Macgasm

This may not be new for some people but it rocked my world today. I’ve never run across a reference to Inspector in other tips or feature lists, so I’m going to share with you.

So, you need  info for multiple items in the Finder, whether it be folders, pictures, music or whatever. Typically, I would select all the items I want info for, Right(Control) – click and then click ‘Get Info’.  And then your screen is a mess of Info panes. This is where Inspector steps in.

If you select just one item, Right(Control) -  click and then hit Option, it acts as a modifier for a number of the tools presented. The one we want to notice is it changes ‘Get Info’ to Show Inspector.’ Clicking this brings up an Info pane as usual but where it differs is when you select a new item or folder. BAM! The info pane changes too! This allows you to scroll through a list of files using the arrow keys, getting separate info for each item without cluttering your screen completely.

This is just so fandangled that I’m going to show you in screen shots.

First, a typical Right(Control) – Click brings up a menu looking like this:

Second, a Right(Control) – Click – Option brings up the new menu looking like this: 

This modifier also allows for several other useful features. One is that if you use Inspector on multiple items it will give you the total size of your selected items. Another is that it will Quick Look at things in a slideshow rather than individually. The last thing I love about this Right(Control) – Click – Option is that it changes ‘Open With’ to ‘Always Open With’.

For clarification  Right(Control) – Click means that you can Right Click or Control Click. For example, if you don’t have two finger right click enabled on your Macbook, you need to hit Control to emulate the second mouse button. This does not mean to hold Control and Right-Click.

Have fun and let us know if you have any other tips and tricks.

Sometimes we just want to listen to the same  music as our friends. It’s not a difficult concept, and really we should be able to do this natively in iTunes.  Thankfully Simplify Media allows us to stream music from our iTunes with our friends.  It’s super handy and they have both an OS X and iPhone version.

[Download the screencast in HD]

[Download] [01.8 MB] [0:03:50]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Josh explains the new iTunes DJ feature in iTunes 8.1.

Hello and huzzah, Macgasmites! Macgasmers?… Anyway, hi. I’m Corey Pandolph. Some of you may know me from my wildly successful run as TV’s only twelve year old Astronaut. Others may be familiar with my many comic strips in newspapers around the globe. The rest of you I probably owe money to, so just be patient. I’m working on it.

You’re probably asking what the hell a comedy writer/cartoonist/Fake Rockstar is doing blogging for a site about Macs and the apparent orgasms they give us? Well, really, the question should be,  “What the Hell are any of us doing “blogging” in the first place?”, but that’s a puzzle for out grand-kids and our grand-kid’s grand-kid’s clones to figure out.

ANYWAY…

I am here for one reason and one reason only: Cash money. I mean, who blogs for free these days? Losers, that’s who. We’re in a booming economy people, one where excess is rewarded and tightwads get their heads pushed into a toilet by rich folk’s man-servants. I expect proper compensation for my services, and let’s be honest, if you run a complicated and successful site like Macgasm.net, then you are clearly full of it… Money, I mean.

So let’s blog, my Applesplooging friends…

Y’all like Apple and Apple products, do ya? Cool. I run Macs. I run iPods, iPhones, iLives and iPhotos, man! I got ‘em all set up in every room of the house and when it’s late and the wife is to bed and the whiskey’s kickin’ in, I strip down to my underoos and I drool in the glow of that wonderful ambient light that is Safari. What’s showing on the browser isn’t important… or legal, but I will say this: POOP! HA! Blogs are fun…

Seriously, though, I will say that I believe my Apple products to be magic. And not the sad, drunk uncle-with-a-dead-rabbit-in-a-hat kind of magic. I’m talking David effin Copperfield, back with Claudia Schiffer magic. I’m sayin’ my mac could make the Statue of Liberty disappear!

Because I have Photoshop. It’s good for that sorta thing.

I believe this magic – my electronically creamed jeans friends – lies in the fact that these machines exist at all. The very idea that I can check email, write a blog and Photoshop my sister’s head on a chiken’s body, all while eating sushi, IN THE SUSHI RESTARAUNT is purely stuff of the Jetsons! Google it, young ones, you’ll like it. And while you’re at, Google “The Young Ones”… But, back to my point: Do I know how Photoshop, Dreamweaver, iSync and iPhoto work? No. Not a clue. Do I care? Well, a little, but… Look, they work. And they work for my comedic, shipping, receiving, banking and naked lady needs, and that to me, is magic in a titanium box.

I recently bought an iPod touch and friends… I want to crack that baby open and make sweet love to the battery! But I won’t… Because that would void the warranty. But I’m tellin’ ya that this little shiny, glass sliver of ‘lectric lust is pure witchcraft! Want to check your email? POP? Webmail? SquirrelMail? Done, cubed. Websites? Done. Need a restaurant, chiropractor, lube job and jerked chicken? Done, done, done and soooo done. And how do we find all this? Through gorgeous little buttons, lined up nice and symmetrical, with rounded edges and just the right amount of shading for that nice, 3-D Web 2.0 look. And the colors… Oh, the colors, children! There is a rainbow of RGB, websafe colors that cause a responsible, clean-shaven man to say things like, “I can finally leave this marriage, I have an iPod touch.”

It’s like Apple is selling snake oil that is actual oil, for your snakes! And it works!

The coolest thing to me, however – the one thing that I think many fans don’t realize – is that with the iPod touch, Apple has successfully replicated one of the most genius interfaces known to man. I can see the wheels turning… You know exactly what I’m about to type, so let’s say it together… On 3: 1… 2… The McDonald’s cash register. HA!

Back when calculators were the new iPod, someone in a McD’s board meeting figured out that if you replace the buttons on a cash register with little pictures of the actual items, that #1: you don’t have hire literate people and #2: the time it takes your order to reach the “kitchen” is nearly doubled. Thus doubling sales, profits and the waist band of America. Supersize that, Morgan Spurlock.

But this is not a place for commentary on fat people, fast food or my unquenched thirst to be liked. This is a place for Macs, and those who love them… In a biblical sense, I guess… Seriously, what happens when I Macgasm? What do I feel? Anxiety? Confusion? False love? Will I feel remorse afterward? Will I head to the fridge for a beer and wonder what (or who) I just did? And what do I need to do to/with my Mac to feel a Macgasm? I mean, I’m no stallion, but the ports in the new iMacs are awfully small… And electrified, I imagine. Just… yikes.

Well, whatever it is, I’m in. Because I love Macs… And blogs are free publicity for my many levels of vanity.

Take care, my little Appletinis. Go home and hug your Mac and maybe, just maybe this time it will love you back.

Yours in Pontificational Ridicularityâ„¢,

Corey “Fake Rockstar” Pandolph

[Download] [01.7 MB] [0:03:30]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Grant and Josh discuss IM clients for the Mac. Josh uses Adium, and Grant uses iChat with Chax.

It times of financial difficulty, it’s imperative that we all get a firm grasp on our finances before we find ourselves in a heap of trouble and in foreclosure on our homes.  No application can help you keep your home, but a good program can help you spot spending trends and help you trim the fat and pad your wallet.  One of the greatest problems we encounter in our personal financing lives is putting all those crappy barely legible receipts into our programs when we get home, it’s laborious, and it’s a major waste of time.

Cha-ching has released an iPhone app today that lets you put your receipt information into your finance database on the fly, while it’s happening.  It’s a great first step in getting us to be more responsible with our money.

With a few taps you can:

• Enter new expenses
• Set up and stick to a monthly budget
• Securely lock your data with a password
• Track spending across unlimited custom categories
• Track income and expenses across multiple accounts
• Sync transactions to the desktop with Cha-Ching 2 for Mac

You can get it on the iTunes store. An apprehensive review is in the works, along with screen cast, and Cha-Ching Beta 2 thoughts… so stay tuned.

Every once and a while an video or audio stream comes along that yells at me in bold helvetica “American Only”.  Nothing drives me crazy more than being told I can’t partake in the media goodness because I’m 10 minutes from the American border.  I could easily delve into a tirade against copyright laws, but I’ll save it for another time.  What I really want to talk about is Hotspot Shield.  It exists because a majority of the world lives outside of the US border (go figure), and we want to watch modern video as much as you guys stuck in the US.

The developers point out that it gives you a secure VPN connection while you’re at the library or local Starbucks, but what us geeks really hear when we see that written–AMERICAN IP ADDRESS.  That’s right, Hotspot Shield tricks the internet into think you’re on an American connection.  What does this mean for those outside the US?  Hulu access, Lala access, and access to anything that those “democratic” media conglomerates in the US are currently producing.

The internet is a little more “free” today thanks to Hotspot Shield.

[Download] [04.0 MB] [0:08:40]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Josh talks about the new Mac Mini refresh.