My Writings. My Thoughts.

march 12, daily summary

// March 12th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // apple, applications, design, gadgets, online, tech

Articles:

  1. Top 10 Social Networks For Entrepreneurs – Mashable
  2. Self-healing polymer advance could mean scratch-free iPhones – Ars Technica
  3. The Elements of Social Architecture – A List Apart
  4. A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy – Clay Shirky’s Writings About the Internet

Useful Apps/Sites:

  1. Project Dragonfly “…experimenting in real time with your ideas in 2D and 3D… ”- Autodesk
  2. Path Finder “The Mac OS X file browser with moxie.” – Cocoatech
  3. MacJournal “Mac journaling and blog software” – Mariner Software
  4. Blip.fm – Be a DJ Online (listen to different music online)
  5. XPenser.com Track personal expenses (by SMS, email, etc.)
  6. Dial2Do.com Access different services via cellphone (voice commands)

Exciting Tech News:

  1. iPhone OS 3.0 – http://bit.ly/OvdwI
  2. iPod Touch 2g Jailbreak – http://bit.ly/h00Gn
  3. Google Voice – http://bit.ly/DcmXa
  4. Sirius XM iPhone App – http://bit.ly/aYGMY
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great Mac|Life article – calling all Mac geeks

// March 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // apple, applications, online, tech

In the past year, there’s quite a few magazines that I subscribed to. A few are worthwhile while others don’t really cut it. One of the ones I am planning on renewing is Mac|Life. It’s usually got great articles, great reviews, and just enough ads so that you don’t find yourself flipping through 5 pages between every article. This month’s cover article was: 50 Things Every Mac Geek Should Know. It’s probably a good thing that I can honestly say, I actually learned quite a few things that I didn’t already use on my Mac. Here’s a few of my favorites with the corresponding numbers from the article.

#9 Spotlight Can Do Math – Definitely didn’t know this one. I always find myself opening Calculator to perform calculations. Apparently OS X Leopard has a built-in feature where you can simply press Command-Space to pop open Spotlight, start typing in an equation, and press Return. Tada!

#13 Safari’s Private Surfing Is Not So Private – Fortunately, I don’t use Safari anyways, and my computer is my personal machine. BUT, if you are often at work, school, or some other public place, and enter pages you may not want people knowing you enter, this may be helpful. Private Browsing actually stores your preferences so anyone (boss, IT, etc.) can see your history by using the Terminal and typing: dscacheutil -cachedump -entries Host . You can purge this by typing this into the Terminal: dscacheutil -flushcache

#15 How To Reset Your iPod or iPhone – Okay, so I already knew this one…but since it’s extremely useful if you have an iPod touch or iPhone (and something I’ve had to use numerous times), I’ve included it. Just press and hold the wake/sleep button (top of device on the left) and the Home button at the same time until the Apple logo appears. Let go and let it reboot. (For clickwheel iPods it’s the Menu and center buttons at the same time.)

#18 Play Tetris In The Terminal – This is awesome :-P . (1) Launch Terminal, (2) Type emacs and press Return, (3) Press Escape, then type x, (4) Type tetris

#20 The Dock Is Cool, But It Ain’t Perfect – Add A Recent Items Stack: (1) Open Terminal, (2) Type defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’ and press Return. Type killall Dock and press Return, (3) When it restarts, Control-Click to customize….or….to make dock icons magnified really big if you have them really small, just hold Shift-Control when you mouse over them.

#32 The Finder’s Not the Only Way to Access Files On Your Mac – Shares info on the app Path Finder ($39.95) which you can use as a replacement Finder with more features. Cool.

#33 Zap Your PRAM – Delete your parameter RAM: (1) Shut down the computer, (2) Turn on the computer, (3) Press and hold Command-Option-P-R before the grey screen appears, (4) Release once the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.

#36 Use Encrypted Disk Images to Hold Super Secret Files – (1) Launch Disk Utility, (2) Choose File > New > Blank Disk Image and enter a name for your image. Notice where it is going to save and change if necessary, (3) Select size, (4) Choose 128-bit AES encryption from the drop-down, (5) Choose read/write disk image from Image Format drop-down, (6) Create.

#45 Use FSCK If Safe Boot Isn’t Enough – Reboot your Mac while holding down Command-S. At the command-line, type: /sbin/fsck –fy. Let it do its thing. If you get: ** The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK, then everything is good. If you get: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****, then keep running FSCK until you get the first message. When you’re done, type: reboot, in the command-line prompt. Your Mac will restart.

#46 Fix Startup Issues With Safe Boot – Hold down the Shift key when you start or restart. Once you do that successfully, restart it in normal mode.

#48 Essential Third-Party OS X Utilities – PRODUCTIVITY: Quicksilver (free beta), AUDIO: Audio Hijack Pro ($32), MENU: FruitMenu ($12), ICON: CandyBar ($29), BACKUP: Déjà Vu ($24.95), CLEAN-DESKTOP: DragThing ($29)

#50 Play Snake in the Terminal – (1) Launch Terminal, (2) Type emacs and press Return, (3) Press Escape, then type x, (4) Type snake

And that’s that. Again, these are just a few of my favorites or ones that I find especially helpful. Here’s the link for the official Mac|Life article.

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