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Saturday, February 24, 2007

Capture Window Keystroke

Firas, over at the maccast forums discovered a terribly useful keystroke to capture a specific window.

Hit Cmd+Shift+4 ( for a selective screen capture ), then hit the spacebar.

The cursor will switch to a picture of a very outdated camera and the window its over will be highlighted. Click on any window and its capture will be saved as a png file to the desktop.

Nifty huh!
Thanks to Firas over at:
http://forum.maccast.com/index.php?showtopic=2050&st=40

Also, the MacCast does a wonderful thread: 'The Ultimate Mac Keyboard Shortcut List". Its worth checking out and I'll be mining it for ideas from time to time (i'll always state i have).
Check this thread out at:
http://forum.maccast.com/index.php?showtopic=2050

Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Saturday, February 24, 2007 10:24 AM

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

All Mac Browser Showdown

These days, the folks at Apple say that Safari is the best out there. The folks at Mozilla however, are pretty sure Firefox is simply the best. Of course on the mac we have the option of two mozilla browsers, both free and open source.

Camino was developed a while back to better match the slick and polished GUI of Mac OS X, but overall both have the same basic functionality even if Camino is updated much less frequently and lacks a more polished plugin and add-on feature.


And of course Firefox, which enjoys a more regular update cycle and better polished extras.

So its fairly safe to say that the choice can be reduced to just Safari and Firefox, and if you swing the Firefox way, whether or not you use Camino is down to personal preference.


Safari VS Firefox.

Lets start with Safari. Bundled right with OS X, but thankfully not integrated entirely into the OS (such as Internet Explorer being not much more than an add on to Windows Explorer, and integral part of the functioning OS).
Safari looks like its been designed from the ground up to visually please and match its slick OS X environment. The browser defaults to apple.com/startpage and load-time is only one or two seconds at the very most (normally less than a second).



Safari supports tabs, RSS, and has a handy little option to do ‘Private Browsing’. When activated this ensures Safari doesn’t record or remember any temporary data concerning your session, very useful if you’re at a friend’s house and want to access sensitive data such as your gmail accounts on their mac.


And now, to introduce Firefox. Firefox was one of the first really, really good free browsers. For a windows buff I wouldn’t recommend anything else, but unfortunately thats where it falls a little short on the mac. Its clearly a windows port, and is almost uncomfortable running in OS X.
Firefox supports tabs, RSS and has an unlimited number of extra handy options available via plug in downloads.



The Comparison.

RSS
Both browsers do a nifty RSS, although I have to say Safari’s RSS reader is much more visually impacting, and has a few more advanced features like searching feeds and limiting their size.

Safari:


Firefox:


Form Memory, remembered passwords and commonly searched terms.

This is an area where Safari miserably falls short of the competition. Firefox has a handy little memory feature that kicks in whenever you’ve logged in to a website. It’ll generally ask you if you want your user details saved, so that next time you go to the site you won’t even have to type them in again. Just because sometimes that might be a security issue, doesn’t mean a user shouldn’t have the option to implement it or not!

Firefox automatically logs me in to most sites:


Where as Safari really, just has no clue:

*Update: Safari does actually have functionality built in to remember usernames and passwords, its Preferences> Autofill. But as default, this turned off.

Spellchecker:

Safari doesn’t even have one, and Firefox clearly (and most usefully) does. Really big slip up there, having a spell checker in your browser is just bliss, Camino also has one built in.

Firefox spellchecker:

Camino spellchecker:


Cross-browser compatibility:
On installation, Firefox can automatically import your Safari preferences, bookmarks, passwords etc. Useful.
Also, dragging a link from safari to firefox is easy, allowing users to freely swap in and out of browser windows:
Web Compatibility
One interesting thing ( and annoying ) is that Safari doesn’t support most online WYSIWYG editors. For instance, to post on blogger I really have to use Firefox.

The winner:
I rarely ever do this but I’m afraid to say that I can declare no clear winner. Yes, I am guilty of writing a lengthy review to determine the better browser and have arrived to an inconclusive dead end.
During everyday browsing, you’ll find my dock looking a little like this:
Its easy enough to switch in and out of browsers, and having both apps running is often very useful. Sometimes I have safari on Private Browsing farming information off the net I don’t want records kept of, while I browse freely with Firefox.

Happing Mac’ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Wednesday, February 21, 2007 7:06 PM

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

MainMenu (Nifty App!)

Every now and then one comes across a very nifty app and feels a desire to spread the love. Well, I stumbled across MainMenu ( http://www.santasw.com/ ) a while ago but being an emotional chunk of granite and well, you know, qu'est-que c'est? L'amour? C'est quoi?

Information you need to know first: MainMenu is made by the folks at santasw.com, its free, beautiful, and completely essential (for me anyway).

MainMenu will perform things like health checks, restart the dock, restart finder, clean caches, clean log files, repair permissions, and much (oh so much) more.

After installing, a little icon will appear up by the nether-nether land of the airport and bluetooth menu, and of course, spotlight. MainMenu allows you to choose what icon you want to appear (and since i've changed mine i have no idea what the default one actually was) It should all look something like this:

The icon to the left of the bluetooth icon is my MainMenu icon.

Clicking the icon reveals the great looking gui.


From here everything is at your finger tips. Dock acting up? - Restart it:
Same goes for toggling showing of invisible files in finder.


Check out the options under 'Other Tasks':


Advanced users might create maintenance scripts to run say, a log clean out every Friday afternoon. MainMenu can hide or show its log window ( it remembers your settings ) which looks something like this during a permissions check:

There is no aspect of this app that disappoints me, aside from its decided inability to make me a turkey sandwich. ( Please add this at some point Devs. )
Though roughly recommend using this app, check it out at
http://www.santasw.com/

Happy Mac'ing.

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6 Comments. | By Skippy, Tuesday, February 20, 2007 7:44 PM

Monday, February 19, 2007

Google & Apple Love

Okay whilst I mend my splitting sides, let me tell you about this little spot of Google & Apple love.
I was thinking of making a slick black iPod ad ( just for fun ), to 'Back in Black' by ACDC and showing it to a few friends, so with the silhouette style apple ads in mind I googled for:
'making movie like iPod ad'.

Google suggests:
Did you mean: making love like iPod ad

Ohoh folks! That about says enough!

Happy Mac'ing.

(more screenshots below)

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Monday, February 19, 2007 8:51 PM

More Keyboard Shortcuts

What ho, I stumbled across some new keyboard shortcuts for tiger.

Hitting F10 for expose all applications is great, you know, glossy and really slick. But if you're working late, pulling those early morning hours, all that expose flying around really, (and i mean really) can give you anything from epileptic seizures to aneurysms.

So for something that switches application windows on the fly without risking seizures, hit Cmd+`
Thats right, if you look at the picture below, the ` key I am referring to is highlighted along with the cmd key.


This will automatically do a no-nonsense switch to the next app window. Nifty!

At maccast.com they do a great thread for keyboard shortcuts, be sure to check it out! ( I might borrow some of my ideas from there from time to time, but i'll always state that i have ). Be sure to check it out!

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10 Comments. | By Skippy, 8:21 PM

The Queen ( ? ) Visits New UK Apple Store

Thats right folks, new Apple store opens in Britain, excellent news for all us mac-store-deprived Britishers. (Now we can be Mac-store-depraved ).

I heard about this from www.maccast.com, so I refer my readers to their article, as I really don't feel the need to re-write it. ( Its superb ).
Read up on the Apple store opening and view some excellent pictures taken before the store opened (inside) and after. Notice the shiny Fujitsu pda-style gadgets they're all touting. Read up on this and more at:
http://www.maccast.com/


Now, after browsing the photo gallery I noticed a peculiar picture of someone who just happens to look particularly like the Queen. Is it me, is it not, you tell me:
This image originated from: http://www.maccast.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/applestore-bentall-silver-surfer.jpg
So bear in mind that all I've done is link to it. Kudos to the folks at maccast for being proactive and covering the event!

What? It really, really looks like Her Majesty.

0 Comments. | By Skippy, 6:34 PM

Sunday, February 18, 2007

That Phone Guy


That phone guy, that phone guy, that phone guy. You know what, that phone guy exists! I never knew it, had my eyes closed half the time i saw a link to it.

I just thought it was another, boring, video netcast right? You know, *whiny voice* ohoh, thatphoneguy, scknuf (thats a noise you make), meh. *end whiny voice*

But its not! Its, really, really, good, hosted by wallet-holding Merlin Mann. So, run on over and check it out before he threatens to take down his 100+ something domain names again.

http://www.thatphoneguy.com/

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Sunday, February 18, 2007 6:13 PM

New Podcasts

That's right people, it seems only yesterday I posted about some of my favorite podcasts that were Mac related. Well, here's an update of some more gems I stumbled across or just plain didn't get round to mentioning before.

VersusCOM Podcast ( http://www.versuscom.com )
I really should have mentioned this before, versusCOM is hosted by Alasdair Corbett and Sam Stafford, both of whom are actually colleagues of mine at Dunhenry Solutions. They've been running their podcast for quite a while now and boy, is it worth listening to. Covering most things tech but really focusing on the videogame front. Check out versusCOM.com ( Where there's no 2P!)

Net@Nite, a netcast from twit.tv ( http://www.twit.tv/ITN )
That's right, another netcast from twit.tv. Hosted by Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte, this is recorded in front of a live audience and is, well, superbly done (like every other twit netcast). The most recent episode featured an interview with Jimmy Wales, creator and founder of Wikipedia. ( Which we all love ).

In fact, I think it'd make my life a little easier if i just said: Hey, you know what? All these great netcasts are on twit.tv, if its on there, listen to it, I recommend it, its great.

A quick note to all, in my last podcast recommendations post, I mistakenly referred to twit netcasts as, podcasts. Sorry about that Leo Laporte!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, 10:32 AM

Beatles iPod Rumoured

That's right, there is a rumor originating from a very, reliable source, that Apple (Inc) has finalized plans with Apple Corps (Beatles) to produce a very nifty Beatles themed iPod. ( akin to the black and red U2 iPod).



Our most reliable source also indicated that the special iPod may be sold preloaded with the entire Beatles collection on it, similar to how the Bare Naked Ladies have their songs on a thumb drive.


Listeners to the MacBreak Weekly NetCast from http://www.twit.tv/ will note, that in fact our 'reliable source' is actually just the derrière of an unnamed individual from MBW. Yes folks, to put it in The Simpson's terminology: "That's just gas escaping".

The repercussions are enDlesS!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, 9:29 AM

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