iPhoto and RAW format

I only just found out that iPhoto handles RAW image format. D’oh!

Technorati Tags: mac os x, photography, iphoto

Nikon View Monitor Carbon

Since installing Nikon’s camera utilities, there is process called Nikon Monitor View Carbon which runs every time I log in. The thing which caused this to run wasn’t in the usual places for startup processes: /Library/Startup Items or ~/Library/Startup Items.

Well, this useful comment told me where it was. It’s an entry in /Library/Preferences/loginwindow.plist, i.e. the preferences for the login process.

Listening to Down To The River To Pray from the album “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” by Alison Krauss

Technorati Tags: mac os x, monitor, nikon, view

Gmailto

I use GMail and want to have mailto: links be handled by GMail’s web interface, rather than Mail.app. Jack Dorsey wrote a simple handler program called GMailto. It was nice: set it as the default email application, and any email links clicked would call up GMail’s new message composing page.

Then, it stopped working. Thankfully, source code is available, and I was able to make the little mods to get it working again. Here’s the hacked source. You’ll need to compile it yourself with XCode.

Technorati Tags: gmail, gmailto, google, mail

iPhone, iTV

Well, all the rumors were right. Apple just unveiled their mobile phone, and TV appliance. Live coverage at macrumorslive.com.

Keychain Access

Mac OS X’s Keychain Access application (inside the Applications/Utilities folder) is really useful. Besides controlling access to remembered website passwords, you can create secure notes containing any text which are then password-protected.

Listening to Shimokitazawa Face from the album “The Right Kind of Nothing” by The North Valley Subconscious Orchestra

Making a disk image from a DVD/CD

Use the Disk Utility app in the Applications->Utilities folder.

Insert the master CD, run Disk Utility (DU). In DU’s window, on the left, you’ll see a list of all the disks on the computer, including hard drives and CDs or DVDs.

Select the “2nd level” icon, “25.4 MB Untitled 0” in this case. Then, click on the “New Image” icon in the toolbar. This will bring out a sheet asking for Save As etc.

Give it some name, “fave_app” in this case. And make sure the “Image Format” is “DVD/CD master”. Hit Save. This will create a disk image on the desktop named “fave_app.cdr”.

This cdr disk image file will also appear in Disk Utility. To burn a new disk using that disk image, just select it, then click the “Burn” icon in the toolbar. It'll ask you to insert a new disk.

Note that I don’t know if this will overcome copy protection if there happens to be any on the disk.

Technorati Tags: cd master, disk image, disk utility, mac os x

Useful things for the Mac OS X newbie

So, I’ve helped several people switch from Windows and Linux to Mac OS X, now. I’ve never written anything down but I figure now’s as good a time as any. My hints may not be completely up-to-date for those running OS X.4 (Tiger) since I’m still on Jaguar (X.3.9). Anyway, here goes. This is primarily a list of free or shareware (try now, pay later) software that’s useful.

Watch this post for updates. I think this could use a reorganization.

1. Backup is free with a .Mac membership. Sign up for a trial membership, and download it. Cancel the membership right after. It’s not worth the $10/month. $FREEish
2. Bookends is a bibliography manager. An alternative to EndNote. Only played with it a bit since I use a completely different bib manager (BibDesk) for ultrageeks. $100
3. GMail is a great free email system, plus you can use the Mac’s Mail application to read it and send email through it. $FREE
4. QuickImage Contextual Menu is a fast way to view images without having to open a separate application. Just right-click and view. $FREE
5. Acrobat Reader. I am loathe to recommend this because I’ve had problems with it. But some forms, particularly tax forms, seem to only render properly with Acrobat Reader. $FREE
6. Flash Player is, unfortunately, quite necessary. $FREE
7. VLC video player will play almost any video and audio format you can think of. $FREE
8. SnapNDrag is the best screen and window capture utility I have ever used. $FREE
9. FlickrExport is an iPhoto plugin that allows you to easily tag pictures and upload them to Flickr. £12
10. Adium is a multiprotocol client: you can use it to chat on AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, .mac, Gtalk. I don’t think it supports video chat using the iSight. My favorite soundset because it’s soothing and nonobtrusive is Tokyo Train Station. $FREE
11. Free Ruler could be useful for designers. $FREE
12. Yum! is a nice recipe manager. $Donation requested
13. ourTunes allows you to download music from other people’s shared iTunes libraries (instead of just streaming it). $FREE
14. Clutter puts images of the CD covers all over your desktop so using iTunes becomes a bit like playing CDs in real life. $FREE

Of course, on OS X.4 (Tiger), check out Dashboard Widgets for things like dictionaries, thesauruses, weather reports.

Update: For blogging, I like to use ecto. It allows me to easily compose posts, save them temporarily before posting, add images, video, etc, make links to Amazon items. Definitely less hassle than logging into a blog webpage to compose posts. It’s not free, but well worth the asking price in convenience. I wouldn’t blog as much without this.

Update 2: Acquisition: search for and download music from the net. $18

Update 3: iStumbler: lists all wireless access points, and if they are password-protected. $FREE

Listening to Gone, Biggie, Gone from the album “Gnarls Biggie” by Sound Advice

Technorati Tags: freeware, mac os x, newbie, software

Ginger gets a new disk

My laptop, Ginger, now has a new 160GB disk. It’s one of Seagate’s new perpendicular recording drives. (Check out Hitachi’s little animation about perpendicular recording.) The old one is now in a sleek little Firewire enclosure.

Watching “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” (on the lovely Special Edition DVD)

I ♥ Apple

I forgot to bring an extra ethernet cable from work, so I couldn’t plug both my laptop and the mac mini into the network. However, I tried just connecting the two machines directly with the one cable that I have. Then, turn on “Internet Sharing” on my laptop, et voila, it works.

Watching Lost in Translation

mac mini

I bought a refurbished G4 mac mini for my folks, and it just arrived today. I have 1 GB of RAM to load it up with, too.

Technorati Tags: mac mini