Thursday, November 7, 2013

ExpanDrive - Easy Finder Access to the Cloud and FTP

There are many tools and utilities to make accessing your files on the cloud easy, regardless of whether you use Dropbox, Rackspace, FTP, SFTP, or Amazon S3. ExpanDrive is my choice because there are versions for both Mac and Windows computers!

Check it out here.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Safari Favorites Bar - Making the Most of It

Safari Special Features for Mac Users

If you’re a regular user of multiple browsers like me, you probably know some of the really cool keyboard shortcuts that will save you time.

Anyone who has seen my browser screenshots has probably wonder what the odd bookmark bar links are on my browsers. For example, in this screenshot from Safari for Mac OS X 10.9:

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You can see that I’ve got a collection of bookmark lets, really short bookmark names and even bookmark folders on my Safari bookmarks bar (now called the Favorites Bar, by the way).

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The Sidebar

First, we have the bookmarks/reading list/shared links button. Clicking it opens the following sidebar:

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You can choose from the Bookmarks, which actually lets you drill down into any of your bookmarks, not just the Favorites Bar. Next is the Reading List, a place for you to cache pages for offline reading later that will sync across iCloud to all of your devices running the latest Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. Here’s mine:

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Finally is the Shared Links tab, a collection of links posted by your Twitter friends, if you have Twitter integration turned on for your Mac.

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Top Sites

Next on our trip across the Favorites Bar, the little icon that looks like a grid of boxes:

 

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Clicking this icon opens the Top Sites page in Safari, something that many people will see when they open a new tab or window (if they have Safari configured as such):

 

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Top Sites is built around your most frequently-visited pages. You can right-click on any page image to delete it and the grid will get another page added to make the total number of pages match the number you have set for Top Sites on the General tab of Safari’s preferences. You can also right-click and choose the pin icon to make a page stay in Top Sites regardless of the frequency you visit it. Blue pin means “pushed” and gray pin means not pushed (not selected). Pressing CMD + R will reload all of the top sites’ page content in this view.

Bookmarklets

The next button is SaveAsPDF. The reason I frequently leave spaces out or heavily abbreviate words in these Favorites Bar items is that I want to make maximum use of the Favorites Bar real estate. One type of bookmark that has been popular since the early evolution of JavaScript is called a bookmarklet. Here is a great article from the folks at lifehacker showing how to add bookmark lets to iOS devices. This is very helpful since Safari on iOS doesn’t support extensions!

The bookmarklet “SaveAsPDF” is actually for iOS, since printing to PDF is a built-in function in Mac OS X anyway. If you have a task that is repetitive or one that would normally require a browser add-in, extension or other special plug-in, you might find a solution via bookmarklet and that is extra handy if you put it on the Favorites Bar where it is a click OR shortcut key away from action.

Wait, did I just say shortcut key? I’m glad you asked! Yes I did. Let’s continue on by skipping the ReWr link (it’s a custom link for a client’s Magento system that would bore you to read about).

Shortcut Keys for the Favorites Bar

Built into Safari is a cool way to get to the first shortcuts on your Favorites Bar. Starting after the sidebar and Top Sites icons, each of the next nine (9) bookmarks can be accessed by pressing CMD + the number. Let’s look at my Favorites Bar again.

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So, using this system, we can see that CMD (⌘) symbol plus the following numbers gives us:

  1. SaveAsPDF (bookmarklet for iOS devices, I sync my bookmarks across all Macs, my iPad and iPhone)
  2. ReWr (again, this is a shortcut for rapid entry of Magento changes for a client of mine)
  3. Start (StartPage.com the world’s most private search engine)
  4. USPS (Postage Price Calculator, perfect for my eBay business)
  5. Tw (Twitter homepage)
  6. CNN (Cable News Network)
  7. BLN (Blacklisted News, usually carries the actual news as opposed to the filtered CNN news. Note: beware of ads for survivalist stuff LOL)

So, pressing ⌘ + 4 on my Safari jumps straight to the United States Postal Service Postage Price Calculator. A little easier than moving a mouse to click and a lot easier than moving a mouse to go to the bookmarks menu.

Important to remember: the first two Safari-supplied buttons (sidebar and Top Sites) don’t count in the 1 to 9 shortcut list nor would any folders on your browser bar in the first 9. In other words, if the fifth item is a folder, then ⌘ + 5 would activate the next non-folder bookmark or bookmarklet.

All Safari Keyboard Shortcuts

For users still on Mountain Lion or earlier releases of Safari, use the appropriate link below to give the shortcut list for your version.

Safari Shortcuts for iOS 7

Enjoy your browsing and be sure to check out my browser series over at Tek Highlights covering other browsers and their shortcuts including for other platforms.

 

Other Links:

Mavericks Feature Focus: Safari 7 and iCloud Keychain

58 Useful Keyboard Shortcuts for Safari

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Need to Send Email Later? Try This!

The developers at ChungwaSoft have SendLater, a low-cost ($10) Mac Mail enhancement that adds a button to your new mail toolbar allowing you to send messages later.

This is perfect for getting your messages out to your clients or friends when they are most likely to see the messages -- no matter what time day or night you think to send the message!

Check out the information from the company website for more information.

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Here’s a screenshot of SendLater in action:

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If you used this type of option in Microsoft Outlook on your old Windows PC, this is a much easier solution than using a combination of Automator/AppleScript and iCal.

 

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Pixelmator 2.2.1 Update!

My favorite substitute for Photoshop, Pixelmator, has a fresh new update with tons of new features.

As mentioned before, this is a great little app that packs in a great number of Photoshop-like features that can satisfy the needs of quite a few casual users of Adobe products without that hefty cost of admission to Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite.

Still available on the Mac App Store for just $14.99, I recommend this highly to anyone interested in editing graphics files from photos to screenshots for almost any purpose from documents for school or work all the way through to custom animation frames for apps like Animationist.

The fine developers at Pixelmator Team Ltd. have added more tutorials to the website, along with tons of sample Pixelmator documents as a showcase of what can be done with the application. Unlike some of the samples shown with other products, you don’t have to be a professional designer to learn from and even duplicate the results shown.

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Some of the updates in this minor rev release (2.2.1 from 2.2) are powerful enough that I’d probably have given the version number a larger increment. That being said, here are just a few of the changes:

  1. Automatic saving in the background while you work
  2. Faster performance thanks to a new Pixelmator file format
  3. Option to use old or new Pixelmator format so you can still exchange files with others who haven’t updated
  4. Progress bar that finally reflects the status of progress unlike the previous version that reminded me of the Microsoft “copy” dialog (who knows how long this will take)
  5. Enhanced effects browser with previews

For a full list of improvements, check out their post here.

Remember, by buying from the Mac App Store, upgrades are free and if you use the same Apple ID you can even install the app on multiple Macs!

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Free Location (or Event-based) Configuration Management - ControlPlane

With the ControlPlane application, you can create configuration profiles that automatically adjust settings on your Mac based on many different events, including the location of your device. For example, if you are logging into your Mac at work, you might want specific network drives connected. Similarly, at home you might have a NAS (or Time Capsule) and desire reactivation of your Time Machine backups. Once you are at home, it would be helpful to automatically change your default printer, start your VPN connection, change the screensaver start time. The feature list goes on and on, with more features added on a regular basis. The current build (as of September 2013) for Moutain Lion users is 1.4.0 beta, with older versions for Snow Leopard (1.2.3) available on the same page.

The author of ControlPlane calls says the software enables “context sensitive computing” and it’s definitely a solution for problems that many of us might not realize we have! Sure, it’s easy to change your default printer, but I know from experience that it’s annoying when you’ve already started a print job only to realize you’re sending it to the office printer.

For more about ControlPlane, see this page, and if you have Xcode installed, you can download the latest codebase from GitHub and make your own changes to this open source project.

Scroll to the bottom of this post for screenshots.

Enjoy!

 

ControlPlane Options

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Evidence Sources

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Rules 

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Actions

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Thursday, September 5, 2013

Fall Bundle 2013 from MacLegion

Fall Bundle 2013 from MacLegion has arrived! Get 10 great apps for just $49.99

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Apps in this bundle are:

  1. AfterShot Pro - AfterShot Pro supports your entire photo workflow, whether you’re building a searchable library of thousands of images, enhancing a handful of photos, or generating output for an album, website or client review, AfterShot Pro is your app!
  2. CollageFactory Pro - CollageFactory Pro is a powerful combination of photo collage maker and greeting card creator. With CollageFactory Pro, you can make photo collage and holiday e-greeting card effortlessly.
  3. Pagico - Pagico is a personal database that helps you to manage and keep track of everything: notes, tasks, lists, files, projects and contacts. You can store all kinds of information in its database, and Pagico will get everything neatly organized for you.
  4. Deliver Express - Deliver Express is an automated solution to send and share files easily across the Internet and local networks. Deliver Express is suitable as an enterprise solution, as well as for single users.
  5. Default Folder X - Default Folder X is an award-winning utility that enhances the Open and Save dialogs in all Mac OS X applications. Its custom keyboard shortcuts put your favorite and recent folders at your fingertips.
  6. EarthDesk - EarthDesk converts your Macintosh desktop into a beautiful, real-time image of our planet, continuously updating in the background while you work. With four maps and eleven projections to choose from, EarthDesk is perfect addition to your Desktop.
  7. DriveDx - DriveDx is advanced drive health diagnostic and monitoring utility. Save yourself the data loss and downtime that is associated with unexpected drive failures. Don’t worry about losing your important data, music, and photographs.
  8. MailHub - MailHub is a new 'smart' plug-in for Apple Mail which revolutionizes email management. File, create new mailboxes, delete or assign actions to your email effortlessly without interruption to your workflow.
  9. MixTape Pro - Mixing music has become beautifully easy. Whether you're a pro DJ or just listening to your beats in the car, gym or at home, MixTape Pro has something for you.
  10. Bluenote - Beautifully designed notes, tasks and passwords organizer all in a single app. Bluenote automatically encrypts, saves and syncs on the fly. It's a fantastic app, exclusively for the Mac.

I’m a big fan of Default Folder X and ColageFactory Pro, and the first 2,000 customers also get MacCleanse 3&4.

 

The Little App Factory - "Pay What You Want" Bundle

Featuring a number of apps for downloading and converting videos, including the fantastic RipIt DVD ripper app, this bundle is available for a limited time from Paddle, one of my favorite sites for buying apps these days.

Check out this bundle of programs from The Little App Factory and share your thoughts in the comments.

Note: the iRip app is a great offering on its own because it can help you recover your iOS content when moving to a new Mac or reinstalling Mac OS X.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

New Wallpapers from OS X Mavericks

Over at OS X Daily, there are links to the latest wallpapers from the Mavericks developer preview.

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Check the wallpapers out here.

 

Friday, August 16, 2013

Converting Kindle eBooks to PDF on Mac OS X

If you’re like me, you enjoy saving money (and space) by using eBooks. Amazon offers nearly everything you would want in the eBook format (.AZW) and many of the offerings don’t even have DRM these days. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean you can easily access the books wherever you go or how you want. You are generally limited to using the Kindle-specific apps and don’t have flexibility in printing pages or converting via text to speech to MP3 for listening while driving.

If your eBooks happen to have DRM, simply follow the instructions here to get rid of the eBook DRM (note: if it is legal for you in your country - this is not legal advise, simply instructional information!).

Once you have a DRM-free eBook in .AZW format, use the service provided by http://www.zamzar.com to convert to PDF (or other format).

Amazon eBooks are located in the My Kindle Content folder under ~/Library/Application Support/Kindle. The entire path (if using the Finder Go -> Go to Folder… menu) is:

~/Library/Application Support/Kindle/My Kindle Content/

Remember, paying for your eBooks is a must. Piracy is lame and with the very small volume of books sold (especially when compared to other media like movies and music), not paying for eBooks is a sure way to reduce the books available to us all!

Enjoy!

Friday, August 9, 2013

FLUID - Websites into Mac Apps

I develop applications for Windows environments. Yes, I know - it’s embarrassing. I do most of the work on Macs in Parallels and I wouldn’t even use Windows if not for the glut of horrible SQL Server installations in the real world caused by people not understanding the MySQL GUI and bad client/server developers stuck in Visual Basic still writing ADO or (gasp) ODBC code.

That being said, I have more and more clients relying on my analytics and data architecture expertise to help with Google Analytics, AdWords and other online metric and marketing systems.

Google limits the ability of users to access multiple analytics accounts and AdWords configurations once your account is linked; indeed, it is the multiple step logout/login with a different account process times 10 for my daily management tasks that sucks away productivity.

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FLUID changes that. With Fluid App, you create separate instances of Safari (essentially, don’t get mired down in the details) that retain their separate cookies and other settings from the main Safari instance, making it possible to make a Fluid app for “Client A - Google” and another for “Client B - Google” that default to going write into Google Analytics with the respective client account logins already in place.

Fluid from Todd Ditchendorf on Vimeo.

Check out Fluid here and learn about all the features the tiny charge of $4.99 will unlock for you.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Making the Decision to Use Microsoft Office 365

I’m an Apple die-hard. Even though I write code for clients using Microsoft programming languages, frequently involving Windows-only applications like Crystal Reports with SQL Server, I do so on Macs in virtual machines. One of the challenges I face regularly is in exchanging files (Word documents and Excel spreadsheets) with these clients. While there are some great open source tools for “Office-like” document creation and maintenance, none of them give me the true compatibility down to complex formatting (in Word) and formula design (in Excel) and none of them give me the same macro and Visual Basic for Applications options.

Seeking input from my favorite Google+ forum, I heard quite a few good points, pro and con, on adopting other applications. I’ve used the iWork suite enough to know that it’s powerful but not really compatible in those key areas I’ve mentioned. Sadly, Apple hasn’t released a new version of iWork since 2009, far too long for it to be considered current. Microsoft now offers Office 365, an annual subscription service for the Office suite. I’m dead set against subscription services, which is one of the reasons I strongly recommend PixelMator 2.2 for those who don’t need all of the bells and whistles of Photoshop.

Subscription services take the once standard practice of paying once for software and being able to use it until its end of life and turn that concept on its head where you pay repeatedly on a monthly or annual basis to keep using the software. In some cases, this might be beneficial. It lowers the cost of entry into an expense (or overly expensive) software suite like the Adobe apps while allowing subscribers to keep up to date with the latest versions, provided they are also updating their operating systems and hardware to match. With all of this in mind, I really was against software-as-a-subscription-service in general.

Microsoft Office 365 has changed my mind. The entry point is $99 per year, but you get quite a bit for that price. For that fee, you get up to 5 installs on Macs or PCs plus Office-on-demand access for Windows computers. Unlike some subscription services that stream the software through ICA (Citrix) or RDP (Terminal Services), the on-demand access basically installs a temporary copy of the software and is optimized to download and install just enough to get you working quickly while the rest downloads.

A current promotion offered by Microsoft also includes a free year of XBOX LIVE with that $99 fee, something most of us who have the XBOX 360 and use it for Netflix, HBOGO, or Amazon on Demand have to pay $59 per year for -- so that cuts the first year cost down to $40.

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Anyway, I made the leap, bought the subscription and I’m pretty happy with the software delivery. I won’t be using Outlook for mail - I’m very happy with Apple Mail and all my extension tools already installed there and I tend to see Outlook as a great example of bloatware on Windows.

Are you open to “renting” your software like this? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Apple Mail Plugins and Apps

There are a great number of resources to help you better manage your email with Apple Mail. Check out this list and see if there’s something to help you be more productive and effective at managing the flood of emails you receive!

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There are dozens of great add-ins that improve everything from handling of email with Windows users to sorting attachments.

Check ‘em out!

 

Dashkard - Keyboard Shortcuts for Mac OS X Made Easy (Easier)

There are amazing keyboard shortcuts for Mac apps that most of us don’t know about. For that matter, there are keyboard shortcuts to various characters that we might not use, like the ¢ symbol, for example.

Dashkard.com is a great website with tons of information about many of your favorite Mac apps, and a dashboard widget at http://dashkards.com/widget makes seeing these shortcuts super easy. There’s a bug with the display on the back of the widget (you’ll see when you install it), and you have to use right-click open to add the widget once it’s downloaded because it isn’t signed.

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Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Really Handy Tool - CleanMyMac 2

Folks,

There are only a few “cleaning” apps that I don’t hate, but CleanMyMac is a GREAT tool.

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Granted, it is a $39.99 purchase, but it’s well worth the money.

As for the developers, MacPaw makes some amazing tools. Gemini is also excellent. It does a great job of finding duplicates, even MP3s and videos that don’t have the same names.

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Enjoy!

PS - REMINDER: you can try Amazon Prime free for 30 days using the link below. Over 40,000 streaming movies and TV series plus unlimited free 2-day shipping!

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Performance Tests and Burning in Your Mac

There’s a great tool to check out your Mac’s hardware - RAM, CPU, everything - and it’s called MemoryTester by diglloydTools. In fact, the folks there make a number of excellent tools for your Mac, including DiskTester, MemoryTester and IntegrityChecker.

DiskTester can recondition your SSD for better performance. MemoryTester does a great job of burning in a new computer, but it’s also great when you upgrade your computer with more RAM. IntegrityChecker is a fast tool for validating your files, folders and backups whether they are on traditional hard disks, SSDs or burned media.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Hours Left on the Parallels 8 Upgrade Offer $29.99

Hey Apple friends,

Almost all of the native application code I write is for Windows systems (and servers), but I do that development work in Parallels on my Macs. Right now is a great time to upgrade to Parallels 8 if you haven’t already - as this offer (expiring in about 8 hours) gives you Parallels 8 for $29.99 if you are a licensed user of Parallels 7 (or even 6).

This version of Parallels takes full advantage of many of the features offered in Windows 8 and even supports beta versions of Mavericks.

 

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Click the image above or this link to visit MacUpdate and get this great deal!

Cool bonus - 6 months of MacUpdate Desktop, a great way to keep your non-App Store applications up to date.

Remember, this offer expires around 10PM central 6/30/2013.

Enjoy!

Monday, June 24, 2013

iTunes $50 Cards for ONLY $40 - ONE DAY SALE

This is a steal of a deal - you can only get 3 per customer, so if you use iTunes like I do, you’ll want to max out. The iTunes cards are good for iTunes music, iBooks, Apps for iOS and the Mac App Store, as indicated in Apple’s FAQ here.












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This offer is good while supplies last for orders placed Monday, June 24th, 2013.




TidBITS - Apple News and More

TidBITS is still one of my favorite sites for Apple news - check it out and bookmark it if you haven't! The site contains a great deal of content about Apple trends, software releases and updates, hardware rumors and even extensive editorial-style essays on current events and the role of Apple products in those current events.

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As an aggregator of content, TidBITS frequently links to the best articles on the web related to Apple products. The sections menu at the left of the page allow you to drill down by topics including: Business Apps, Entertainment, Just for Fun, Media Creation and Problem Solving.

Here are some recent articles from the site:

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Great Apps for Designers - iOS List

Apple’s computers have long been a favorite for designers, even after the PC/Windows world caught up in terms of WYSIWYG applications with applications like WordPerfect for DOS (version 6.0 was a DOS masterpiece for graphic layout and publishing) and Microsoft’s Office suite. While many of the popular applications for desktop publishing (Wikipedia) were still Mac-only due to their innovations with the Apple LaserWriter, Aldus PageMaker and PostScript, very high quality programs like Ventura Publisher for MS-DOS (based in GEM) and even home publishing tools for inexpensive home computers like the Amiga and Atari ST closed the gap quite quickly.

Now that many of us (bloggers, professional developers, graphic designers and artists) are on the go, we demand more and more in terms of portability and power than ever before. We want applications that can do the heavy lifting of a desktop computer with an expensive graphics tablet right on our laptops and tablets. Luckily, there are great options for us!

When compiling this list of options, I’ve stuck strictly to the applications that I’ve tried and believe are useful tools. I’m sure there are many excellent options outside of these, but I highly suggest that consumers take advantage of the reviews in the app store (and your favorite search engine) before purchasing anything, whether I’ve recommended it or you see it reviewed positively somewhere else. Some apps offer ad-supported or “lite” versions in the app store. You should always try them before buying, especially since some of these offerings are expensive, at least for something in the iOS app store. Also, remember the website http://appshopper.com is a great place to put apps on a wish list and receive notifications in the event that app is discounted.

My favorite apps are listed below. Please post your favorites in the comments section.

iDraw is a unique offering in that it is available for iOS and Mac OS X. This makes design on the go easy to continue and integrated cloud storage options simplify the process. Best of all, this application ($8.99 as of this writing for iPads) is powerful. Think Adobe Illustrator on an iPad and you’re picturing what this app can do.

Here is the website detailing the features that iDraw offers. I list it first because I think it is the best deal for vector graphics on tablets right now.

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A fun one is 123D Creature by Autodesk. This app lets you build a 3D monster with a skeleton and export in a variety of formats.

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iMockups is a powerful app I use for website and application design (and layout). The only downside to this app is that it doesn’t seem to get updated very frequently. That being said, it’s still easy to use and the ability to export mockups to BMML means you can use tons of Balsamiq tools, including many open source and free ones to generate actual code from your mockups. Check out those tools here.

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AppCooker and AppTaster are even greater tools for iOS app design and testing. You really have to check out the website to see all of the benefits of these apps, but they are great prototyping tools that really speed application design for iOS devices.

A great review can be found here written by Tammy Coron. I will definitely be following her in the future as I like the depth of her analysis and her to-the-point writing style!

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HTML has many tags and features, so it is only natural to want a handy reference guide. If you develop on a desktop or laptop like I do, consider getting a handy reference like this one from Evolonix.

It’s certainly helpful if you develop your websites using a text editor like my favorite, Espresso.

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Do you have suggestions for apps that are helpful to designers, whether they are app developers, website coders or artists? Please share your ideas!

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Want to Speed Up Apple Mail?

It’s really easy:

1) Close mail

 

2) Using Terminal run this command:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope\ Index vacuum;

3) Move the following file somewhere else or delete it (I moved it in case :-) ):

 

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail

 

4) You are done restart mail and all good.

Of course do a backup before doing all this.

Courtesy https://discussions.apple.com/people/Incito%20Networks from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4658459?start=0&tstart=0

Mac Secrets - the "Secrets" Application

Many of you are probably familiar with the use of the defaults command to change settings like the type of animation used when minimizing a window. The Secrets database contains a list of these settings so that you can customize your Mac experience even more.

Be careful though, as some of these settings can be a pain to reverse if used incorrectly!

http://secrets.blacktree.com

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YouTube video tutorial:

More fun Mac-related easter egg secrets from Business Insider.

 

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Can a Magic Trackpad Be a Drawing Tablet?!?

In a future post, you’ll read about a great, affordable graphics tablet (under $100) that even professional graphics designers consider good enough for their daily professional work. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the limited precision of your Apple Magic Trackpad to do some cool things like handwriting recognition and even decent drawing functionality in apps including my favorite Pixelmator and free apps like GIMP and Inkscape1. You can even draw in most of the Adobe apps, from Photoshop Elements on up to Photoshop CS6 and vector apps like Adobe Illustrator.

Here’s an old blog/review that compares a Wacom Bamboo, the Magic Mouse and the Magic Trackpad.

The developers at Ten1Design have two applications that support drawing on the Magic Trackpad: Autograph, an easy way to sign documents using a trackpad in seconds, and inklet, a way to use the Magic Trackpad or any of the more recent MacBook integrated glass trackpads as a drawing tablet.

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Using a Ten1Design Pogo Stylus for Magic Trackpad - available here from $9 is an option for people wanting precision beyond finger painting, something necessary to get the handwriting recognition that works well (and is integrated into Mac OS X, see below).

 

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Using inklet with Photoshop:

Using inklet with handwriting recognition:

 

There are tons of other “hacks” to do similar things, as the native settings of Mac OS X does not support English or western European countries with our character set, only input of characters for Asian languages2.




Be sure to check back for the blog post about the greatest find I’ve had in graphics tablets ever, the Tursion. It’s the same tablet as the Monoprice, but the Tursion is the least expensive of them, coming in at just $47.49 as of this writing on Amazon. The USB-based drawing tablet with 8 hot keys measures 10 x 6.25 inches and is a powerful alternative to the Wacom models with little difference according to many graphics designers. There’s a great review of the Monoprice 12 x 9 tablet over at deviantArt courtesy of draw2much. FYI, I highly recommend the smaller tablets but the 12x9 is considered less useful (without the hot keys) by many.

Important note: the Monoprice/Tursion software is Windows-only except for the drivers. This is not a problem, since Mac OS X has pretty much everything you need to use the tablet and the software included for Windows is for Windows versions of Microsoft Office and not very useful.

1. GIMP now runs natively in Mac OS X, Inkscape still requires Apple’s X11/Xquartz and you will be prompted to download and install them by OS X if you do not have that installed already.

2. More from Apple on using multi-touch trackpads for Chinese character input is here.

 

Monday, June 10, 2013

Excited about Apple "iRadio" Announcement?

There are some big rumors floating around about today’s announcements at the WWDC.

Here’s are the apple iradio rumors found by searching Google. We also expect iOS 7 to give up most of the skeuomorphic designs of icons and built-in apps. Personally, I love a touch of skeuomorphism in my software, like calendar programs that have a traditional calendar-like design, but I am also cool with eliminating fancy leather trim appearances around the calendar because it’s those kinds of touches that explain why our systems with extremely powerful processors don’t function that much faster when doing basic things like word processing, spreadsheet analysis and even vector drawing.

More posts to come when we know more. I highly recommend CNET’s coverage of the WWDC as the conference goes live.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Tweaking a Jailbroken iOS Device with Cydia

Do you jailbreak your iOS devices for apps and features not available in the app store or to unlock for another carrier? The site makeuseof.com has some great tips for you!

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They break up the Cydia enhancements into many useful categories. Enjoy!

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013

XtraFinder Another Finder Replacement for Free?

Ok gang,

Here’s another Finder modification/replacement that might suit those of you who are into tabbed interfaces. Below is a picture of it in action. The application is called XtraFinder, and like many great Mac utilities, it is available for free. The app modifies the way Finder works to add tabs and a heck of a lot of other functionality.

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There are some noticeable performance hits in certain operations. In the picture above, I show you a connection in one tab over SMB to a Windows 7 computer. When copying files to the tab of that connection, I all-but-lost Finder access during the operation. This appears to be related to how XtraFinder handles its insertion into the operating system. Compared to the way Path Finder does copying in a multithreaded, ordered fashion, XtraFinder locks the copy operations and even switching tabs is kind of slow. I’d recommend you avoid large network copying when using XtraFinder because of this.

Changing settings also causes Finder to close and on several occasions I had to restart (reopen) Finder by clicking the Finder icon on the dock.

Preferences can be accessed by this menubar icon ByrJ3q6.png.

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As shown above, there is a question mark icon in the upper left of the preferences window. Click it followed by any of the less-than-obvious options if you need to understand what the option does. For example,

using this on Narrow Tab Bar gets this “help” image to indicate the space saved when using this option.

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Since there aren’t many hard-to-understand options, there isn’t much in the way of help. You will have to experiment a little.

Some of my favorite options are:

  1. New File… - allows you to create blank files of any type you make a template for just as easily as you make new folders
  2. New Terminal Here
  3. Pinnable Window - makes a Finder window you can pin above all other windows (by itself, not with the rest of Finder)
  4. Show Hidden Items - toggles visibility of hidden items. I used to open Path Finder for this (and before that I’d use a quick command line script).
  5. Select… - allows wildcard-based selection of files. Very handy!

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The best feature about the app is the way nearly all options let you record your own shortcut keys. Side note: I think having some defaults that could be overridden would be a smarter approach.

Please share your thoughts on this project and how it compares to other Finder alternatives or enhancements. Do you use one?

 

 

 

Originally heard about XtraFinder on this makeuseof.com blog post from January.

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XtraFinder on Facebook

 

 

Monday, June 3, 2013

Tired of Changing MacBook Settings for Different Locations? Try Sidekick

Sidekick is a great little app for MacBooks that will change settings for you depending on where you are. At your office and need a certain default printer? Sidekick can remember and do that for you. At your local favorite coffee shop annoying customers by using the hotspot and slowly sipping your coffee while you “work” ?? Sidekick can turn on more advanced firewall protection or other security features in apps, all based on your location.

The app design is fresh and clean and offers a free trial before purchase. If you have a ton of settings you have to change when you go to different client locations, this is the app for you!

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Side note: this brings back memories of the old Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) application for DOS (and later for Windows) by Philippe Kahn. It was called SideKick and was how we got email in my first big corporate job at Citibank in the early 90s. Good times!

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Miss the "Send to Mail" Windows Context Menu?

Automator, a powerful scripting workflow tool added to Mac OS X with Tiger (10.4) allows you to create your own context menus for many things. Today I’m going to demonstrate how easy it is to make a workflow for sending selected files to a new mail message.

There are a few good books on Automator, but unfortunately the best one hasn’t been updated since 10.6.


Update from Ben Waldie:

http://www.automatedworkflows.com/tips/

http://www.macworld.com/author/Ben-Waldie/

http://www.tuaw.com/editor/ben-waldie

http://peachpit.com/benwaldie

These are links he’s provided to make your learning even easier. Great guy - if you need consulting help, please use his company!


Obviously, Google is a great place for tips and tricks with Automator too.

Steps:

Launch Automator

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Choose Service

Where you see Service receives selected … in … make the selections as shown below:

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Add New Mail Message to the Workflow

You can find this by clicking Mail under Library and navigating the list or simply by typing New Mail Message in the Name search box.

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To add the New Mail Message Action, drag it from the list into the open space. You should see something like the image below.

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For my purposes, I chose a specific account to mail from, plus added a little text that says:

This email contains attached files. These files are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual(s) or entity to whom they are addressed. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. 

Unfortunately, I found that the font did not stay set right when I used this workflow. I hope to resolve that and update this blog post in the future.

Save the Service with an easy name like Attach to New Mail Message

To do this, simply go to the File menu and choose Save or hit CMD + S.

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Note: you will not get a folder option for where to save your new Service. This is because Services created in Automator default to the home directory -> Library -> Services folder.

Test Service on Menu

To use this new Service that you just created, simply go to any file or folder and right-click, select Services then Attach to New Mail Message:

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You should see something like this:

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BOOM! You just wrote a Service and it works! Imagine the possibilities! Mac OS X is a great platform for many reasons, but the ability to automate tasks is often overlooked or completely unknown!

Enjoy!

More updates:

  1. Dragging a file or group of files to the Mail icon on the dock will create a new message with the file(s) as attachment(s).
  2. IF you have the Share M320GIL.png button on your Finder toolbar, you can use that to send a file by email.

Another low-cost resource for AppleScript help is Alexander Woodall and he makes great software for automation such as AppleScriptObjC Explorer and even offers free utilities like the ones found here.

MacBook Pro Models on Amazon