The Apple Hottest

Make ZIP in one Click

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:16:00 +0000

One of my favorite Mac OS X features is the ability to create ZIP compressed files from within the OS (basically, this shrinks the file size, ideal for files you’re going to email — smaller file sizes mean faster file transfers). To create a compressed file, either Control-click on the file and choose Create Archive (which is Apple-speak for “make a compressed ZIP file”). Or you can click on a file, then go to the Action menu (the button that looks like a gear up in the Finder window’s toolbar), and choose Create Archive from there. Either way, it quickly creates a new file, with the file extension “.zip.” This is the compressed file. You can also compress several different files (like three, for example) into one single archive file — just Command-click (or Shift-click contiguous files) on all the files you want included, then choose Create Archive of X Items from the Action menu. A file will be created named “Archive.zip” (that’s it!). By the way, if someone sends you a ZIP file, don’t sweat it — just double-click it and Tiger will automatically decompress it.

Add Hover Effect to Stacks

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:26:00 +0000

via osxleopardhints.com

To add a nice hover effect to the icons in the stacks pop up enter the following code into your terminal ( applications/utilities/terminal.app)

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YES killall Dock

To Remove this Stacks hover effect enter the following terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean NO killall Dock

Here’s a preview of the magic at work.It’s also important to note that this only shows when you navigate your stack pop up by keyboard.

Snag Popular Mac Shareware On-the-Cheap at MacHeist

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:08:00 +0000

Mac only: Web site MacHeist's second annual shareware bundle sale, which offers nearly $500 worth of software for the relatively low price of $49, is underway. This year's bundle includes popular Mac shareware like previously mentioned Cha-Ching, AppZapper, TaskPaper, and other killer apps like 1Password. Our focus is almost always on freeware around these parts because—frankly—no one likes paying for software. That said, sometimes you just can't find a freeware version of a killer piece of shareware, and that's when deals like MacHeist come into play. Right now the bundle comes with 12 apps with another soon to be unlocked. The MacHeist sale ends in two days.

via Lifehacker.com

Top 15 Leopard Hints

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:06:00 +0000

by Michael Yurechko via appletell.com

It’s been almost a month since Leopard was officially released, and in that month we’ve had some time to play with the OS and get to know it. Here are the Top 15 Leopard Hints we’ve come across this past month (in no particular order).

Collect all windows in one Space When you are in the birds-eye view of Spaces (F8 by default) press the ‘C’ button to collect all open windows into a single space with a nice effect. And if you hold down shift when you hit the ‘C’ key, it will happen in slow motion.

Zoom PDFs and Images in Quick Look If you are browsing PDFs or images in Quick look mode, there is a fast and easy way to zoom in. Simply option-click the window and it will zoom in, and shift-option click and it will zoom out. Alternatively, you can hit Cmd = to zoom in, or Cmd - to zoom out.

Enable the Path Bar in the Finder Go to the view menu in the Finder and click View Path Bar to see the hierarchy of where your file is. You can also control-click or right-click on any of the folders in the path bar, and perform actions on them.

Quickly send a window to a Space Leopard supports “bumping” your windows to other Spaces. Simply drag your window to the edge of your screen, and wait a second. The window will fly over to the adjacent space.

Address Book Effects Now Address Book has the ability to add effects much like Photobooth. Simply click the edit button for one of your contacts, click the pictures, and then click the little “swirl” style button. This allows you to apply many different effects to your photos.

Quickly access System Profiler When diagnosing someone’s mac, you want to get to System Profiler as fast as you can. A little shortcut is to hold down the “option” key on the keyboard while pressing the Apple in the menu bar. The ‘About This Mac’ will turn to ‘System Profiler...”.

Add a ‘recent things’ stack to the Dock You can add a recent applications or documents stack to your dock very easily. Just pop open terminal and enter:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’

Then simply do a KillAll Dock command to reset your Dock, and your new stack will be there. Right-click it to set what you want it to have recent-things of.

Auto Remove Printer after Print One of my pet peeves with Leopard is that the Printer will not automatically quit after it prints. Well, all you have to do is right click on the printer icon in the dock, and hit the “Auto-Quit” option. This will automatically quit the printer after a print job is complete.

Disable Spotlight from the menu bar If you want to get rid of Spotlight from the menu bar, simply open terminal and run:

sudo chmod 0 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app

To re-enable it you just have to run:

sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app

Permanently Delete files from Time Machine Backups While navigating Time Machine, go to the present view, and click the little gear icon in the toolbar of the Finder while you have the file you want to delete selected. Simply click the option to Delete all Time Machine backups of this file, and the file will be gone forever.

Quickly enable or disable sharing for a folder If you want to quickly share a particular folder with someone on your local network, click the folder, and hit Cmd-I to bring up the “Get Info” window. From there, simply checkmark the “Share Folder” button, and others will be able to access it over the network.

Unlearn words from the Dictionary Words that you have added to the system dictionary such as “Yurechko” can be unlearned easily in Leopard. All you have to do is right-click on the word that you want to unlearn, and click the unlearn button. This only works in some applications.

Use Expanded print Dialog by default Leopard comes with a very handy expanded Print View which allows you to see previews of what you are printing (very handy for printing websites), however, you always have to click the little arrow button to view it. It you want this expanded view to be the default, simply open Terminal and run:

defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE

If you want to set it for all users, run:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE

Switch to lowercase labels in the Finder’s sidebar Many people don’t like the capital letters in the Finder sidebar. In order to change these to lowercase, navigate to

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/

Duplicate the LocalizableCore.strings file for backup, and then edit lines 50 to 53 to make them lowercase.

“SD5” = “Devices”; “SD6” = “Shared”; “SD7” = “Search for”; “SD8” = “Places”;

Save the file and the open the Terminal and type: ‘killall Finder’

See detailed Airport information Leopard’s wifi capabilities have been dramatically improved. Now, it is even easier to get more information about the access point you are connected to. By option-clicking on the wifi menu bar item, you can see the MAC address, channel, signal strength (RSSI), and even the transmit rate. very handy for mobile users.

Upgrade Your Hackintosh to OS X 10.5.1

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:37:00 +0000

via Lifehacker.com

First... Did It Work?

Yes, updating to 10.5.1 worked (and continues to work) very well, and if you're installing Leopard with my previous guide, it only adds a couple of extra steps. However, I did run into a snag which I'll detail later.

Upgrade Your Hackintosh

Assuming you've just installed Leopard on your own Hackintosh using our guide, you've built your PC, installed and patched Leopard, and it's running like a gem. To upgrade, here's what you'll need to do:

Install the 10.5.1 Update: Open Software Update, download, and install 10.5.1 just as you normally would on any other Mac.
Fire up your Leopard install DVD and Patch: After you apply the update, your Hackintosh won't initially boot—instead it will probably continually restart after your BIOS load. That's okay—you just need to re-patch your system the same way you did the first time you installed. So drop the Leopard install DVD in your Hackintosh and boot into the installer (remember, when you're prompted to press any key to start the installation or press F8 for options, hit F8, enter -v -x at the prompt and hit Enter. Then wait (the DVD boot up takes at least 5-10 minutes).
Once it boots up, open Terminal from the Utilities menu in the menu bar. Hopefully you've still got your trusty USB stick on hand with your Leopard patch files (the one you used in the original install). If you don't, just grab the files and follow the instructions in the original guide to prepare the patch files on your USB stick. Assuming your USB stick is prepared and you've named it LeopardPatch (the name isn't required, you'll just need to adjust the directions appropriately to the name of your USB stick), just run the following two commands:

cd /Volumes/LeopardPatch ./9a581PostPatch.sh
Restart and Enjoy: Once the patch completes, answer "yes" to reboot your computer. When it restarts, you should boot right back into Leopard with 10.5.1 running.

So What's the Snag?

I tried this method in two different fashions. First I installed Leopard from scratch using my previous guide and then I immediately upgraded and applied the patch. Worked as smooth as butter.

After verifying that that method worked, I applied the update and patch to the installation I'd been running for the previous couple of weeks. For some reason, when I did, the patch didn't seem to take. The workaround: I just booted up my working 10.5.1 (the one that I updated and patched immediately) and used OS X's Migration Assistant utility to migrate all of the user data from my non-booting drive to my new installation, which meant I didn't have to go through any of the rigmarole of a fresh install. However, it does mean that I needed two hard drives so I could install and update the fresh Leopard separately, which may be much more of a pain than you're willing to face.

Isn't There a Better Way?

Honestly, yes, there is. It's called PC EFI, a patch that emulates the boot process of a "real" Mac so that the operating system can actually use the unmodified (i.e., unpatched), stock versions of the kernel. What does that mean to Hackintosh users?

Basically it means that you should generally be able to upgrade your system with impunity and never have to go through this sort of patching process when you upgrade. The problem: Despite several efforts, I wasn't apple to get PC EFI running successfully on my Hackintosh. That doesn't mean it can't be done—it just means I haven't been able to figure it out yet. When I do, you can be sure I'll post an update for how to do it.

If you're interested in looking into PC EFI, you can keep track of the latest developments here.

Customize Your Mac with Leopard Power Tweaks

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:13:00 +0000

Now that Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard's been out almost three months, several apps, tweaks, and plug-ins have emerged that can customize (and sometimes re-Tigerize) your Mac. Now that you're comfortable with Leopard's new features, like Stacks, Quick Look, Time Machine, and Spaces, it's time to roll up your sleeves and make your Mac look, feel, and behave just how you like. Personalize Leopard's great new features, revert the annoying ones, or just get a taste of the things you didn't know your Mac could do with our favorite Leopard tweaks.

The Desktop and Dock

Whether you love or hate Leopard's most-touted feature—the Dock and Desktop's new look and feel—you can enhance or revert Leopard's changes with a little know-how.

Make the menubar opaque. Lots of Leopard users say the menubar's new transparency makes menu items difficult to read. To turn the menubar opaque again (like it was in Tiger), download and run the free OpaqueMenuBar (original post). If you don't want to run a whole new piece of software just for this tweak, several LH readers suggest editing your Desktop background image to include a white section across the top for behind the transparent menubar.
Kill the Dock reflection. Personally I think it's cool, but it does draw my eye away from whatever I'm doing when dragging windows. If the Dock's new reflective qualities are too distracting to you, turn it off using two Terminal commands (via Wired, omit the $ prompt when you type them yourself):
$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES $ killall Dock
Revert the blue dots to Tiger's black triangles. Along the same lines, Leopard uses little blue dots to indicate open applications on the Dock. If you prefer Tiger's pointier black triangles, here's how to replace the new blue dots with the old black triangles.

Stacks

One of my favorite Leopard features, Stacks, adds fly-out menus of folders to your Dock. Here are a few ways to trick out your Stacks:

Identify your Stacks with drawer overlay icons. One of the best things I've done to my Stacks is add attractive, drawer overlay icons to them, which add much-needed easy visual identification. Here's where and how to set up the drawer overlap icons.
Add a Recent Items Stack. If you're constantly reaching for the same documents and applications, add a custom Stack of recent applications to your Dock. In the Terminal, enter the following commands:
$ defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }' $ killall Dock
(Be sure to omit the $ prompts.)
Navigate hierarchical folders from the Dock like in Tiger. If you miss the ability to navigate down into folder contents from the Dock, install freeware HeirarchicalDock (original post) to get folder browsing back.

Quick Look

Another Lifehacker favorite Leopard feature, Quick Look displays the contents of a file directly from Finder with the tap of a Spacebar—no application launching required. At first blush Quick Look seems most useful for viewing photos (especially giant folders stuffed with ambiguously named ones like IMG_8097.jpg from the digital camera). But you can also Quick Look office documents, iCal events, and fonts. A couple of plug-ins can supercharge Quick Look's preview capabilities, too:

Preview the contents of ZIP archives. The free Zip Quick Look plug-in (original post) gives you a peek inside the contents of ZIP archives with Quick Look without extracting them.
Preview folder contents. Along the same lines, a similar plug-in turns Quick Look's default folder view to a listing of the files inside. Here's how to set up Quick Look to view folder contents.

Time Machine

Leopard's dead-simple backup utility, Time Machine, probably has more people backing up their Mac than ever before precisely because there are so few configuration options. But if you're determined to stretch Time Machine beyond its default behavior, there are two ways to do so:

Customize Time Machine's backup schedule with TimeMachineScheduler. If Time Machine's hourly hard drive spin-up is slowing down your Mac or just seems too frequent to you, customize the schedule using freeware TimeMachineScheduler (original post). TimeMachineScheduler's interval slider lets you set Time Machine's default backup time from 1 hour to up to 12 hours apart.
Enable Airport disk destinations with iTimeMachine. New freeware iTimeMachine (original post) lets you set network disks as Time Machine's backup destination—great if you've got other Macs in the house but no FireWire drive. Warning: We haven't tested iTimeMachine's support for network disks, which Apple marks as "unsupported"—so do proceed with caution when it comes to critical data using this software.

via Lifehacker.com

Scripts to automate the Mail.app Envelope speed trick

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:09:00 +0000

Thursday’s tip about trimming the fat out of Mail’s Envelope Index for a leaner, faster Mail.app got a fair bit of coverage.

Two readers liked it so much that they have produced applescripts to do the job.

Sebastian Morsch has written a script that quits Mail, runs the sqlite commands and then relaunches Mail at the end of the process. You can get the script from his web site.

“pmbuko” has written another, which does the same thing (modified as suggested in the comments below by Romulo — Thanks!) :

tell application “Mail” to quit
set sizeBefore to do shell script “ls -lah ~/Library/Mail | grep -E ‘Envelope Index$’ | awk {’print $5′}”
do shell script “/usr/bin/sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/’Envelope Index’ vacuum”
set sizeAfter to do shell script “ls -lah ~/Library/Mail | grep -E ‘Envelope Index$’ | awk {’print $5′}”
display dialog (”Mail index before: ” & sizeBefore & return & “Mail index after: ” & sizeAfter & return & return & “Enjoy the new speed!”)
tell application “Mail” to activate

It gives you some feedback on what happens:

You can grab the text of the second script above or download it in a zip file I’ve uploaded to the site.

Obviously, the law of diminishing returns is in play here. The first time you run it, the benefit is tremendous. Run it again soon after and there is not so much bloat to remove and, hence, not as great an improvement.

Still, as some have pointed out, this should be a regular maintenance routine for Mail. You can wait for the Mail Development Team to implement it or with one of these rules and iCal, you can automate it yourself.

All you need to do is create a recurring event in iCal and use the “Run script” option in the alarm feature to run the script.

So, save the script somewhere sensible — I saved mine in the ~/Library/Scripts/ Applications/Mail folder.

Create the event.

Click on the alarm field in the event’s information pane, and select “Run script”.

When prompted, navigate to the script and select it.

I’ve added an end for the event after 100 instances because my Palm really hates events with no end date. You may be luckier.

Now you can enjoy a lean Envelope Index long after you have forgotten about the tip.

[With thanks to Sebastian and pmbuko]

UPDATE: If you prefer Automator to AppleScript, Steve Weintraub has created an Automator action to do the same thing.

via hawkwings.net

Top 30 mistakes made by new Mac users

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 12:34:00 +0000

The Unofficial Apple Weblog has posted a short story on the top five mistakes made by new mac users. It includes closing an application window, thinking it has quit, downloading software and then running it from the disk image (runs slowly, can't eject disk image), Windows .EXE files littered around the desktop after they've tried to download software and install it.

The comments attached to the article are entertaining, and pick up many other common mistakes.

The thing that strikes me is that most of these problems could be resolved by Apple. For example, when a user downloads an EXE file, Safari could easily give the user a quick warning that it's a Windows program and won't install on Mac. (Before you say, "ha! What if it's in a ZIP file?" Safari already checks inside ZIP files to see if something is a "program" that Safari should give a security warning about.)

Here's a precis list of things that TUAW and its users said in comments, and a few of my own:

1. Closing an application window, thinking it has quit.

2. Downloading an app and running it from the disk image.

3. Creating endless untitled folders

4. Using Safari's Google search to get to a website

5. Confusing the concept of wallpaper with screensaver

6. Double-clicking a window thinking it will maximise it, but instead sending it to the dock

7. Not understanding the usefulness of column view and leaving everything in icon view

8. Not using any keyboard shortcuts

9. Thinking that now they've got rid of Windows they won't have problems of _any_ sort on their Mac

10. Renaming desktop icons to random characters because they don't understand the difference between the enter and the return key on Mac. (Enter puts an icon into rename mode).

11. People trying to find the menus on a window, not realising they're always at the top of the screen

12. Trying to resize windows from the edge rather than the drag area on the corner

13. Trying to use the CTRL key rather than CMD key for shortcuts.

14. Thinking it'll be easy to get a stuck CD out.

15. Installing a program every time they want to run it because they think the installer _is_ the program.

16. Where's "the internet"? (looking for the Windows Internet Explorer "e" icon)

17. Repeatedly hitting the Apple key expecting the Apple menu to pop up (confused with Windows Key and Start Menu concept)

18. Thinking the green "+" button maximises a window to full screen (not realising that Apple's maximise philosophy is to only make a window as big as it needs to be to comfortably fit the width of content currently being displayed)

19. Looking in vain for an uninstaller app, because they don't realise that uninstalling an application on Mac is as easy as dragging the program icon into the trash.

20. Minimising windows all the time rather than using "hide", leaving the document section of the doc littered with forgotten minimised windows (that are quietly occupying system resources).

21. Double-clicking dock icons.

22. Inadvertant click-drags and removing programs from the dock in the process.

23. Saving everything to the desktop or somewhere on the hard drive other than their home folder

24. Trying to load documents or programs multiple times because they don't recognise the progress indicators (sound of hard drive grinding, CD spinning, Mac spinning beachball, browser status bar)

25. Not understanding that the dock is used to both launch and return to a program …

26. Inability to work with multiple documents on-screen at the same time, because they have only ever learned to use Windows' maximise mode which always makes everything full-screen

27. Confusing "delete" with "backspace" (because Apple has two keys named "delete" on the keyboard, one of which does forward delete and the other backward delete. Way to go, usability geniuses).

28. Expecting "home" and "end" keys to go the beginning and end of a line, rather than beginning and end of a document.

29. Not realising that when you copy a folder over an existing one, OS X -replaces- the destination folder rather than merging the contents, which is what Windows does.

30. Looking for the "complicated" way of doing everything. For example, trying to go into system preferences and right-clicking on the networking icon in order to find available wireless networks, rather than just clicking on the Airport icon in the menu bar and selecting the relevant wireless network.

via Danwarne.com

The Complete Guide to Mac/Windows Interoperability

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 12:15:00 +0000

You've got a household full of PC's and you've stopped yourself from getting a Mac because you don't want to deal with incompatibility headaches. Eight years ago that would've been understandable, but today Mac OS and Windows can work together in harmony on the same home network, sharing files and printers, mounting one another's drives and using the same equipment, like wireless routers and USB drives. If you're considering a mixed Mac/PC home or office, here's a primer on how the two systems inter-operate (and the few instances when they don't.)

File Sharing

Both OS X and Windows can see each other's shared drives over the local network. To mount a Mac's shared drive on a PC, it's a simple matter of enabling Windows Sharing in System Preferences and browsing to the shared folder the way you would on any other PC. Here's a step by step rundown for accessing a Mac's files on your PC. Update: Reader Jeremy writes in with more information on how to get Windows Vista to see Mac-shared folders. Thanks, Jeremy!

By default, OS X shares only your home folder. To share out another location on your Mac—like, say, an external drive that houses all your media files—use the free SharePoints System Preferences pane to configure advanced sharing.

To go the other way around and see your PC's files on the Mac, use Finder's built-in support for Samba, a network file-sharing protocol. Here are the details on mounting a shared Windows folder on your Mac.

File and Application Compatibility

Once you're whizzing files back and forth between your Mac and PC, you'll see that practically all the filetypes you need work on both systems. A Photoshop .PSD file created on a Mac will open in Photoshop for Windows without any kind of import or formatting. Word documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDF's, images, zip files, text, rich text, MP3's, AVI's—you can even play Windows Media Files on your Mac.

But while you're unlikely to run into filetype compatibility issues, Mac newbs should know that applications are not compatible across operating systems. That is, if you buy Microsoft Office for Windows, you've got to buy a whole new package/license for Office for Mac. Same goes for Photoshop and other utilities like text editors or FTP clients. Some Mac-only apps can export files that work on PC, but won't run on PC's—like iPhoto, for instance.

File Sync and System Files: Thumbs.db and .DS_Store

You can even easily sync files between Mac and PC using a variety of methods, like FTP, rsync or any file copying utility that recognizes the networked drives you set up above. Once you do start copying whole folders, though, you'll start to reveal some of the inner workings of both Windows and OS X in the form of folder view system files. Mac OS X by default creates a file called .DS_store in each of its folders, and in turn Windows has Thumbs.db. On their native OS, these system files are hidden: you won't see them in the Finder or Explorer, unless you have "Show hidden files" enabled. But once you start moving them over to a foreign OS, you will see them. Here's more on how to turn off .DS_Store and Thumbs.db. Alternately, you can exclude them from your file sync job, or scrub them from your system manually after the fact.

Printer and Fax Sharing

A printer hooked up to one Mac or one PC on your home network can be printed to from any other system as well. Using Bonjour for Windows (free), your PC can print to your Mac's printer. Here are the details on sharing your Mac's printer with Windows using Bonjour.

To go in the other direction, simply share your Windows printer as usual and use the Mac's printer browser to find it.

Running Windows on your Mactel

If you want to use both Windows and Mac OS X but you don't want to have all that extra hardware lying around, you can have your cake and eat it too on a single, Intel-based Mac. Here are your options:

Dual boot Windows on your Mac using Boot Camp—forces you to partition your hard drive into two sections and choose which OS to start when you turn on your computer, but runs Windows natively (read:fast)
Run Windows inside OS X with not-free virtualization software like Parallels or VMware—lets you move files back and forth between each OS's drives and open any file on either system using a Mac or Windows app. (You can even set a Mac or Windows app to open for a filetype by default from either system.)
Virtualize your Boot Camp partition to get the best of both worlds—make your choice every time whether you want to start Windows natively or within OS X, based on the task at hand

A few things to keep in mind when you set up Windows on your Mac: If you choose Boot Camp, you'll have a choice to format your Windows partition as FAT (which has a 32GB size limit for Boot Camp) or NTFS. NTFS is more secure and has no size limit, but OS X cannot write to NTFS drives, only read them. That means that you cannot save files to your Windows partition while you're booted up into OS X, just like you can't write to your Mac drive in Windows. (If you do opt for FAT, you can write to your Boot Camp Windows partition in OS X.)

If you go the virtualization route, when Windows is running inside OS X, you can easily copy files between your Mac and Windows drives. In fact, Parallels mounts your Windows hard drive and displays it in Finder like any writable external drive (pictured.)

Remote Server Access

Both Macs and PCs can act as an FTP or SSH server, which gives you the option to use a huge range of cross-platform FTP and SSH clients like WinSCP, FireFTP or FileZilla to transfer data between them over the internet or on your local network. Here's how to set up a Windows FTP server and a Windows SSH server. On the Mac, it's literally as simple as checking off either "FTP access" or "Remote login" in the System Preferences Sharing panel.

Most commercial remote login services like LogMeIn are Windows-only, but the cross-platform VNC lets you remote control your Mac or PC from either OS. Likewise, the free VPN software and network which lets you stream your iTunes library over the internet and access shared drives, Hamachi, is also available for Mac with HamachiX.

Instant Messenger, Email and Outlook/Entourage

The Mac's built-in iChat isn't available for Windows but it connects to the AIM network so it automatically loads your AIM buddy list and is completely interoperable with any AIM client on Windows. (However, iChat is limited to just AIM update: and Jabber and Bonjour by default, tx sgodun, so new Mac users, you're better off installing the free Adium for tabbed, multi-protocol chat that works with Yahoo, MSN and ICQ out of the box.)

There's no Microsoft Outlook for Mac, but Entourage (included in Office for Mac) can talk to your Microsoft Exchange server. Mac's Mail.app is also not available for PC but supports your standard email fetching and sending protocols, like POP/IMAP and SMTP, so it can download and send mail from Gmail or your ISP just the way Outlook Express can on your PC. Update: Mail.app can also work with Exchange server. Thanks, Byslexic!

iTunes, your iPod, and Other Incompatibilities

The one major area of Mac/PC incompatibility is the iPod and iTunes. While iTunes comes in both Windows and Mac flavors, iTunes' internal library files themselves are different for Mac and Windows, so you can't copy your entire library between operating systems and preserve play counts and ratings. Update: this is due to the differences in how Mac OS and Windows address file paths. If you must move your library from Mac to PC, here's how you can massage iTunes' internal XML file to do just that.

You can, of course, share a library on a Mac or PC and listen to it in iTunes on any other machine regardless of OS.

Likewise, you've got to choose between formatting your iPod for Mac or Windows. An iPod formatted for one will not work with the other. Update: Two readers report that a Windows-formatted iPod WILL work on a Mac, but not the other way around.

Along those same lines, an external hard drive formatted "Mac OS Extended" can't be plugged into Windows and just work. However, USB drives formatted "MS-DOS" (for Windows, that is) can be recognized, read and written to by both Windows and Mac OS. So a thumb drive sneaker net will work between Mac and PC.

Making the Switch

If you're a new Mac user or you're considering becoming one now that you know Mac OS and Windows can live together in harmony, be sure to check out Adam's comprehensive guide to switching to a Mac.

via Lifehacker.com

Rebuild Your Mac with 20 Useful Downloads

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:57:00 +0000

Mac OS X only: So you erased your hard drive to install Leopard, and now you've got to load your Mac up with all your essential software. I kept a detailed inventory of the downloads I hunted down all over the internet to load on my Mac this weekend, so I thought I'd save you a few clicks. Here's a list of 20 (mostly) free apps with direct links to their download pages.

All downloads are free except when otherwise noted. In alphabetical order:Adium (download) (more info)
Multi-protocol chat client when even iChat's improvements aren't enough

Caffeine (download) (more info)

One-click sleep from the menubar, good for presentations and media servers
DiskInventoryX (download) (more info)

See what files are taking up the most space on your Mac
Firefox (download)

When Safari just doesn't cut it
GeekTool (download) (more info)

Desktop text/image overlay
Google Earth (download)

Mapping tools with a built-in flight simulator
Growl (download) (more info)

Universal system notifier
Hazel (download) (more info)

Not free: $22 license, free 14-day trial available

Clean up your Stacks with automatic rules-based file and folder actions
InstantShot! (download) (more info)

Screen capture utility with more features than Grab
iSquint (download) (more info)

Convert video files to iPod-friendly format
KeePassX (download) (more info)

Secure password database. NOTE: KeePassX version 1.5 is not Leopard-compatible by default. Here's how to get KeePassX running on Leopard.
MagiCal (download) (more info)

Menubar monthly calendar dropdown
Mozy (download) (more info)

Online backup utility, 2GB space for free
Quicksilver (download) (more info)

Application launcher and keyboard interface to your Mac. (Note: Quicksilver's main hosting site is unavailable at the moment, which means plugins are also unavailable. Use this mirror to get the initial install image.)
TextExpander (download) (more info)

Not free: $30/license, free trial available

Global text substitution utility expands user-defined text snippets to phrases and form letters
TextWrangler (download) (more info)

Full-featured text editor that beats the pants off of TextEdit
Thunderbird (download) ( more info)

Ok, so it's debatable whether Thunderbird is better than OS X's built-in Mail, but I tend to think so—if only for its extensibility. Here's a free skin for T-bird if you want to give it that Apple Mail look.
Transmit (download) (more info)

Not free: $30/license, free trial available

The best FTP client you'll find on any platform
The Unarchiver (download) (more info)

When StuffIt Expander doesn't know what that .TAR file is, the Unarchiver will.
VLC media player (download) (more info)

The Swiss Army knife of media players, VLC will play all the movie files QuickTime chokes on. It can rip DVDs, too.

Note: The excellent SuperDuper! isn't yet fully Leopard-compatible, or else we would've included it here—and its boot cloning capability is still very useful, even with Time Machine. We haven't yet tested Carbon Copy Cloner on Leopard.

For more great Mac downloads, see our Top 10 free Mac downloads and Top 10 Mac utilities. (Note: a few of the apps in these lists are now obsolete due to new Leopard features, but most are still useful.)

Other more expensive, specialized licensed downloads and box software I installed included Parallels Desktop, Quicken, DEVONthink Pro, Photoshop CS and Microsoft Office.

via Lifehacker.com

Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 07:49:00 +0000

A repository for every keyboard secret in OS X. Some of these are well known, some are not. Shortcuts in the Menu category are common rather than universal. This list should continue to grow exponentially over time.

		Startup
`C`		start from CD
`D`		start from 1st partition
`N`		start from network server
`T`		put computer in FireWire Target Disk mode
`X`		start in OS X
`⌥`		show all startup disks
`⌥⇧⌘⌫`		start from external drive or CD
`⌥⌘OF`		open firmware
`⌥⌘PR`		zap PRAM (hold until 2nd chime)
`⌘S`		single user mode
`⌘V`		verbose
`mouse button`		eject CD
`⇧`		after power-up: turn off kernel extensions after login: prevent startup items from opening
		Power
`⌃⌘-power`		restart
`⌃⌥⌘-power`		shut down
`⌥⌘-power`		sleep
		Application Management
`⌘-tab`		cycle forward through applications
`⇧⌘-tab`		cycle back through applications
`⌘~`		cycle forward through application windows
`⇧⌘~`		cycle back through application windows
`⌥⌘-esc`		Force Quit dialog
`⌘-toolbar lozenge`		cycle forward through toolbar displays
`⇧⌘-toolbar lozenge`		cycle backward through toolbar displays
`⇧⌘3`		screen dump (entire screen)
`⇧⌘4`		screen dump (drag a rectangle)
`⇧⌘4,space,click`		screen dump (highlighted window)
`⌘-space`		cycle forward through keyboard layouts
`⇧⌘-space`		cycle back through keyboard layouts
`⌘-drag window title bar`		adjust window in background
`⌥-click Dock icon or window`		switch to new program, hide previous one
`⌥⌘-click Dock icon`		switch to new program, hide all others
`⌘-drag`		rearrange or remove menulets or toolbar icons
`⌘-click window title`		expose path in popup
`⌥-zoom button`		maximise window
`⇧-minimise button`		minimise window slowly
`⇧-click minimised window in Dock`		open window slowly
`⇧-close button`		close window slowly
`⌥⌘W`		close all application windows
`⌥-close button`		close all application windows
`⌥⌘M`		minimise all application windows
`⌥-double-click title bar`		minimise all application windows
`⌥-click Dock icon`		restore all application windows
`⌥-minimise button`		minimise all application windows
`⌥⌘D`		toggle appearance of Dock
`⌘-drag onto Dock icon`		prevent Dock icons from moving
`⌥⌘-drag onto Dock`		force program to open dragged item
		Outline View
`⌘←`		Collapse
`⌥⌘←`		Collapse All
`⌥-click disclosure triangle`		Collapse All
`⌘→`		Expand
`⌥⌘→`		Expand All
`⌥-click disclosure triangle`		Expand All
		Safari
`⌫`		Back
`⇧⌫`		Forward
`⌘/`		Page Load Test Window
`⌘[`		Back
`⌘\`		Status Bar
`⌘]`		Forward
`⌘\|`		Address Bar
`⇧⌘A`		Autofill Form
`⌥⌘A`		Activity
`⌥⌘B`		Bookmarks Bar
`⌥⌘E`		Empty Cache
`⌥⌘F`		Google Search
`⇧⌘G`		Find Previous
`⇧⌘H`		Home
`⌘K`		Block Popups
`⌘L`		Open Location
`⌥⌘L`		Downloads
`⇧⌘N`		Add Bookmark Folder
`⌥⌘P`		Snapback
`⌥⌘S`		Search Results Snapback
`⌥⌘U`		View Source
`⇧⌘→`		Next Tab
`⇧⌘←`		Previous Tab
`⌘↑`		Page Upper Left
`⌘↓`		Page Bottom Left
		Mail
`⌘'`		Quote Level Increase
`⌥⌘'`		Quote Level Decrease
`⌘0`		Activity Viewer
`⌘1`		Go To In
`⌘2`		Go To Out
`⌘3`		Go To Drafts
`⌘4`		Go To Sent
`⌘5`		Go To Trash
`⌘6`		Go To Junk
`⇧⌘A`		Attach File
`⌥⌘A`		Address Panel
`⇧⌘B`		Bounce
`⌥⌘C`		Copy Style
`⇧⌘D`		Send Again
`⇧⌘E`		Redirect
`⇧⌘F`		Forward
`⇧⌘H`		Toggle Long Headers
`⇧⌘I`		Reply With iChat
`⌥⌘I`		Append Selected Messages
`⇧⌘J`		Mark As Junk Mail
`⌘K`		Erase Deleted Messages
`⇧⌘K`		Select All Messages in Thread
`⌘L`		Toggle Deleted Messages
`⇧⌘L`		Mark As Unflagged
`⌥⌘L`		Apply Rules
`⇧⌘M`		Toggle Mailboxes
`⇧⌘N`		Get All New Mail
`⌥⌘P`		Plain Text Alternative
`⌘R`		Reply
`⇧⌘R`		Reply All
`⇧⌘T`		Toggle Plain Text
`⌥⌘T`		Move Again
`⇧⌘U`		Mark As Unread
`⌥⌘U`		Show Raw Source
`⇧⌘V`		Paste as Quotation
`⌃⌘V`		Paste as HTML
`⌥⌘V`		Paste Style
`⌥⇧⌘V`		Paste and Match Style
`⌘Y`		Add Sender to Address Book
`⌘[`		Previous Alternative
`⌘]`		Next Alternative
`⌘{`		Align Left
`⌘\|`		Align Centre
`⌘}`		Align Right
`⌘⎋`		Complete
		Text
`⌃A`		move to beginning of paragraph
`⌃B`		move one character back
`⌃D`		delete character to right
`⌃E`		move to end of paragraph
`⌃F`		move one character forward
`⌃K`		delete text to end of paragraph
`⌃N`		move to next line
`⌃O`		insert newline
`⌃P`		move to previous line
`⌃T`		transpose characters
`⌥⌫`		delete word to left
`⌥⌦`		delete word to right
		Text Field
`⌥←`		move one word left
`⌥→`		move one word right
`⌘←`		move to beginning of line
`⌘→`		move to end of line
		Text View
`⌥↑`		move up one page
`⌥↓`		move down one page
`⌘←`		move to beginning of line
`⌘→`		move to end of line
`⌘↑`		move to beginning of view
`⌘↓`		move to end of view
		Terminal
`⌃A`		move to beginning of line
`⌃E`		move to end of line
`⌃T`		transpose characters
`⌃U`		erase line
`esc,B`		move one word back
`esc,C`		capitalise next word
`esc,D`		erase next word
`esc,F`		move one word forward
`esc,L`		make next word lowercase
`esc,U`		make next word uppercase
`esc,⌫`		erase previous word
		Menu
`⌘+`		Make Bigger
`⌘,`		Preferences
`⌘-`		Make Smaller
`⌘.`		Stop
`⌘:`		Spelling
`⌘;`		Check Spelling
`⌘?`		Application Help
`⌘A`		Select All
`⌘B`		Bold
`⌘B`		Toggle Toolbar
`⌘C`		Copy
`⇧⌘C`		Show Colors
`⌘D`		Add Bookmark
`⌘D`		Don't Save
`⌘D`		Find Previous
`⌘E`		Eject
`⌘E`		Use Selection for Find
`⇧⌘E`		Export
`⌘F`		Find
`⌘G`		Find Next
`⇧⌘G`		Go to Folder
`⌘H`		Hide Application
`⌥⌘H`		Hide Others
`⌘I`		Get Info
`⌘I`		Italic
`⇧⌘I`		Import
`⌘J`		Scroll to Selection
`⌘K`		Connect to Server
`⇧⌘K`		Disconnect from Server
`⌘L`		Link
`⇧⌘L`		Lower Case
`⌘M`		Minimize
`⌥⌘M`		Minimize All
`⌘N`		New (Window)
`⌘O`		Open
`⌘P`		Print
`⇧⌘P`		Page Setup
`⌘Q`		Quit Application
`⇧⌘Q`		Log Out
`⌥⇧⌘Q`		Log Out Without Confirmation
`⌃⌥⇧⌘Q`		Force Log Out Without Confirmation
`⌘R`		Refresh
`⌘S`		Save
`⇧⌘S`		Save As
`⌘T`		New Tab
`⌘T`		Show Fonts
`⌘U`		Underline
`⇧⌘U`		Upper Case
`⌥⌘U`		Capitals
`⌘V`		Paste
`⌘W`		Close Tab
`⌘W`		Close Window
`⇧⌘W`		Close Window
`⌥⌘W`		Close All Windows
`⌘X`		Cut
`⌘Z`		Undo
`⇧⌘Z`		Redo
		Numeric Pad
`fn0`		Button Hold
`fn1`		Mouse NW
`fn2`		Mouse NN
`fn3`		Mouse NE
`fn4`		Mouse WW
`fn5`		Button Click
`fn6`		Mouse EE
`fn7`		Mouse SW
`fn8`		Mouse WW
`fn9`		Mouse SE
`fn.`		Button Release
		Universal Access
`⌥⌘*`		Toggle Zoom
`⌥⌘+`		Zoom In
`⌥⌘-`		Zoom Out
`⌥⌘\`		Toggle Zoom Antialiasing
`⌃⌥⌘*`		Toggle Monochrome
`⌃F1`		Toggle Full Keyboard Access
`⌃F2`		Highlight Menu
`⌃F3`		Highlight Dock
`⌃F4`		Highlight Active Window
`⌃F5`		Highlight Toolbar
`⌃F6`		Highlight Utility Window
		VoiceOver
`⌘F5`		Toggle VoiceOver
`⌃F7`		Toggle '⌃⌥' Lock
`⌃⌥F7`		Show VoiceOver Menu
`⌃⌥F8`		Open VoiceOver Utility

Thanks to Rixstep.com

A guide for switching to a Mac

noreply@blogger.com (Alexey Kot) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 07:33:00 +0000

by Adam Pash

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.

When I bought my first Mac a few short months ago, it took a while to figure out how to do all the stuff I already knew how to do on my PC. While it's my job to spend time figuring that sort of thing out, there's no need for you to waste your precious time figuring out the minutia of a new operating system. To ease this transition for all of the new Mac owners out there, I've put together a quick guide for Mac newbies making the big switch.

What follows is a round-up of everything that stuck out to me when I made the move to my first Mac. I'm still a dual-OS fellow, but after I figured out the ins and outs of my Mac, it's by far the place I find easiest to get things done. If you're delving into Macs for the first time, the following should come in handy.

Mac OS X Keyboard symbols

You're a lifehacker and you know all the good keyboard shortcuts on your Windows PC. So the first thing you'll want to do is get familiar with keyboard shortcuts on your Mac. This seems easy enough - except for the fact that Macs use a strange and foreign set of hieroglyphics for their shortcut keys. Some of the most familiar shortcuts are:

The Apple/Command key is the main modifier on your Mac. Contrary to its Windows counterpart, the Windows key, the Command key does much of the work that the Control key does on a Windows PC. So don't go hitting the Apple key expecting a system menu to pop up out of nowhere, because it ain't gonna happen. Instead, plan on using this for your most common keyboard shortcuts.

Like I said above, the Control key on the Mac isn't used in the same way as the Control key on a Windows PC. I use it most often when I'm "right-clicking" on my Mac - often referred to as Ctrl-Click. The Ctrl key also comes in handy in a lot of other ways, like the Ctrl-Tab tab switching in Firefox.

I use the Alt/Option key most often to skip words in a document (and highlight words when used in conjunction with the Shift key) - much like the Ctrl-Arrow functions work on a PC. Like the Mac Control Shortcut, the Option key finds its way into your shortcut workflow here and there (for example, it's also very handy for accenting letters), but not as often as the Command key.

Though Command, Control, and Option are the three main modifiers/symbols you'll see on your Mac, you'll certainly stumble onto several other cryptic communiqués when you're trying to figure out a new shortcut, like the wacky Escape symbol and the big upcase Shift arrow. For a more comprehensive list of the Mac's keyboard symbols, check out this handy reference table.

Keyboard shortcuts

Luckily, when it comes to the actual keyboard shortcuts, a lot of the shortcuts on your Mac are the same as they are on your Windows PC; generally you can just swap Command for Control for a lot of the standards. For example, the Ctrl-C/X/V for Copy/Cut/Paste become Cmd-C/X/V. Simple, right?

Instead of boring you with a long list of keyboard shortcuts like those, I'm just going to highlight some of the less obvious shortcuts.

Force Quit: When a program freezes up on your Windows PC and you want to force it closed, you hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete. On your Mac, you'll hit Cmd-Alt-Escape. This brings up the Force Quit dialog - a similar tool to the task manager for the purpose of closing unresponsive apps.
Window switching: If you're any sort of keyboard junkie, you've used Alt-Tab on your Windows PC all the time to switch between open windows. Your Mac works in a similar manner, with a small variation. Command-Tab switching between running applications, while Cmd-`/Cmd-~ (the backtick/tilde key) will switch between open windows within one running applications (i.e., Cmd-Tab will switch to Firefox, but Cmd-` will switch between open Firefox windows).
Minimize/Hide: You can minimize a window to the dock from your keyboard by pressing Cmd-M. Alternatively, you can also Hide an application by pressing Cmd-H. The difference between a Minimize and a Hide is that hiding an application hides every window of that app, and it does not push anything to the Dock. Instead, all application windows disappear from your view until you switch back to the application. In my experience, the benefit of using Hide over Minimize is that you can Cmd-Tab back to a hidden application and it will be restored to your screen; if you Minimize a window and then Cmd-Tab to the app, the window will remain minimized to the Dock.
Opening the selected file: Chances are you've opened a file or program on your Windows desktop by selecting the file and then hitting the Enter key to launch it. If you're anything like me, you do this a lot. The problem is, when you try doing the same thing on your Mac, your Mac thinks you want to rename the file instead of open it (don't ask me why). If you want to open the file, you have to hit Cmd-O (for open).
Backspace vs. Delete: On Macs, the Backspace key as you know it is called Delete. And the Delete key deletes from right to left, just like the Backspace key. If you want to delete text from left to right (à la the Windows Delete key), you have to press Function-Delete (particularly if you're on a laptop).

Finally, if you want to delete a file or folder from the comfort of your keyboard, select the file and press Cmd-Delete. It'll go straight to the Trash.
Closing windows and apps: In the Windows environment, whenever you close the last open window from a program, that program quits. Things work differently in the Mac world.

Cmd-W will close the active window (incidentally, Ctrl-W will also close most - but not all - Windows apps), however - unlike the Windows world - once you've closed the last window of an application, the app continues to run. If you actually want to quit a Mac app, you hit Cmd-Q (for Quit). When you first start working on a Mac, you'll want to keep this in mind so you don't end up wasting your system memory on several apps you're not using.

For a deeper look at Mac keyboard shortcuts, check out our Mac OS X and keyboard shortcuts tags. Specifically, you might want to check out a few secret (and not so secret) Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.

Login Items

Any Windows user worth his/her salt knows about a handy tool called the System Configuration Utility, which, among other things, lets you control which applications you want to run on startup (generally these are system tray apps). Similarly, you can use the Login Items tab of the Accounts menu in the preference pane to define which apps/files/scripts will run every time you start up your computer.

Here's a little further reading on managing your Mac's startup.

Installing apps

This may seem like somewhat of a no brainer for Mac veterans, but when you switch to a Mac from a PC, you may find the installation process of new applications a bit confusing at first. That's because, in general, there's absolutely nothing to it. When you download an application (generally in the form of a compressed .dmg file, which will mount as a drive when you open it), you're pretty much done with the installation process. You can run an application (marked by the .app extension) from anywhere on your computer, and there's really no installation to it. Broadly speaking, the installation of a new Mac app generally consists of moving the new application to your Applications folder. Many apps make this very simple, like the mounted Firefox .dmg above.

Unless you have your own system for arranging apps on your Mac, copying new apps to the Applications folder is a good practice. What you don't want to do is forget to move the app from the .dmg folder to your hard disk.

Hard drive structure

Another slight source of confusion you might encounter when switching to a Mac is the structure of your hard disk, namely what difference there is between the Macintosh HD and the Home folder (named with your login ID). Simply put, your Home folder (marked in Finder by the tilde [~]) is sort of like the C:\Documents and Settings\User section of your Windows PC. All of the user-specific data is kept in the Home folder, like your documents, pictures, music, and Desktop shortcuts. It's not a particularly difficult thing to understand, but it can seem a bit confusing if you're not used to it.

The Dock

The last thing I'm going to touch on is the Dock - that cool little quicklaunch/taskbar rolled into one. You can launch, quit, minimize, and restore applications from the Dock. It's not strictly the same as the Windows taskbar, but in general it pulls a lot of the same duty. If you're a big keyboard shortcut user, chances are you won't use the Dock all that much, but it's a good idea to get a feel for what's going on there.

Thanks Lifehacker.com for this guide

The Apple Hottest

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Upgrade Your Hackintosh to OS X 10.5.1

First... Did It Work?

Upgrade Your Hackintosh

So What's the Snag?

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Customize Your Mac with Leopard Power Tweaks

The Desktop and Dock

Stacks

Quick Look

Time Machine

Scripts to automate the Mail.app Envelope speed trick

Top 30 mistakes made by new Mac users

The Complete Guide to Mac/Windows Interoperability

File Sharing

File and Application Compatibility

File Sync and System Files: Thumbs.db and .DS_Store

Printer and Fax Sharing

Running Windows on your Mactel

Remote Server Access

Instant Messenger, Email and Outlook/Entourage

iTunes, your iPod, and Other Incompatibilities

Making the Switch

Rebuild Your Mac with 20 Useful Downloads

Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts

Startup

Power

Application Management

Outline View

Safari

Mail

Text

Text Field

Text View

Terminal

Menu

Numeric Pad

Universal Access

VoiceOver

A guide for switching to a Mac

Mac OS X Keyboard symbols

Keyboard shortcuts

Login Items

Installing apps

Hard drive structure

The Dock