HeySage

Anybody that owns a MacPro or MacMini is fully aware that these computers do not ship with a copy of Photobooth. As a MacPro owner I felt short changed when I did not receive a copy of Photobooth. Well, there is a solution. If you have an iSight camera, or any firewire camera for that matter (I use a sony TRV 900), and a computer (or friend’s computer) with Photobooth you are in luck.

All you need to do is copy Photobooth.app from the iMac, Macbook, or Macbook Pro to your MacPro or MacMini. The easiest way to do this is to copy the application to an external drive (via drag and drop) and then copy it into the applications folder of the Photoboothless computer. Once you do you are set. Just turn on your webcam and launch Photobooth. You are now ready to take photos of yourself at your computer until your heart’s content.

Technorati Tags: Photobooth, MacPro, OS X Hack

In this episode I show you how to create slideshows on the fly within Apple Mail and Preview. As I typically do, I have incorporated some Quicksilver and keyboard shortcuts into the episode.

The concept is really quite simple. All you need to do is go to iTunes and play some music and then use the slideshow engine built into Mail and Preview. In the podcast I utilize Quicksilver and keyboard shortcuts with the hope of demonstrating additional ways to incorporate each into your workflow.

Send any comments to info@heysage.com

Technorati Tags: Slideshow, OS X, Mail.app, Preview, How to

I recently had a request to do a show on the basics of Quicksilver so, here it is. In this episode I show you a few of the innumerable uses of Quicksilver. Quicksilver is an unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. The possibilities are endless. These are just a few of the ways that I use Quicksilver on a daily basis.

In this episode I show you how to use Quicksilver.app for the following:

1. Application Launcher
2. Bookmark Access
3. Moving/Copying Files
4. iTunes Control
5. Address Book Access
6. Add iCal Events/To Dos to iCal

Follow along closely because things go quickly!

Technorati Tags: Quicksilver 101, How to use Quicksilver, OS X Tutorials

In this episode I show you how to create and utilize smart playlists. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a “smart” playlist? A smart playlist is a playlist that is constructed based on parameters that you set via drop down menus in iTunes’ smart playlist dialogue box. Here we go.

1. Launch iTunes
2. Press ⌘ ⌥ N (or go to file new smart playlist)
3. Configure the Parameters as would like
4. Click OK
5. Name the playlist by typing the name of your liking

You are set. You can always edit your list by right clicking (⌃ clicking) the playlist name in the left hand column.

It is certainly worth mentioning that most  applications have a smart folder feature. Thus, you can create smart albums in iPhoto, smart folders in finder etc. etc.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge that I know that the notes for this episode are short. I also did not do any audio enhancement in post as I usually do. The summer has been quite busy for me. Not only have I gotten married and gone on an amazing honeymoon, but I am in the middle of purchasing an orthodontic practice. Expect the standard notes and production quality to return in the near future.

Technorati Tags: Smart Playlist, iTunes

In this episode I review the features of OS X’s application switcher. I recently had an email question regarding the application switcher. I responded to the question via email but I thought that I would do a whole show on the application switcher. As usual you can watch the episode here if you would like. So, here we go!

The first question, what is the application switcher? The application switcher is a very simple way to navigate between open applications. To launch the application switcher simply hold the ⌘ key and press ⇥ (the tab key). Once you have done this, the application switcher will launch in the middle of the screen with the last application that you used highlighted (as opposed to the current application). Continue to hold the tab key to keep the application switcher visible. Once you let go of the command key the application that is highlighted will be selected.

Once the application switcher is visible you may select an open application several different ways.

1. While holding the ⌘ key, you can cycle forward through the open applications by repeatedly pressing, or holding down, the ⇥ key (tab).
2. You may cycle through applications in the opposite direction by adding ⇧ (shift) to the previous equation. So, holding down ⇧ ⌘ tab will cycle through open applications in the opposite direction.
3. Once the application switcher is open you may use your mouse to select any application. Press ⌘ ⇥ and then click on any application.

Another wonderful use of the application switcher is to hide and quite applications. For example, you may have a slew of applications open and you may want to quite out of several of them. To do so quickly and efficiently, launch the application switcher and select the application that you would like to quit (either tab until it is highlighted or place the mouse cursor over the application without clicking). Once the application is selected use the keyboard shortcut ⌘ Q to close down the application of your choice. Holding the ⌘ key and pressing ⇥ and then Q multiple times will quite all of your applications. You may use the same technique with the keyboard shortcut ⌘ H to hide any application that you choose.

A variant of this trick is ⌘ ~ (tild) to cycle through windows in an application. As with most things in OS X, you can cycle backwards through windows within an application by adding ⇧ to the equation.

It is worth noting that in most instances where the ⇥ will move through fields, whether it be in Safari, AddressBook, or any other application, holding down the ⇧ key will allow you to move through fields in the opposite direction.

My last tip about the application switcher is geared towards the mouse lovers out there. If you have an apple mighty mouse you can program any button to launch the application switcher. I personally prefer the trackpad button but the side buttons work fairly well too. With mouse in hand this is extremely convenient. Once you press the trackpad button you can scroll through the applications with the scroll wheel. rthdfg

As always, send your feedback to info@heysage.com

Technorati Tags: Application Switcher, ⌘ ⇥

In this episode I show you how to create custom ringtones using GarageBand or Soundtrack Pro and them install them on your iPhone using iFuntastic. There is also a small section dedicated to text selection keyboard shortcuts. You may watch this episode here. Here we go!

Warning: Use this tutorial at your own risk. Changing system settings on your iPhone may cause problems with your iPhone. A restore should let you recover but there are no guarantees (I have used iFuntastic numerous times without any problem but that does not mean that you will not have any problems)

The first step is to create yourself a custom ringtone. This may be done by editing one of your favorite songs, creating your own song, or using system/application sounds (my preference).

In the podcast I used two sounds from Adium (a great IM client) and stitched them together. I show you how to do so using GarageBand or SoundTrack Pro (I prefer soundtrack pro if you have it).

Once you have created the ringtone and have converted into the AAC format you are ready to pursue iFuntastic. Download iFuntastic from either iPhoneAlley or Rapidshare. The links to either download site is here.

The steps are clearly outlined within the application but they are as follows:

1. Sync your iPhone
2. Launch iFuntastic. Select the prepare tab and then click on the Jail button.
3. Hold down the home key and power button until you see the caution sign.
4. Allow the iPhone to think for awhile (this is the part where I digress into the text selection keyboard shortcut tutorial).
5. Click the continue button to relaunch iTunes if necessary (it has always been necessary for me).
6. Then click on the Ringtones tab to add ringtones.
7. Simply drag and drop the m4v files to the right panel. Click the plus button so that it is highlighted and then click the update iPhone button at the bottom of the window.
8. At this point feel free to change the carrier logo or the home screen in the respective pane of the application.
9. Once you are finished you need to go to the finish tab and click on the jail button. From there power off the iPhone and then reboot it.
10. Click done and you are the proud owner of a customized iPhone.

In this episode I also briefly review some text selection keyboard shortcuts. They all involve different variations of ⌘ ⇧ and arrow keys. I will probably do a podcast on keyboard shortcuts in the near future.

I am trying to get this episode out quickly as I have just returned from my honeymoon and I have not put out an episode for awhile. I apologize in advance for any shortcomings (especially in production quality). If you have any questions please do not hesitate to email me at info@hesage.com.

In this episode I am going to show you how to configure your gmail account to work in Apple Mail. This is an extremely convenient way to handle your mail. If you have multiple email accounts Apple Mail allows you to receive all of your email in one centralized inbox. In addition, if you configure Mail to send and receive email from your Gmail account, you can easily Sync the account to your iPhone via iTunes. This is quite convenient since typing on the iPhone, although surprisingly fast, can be painful and laborious. Here we Go!

You can watch this episode here.

The first step is to create a gmail account. You can do so by visiting Mail.Google.com. From here simply click on the Sign Up for Gmail Link. After setting up your account you must configure your account for the POP protocol. To do so, click on the settings link in the top right hand corner of the page and then choose the Forwarding and POP tab. From here be sure to enable POP (Enable POP for all email or Enable POP only for messages that arrives from now on) and choose what you would like Gmail to do when messages are accessed with POP. Once these two steps are completed click Save Changes.

Now launch Apple Mail (aka mail.app) and select File –> Preferences (⌘,). Under the accounts pane press the + button at the buttom left hand corner to add a new account. This will bring up the Account Configuration Pane. Choose POP from the account type and fill in the Account Description and Full Name fields. In the Email Address field add your complete Gmail address (e.g. yourname@gmail.com) and click Continue.

In the Incoming Mail Server dialog box enter pop.gmail.com in the incoming email server field. Then enter your Gmail address (e.g. yourname@gmail.com) in the User Name field and your password in the Password field. Click Continue.

In the Outgoing Mail Server pane enter smtp.gmail.com into the Outgoing Mail Server field. Check the Use Authentication box and type your User Name (yourname@gmail.com) and Password in their respective fields. Click Continue (this usually takes a little while- be patient). Click Continue and then Click Done (unless you would like to configure another account). You are finished!

Please send any questions or comments. If you have any requests please let me know.

Technorati Tags: Configure, Gmail, Apple Mail, “Gmail Apple Mail”

In this episode I will show you how to create custom icons for files, folders, applications or whatever you would like within OS X (difficulty = hard).

You may watch the this episode here or download it via iTunes

In the screencast I use a number of applications. Although I use two applications that are not free (illustrator and photoshop) this process can be done by using all freeware applications. You may use any image creation and/or manipulation application but you will need:

1. Icon Composer (a component of the apple developer tools which comes with you installation disc) and
2. Icns2Rsrc

Here we Go!

Photoshop Steps

1. Open a new document with the dimensions of 128X128. Create your image within that document. You must make sure that you are in an 8 bit RGB color space so that you can save your image as a CompuServe Gif.
2. Hit ⌘⇧S (File –> Save As) and select compuserve GIF from the drop down dialog box for format. Choose an appropriate name for you file and then click Save.
3. Click OK in the indexed Color dialog box and make sure that the Transparency box is checked (Transparency is not necessary but it sure does look a lot better!).
4. From the GIF Options dialog box, select normal.

Icon Composer (Macintosh HD/Developer/Applications/Utilities/Icon Composer)

1. Open Icon Composer
2. Drag and drop the GIF file that you just created into each of the boxes in the image composer.
3. For the lower resolution icon versions you will get an alert asking if you would like to use a scaled down version. Select the Use Scaled Version button.

4. This warning will be followed by another warning asking if you would like to extract the mask. If you want your transparency preserved choose extract Mask.

   It is worth noting that you could create different versions of your image for each of the Icon sizes and drag those into the Icon Composer. This works fine, the only downside is that it is more time consuming.

5. Choose File–>Save and choose an appropriate name and click Save.

Icns2Rsrc

1. Hit ⌘O or File Open
2. Navigate to the icns file that you just created via Icon Composer and click Open
3. In the Enregistrer Sous: dialog box Choose a name and a location to save your file to.

Finder

1. Choose the application, file, folder or whatever you would like to change the icon of and get Info. You can do this by clicking on the icon to highlight it and then hitting ⌘I. Select the .rsrc file that you just created and get info on that.
2. In the Get info dialog box for the rsrc file, select the icon in the top left corner. It will have a blue highlight once selected. Key ⌘C to copy the icon.
3. Go to the info pane for the file or folder that you would like to change the icon for and select the icon in the top left corner and hit ⌘V (paste).

That’s it. You are done!

Technorati Tags: Custom Icons in OS X, Icons, OS X

In this episode The Sage demonstrates several different uses of Drag and Drop in OS X.

You can watch this episode here.

There are many ways in which drag and drop can be used in OS X. In this episode The Sage demonstrates a few of the less conspicuous implementations of drag and drop. They are:

1. Drag and Drop while holding ⌥ to copy files or folders
2. Drag a file over a folder and hold the mouse cursor over the folder for several seconds to reveal the subdirectories of that folder. Using drag and drop with spring loaded folders can enable you to drag and drop files into folders buried deep within a directory.
3. Dragging files over the dock to open the file with that application.
4. Dragging links to the menu bar to open the link in a new tab.

It is probably worth mentioning that there is usually a quicker way to accomplish the tasks listed above without even using a mouse. Moving and copying files can be quickly achieved via quicksilver. Attaching files to email can be also achieved via quicksilver. Using the quicksilver method the address field will already be populated. Finally, ⌘clicking links will open the link in a new tab. This is much quicker than dragging links around.

In-spite of the quicker keyboard options, many people (my wife to be included) are not geeky enough to pursue the keyboard alternatives. Mouse actions are much more intuitive for everyone. So, feel free to give drag and drop a try. If you are not using it, you will find that it can enhance your workflow.

Technorati Tags: Drag and Drop, OS X, HeySage Podcast

Well, yesterday disaster struck. I was typing some obscure key combinations in sequence and my trusty powerbook froze on me. So what did I do? First, I tried ⌘⌥⎋ to force quit any applications that had crashed. This was to no avail. After over ten minutes (I was busy doing other things, like, seeing patients) I reset my powerbook (hold down the power book for 10 seconds).

When I tried to reboot, the computer locked up at the stage of loading quicksilver (set to launch on login). So the next step was to boot while holding ⇧ to stop applications from loading. Again non luck.

My next step was to zap the PRAM by holding ⌘⌥PR on boot (You will hear a second chime). Finally, it was time to enter single user mode (boot holding ⌘S while booting). In single user mode I did an FSCK (file system check) and repaired permissions by typing the following (⌅ = enter):

/sbin/fsck -y ⌅        
/sbin/mount -uw / ⌅       
/sbin/autodiskmount -va ⌅        
/usr/sbin/diskutil repairPermissions / ⌅       

and finally

reboot ⌅

an easier way to do this is install AppleJack (before things go wrong). Boot into single user mode and type:

applejack auto reboot ⌅

again no luck.

Next, I plugged in a firewire 800 external HD and held the ⌥ key while booting so as to boot from the external HD. Everything seemed to work fine. At this point I was at a cross road. The sensible next step is to do an archive and install. Since I clone my drives nightly via SuperDuper! and I had a recent backup, I decided to simply clone my backup back to my powerbook HD.

Success, Finally! Here I am now typing up the synopsis of my recovery. I am still mystified as to what caused the problem. I have a feeling the system clock was somehow reset making the date somewhere around 2001. Nonetheless, problem solved. As a summary here were the steps I took.

1. Boot w/ ⇧ (to prevent applications from loading during boot up)
2. Zap PRAM (⌘⌥PR)
3. Enter Single User Mode and repair permissions
4. Boot from backup and restore

In the end, this story exemplifies the importance of a good backup. If you are not regularly backing up your data you should start… NOW!