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Sunday, July 22, 2007

Re-encode your iTunes library.

I was surfing the Apple Discussion boards, (http://discussions.apple.com) and came across this great tip on how to re-encode your entire iTunes library from John Sutherland. 

In the iTunes preferences pane, select the advanced tab. Then, under 'import using', select MP3 (or your chosen format).

Click OK, then click the advanced menu, and click 'Consolidate Library'. Alternatively click on a song you want converted and via the advanced menu again, click 'Convert Selection to MP3'. As John points out, this will create a duplicate of your song, and you can delete the original.

The problem I run into is that I quickly lose track of which song is the duplicate, and which is the original. A quick way to tell is by ctrl+clicking (right clicking on PC's) the song and clicking Get Info. Under the summary / general tab, it'll display the encoding format, and you can use this to differentiate between the new MP3 song and the original song.

Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Sunday, July 22, 2007 1:27 PM

Thursday, July 19, 2007

New user musings. iChat fixes and foibles.

My sister just got the exact same iMac as me. Well actually my brother in law did, because my sister had absolutely no clue how to use it. (She's got pretty good now).

When they got it I sent them a quick email explaining the process of installing skype. We got that up and running and had a video call going in literally seconds. It was simple and intuitive. Drag a few files, click a few buttons, add a contact, click call and we were set. After about five minutes my nephew Jalen was literally a skype pro and was quickly becoming proficient with the entire OS.

Then I had the bright idea of introducing them to iChat. Actually opening iChat was smooth enough, the catch came later when I realized that my sister had neither an AIM account or .mac account.

Uh oh.

She lives in Australia so I figured I'd just send them the link to sign up for a free AIM screen name using their existing email address. They just got error message after error message. "We cannot offer this service to you at this time", etc, etc.
So I made them account, set their location to the US, put in my favorite NY postcode and it was all smooth sailing until they had to confirm their email account, which involved copying and pasting and ultimately me doing it for them.

After finally successfully logging in with the account (if you used another email address as your screen name, you have to use that email address to log in with, not your chosen screen name. Lesson learnt.), they added me and we were all go... except that I couldn't see them on my buddy list. Hell the call came through, and I accepted it but no buddy list update.

To cut a long and tiring episode short, I had to delete all address information about my sister from the mac. Re-add her, unblock her and do a fully fledged rain dance before anything worked.

But I figured out the secret. The real problem. It's called NAT, and no it's not short for Nathanael. Network address translation, I'm behind a few layers of routers and crazy firewall stuff. I also wear a tinfoil hat. So the problem was my end, apparently.

I normally have my mac os x firewall turned off, and rely on the multitude of grey boxes around me to protect me from evil goblins. I had to turn the firewall ON, and type in a bunch of ports supplied oh-so-kindly by the iChat help application, then add them as a rule.

After I figured that out we were playing chess and reversi, swapping files and living the Mac digital lifestyle like never before.

User friendly solution? Nope.
Frustrating for new users? Unbelievably.
Frustrating for old hands? Even more so, we're used to most things just working. This plain didn't.
Is Skippy impressed? No. Skippy has fallen down a well and now needs another cartoon animal to save him, or a really big pogo stick.

So here are the ports for anyone else who has run into trouble:
TCP: 5190,5220,5222,5223,5298
UDP: 5060,5190,5279,5298,5353,5678, 16384-16403

If you need more steps, open iChat, then click Help>iChat Help. Search for NAT.

Have no idea why it didn't just work with my firewall off. Seems odd that I had to actually turn it on.

Also, the other trouble I ran into was that iChat had automatically blocked my sister. I didn't realize till I selected her screen name in the buddies list, clicked Buddies and saw the tick next to Block Buddy. Clicking on it resolved half the problem.

I expect nothing less than a revamp of this area of iChat for leopard. Users should be able to create an AIM screen name from within iChat rather than having to even go near a browser. NAT settings should be added automatically when a user requests it.

Also, when I open Chess, I see an option to invite myself to play a game with myself.
What?

Other news... iBackup has released an update (not sure on the freshness of my coverage on this), I'd definitely recommend getting it. iBackup is a wonderful program that does Backup's job a few times over, and for free. Check it out at http://www.ibackup.com.

Till next time, I wish you Happier Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Thursday, July 19, 2007 4:56 PM

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Exploding Menus & Pongy Savers

Ever got really annoyed at anything in your menu bar? Such as the clock, airport or bluetooth icons? Or do you just want to reorder them - that bluetooth icon in the wrong place again? Great news, for all system menus, you can cmd+click & drag them around on the bar to your infinite tinkering pleasure.
Chances are you probably knew about this already, but I just found out today, and I've been putting it to some good use! Doesn't seem to work with skype, adium, or MainMenu, but works with pretty much anything apple provided. Also works with SoundSource.

And for the ultimate in geeky screensavers, check out this fellow from Rogue Amoeba. Its a game of pong that keeps track of the time with scores. The left side wins every hour, and the right every minute. Creepy.

As per Mactake tradition ( and to completely eliminate any confusion whatsoever ) the Cmd key is highlighted below. I'm not being patronizing, I just find it helps ensure confidence if you're trying out a keystroke for the first time.

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Saturday, May 26, 2007 10:24 AM

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Shut down, log out and then restart on steroids.

If you're one of those impatient types (like me), and hate confirmation windows, this could speed up things for you. Normally when you click Apple Menu>Restart, Shut Down or Log Out, a confirmation window pops up. While this is good sometimes, you may want to have the computer off asap and this will slow things down.
Instead, click the Apple menu as shown above, and then hold down the option(alt) key. The ellipses next to Shut Down, Restart and Log out will disappear and provided you keep the option key pressed, the desired action will be carried through with just the one click, and no confirmation box. Speed's things up a fair bit if you ask me.

As per MacTake tradition the option(alt) key is highlighted below.







Another nifty trick is if you want to Force Quit an app that you're currently in, and the cmd+option+escape keystroke is too laborious for your rsi tormented hands, click on the Apple menu and hold down the Shift key. The Force-Quit option will change to Force Quit 'Current App Name', continue holding down shift and click on it to immediately quit the app.

Adam Christianson, over at maccast.com told the world about today's first tip, about a year or at least 10 months ago. So kudo's to him, and I'm really just regurgitating it for any new mac users that obviously haven't been around to hear it directly from Adam.

Just a reminder about my exams: they're imminent and I can only update the MacTake every so often between study blocks so apologies if it seems a little stagnant around here. Feel free to continue to have a comment-based discussion and follow up if you want, I'll be able to check in on that more frequently.
Till next time folks! Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Saturday, May 12, 2007 12:59 PM

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Apple Update Anomalies. (with added voodoo)

Reader/Surfer 'M', from the UK has brought to my attention a little software update issue she's been having. Whenever Apple Menu>Software Update the WWAN support update consistently showed up on the top of the update list, but without the checkbox selected.

The update concerned can be found on the Apple Website here, and seems only to apply to wireless peripherals and express card's for MacBooks.
About this update
The WWAN Support Update v1.0 provides SW support for the following WWAN products:

Available on the Cingular network:
•Novatel Merlin XU870 ExpressCard (HSDPA)

Available on the Sprint network:
•Novatel Wireless Merlin EX720 Express Card (EVDO Rev. A)
•Novatel Wireless Ovation U720 USB Modem (USB Adapter, EVDO Rev. A)

Available on the Verizon network:
•Novatel XV620 ExpressCard (EVDO Rev. 0)
•Novatel V740 ExpressCard (EVDO Rev. A)
•Novatel Wireless Ovation U720 (USB Adapter, EVDO Rev. A)

To translate that: The update seems to be for the macbook range, and provides support for the above products, if perchance you ever happen to buy or use them. No harm done in installing it, and it may actually save you some time if you ever find yourself urging for that novatel wireless merlin goodiness.

On other news, Apple has released a 'placebo' patch that will correct the firmware on your apple macbook batteries.
Our batteries have firmware? Wow.
Read up on it at twit, and the apple download page.
Till next time, Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Wednesday, May 9, 2007 6:52 PM

Sunday, April 22, 2007

iPhoto: previewing pictures before importing from camera.

Here's a little trick I picked up a while ago. Plug in your camera, load up iPhoto and select the camera on the source list on the left. It'll ask you to import the images, if you want to see them before importing them all, press return twice. Its a little slow, but might be worth the wait!


Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Sunday, April 22, 2007 5:47 PM

Monday, April 16, 2007

Google buh?

Google problem seems to have gone away. Web developer for umpteen years and it still stumped me, a restart and it seems to have been fixed. Readers suggested that it might be a cache problem, so I cleaned that out too using onyx. Thanks there, problem is seemingly fixed!

Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Monday, April 16, 2007 9:17 AM

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Google Huh?

Was googling a bit today, and noticed that Safari kept having hiccups with google sites in general.
Check out the screen shots:


(Yes... Skype had suddenly gone all quiet, fixed it by asking friend to speak louder and turn up his microphone input. Surely there has got to be a better fix?)

Any ideas for fixes on either problem would be brilliant; send them to skippy@mactake.streamk.com

Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Sunday, April 15, 2007 6:39 PM

Monday, April 9, 2007

Adding Quick Folders To Finder Sidebar

If you're not familiar with Finder's trust old sidekick sidebar, then you need to read about the littlewhitepill. (Just click it to bring up the sidebar)


If you're in a folder and you want to add it swiftly to the sidebar, you don't need to navigate up a directory and then laboriously drag it over, just press Cmd+T, and it'll wizz over there automatically.
That's Cmd + T.


Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Monday, April 9, 2007 1:49 PM

Friday, April 6, 2007

Answer: iTunes Duplications

Thanks to the readers who emailed in, my problem is now solved. Typically it was entirely simple.

The purchased album is exactly like an album, you can conceivably duplicate songs in an album without duplicating them on your hard-drive. Clicking on View>Show Duplicates and then deleting one of each duplicate cleared up the problem entirely. Thanks very much to reader Greg!

Happy Mac'ing

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Friday, April 6, 2007 10:44 AM

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Question: iTunes Duplication of Purchased Music.

I buy most of my music now, it feels warm and fuzzy and vaguely rewarding. Also, Limewire won't work anymore.

So I've been doing this for some time and just lately I've noticed something very strange. iTunes has apparently duplicated each track that I've bought.

Whether or not this spells doom for all music known to mankind is another issue, but self-propagating music is a little creepy.


Really would appreciate your comments on this, the best answer gets its very own blog post! ( And just maybe, a cookie. )

Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Thursday, April 5, 2007 9:14 AM

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Eject Key Worries.

If you've recently upgraded to 10.4.9 or you are planning to, then this might be useful.
10.4.9 patched, amongst other things an issue that some users were experiencing, namely that they'd accidentally bump the eject key on their keyboards. Its right up there next to Mute, and other lovely buttons so its easy enough to do - I personally did it all the time.

10.4.9 addresses this issue by requiring users to hold down the eject key before the drive will eject.

Useful, but if you didn't know (like me) and were used to just tapping the key, it might appear as if the key is broken.

I had to do it all the hard way, cleaning my keyboard, shaking it and searching around for a spare, before finally dropping a notepad on the key - which depressed it long enough to eject the disk.

Happy Mac'ing!

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1 Comments. | By Skippy, Sunday, March 25, 2007 4:54 PM

Monday, March 19, 2007

10.4.9 Issues

Surfer Glenn pointed out what seems to be a sharing problem brought on by the 10.4.9 update. The problem affects OS 9 Classic Macs trying to initiate a sharing connection with an OSX 10.4.9 Mac.

MacMaps.com has kindly detailed steps for a fix to this problem, which involves initiating the connection with the OSX Mac instead of the OS9 Mac. Details and instructions can be found at:
http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html

So far only a few issues have popped up with the update and its looking smooth. If you are having issues please send an email or comment, we'd value your opinions and contributions!

Thanks to surfer Glenn for pointing this out!

Happy Mac'ing.

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Monday, March 19, 2007 7:50 PM

Saturday, March 10, 2007

App Pick: Growl

Most Mac users have at least come across growl in one form or another, but if you haven't then you're in for some fun.

Growl's simplest function is to alert a user in a non-interfering and discreet manner of what is happening on their system. Its most commonly used for IM apps like Skype or Adium, to alert a user that Person X has just sent them a message on Y account, eg:


Any app that has growl support built in, will automatically register with the growl service and update the user on things like transfer progress, to 'burning complete'.




Growl has an impressive range of customizable preferences, everything from the position, shape, size and design of the notifications, to the option to have a notification read out by the system speech synthesiser.



Changing appearance of notification, on this window you can see the option for speech.


The most annoying thing about Growl, is that it isn't bundled with OS X at all. No, users have to download it (for free) at http://www.growl.info/

What I find to be so, special with Growl is that it is understanding of a user's ability to process information. Growl doesn't shout things out at you, it doesn't wave things in front of your face till you finally throw in the towel and pay attention, it is discreet and quietly provides the user with updates, and then merely fades into the murky land that lives behind the desktop.

Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Saturday, March 10, 2007 2:17 PM

Monday, March 5, 2007

Adium

Sam Stafford (versuscom.com) is a great friend and colleague of mine, and recently made the switch to a Mac. I've invited him to do a new switcher story and contribute to the MacTake (along with Alasdair Corbett (theworldtodayblog.co.uk).

When he made the move to his Mac Sam brought with him a copy of windows messenger for Mac so he could IM to his chatty buddies on his new shiny white box. Upon hearing of this I had to shake my head a little and wonder about the ethical issues of running things like boot camp, msn messenger and ms office on the Mac.

"Bah!" I said, in my polite and tactful way. "Zis is a terrible miztake! You must use Adium".


Adium ( http://www.adiumx.com/ ) is a absolutely brilliant IM (thing). It'll connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo and much more, within its shiny, well designed gui.

The level of control you have with the app is almost disturbing. You can configure everything from the messages layout, to window capacities and growl notifications. There's almost no part of the gui and behavior that you can't customize.


Best of all, Adium doesn't behave like some 'nextbestthing' to your normal IM apps. In most (in my opinion, all) cases its genuinely better and more featured packed, yet it still retains the core functionality for custom emoticons, nudges and whatever else is dreamt up.

I can happily say also, that Adium's update cycle leaves none wanting, and each update really (and I mean really) packs a punch. Kudos to the dev team, and well, I love it!

Check it out:
http://www.adiumx.com/

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Monday, March 5, 2007 7:31 PM

Closing Widgets On Dashboard

We all love to keep widgets everywhere on the dashboard but truth is, if you don't need it, its probably using a tonne of memory for nothing.


Normally to close a widget on the dashboard, we have to click that little plus icon in the bottom left hand corner. The shiny grill slides up, the little close signs on the widgets appear, and all the widgets near it get skewed (nicely) out of the way. Personally I find it a little disconcerting, especially if the widget I want closed is right near the bottom of the screen.


An easy way to close any widget is just to hold the Option (alt) key and move the cursor over the widget. The close button will appear and as long as you hold down option, you can click on it and close the widget easily like so.


Just to remove any doubt, the key for this is highlighted below ( as per MacTake tradition ).


Happy Mac'ing!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, 7:03 PM

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

Monday, February 19, 2007

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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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Monday, February 19, 2007 8:21 PM

Friday, February 16, 2007

OSX's almost hidden grab and dictionary and front row keystrokes.

We all know about Tiger's ever-so-buried Services menu right? Its incredibly useful if, perchance, you have the presence of mind to actually navigate to it which, I admit, is sometimes an effort for the best of us.


There are however some really useful functions in there, from summarize ( if you don't know what that is, you need to subscribe to Twit's MacBreak ), to the dictionary, google search and new sticky note maker.


Well believe it or not, Tiger has actually had built-in keystrokes for a lot of these actions from day one-and-a-half. Yup, I didn't believe it myself, at least not until I managed to co-ordinate my fingers and connect them with the keys to finally see for myself the truth.


There's a nifty, reliable keystroke to take a screen capture and save it to the desktop / copy to clipboard, you can also capture a selection as well. ( Command+Shift+3 for screenshot, or Command+Shift+4 for selection shot)

A handy nicely designed dictionary widget style popup can appear as you hold down the right keystroke and hover over words on the screen, which looks way better and even, dare I say, Cool:




All these keystrokes are listed in system preferences, keyboard & mouse, Keyboard Shortcuts. I mean, come on, who would have ever thought to look there? Now, if you want a list of all those handy keystrokes you just have to navigate to system preferences, click on the keyboardy button.... click on keyboard shortcuts.......




But I had a better way of remembering them, namely saving them as a sticky note on the dashboard and to save you the trouble of typing all the functions out, well:

Screen Shot
Cmd+Shift+3 (to file)
Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+3 (to clipboard)

Screen Selection Shot
Cmd+Shift+4 (to file)
Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4 (to clipboard)

Dictionary Lookup
Cmd+Ctrl+D

Front Row
Cmd+Esc


----
Easy copy and paste job now!

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0 Comments. | By Skippy, Friday, February 16, 2007 11:46 AM

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