Cmd +” or “Cmd -” to resize the text. The charts will appear." I just tried it and it works.

Posted by Berislav at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bluetooth - its name is cool, but what can you really do with it? If you're curious, let Michael Yuan take you on a tour through the myriad use cases for Bluetooth-enabled devices, from car kits to social networking. He also provides overviews on the technology behind Bluetooth, and how to use it. If you're considering Bluetooth, either for app development or to create your own cable-free personal area network, this is a good place to start.

Posted by Mirko at 02:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We all have different jobs, hobbies and ways of using our Macs. Some are programmers, others are designers, office clerks or just casual surfers. It doesn't matter what you use your Mac for, there's always some software you can't live without. This is exactly the point of this article where the author presents two lists, one for the novice Mac user and one for the advanced user. Check it our, it may contain software you haven't tried yet.

Posted by Mirko at 02:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the best open source and free pen testing applications available on the Internet today is the Metasploit Project. Metasploit is a very good tool to use to check and see if any services on your network are vulnerable for any one of the numerous publicly available exploits available in the Metasploit Framework. Read more about the usage of the Metasploit Framework at the Macintosh Security blog.

Posted by Mirko at 01:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In this article the author shows you how Tiger Mac OS X runs regularly scheduled commands and scripts to execute recurring jobs, like system maintenance and backups by comparing the "old" way, using the Unix tool called cron (for chronological), with the new Tiger method of using the launchd daemon.

Posted by Mirko at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Centralized authentication greatly simplifies network administration. This post teaches how to log in to a Mac or Linux computer using centrally managed user accounts from a Windows Active Directory domain controller. With this configuration, the same Windows user accounts can be used to log in to any of the three operating systems, Mac OS, Linux, or Windows, with the same user network folder auto-mounted.

Posted by Mirko at 05:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the most talked about features of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was certainly Automator, a tool that brought the power of automation to the masses. With a myriad of presets already present in Automator it's easy for anyone to achieve increased productivity in a short period of time.

Continue reading "Make Automator work for you" »

Posted by Mirko at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)