Macgasm

Rotate your videos: I can’t believe I have to clarify this.

Joshua Schnell — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:00:18 +0000

It’s 2008 and somehow some people continue to think that a movie camera works just like a still frame camera. Is it me, or did everyone suddenly jump off the short bus all at once? If you rode the short bus as a kid, chances are you’re probably not gonna get what I’m saying here, so you might just want to give up before you begin.

So, to put things into perspective I received an email today from an old friend, who needed a video rotated that she managed to take at a cottage with some friends. Somehow, I just realized how pathetic of a life I’m living. Somehow while she’s off lounging at cottages having a good time, I’m here working on my computer nonstop. Man. Tis the life of a geek I guess. What’s a good geek do? Turn it into a self-fullfilling post at her expense of course!

Customize Leopards Finder Icon

Joshua Schnell — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:00:33 +0000

Some of us can only look at that psychotic finder window for so long before we start feeling a little uncomfortable. For me, I couldn’t last a second longer! So I decided it was in my best interest to change it up. The finder icon is a little bit more complicated to change than some of the other icons around Leopard. So pay attention, and away we go!

Step One: Finding The Proper .png ﬁles

apex-laptop:/ apex$ cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources

Step Two: Backup! Backup! Backup!

You never know when you will want to put the system back to its original state. That being said, it is always important to back up any folder or ﬁles you will be manipulating.

First, we will make a directory on your desktop:

apex-laptop:/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources apex$
sudo mkdir /Users/username/Desktop/backup/

Second, we will copy every single .png ﬁle that currently resides in the Resources
folder, and then place them into the backup folder on your desktop.

apex-laptop:/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources apex$
sudo cp *.png /Users/username/Desktop/backup/

Thirdly, we need to change the permission to all the .png ﬁles so that we can edit
them in our favorite graphics editor.
sudo chmod o+w *.png

Step Three: Making the Changes

Now open the folder ‘backup’ on your Desktop. You can do this with a mouse or
simply type the following in the terminal window:
open.

All of the .png ﬁles that are currently in the backup folder can be edited in programs
such as Photoshop, or Gimp. For instance, ﬁnder.png is the annoying smiley face
icon that resides in the Dock for Finder (I could only take looking at that icon for so
long before it started to make me feel a little uncomfortable).

Finally, you’ll need to delete the Dock preferences. With Tiger Go to /Library/Caches/ and delete ‘com.apple.dock.iconcache.yourusername’
Now, ctrl+alt click the Finder Icon and click “relaunch”.

If you’re using leopard like most of us, you’ll have to search for this file. The best way to do this is to open a finder window. Push command+f. Set your criteria like the image below.

Drop your ‘com.apple.dock.iconcache.yourusername’ in the trash.
Restart your dock. Either in the aformentioned fashion, or by typing ’sudo killall Dock’ into the terminal.

Viola! Macgasm Goodness.

MacGourmet: Manage those Recipes on your Mac

Joshua Schnell — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:00:18 +0000

I’m not a cook, but I love cooking. I’ve yet to have someone give me the skunk eye over something I’ve fed them, so I think I’m good enough at it that I’ll keep doing it. If people are gagging over your dishes, then this application is probably not for you, and you should probably step away from that skillet. Yes you! Step away from the oven. No, I don’t care if you think you can cook! Back away slowly!

Ok, for the rest of us, managing recipes out of books is a little bit like being stuck 1850. If you’re addicted to your mac laptop like I am, then their is a good chance you have your laptop beside you while you cook. So, why wouldn’t we use it for our recipes?

MacGourmet lets us do this. You can organized recipes into smartlists so that they automatically get filtered into the proper sections. You can rate recipes, add shopping lists, and make notes. All of the things I do on paper already. Sounds like I’ll be able to save a few trees in the process.

The deciding factor for me was the HUD. Why the hell wouldn’t I use a cooking application with a HUD. HUDs make everything cooler!

MacGourmet is 24.95 from Advenio

iPhone 2.0 Airplane / Wi-fi mode

Wayne Dixon — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:11:28 +0000

I watched the iPhone 2.0 / 3G walkthrough last night and noticed that there is a new feature in the iPhone 2.0 software that I don’t think is getting enough coverage. You now have the ability to turn off EDGE/3G but still keep the Wi-fi on. This isn’t available in the 1.x software, without jailbreaking it.

I’m not sure why more places aren’t covering this new feature. It will be a great feature if you really want to do some web surfing but don’t want to be interrupted by those pesky people who always have to call or text. Just a little feature I thought the readers might be interested in.

Get optimized builds of Firefox for your Apple Machine.

Joshua Schnell — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:00:09 +0000

I had an interesting chat with Jeremy Pihl about running leopard and software packages on my iBook, and how if I have to work on that G4 for much longer I’ll probably jump off a cliff. So, if you don’t hear from me or read a post in more than three weeks… send someone up to Canada to look for me. I’ll probably be easy to find considering we all know each other up here.

Anyway, for quite some time the good folks over at BeatnikThinkPad have been providing mac users with customized and optimitzed firefox applications for all the architectures that Apple has put out (G4, G5, Intel). They’re optimized to run as smoothly and quickly as possible on your machine, and I’ve noticed a substantial difference in site load times on my iBook, but not so much on my Mac Pro.

Now, if only we can convince Apple to ship a PPC optimized Leopard install I’d be ecstatic. Actually, I’d probably be pissed, as it is one less excuse I have to argue the merits of a macbook upgrade with myself.

Holy Crap - Mac Lock Pick, time to bust out the tin foil hats.

Joshua Schnell — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:00:35 +0000

I stumbled across this product over at macmod.com and instantly felt sick to my stomach. Sure, we’re more secure then windows, sure I can get viruses, sure OS X is the greatest OS ever built, but a usb key that rapes my machine and steals your dignity along the way is enough to make anyone want to throw up.

Once the MacLockPick software is run it will extract data from the Apple Keychain and system settings to provide the examiner fast access to the suspect’s critical information, that may otherwise be rendered unreadable by modern encryption programs, with as little interaction or trace as possible.

Ugh, I just threw up a little in my mouth. The funniest thing about this is that it’s not for “consumer” use, and only cops can buy it. Yeah, because there is no such thing as corrupt cops, who use their power to help out some buddies. What a joke!

I tend to agree with the commenter on the macmod post. It’s only a matter of time before this gets onto ebay, or someone decompiles it and throws up the source code on some popular torrent sites. Looks like I’ll be locking my mac in my coldwar bunker every time I leave the house.

Precipitate means I can finally search my google docs with spotlight

Joshua Schnell — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:27:23 +0000

Those witty and high IQ guys over at google have released an apple preference pane that lets you connect to your google docs from your desktop and search them using spotlight. The search extends to your google docs and your google bookmarks.

Install the preference pane, put in your login info, check the services you want spotlight to index, hit the refresh now…and you’re off to the races.

Sounds pretty cool, and it will probably help me to use google docs a lot more now!

Flow: An FTP program that has replaced Transmit for me

Joshua Schnell — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:24:42 +0000

WWDC labeled Flow as the “Best Leopard Student Product Runner-Up” this year, and if you subscribe to our podcast, or watch our vidcast you would have seen a neat little feature called “drop marks.” While drop marks are pretty damn cool (I’ve been using them a lot this week), there are a whole host of other features that make this FTP an excellent competitor in the FTP market. As Mac users, we have quite the selection of stellar FTP programs. We have Transmit, Flow, Cyberduck, and Forklift, all of which provide amazing support and work really well. For some, any FTP program would do, but for those of us who spend a lot of time connected to multiple servers all week long, there is greater need to find a program that fits into our workflow the best. That being said, Flow seems to be winning me over this week, and I think I’m going to be leaving Transmit behind.

The Cool

Flow has a very simple and clean user interface. It lets you see all the information you would need about your files on your server immediately. No longer do you have to “get info” like you do in Transmit to find out the permissions of a file. Instead, it’s labeled at the bottom of the screen waiting for you to change it any time you want.

Another pretty cool thing is the editor that they have built right into the application. Instead of having to edit files in external editors (which there is still support for) you can edit your files in the built-in editor. The built-in flow editor has tab and syntax coloring built right in. This has become one of the application’s major selling points for me. I get a lot more coding done now, and save a lot of time opening and closing the files in smultron, when all I have to do is change a few characters on the fly.

The Awesome!

Tabbed server connections are a must for me, and while many of the FTP programs do this now days, quite a few do not–Cyberduck comes to mind. Now the super cool thing is you can drag and drop a file or folder from one tab to the next to move files between servers. It makes backing up from one server to the next super quick and super easy. But, this functionality could be a heck of a lot better which leads me to my next point.

Moving Forward

I, much like some of you, spend quite a bit of my time moving files around on servers and between servers. For me, every single FTP application should make us of FXP. FXP is a transfer protocol that allows a user to move files between two remote machines without having to play as a middle man. As much as I like being in the middle, having data move from server one to my machine and then on to server two is a bit of a waste of bandwidth.

I find myself moving away from transmit and relying solely on flow over the last week. As soon as this trial period ends I’ll be dropping my money on it. It’s well worth the investment. A quick aside, in an email with Brian Amerige he mentioned that FXP is being requested, so maybe you should go drop him an email and request FXP if you need it: maybe it will find its way into the next version.

Firefox Address bar tricks

Kenneth Gaines — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:00:34 +0000

Here are a couple tricks to keep you speeding along without switching to another search bar. The first is auto complete, for some reason my ISP (RR) actually was controlling this until I disabled it. This might be true for your ISP also. So to enable this you must open firefox and create another tab, in the address bar type “about:config” then in the search bar at the top type ” browser.urlbar.autoFill” that will give you result. You need to double click that to make the value true. Simply restart firefox and it will now auto complete based on what you have typed in the past.

The next is letting the address bar become the new search bar. Allowing you to type tags or complete searching and having google search them. Open “about:config” if its not already and search for “keyword.url”. Double click and paste “http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=”, this will now allow you to use google search in the address bar. Enjoy!

5 Fun Apple Wallpapers

Joshua Schnell — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:00:03 +0000

As much as we like to pretend that our love for the Mac has nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with it being superior to the other options out there, we’re all full of crap. There I said it. I didn’t buy my first mac (ibook g4) because it was better than XP. I had no way to know that and I certainly had never used one prior to that. I bought it because it looked super cool, it was 12 inches, and it was cheaper then all the other 12 inchers out there.

On that note, I take a lot of pride in my desktop wallpapers, I know how lame that sounds, and more importantly how vain I sound, but for me, if a desktop wall paper looks crappy…I feel crappy. Why would I look at a crappy wallpaper all day long when I can have something beautiful on my beautiful Mac. Vanity meet my Cinema display.

Here’s a list of 5 fun Apple themed wallpapers and links to their download locations so you can impress your friends.

Macgasm

Rotate your videos: I can’t believe I have to clarify this.

Related Posts

Customize Leopards Finder Icon

Step One: Finding The Proper .png ﬁles

Step Two: Backup! Backup! Backup!

Step Three: Making the Changes

Related Posts

MacGourmet: Manage those Recipes on your Mac

Related Posts

iPhone 2.0 Airplane / Wi-fi mode

Related Posts

Get optimized builds of Firefox for your Apple Machine.

Related Posts

Holy Crap - Mac Lock Pick, time to bust out the tin foil hats.

Related Posts

Precipitate means I can finally search my google docs with spotlight

Related Posts

Flow: An FTP program that has replaced Transmit for me

The Cool

The Awesome!

Moving Forward

Related Posts

Firefox Address bar tricks

Related Posts

5 Fun Apple Wallpapers

1.) Flying Apple Logo

2.) Apple Life

3.) Otro genial Wallpaper (Whatever that means)

4.) Jobs and Woz’

5.) The Finder

Extra: It’s like chocolate (there’s an apple logo in there!)

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