• Windows Media Player for Mac
• Flip4Mac
• VLC Media Player

Windows Media Player for Mac

Microsoft has developed a version of Windows Media Player for Mac. Although Microsoft no longer maintains the Mac version of WMP, they still provide a download location for Mac Users

Windows Media Player 9 for Mac

After you click on the link above, you will be redirected to Microsoft’s Mactopia page, where you can download products that Microsoft developed for Mac. To download Windows Media Player, scroll all the way to the bottom, then on the right you will see the details pane. Scroll all the way to the bottom and choose your language. Follow the installation instructions on the site to install Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X.

Flip4Mac

Yet another application developed by Microsoft, since Microsoft no longer supports Windows Media Player 9 for Mac, Telestream and Microsoft have developed Flip4Mac to replace WMP. Flip4Mac is basically a plugin for Quicktime that allows Quicktime to play WMV files. You can download Flip4Mac from Microsoft’s website.

Flip4Mac Download

Once you click on the download link, you will be redirected to the Flip4Mac download page. Click on Free Download and then click on Download. When the download is complete, double-click on the downloaded DMG file. Launch the Flip4Mac WMV.mpkg installer and follow the install prompts. The only downside to Flip4Mac is that it cannot play WMV video that uses Windows Media digital rights management.

VLC Media Player

Last but not least, there’s VLC Media Player. There’s a lot to say about VLC. There hasn’t been a file so far that I’ve thrown at VLC that it doesn’t play. VLC, quite simply put, is the Universal Media Player for many different operating systems. If there is a file that you are having trouble with, try it with VLC. You can download VLC using the link below.

VLC Media Player for Mac OS X

Once downloaded, simply double click on the DMG file and wait for the Finder window to Open, then drag VLC to the Applications folder. To play files with VLC you can right click the video file and open with VLC or you can open VLC and click open to open the video file.

Which works best for you ? Be sure to leave comments and let all the readers know what your preferred solution is. If you are using something else be sure to let us know.

Mac OS X has a similar feature. If you have iLife installed ( Installed by default on all new Macs ) then when you plug in your memory card reader, iPhoto will launch asking you to import your photos. Quick and simple.

How about if you don’t have iLife installed ? That means no iPhoto

No worries, you can still save your pictures off of your memory card, all you have to do is plug your card reader into an available USB port and make sure that your memory card is inserted into the card reader. A few seconds after the memory card reader is plugged in, you should see a drive appear on your desktop, usually with the name of your camera.

Double click on on this drive to open it and there should be some folders inside, keep clicking inside the folder going deeper into the folder structure, eventually you’ll get to the folder that has all of your pictures in it. While inside the folder with your pictures press ( Command + A ) then press ( Command + C ) then go to a folder on your Mac where you want to save your pictures and within that folder press ( Command + V )

Alternatively you can try using Image Capture, its a utility that comes pre-loaded on your Mac, you can find it in your Applications folder.

Mac OS X makes this task rather simple, plugin the new drive and open Disk Utility ( Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility ) After you’ve opened Disk Utility, you should see your new external drive listed in the left pane.

Disk Utility

Click on your new external drive and in the right pane, click on Erase and on the bottom right, click Erase once more, for Volume Format you’ll want to specify Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if you’ll be using this drive for your Mac ONLY. If you want to use this drive on a Windows PC you’ll need to select the FAT 32 Volume Format.

Well luckily for you there is this tutorial that will show you not only 1 but 3 different ways to take screen shots with a Mac.

• Shift + Command + 3 – This combination will capture the entire desktop and save it as a file on your desktop as picture(number).
• Shift + Command + 4 – This combination will turn your mouse pointer into a cross and allow you to click and drag a box around the area that you would like to capture. After you let go of the mouse button an image will be saved to the desktop as picture(number). If you are not happy with your selection or you would like your mouse pointer back, just press the Esc key on your keyboard .
• Shift + Command + 4 then press spacebar - This will allow you to select which window you would like to capture and again will save a file to your desktop as picture(number).

In my opinion, I think that Apple has once again proven their innovation by being simplistic.

Time machine is an invaluable tool for Mac users. It makes backing up and restoring your Mac simple and convenient. Up until a few updates ago, the only devices you could use as a backup device for time machine were external drives connected via USB or Firewire or an additional partition on an internal drive.

What if you have multiple Macs that you want to back up, well if you have Mac OS X Server 10.5, this can be easily accomplished, just make a new share point on the server and set time machine to backup to the share point you created. Simple right ?

What if you have OS X Server 10.4 ? By default Time Machine does not support share points created on OS X Server 10.4 as volumes to use for Time Machine, but hey, that’s what this post is all about, showing you how to do it on OS X Server 10.4

All you have to do is make a new share point on OS X Server with Workgroup Manager and then go to your Mac that has Leopard installed and open up Terminal. In Terminal type the following:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Wait a few minutes, then go into Time Machine preferences and the network drive that you mounted should show up.

Problems With Creating The Backup Disk Image

If time Machine says “The backup disk image could not be created” during the first backup attempt you can do the following to avoid this problem and some others (backup fail due to permissions):

In short, you have to create the backup disk image on your Desktop and copy it to your mounted Time Machine volume. But Time Machine creates a unique filename for the disk image and we can find out this name with a little trick:

Click the Apple Icon on the top left of your screen, then click on About This Mac. You’ll get a dialog box, click on More Info… Scroll down to Network, expand and click on Locations. On the right pane scroll down to Ethernet and find Hardware ( Mac ) Address as illustrated below:

Ethernet Mac Address

Write down the mac address, omitting the colons, we’ll need this address later when we name our sparsebundle image.

You’ll need to know your exact computer name as it appears on the network before proceeding to the next step. If you don’t know your computer name, follow below to obtain it.

Click on the Apple Icon on the top left corner of your screen and select System Preferences, then click on Sharing, copy what’s in the Computer Name: text field or just memorize it for later.

Now that we have all of the information we need, we can go ahead and create our disk image. Follow the steps below to create the image.

Open up Disk Utility ( Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility )

Click on New Image

For the Save As text box enter your computername_macaddress.sparsebundle

For Image Format select sparse bundle disk image

For Volume Size, select custom and enter in the size of your hard drive at a minimum

Here’s a sample of how it should look

New Sparsebundle Image

Set your location to your desktop and click on create. After the image has been created, copy it to your mounted volume and go to Time Machine preferences to ensure that your mounted volume is selected as the device to be used for backups. Start your backup and all should be working.

So lets get started.

1. Right Click anywhere on your desktop. In case you don’t know how to right click with your mac, just hold down the control button and click with your mouse. A dialog box like the one below should show up, click on New Burn Folder 
   

   Apple - Click - New Burn Folder

2. This will create a new folder on your desktop, but not just any folder, this what Mac users call a burn folder. You’ll have to give this folder a name, the default is Burn Folder, I named mine My Stuff as illustrated below.       
   

   New Burn Folder

3. Double click on the new folder that was just created and it will open a dialog window similar to a regular folder dialog window. All we have to do now is drag whatever we want to burn into this window. I’ve dragged the osXposed logo into the dialog as illustrated below. One important thing to note here is that it actually doesn’t copy whatever you drag to that location, it simply creates a reference to the path of the file or folder that was dragged into the dialog box.       
   

   New Burn Folder Dialog

4. After you’re done dragging all the files and folders that you’d like to burn into the Burn Folder, the only thing left to do is click the Burn button on the top right corner of the Burn Folder dialog.   
   

   New Burn Folder - Burn

Well that’s it for this how-to, hopefully it was helpful and fun to read. If anyone would like to make a request for a specific how-to or tutorial or just needs some basic advice, then feel free to leave a comment.

Anyone who’s ever used a PC is probably familiar with the Startup folder where you place shortcuts to applications so that they will automatically start up when the computer starts.

Well guess what, you can achieve this on a mac as well, its a very simple process, read more below to find out how this can be done.

Click on the Apple icon on the top left hand corner of your screen and then click on System Preferences.

Apple - System Preferences Menu

You’ll get a dialog that looks like the following, from there, click on Accounts.

Apple - System Preferences Dialog

After you click on Accounts, you’ll be presented with a dialog similar to the following, from here, you’ll want to select your user account and then click on Login Items

Apple - Accounts

After you click on login items, you should have something similar to the below screenshot. All you need to do here is drag an application, folder, or network share to this screen and it will be added to your startup items.

Apple - Login Items

So the nice thing about this is, it doesn’t just work for applications, but it also works for folders, and network shares, and I’m pretty sure for anything that you can drag into that window.

So you’ve just purchased your Mac or you may have had it for a while now, in either case, what better way to transition from Windows to Mac then to have something familiar on your Mac.

When I say Install Windows on your Mac I’m not talking about replacing OS X. I’m talking about running an installation of Windows within Mac OS X. How is this possible ? Well, let me tell you a story about a wonderful software developer, VMWare.

VMWare has developed this great application called, VMWare Fusion. How does it work ? Think of VMWare Fusion as an emulator, it basically emulates a PC and therefore will allow you to install an operating system, for example, Windows XP. We call this virtualization of an Operating System.

Where can you get VMWare Fusion ? You can purchase it directly from http://www.vmware.com

They also offer a 30-day trial of their software, you can follow the 2 links below:

• VMWare Fusion Purchase: Buy VMWare Fusion
• VMWare Fusion Trial: Try VMWare Fusion

The install is pretty straight forward, however that won’t stop me from making a nice video tutorial of how to install Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 on Mac OS X with VMWare Fusion. Keep checking back often for tutorials, tips & tricks, and new applications.