One issue that baffled me when I first bought my MacBook Pro was the delete key. The delete key on the Mac laptops deletes backward as opposed to windows machines where it deletes forward. There is no forward delete button on Apple laptops. It took me a few weeks to figure out that if I hold the Function key and press delete, then it deletes forward. Apparently I was not the only person confused by this. Apple posted a small video on this issue right here.
Continue readingA lot of you have seen my screencast on how to make an encrypted sparse disk image. As I explained in the screencast, sparse disk images grow when add files into them but don’t shrink when you pull files out. As my sparse disk images used to bloat I would occaisionnally make a new one and copy the files into it and discard the old image. Recently however I discovered an automator workflow that compacts an existing sparse image without requiring you to take all those insane steps I used to. So lets walk through it now.
Now some of you may be Automator veterans but for me it is just that funny looking icon I always pass over.
Click on the “Finder” category in the Library column then click and drag “Get Selected Finder Items” from the Actions Column into the work area of Automator.
Click on the “Automator” category in the Library column then click and drag “Run Shell Script” from the Actions Column into the work area of Automator.
Change the “pass input” drop down from “to sdnin” to “as arguments”
Type in the following in the window….
hdiutil compact “$@”
Go to Automator’s File menu and “Save as Plug-in”. Give it a name like “Compact Sparse Image”. Also make sure “Plug-in for:” category says “Finder”.
Using the Workflow
1. Find your sparse image in the finder.
2. Make sure it is unmounted
3. Cntrl(Right)-Click, Mouse down to Automator and run your script.
Now all of the above probably sounds like a lot of work but it really is not. Once you have it set up you can regularly compact your sparse images. Let me know if it works for you.
Technorati Tags:
tutorial, MacSparky, sparse image
A good friend, Gabe Wilson, showed me a very cool trick native to OS X regarding saved files. If you look at the top left corner in the close, minimize, maximize bubbles you may sometimes see a small dot in the middle of the red circle. This dot is telling you something. It means the current document is not saved. So if you press the red button and that dot is in it, very bad things will happen. Cats will live with dogs, the universe may implode, and worse yet, you’ve lost your document.
Now if instead of your dot, you see an “X”, you are good to go. Document saved. You are free to close and move on.
There has been a brief hiatus in screencasts as a result of me having so much fun with the new iWork suite, vacation, and a lot of personal and professional commitments. Nevertheless, here is #6 in which I walk you through installation and set up of an excellent menubar clock/calendar replacement, MagiCal. Special thanks to Darren Rolfe at Macwingnut.com for helping me get the logo into a Final Cut friendly format. Enjoy!
You can Download it Directly Right Here
or better yet subscribe in the iTunes store
I’ve added a new link to the reading list at right. DailyWritingTips is a site I found recently and it is very well done. If you spend much time behind a keyboard, it is really worth your time to check in every once in awhile. I’ve got it on my RSS feed list. I both enjoy and use the helpful tips.
Having just taken a small vacation and coming up two months of iPhone ownership, I thought I’d take a look at the web apps I routinely use on my iPhone. There are a lot of very nice iPhone web apps out there programmed by very bright and imaginative people. I’ve probably got about 50 of them linked on my “iPhone Applications” favorites bar but I’ve been making a conscious effort to track those applications that I actually use and thought I’d report on them here.
Not long after I switched, I went ahead and purchased a license for NetNewsWire which is an excellent news reading program loaded with features and constantly being refined by an active, committed Mac developer. It came with a free subscription to the NewsGator service which is an online reader component. It syncs with NetNewsWire and their iPhone app is really clean and easy to use. I toyed a bit with Google Reader which is free (that is always a good thing) but found the NewsGator/NetNewsWire combo easier for me to use.
Anyway I can check my subscriptions anytime on the iPhone and read through, trash, or clip for later viewing on my Mac very easily from anywhere (including the Edge network). This is my most frequently clicked iPhone web application.
I’ve previously blogged about how I use this simple online to-do application from 37Signals with its accompanying browser application for grown up computers to drive shopping lists and other to-do items between my iPhone and OmniFocus. It is free and Edge friendly. My good friend, Darren over at MacWingnut.com prefers todoist.com which is, frankly, much sexier in a geeky sort of way with gmail integration, quicksilver support and other things that sound fun but I like the simplicity of Tada. This is partly because I view it only as a stepping stone to getting tasks in my actual task vault, OmniFocus, wherein Darren (I believe) uses Todoist for the whole nine yards.
I am also trying 37Signals’ accompanying product BackPackit for a month to see if it is worth the trouble. This is sort a Kluge to get around the fact that Apple does not sync the Notes on my iPhone or give me a way to secure them. Ugh. I’ll report more on BackPackit at later date when I’ve had more time to work with it.
A necessity for living in Southern California. This is a great supplement to the little red lines I keep seeing in Google Maps.
This is a collection of all the various iPhone web applications that appears to be updated more than most and gives you a simple place to look for what is new.
There are others. Many, many others. But as pretty and neat as they look, I really don’t load them very often.
I am hoping Apple opens the iPhone up. If I could get an iPhone version of OmniOutliner, OmniFocus, and Yojimbo, I would be one very happy camper.
Take a look at this link …
40 Great Free mac Software Aplications
Tim over at Surfbits.com featured this in his MacReview Podcast #116 but I thought it was worthy of an entry here. This site has picked its top 40 favorite free Mac Applications. While I agree with most of the picks, leaving Quicksilver out is just plain crazy.
I have been collecting an eclectic mix of web based applications on my shiny new iPhone and I thought I’d share a few here:
I realize the terms “cheap” and “gas” have become mutually exclusive. Regardless, GasApp is great. Works fine on an edge network and finds you the least expensive gas in town. The google map integration is a nice touch.
This was my first iPhone app and still one of my favorites. An excellent shopping list web app. It looks very nice but still manageable on the Edge in the vegetable section of my supermarket
I never really “got it” with Digg but sitting on the couch thumbing through it on my iPhone is a whole new story.
This is a great newspaper mashup organized like a newsstand. Not all that Edge friendly but still very nice over tea.
The weather widget is perfectly fine for most of my needs. But if I really want to geek out on weather, I go here.
This looks to be the most interesting of the bunch. I can’t really recommend it since I haven’t had a chance to try it yet but it is supposed to be able to allow you to remotely access and control your Mac from your iPhone. This should allow you to do things like remotely control iTunes, run applescripts, or access your iSight camera. I’m a little concerned about the security of it all but I’m going to be looking into it soon.
There are so many new ones being posted every day I am sure this list will get revised over time. As an aside, I organize these by a seperate tab “iPhone” applications. Please drop me an email or comment as to your favorite iPhone applications.
About three weeks ago I gave up on my windows based task system and switched over entirely to iGTD. I keep my laptop with me just about everywhere and this seems to work out. One issue, however, is the inability to keep my task list on my Treo 650. I must sync the smart phone with my office windows lawyer-type program (TimeMatters) and I’ve found out (the hard way) that syncing a Treo to two different computers can be a very bad thing for data integrity.
Anyway, quite often during the course of my day someone will call, email or walk in my office and tell me of something that will require further action or processing by me at a later time. Stopping what I’m doing and making an iGTD entry is very counterproductive and I needed a better solution. I played around with a few options. I’ve tried typing tasks into my Treo’s task list item but it takes several button presses and the thumbpad doesn’t lend itself to spontaneous entry. The best solution I found is to simply scratch a note when I’m away from the Mac and update iGTD next time I’m working in it. So I’ve been finding myself with this daily pocket full of business cards, sticky pads, napkins, receipts and other flotsam and jetsam that I’ve written a reminder on. (Did anyone know that you can actually write on a corn chip with a felt tip pen?) When I have time I then empty out my pockets and either take care of the action right their or process it into iGTD.
I was in the book store doing a bit of shopping I saw a display of pretty Moleskine notebooks and had one of those “Aha!” moments. $9.95 later I’m the proud owner of a pocket size Moleskine that has now replaced the scraps of paper and chips in my pocket. So far I’m just making a daily list and scratching things off when they find themselves into iGTD. I did, however, leave the first 10 pages blank in case I decide to go crazy and use one of the many interesting Molekine hacks all over the net like here, here, and here. I’ve only been using it a few days but so far it is working out nicely. In the pocket I’m keeping a $20 bill, a few cards, and a shrunken printout of the iGTD database. I do need to get a pen that will fit in my pocket though. Maybe I’ll find one that attaches to my keyring.
Any other Moleskine users out there? Drop me a note and tell me how you are using yours. As a side note, I also bought the pocket music transcription book. I’m writing a bit of music again and thought it would be handy.
Lifehacker had a really good article about OS X Tweaks. Maybe its too basic for power users but I learned a few things. Check it out here.
Continue reading
