Apple Mac OS X Tips and Tricks Blog
In any Apple application you can Highlight a Word and Press Cmd+Ctrl+D to lookup the word in Dictionary, an application that comes packaged with every Mac. This feature will sadly not work with Firefox, but it works fine in Safari and Preview. Adium worked too.
Ever wonder how you could turn your G5 into an oversized alarm clock? Anders Lundberg sure figured it out and illustrates on his website how to make one. You can purchase kits or fully assembled clocks to stuff right in your G5. They are completely autonomous, so no voided warranties.
SlimBatteryMonitor is a customizable battery monitor for the Menu Bar. It replaces the existing one with a monitor that even tells you how much time is needed to charge the battery. The icon takes up less space, runs in the background and will be visible only when you want it to be.
For good battery performance of your iBook, Powerbook or MacBook, make sure you try to consistantly charge and discharge the battery the entire way. Do not leave your laptop plugged in for extended periods of time. Follow the instructions in your User Manual for how to reset your battery’s charge.
Download SlimBatteryMonitor from OrangeCarb’s wesbite for free.
VLC is an amazing cross-platform Video Player that supports many different formats without the need to download additional video codecs. If you are not using this application to watch videos and DVDs, you should be. VLC is perfect if you do not want to upgrade to Quicktime Pro.
Download VLC from the VideoLAN wesbite.
Let’s find out how to create some Shortcuts to your favorite folders.
Open Finder and Navigate to a folder you frequently open. For me, that is my Art folder inside the Documents folder. Click, Hold and Drag that folder to the left bar of the Finder and Release (If the bar is not visible, Click and Drag the small dot on the left to the right to open the Shortcuts bar OR Select View:Show Toolbar).
Click the Folder’s Icon inside of the Shortcut bar and you will go directly to that folder in the Finder. Don’t need to quickly navigate to that folder any longer? Just Drag the Folder anywhere outside of the Shortcuts Bar and it will go poof and disappear.
Do you have a folder with a bunch of subfolders? Instead of dragging to Folder to the Finder’s sidebar, Drag the Folder to the right side of the Dock.
Ctrl+Click the Folder’s icon in the Dock. Now you can easily navigate the folder’s subfolders to find the file you need.
More Drag and Drop Quick Tips will be coming soon!
Here is a pretty simple solution to getting Full Screen in Quicktime Player without going Pro. Usually I would suggest downloading VLC (Virtual Lan Client), a much more versatile Video Player. But, this is a cool little hack that even a novice user could complete.
Basically, all the functions of Quicktime Pro are already installed on your system. When you go Pro, all of these functions are unlocked. Applescript is a language much like English that tells applications in OS X to do things. So, we are going to use Applescript to tell Quicktime Player to display in Full Screen.
Open Script Editor in User:Applications:Applescript:Script Editor
Type in the following:
tell application “QuickTime Player”
present front movie scale screen
end tell
Open a movie file. In Script Editor, Click Run.
Tada!
Now, we must save our little Applescript so we can use it in our everday actions.
Select File: Save As. Name Your Script something like Full Screen
Save As to User:Library:Scripts.
Open Applescript Utility found in User:Applications:Applescript:Applescript Utility
Check Show Script Menu in Menu Bar. A little black script icon now shows up in the top right of the screen. Click the Script Icon and you will see your Full Screen script, probably at the bottom. Go here whenever you want to view a movie in fullscreen. You’ll notice a bunch of other scripts. If you want to tidy up the Script Menu, go back into the Applescript Utility and uncheck Show Library Scripts.
The following settings are especially important when matching screen colors to prints or screen to screen. When you complete this tutorial, the colors of your photos when printed should be close to how they appear on your screen.
Click Apple and Select System Preferences.
Select Displays from the System Preferences Pane
Click the Color Tab
If running two monitors, Check Show profiles for this display only (The Preferences Pane must be on the monitor you wish to calibrate).
Click Calibrate
Check Expert and Click Continue
Follow the on screen instructions until you get to the following screen:
Select a Target Gamma (look beneath the following image for instructions).
If you primarily work with Apple computers, move the slider to 1.8 (Mac Standard).
If you primarily work with PCs or video, move the slider to 2.2 (PC standard).
The Gamma is basically a keystone for how all colors on your monitor will appear. If you select the 1.8, everyone using a Mac will see the same colors you do (Presuming you did a good job at calibrating all the apples in the previous steps and thier monitor is Calibrated for 1.8). If you select 2.2, everyone with a nicely calibrated PC monitor will see nice sharp colors the way you intended as you see them on your computer.
Click Continue
Check Use Native White Point
Click Continue
Authorize or Deauthorize other Users to use the Profile
Click Continue
Name the Profile something different than the original
Click Continue
Click Done
In the Diaplay System Preferences Pane, check the difference between the new profile and the old one. You should see a pretty big difference if you have never calibrated your monitor before.
Do you get annoyed by that pesky window that appears every time you want to shut down or restart?
Do not actually do this next step unless you want to shut down your computer.
Just Click Apple and Option+Click Shut Down in the drop down menu.
This also works for Restart and Log Out in the Apple menu.
If you haven’t started using Automator yet, this is a good place to begin. I will first need to download a plugin for Automator called BackUp Folder to make this work.
Download Backup Folder from the Automator Actions website.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/backupfolder.html
Unzip Backup Folder.zip
Drag Backup Folder.action to the MacintoshHD:Library:Automator folder.
Open Automator.app in your Applications Folder.
You’ll notice Automator is split into three sections. The Library / Actions Palette is positioned on the left. Your workflow is on the right. A small text box rests on the bottom left that explains what each action does. A run button is on the top right and search bar is on the top left. You can search for actions here, instead of browsing through the Library.
Many different applications can be used with Automator. These applications are called “scriptable”. For our purposes of backing up data, we are concerned with the Finder. So, in the Library listing, Select Finder. You’ll notice the Actions now have changed to Finder specific actions. Each action has a rating bar to the right of it. These rating bars indicate the level of relevance a particular action has in the next position of your workflow. Because we haven’t placed anything into our workflow yet, Automator thinks a lot of these actions are a good place to start. Drag the action called Get Specified Finder Items to the workflow.
Soon we will add the Backup Folder action. But first, we need to understand what the Backup Folder action needs to work. Backup Folder needs two folders input into it. The first folder we specify will be the folder you wish to backup. I wanted to backup my Pictures Folder to my External Hard Drive. Click the Plus Sign in the Get Specified Finder Items Action and Select a Folder you want to backup.
Your window should now look like the one above.
Open the Finder
Make a New Folder in the place you want to backup the first folder. Name the new folder something relevant. I recommend backing up data to another hard drive. In my example, I backup the Pictures Folder to my External Hard Drive called Candy.
Return to Automator.
Click the Plus Sign in the Get Specified Finder Items Action and Select the Folder you just created (the folder you wish to backup to).
Search for Backup in the search bar.
Click and drag Backup Folder to your workflow, under the Get Specified Finder Items action.
Do you see how Automator chained these two actions together? Now you have a workflow! These two actions are all we need to backup a folder.
Now you are ready to save your workflow. If you select File -> Save you will merely just save your project file in Automator. We want to integrate this workflow in how we do things in OS X. Select Save as Plug-in in the menu bar.
I named my plug-in “Backup My Mac” but you can name it whatever you like. Select iCal Alarm from the drop down menu. Click Save.
iCal Automatically opens. The greatest part about backing up data is you can set it up and forget about it. Drag the iCal entry to a downtime where you will not be using the computer. On the right, Select Repeat and set it to the interval you wish to conduct your backups.
Return to Automator.
Click Save in the File Menu. Name your Backup Project and save it.
There you go! You just created your first backup using Automator!
Want to backup more than one folder at a time? That’s a piece of cake! Just go back into your Project File in Automator and chain together another set of Get Specified Finder Items and Backup Folder underneath the first set and so on.
Notice how Action #3, the Get Specified Finder Items Action is not linked to the first set of actions? Make sure you Click the Files/Folders on the top of each Get Specified Finder Action and Select Ignore Results From Previous Action. If you don’t, an error will pop up when you run the workflow.
Stumbled upon this awesome website that makes customized decals for MacBooks, Mac Minis, iPods, iBooks and Powerbooks too. Where’s the G5 decals? Many different styles to choose from. The materials they use will project your laptop from scratches and normal wear. Some of the designs look pretty rad.
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