Mac Tricks

Run Windows Applications on a Mac

sergio — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 03:32:44 +0000

Let me tell you something. If you ever paid money for a Windows Emulator for your Mac, make a sad face and read these words very carefully. Open source is free, stable, reliable, and continuously updated. So on the topic of running Windows executables on your Mac, Darwine has been around for years and is the Mac port of the popular Wine app which has been available to *nix users for years. Download it using this easy guide and start playing your favorite Windows game in minutes.

The great thing about open source software is the large community backing it, meaning any problem you run into you can almost assure yourself someone has dealt with it and likely found a solution. If you head on over to the Darwine Google Code Page, you will find the download section with the latest releases and a wiki that will provide support if needed.

To setup Darwine browse over to the Download section and download the latest or “Featured” build. Drag the red Darwine folder to your Applications folder and you’re set. Now browse over to the Darwine folder in your Applications directory, and run WineHelper. Once WineHelper is loaded, go to Application -> Open… Browse to the .exe or whatever Windows file you may want to run, and select it. Chances are your Windows App is now running.

Keep in mind Darwine requires that you have X11 installed, if you don’t just Google “X11 Mac Download”, it’s not hard to find.

Enjoy!

Add a Second Menu Bar for Dual Monitors

sergio — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:38:43 +0000

Call it a trick or not, anyone who has used dual monitors on a Mac knows how handy it would be to have a second menu bar on the extending screen. The following app does exactly that by placing the menu on your second screen and giving you a fairly wide variety of options and customizations that allow you to tweak it to your hearts content.

SecondBar is as easy to install as it is download. Just head over to their website grab yourself a copy and you’ll have more menu bars then you’ll know what to do with. Enjoy!

Manually switch video cards on Core i7 and i5 MacBook Pro’s

sergio — Fri, 14 May 2010 01:58:29 +0000

The new 2010 i7 and i5 MacBook Pro’s feature two graphics cards, an integrated Intel HD card and a GeForce GT 330M. There’s nothing wrong with this, unless you’re trying to conserve battery life and aren’t playing games. For whatever reason Apple hasn’t released any updates with the functionality to switch between the two manually, but thankfully some hackers have done the dirty work for us.

You can download gfxCardStatus here. Once installed you will find an icon in your menu bar with 2 options, ‘i’ for the Intel card and ‘n’ for the nVidia card. Have fun!

Easily mount NTFS in OS X

sergio — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:42:36 +0000

You would be surprised how many people experience issues related to this topic. Thankfully there are people out there that are willing to give up some of their time to help the rest of the world out, for free! The following program will easily enable you to mount for read/write an ntfs drive on your Mac.

Check out the NTFS Mounter website and just download the app from the downloads section. The app is beautifully Airport inspired and will fit in great with your current desktop look. Plus the convenience of its functionality makes it a great tool to keep on your jump drive so that you can share it with friends.

Enjoy!

Run your own Mac Jabber Server

sergio — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:01:45 +0000

For those of you trully nerdy enough to need something like this, i solute you. In fact i myself have recently needed to run a jabber (XMPP) server for one reason or another, so here is the simplest and most popular option available to Mac OS X users right now. Ignite Realtime’s Openfire is a simple yet powerful open source solution to this problem. Here’s how to do it.

Check out the Ignite Realtime Openfire webpage and download the server. Once you install the app you will have an additional control panel in the “System Preferences” pane for Openfire. There you will be able to administrate your Openfire server.

A common issue that people have while installing Openfire, is that once installed the administration panel wont let you login. The fix to this is simple, just restart the Openfire service, and then restart the system. Once you’re back in you should be able to login without any issues.

Good luck and let me know what you think of this service in the comments.

SQLyog alternative for Mac

sergio — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:30:17 +0000

This is an easy pick, not a shameless plug. All you developers out there know how convenient it is to have a real time database app. Sometimes phpMyAdmin just doesn’t cut it. For those who are familiar with the popular Windows counterpart, SQLyog, this will be a no brainer. Sequel Pro is a free and beautiful app for your Mac which will make web development and database administration a breeze.

How do i get this? Easy! Download the app for free on the Sequel Pro website. Enjoy. Let me know of any other good alternatives in the comments.

Better Internet Radio on your Mac

sergio — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:56:26 +0000

If you are anything like me, you spend way too much time sitting in front of your computer. Listening to music is a great way to keep your cool after a long work day. Unfortunately the iTunes built in radio functionality is just not up to par with some of the better more accessible online alternatives. Today i want to talk about Last.fm, my online radio pick for your Mac. Lets take a look.

Last.fm is an online radio/”scrobbling” app. Basically in addition to providing great internet radio, it also keeps stats on everything you listen to. First lets look at the online radio portion of the service. Last.fm has made available an app that will sit in your dock and allow you to play music just like in iTunes. Create a customized personal radio station for yourself by first defining a “tag” or an “artist” or maybe even just based off of your current listening preferences. Last.fm will go out and retrieve a small playlist of playable songs. The best part though, you can skip unlimited amounts of times, and even replay songs that you’ve already listened to (to a certain extent). The sound quality? …it’s good! No worse then Pandora or any of the other big competitors. The scrobbling aspect of Last.fm is also pretty convenient. Since it tracks everything you listen to, eventually it will generate weekly charts with your current favorite artists and suggestions. In my opinion, the AI for “recommended music” based off of your statistics is pretty good.

Lets be friends.

Edit Mac Hosts File

sergio — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 07:10:02 +0000

This may not be so useful for everyone, but i’m sure i’m not the only one who has searched for an answer to this question. Whether it may be for easy access to your favorite website or some kind of home development project editing your Macs hosts file is easy as ever. Ever done it on a Windows machine? It’s pretty much the same thing. Here is how we do it.

Go to Finder -> Go -> Go to Folder.. and type in “/etc” without the quotes obviously. Once you hit enter a normal Finder window will appear and you will see a hosts file. Edit it just as you would in Windows. IP of the address you would like to associate with the name following it. Save, and you’re set!

Transfer Music from iPod and iPhone to Mac

sergio — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 04:26:31 +0000

There was a time when this was one of the most complicated and ask about questions on the internet among Apple users. Luckily the times have changed and this daunting task is no more. Pod to Mac is a simple easy to use program which will allow you to get your tunes off of your iPod or iPhone. Install it, run it, move on. Follow the following instructions.

Head on over to the Pod to Mac website and download the app. Once installed you will be greeted with a very Finder like window with the music on the attached device. From there you can drag and drop the files of your choosing and enjoy musical freedom.

Change OS X Login Background

sergio — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:00:15 +0000

Here’s a simple little holiday tweak for all of you Mac users out there. Years of the Aurora wallpaper have led to artistic boredom in my opinion, so wouldn’t it be great if we could change that default wallpaper to something much more visually inspiring. Well now you can, and it probably wouldn’t take you much more then a minute. Here’s how we do it.

Follow these steps:

Click on your desktop to select Finder
Hit Command+Shift+G, this will open the ‘Go to Folder’ screen
Type ‘/System/Library/CoreServices/’
Once the folder opens, find ‘DefaultDesktop.jpg’ and replace it with a file of your choice (make sure to keep the name the same)
Restart your Mac

That is all! Next time you login prepare to be creatively inspired.