Thanks to a script I found on macosxhints I found exactly what I needed, but again I wanted to make it nice and easy, so to add to my Finder Refresh app, I’ve put together Finder Dupe.

So here it is for people that want it:

Download:

* If your web browser auto-unzip’s (ie Safari) then “Finder Dupe” will be in your download directory so you can skip Step 1.

From then on just click the button to open a new instance of the currently open Finder window.

Uninstallation: To Remove from the Finder Window, Hold down the Command/Apple key, left click on the icon and drag off the Finder Window – you’ll see your mouse cursor turn into a cloud, at this point let go of your mouse button. Done!

Regards,
Shane.

As for Windows 7? Working brilliantly and far better than the Windows XP the Mini ships with. Just need to install the latest Vista 32bit Synaptics touchpad driver from here.

One more thing – Microsoft have removed Mail, Contacts & Calendars from Windows 7, but you can get them again via http://download.live.com/wlmail

Regards,
Shane.

I also have an Xbox 360, an Onkyo Receiver and a Samsung Plasma television, and long ago gained the benefit of utilising a Logitech Harmony remote control so I only have one remote to deal with.

But Sony… oh Sony! In their infinite wisdom (and goal to make the PS3 affordable) removed a $2 component from the PS3 called an Infra Red receiver (IR for short) that EVERY other home theatre style device (DVD, CD, Amplifier, TV, Radio, VCR etc) has.

This means I’m back to having to use another remote. Just as my kids and wife got used to hitting a button to choose what they wanted to do, Sony steals the peace and quiet away and makes things hard again.

Then I found IR2BT

This is a group of people that have developed a clever little box that receives IR commands, and converts them into a Bluetooth signal that the PS3 understands. It’s not out yet, but it looks really promising, being the only way to take all 51 buttons from the PS3 remote and let you program them into your programmable remote control.

Here’s a link to a video of it in action.

I personally can’t wait to get my hands on one. Peace and quiet may return to my house for the bargain price of $58. I’ll post back when I get one to play with.

Update: The product is now available to order and mine is on it’s way!

Update 2: My IR2BT has arrived (Production Run 1, Unit 24), and after a quick update of my Logitech Harmony Remote 525 (the IR2BT is in the database already under Gaming Console with DVD), I have paired my IR2BT with my PS3 (PS3-Add Accessory/Add Remote, plug in IR2BT power, hold “2″ button on remote down).

I had to modify my Activity buttons in my Logitech Harmony config as some didn’t map although this is probably my fault. I also suggest some config changes: OK = X, Prev = Circle, Exit = PowerToggle, Info = Triangle, Guide = TopMenu.

This device has now made my PS3 part of my Home Theatre family, and the team behind it has done an excellent job.

Thanks,
Shane.

I have an iPhone and an iPod Touch, and was looking for a way to automatically get the latest movie trailers downloading onto it. I noticed on some of the movie trailer pages at Apple’s Movie Trailer site they had an iPod link, which opened automatically for me in iTunes as a Podcast.

So I thought there had to be a better way – how can I get a Podcast of all of the latest trailers? Obviously a gentleman named Mason Turner thought the same as me and used Yahoo Pipes to make it happen.

What do you need to do?

1. Make sure you have an iPod that supports Video.
2. Open iTunes
3. Click on “Advanced”, then “Subscribe to Podcast…”
4. Copy this link into the box:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/home/podcasts/latest.xml
5. Click on OK.

Pretty much instantly you’ll get a list of all of the latest movie trailers formatted for your iPod. Click on the ones you want to download (click on the “Get” button) and when finished, plug your iPod in and they’ll show up in your video section.

The beauty of this is iTunes will automatically download the latest trailers for you as they are released, and will automatically sync to your iPod so they are there when you next look.

Great stuff.

Regards,
Shane.

Note: Original link to Mason’s Yahoo Pipes page is here.

With this came the Optus Roamer USB modem, which is actually a Huawei E220 modem in a “nice” Optus white and yellow case.

The problem was I wanted to run this on both my PC and my Mac, and Optus don’t support Mac OSX. The good thing is, Huawei do, and drivers are available (but hard to find).

Here’s what you do (new instructions – old ones below):
1. Unplug the modem (if you have it plugged in).
2. Download the Mobile Connect for Mac OSX below.
3. Run “Mobile_Connect_Drv_App.pkg” and follow the instructions.
4. Now plug in your modem.
5. Open System Preferences, then Network.
6. If running Leopard (10.5.x), click on the “+” and from the Interface drop-down choose “HUAWEI Mobile”, otherwise under Tiger (10.4.x) set “Show” to “Network Port Configurations” and choose “New”, then name it and select “HUAWEI Mobile” from the port drop-down.
7. Name it whatever you want (I called my Optus Wireless), and click “Create” (or OK under Tiger).
8. Select your newly created connection and place *99# in the Telephone Number.
9. Click on “Advanced”.
10. Under modem, choose Vendor “Other”, and then choose the HUAWEI 3G Modem (could be named differently – but will say Huawei) as the Model.
11. Click OK, then click on Connect to test your connection.

Optional Step: If you want to try a program made to give you more info and monitor your E220 on Mac OSX, try CheetahWatch, although I haven’t had much luck getting it to work which with some quick help from the developer I got working (looks like it was a corrupted download). 

Alternate Instructions – Use only if the above doesn’t work:
1. Unplug the modem (if you have it plugged in).
2. Download the Mac drivers below.
3. Run “HuaweiDataCardDriver(2.6)-intel.pkg” and follow the instructions.
4. Once done, run “Huawei_DataCard_Drv_App_Intel.pkg”, again following instructions.
5. Follow the above instructions from step 4.

For “3″ Users, Evan has a great guide (with nice easy to follow graphics) here.

Regards,
Shane.

Check here for more info from Nokia, or here for the list of hotspots.

I haven’t tried it yet (will do so and report back), but supposedly you just run the WLAN Wizard app on your phone, connect to the Azure AP and you’re away!

If anyone reading tries this and it works, please post a comment.

Regards,
Shane.

IMAP is a much better way of handling mail when you need to access it from multiple clients (like phone, computer, web etc) and keeping it synchronised.

I thought there had to be an easier way, so after some deductive reasoning I decided it may not be server based but language based. So I looked in my settings and found my language was set to English (UK) – note “Forwarding and POP” which should say “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” if I had IMAP support.

So I changed my language settings from English (UK) to English (US), hit the save button and that fixed it for me – IMAP was now available. I am gathering if you have it set to anything but English (US) it may not show.

I hope this helps others to get it working.

Update: Seems this only works if IMAP is enabled on your account, but you can’t see it due to the language setting not being on English (US). It’s worth giving it a try though because the language setting seems to hide it, but just a heads-up it may not work for everyone.

Regards,
Shane.

Work has just ported all of us employees over to Telstra, and supplied a NextG SIM card so I picked myself up a Nokia 6120 Classic to assist in some signal strength issues in my home office, and it’s worked brilliantly.

The only thing I didn’t count on is Nokia not having an iSync plugin for the phone (they seem to have one for every other device).

So I’ve put one together with some info from the web (and looking inside the available Nokia plugins) and now have it working successfully over Bluetooth. It has full iCal & Address Book (with photos) support, and a nice pic of the phone for the iSync panel.

To Install:
1. Download (via the link below) & unzip the file.
2. Open Finder, and browse to Macintosh HD/Library/PhonePlugins.
3. Copy the “Nokia-6120.phoneplugin” into this folder.

If the PhonePlugins folder doesn’t exist, create it and then do step 3.

Once done, use the Bluetooth “Bluetooth Setup Assistant” and add your phone, it should be detected and work as expected from then on.

Have fun!

Thanks,
Shane.

Download:

Nokia 6120 Classic iSync Plugin (6727) - 23.69 KB
Version 1.1