Windows Linux Mac Tips » Mac Monday

Completely Uninstall Your Programs with AppCleaner (Mac Monday)

Eric — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:19:41 +0000

If you switch from Windows or Linux to Mac, one of the things you will notice is Mac OS X doesn’t have a utility to help uninstall applications. To try and make things simple, Apple didn’t include an uninstaller, instead all you have to do is delete the application files. The only problem with this is as applications began to get more complex, not all the files were located in the same place. Sure you can try and manually search for the files but there’s no way you’ll find all of them.

If you don’t like deleting only some of the application files, you should give AppCleaner a try. AppCleaner is a FREE program designed to find and delete all the files associated with an application. Below is a screenshot of the program in action.

Of course there are lots of other programs that will help you uninstall your applications. However, there are a few reasons I use AppCleaner instead of those other programs. First off, AppCleaner is completely FREE. There isn’t a free version and a paid version, or some crappy trial version, just the real thing. Secondly, the interface is clean and simple. All you have to do is drag and drop the application you want to remove and your done.

AppCleaner is even smart enough to recognize when you place an application in the Trash Bin and it will then offer to properly delete it. AppCleaner will uninstall more than just applications, including widgets and preference panes. Lastly, AppCleaner can protect your most important applications from being deleted. And of course a list of all deleted applications are kept in a log file so you can look back at what you’ve successfully uninstalled.

Instant Dictionary Lookup (Mac Monday)

Eric — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:06:21 +0000

Have you ever been reading an email or surfing the net and come across a word you wanted to lookup, but didn’t because it takes too much time? Even with Dictionary widgets and websites like Dictionary.com it still takes too long to have to copy and paste the word or wait on the internet.

So, I have the solution for you Mac users out there. This quick little tip will allow you to lookup the definition of any word in any Mac native program (Coco). The best part is the Dictionary application does NOT need to be open or even running in the background.

All you need to do is hold down Control+Command+D with your mouse hovering over the word you wish to lookup. You can even continue to hold down the keyboard shortcut and move the mouse from one word to another. The dictionary description will automatically update for each word.

If you are not sure what programs this will work with, here is a small list: Safari, Mail, TextEdit, Text Wrangler, Comic Life, iWeb and some other native Mac programs.

However, this shortcut will NOT work with programs that are not written in Coco. So even your favorite programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera, Camino and Flock wont work with this shortcut.

Screen Capturing Shortcuts (Mac Monday)

Eric — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:41:13 +0000

Ok, I know most of you probably already know how to take a screenshot on your Mac, Cmd+Shift+3 right? The only problem with this is it takes a screenshot of the whole screen and saves it to a file on your desktop.

What if you only wanted to capture a certain window or section of your screen? What if you want the image copied to your clickboard instead of saved on the desktop?

Here are some other screen capturing shortcuts that you probably did not know about.

Screen capturing shortcuts that save the image in a file on your desktop:
Cmd+Shift+3: will capture the entire screen (this one most people already know)
Cmd+Shift+4: You can capture any part of the screen you want by dragging cross hairs
Cmd+Shift+4 then press spacebar: You can capture any window by clicking on it. (see picture below)

Screen capturing shorcuts that copy the image to your clipboard:
Cmd+Control+Shift+3: will capture the entire screen
Cmd+Control+Shift+4: You can capture any part of the screen you want by dragging cross hairs
Cmd+Control+Shift+4 then press spacebar: You can capture any window by clicking on it. (see picture above)

Screen capturing file formats:
You can capture the screen on any version of Mac OS X. The only difference between versions is the format in which the image is saved (if you didn’t copy it to the clipboard).
Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar)- .jpg
Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)- .pdf
Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)- .png

However, you can change the default screen capture file format by typing the following code in the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image_format
killall SystemUIServer

Change image_format to the file format you want the screen capture to be in. Some examples are jpg, tiff, pdf, png, bmp or pict.

Alternative screen capturing software:
If you don’t like using the screen capturing that is built into OS X, there are plenty of good 3rd party programs you can use.

For example, Jing is an excellent screen capturing program for Mac and Windows. With Jing you can even record a video of your screen with audio. One of the best features of Jing is how easy it is to share your screenshot/video.

For more information about Jing, check out this article: How to Make a Great How-To Video.

How to See Boot Up Text (Mac Monday)

Michael — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:30:32 +0000

If you have ever used a Linux system you probably have seen the boot up text (aka verbose mode). The boot up text can be quite informative if you’re having hardware or system problems when you boot up. Or the boot up text can look kinda cool and make you feel like you’re in one of those old school green screen computer movies.

Whichever reason you choose, you can see the boot up text on your nice shiny Mac. The text has been running behind that splash screen of yours all along.

Why even bother with a splash screen? So that all those people who have no idea how to use a computer will not run away before they ever get to a login screen (and because it looks nicer). So here’s how to see the boot up text:

While your Mac is booting up, press: Command + V.

That’s it! It will only show you the boot text on that boot up; so if you like that splash screen of yours, don’t worry, it will come back the next time you start your computer.

TIP: If you want to keep the boot up text, run the following command in the terminal:

sudo nvram boot-args=”-v”

Images taken from the following sites respectively:
http://blog.igorminar.com/
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/

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How to Rip DVDs to Your iPod Using HandBrake (Mac Monday)

Eric — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:30:10 +0000

This post will show you how to rip DVDs so you can watch them on your iPod/iPhone. Michael wrote a similar post on How to use DVD Decrypter for Windows.

1) Download and install HandBrake. If you download version 0.9.2 you must be running Leopard. If you are using Tiger or older, you should download 0.9.1

2) Place the DVD you wish to rip into your DVD drive and open HandBrake. If your computer tries to play the DVD automatically, close the program so that only HandBrake is accessing the DVD.

3) Click the Source button in the top left corner. Then choose the your DVD drive and click Open. At this point HandBrake will begin to scan the DVD. This could take a couple minutes.

4) Click the drop down box next to Title and choose the longest title if you wish to copy the entire DVD (this does not apply to Episode based DVDs).

5) The default Destination is the Desktop. Change this to wherever you wish to save the DVD file.

6) If the presets are not already displayed on the right side of the window, click the Toggle Presets button in the upper right corner to display them.

7) For the iPhone and iPod Touch you should choose iPhone / iPod Touch.

If you have an iPod video or iPod classic and want high resolution (much larger file size, good for 160GB versions) choose iPod High-Rez.

Lastly, if you have an iPod Video or iPod classic and want smaller files (good for 80GB versions) choose iPod Low-Rez.

If these presets aren’t quite what you are looking for, check the troubleshooting at the bottom of the article.

TIP: For better quality, choose 2-pass encoding. This will take longer to encode but will look better.

8.) Click the Audio & Subtitles tab. Here you should choose the language you prefer under “Track 1:”. Also, be sure to set Subtitles to None. The Sample rate should be between 32 and 48 while the Bitrate should be set between 112 and 160.

9) At this point you should be ready to begin ripping your DVD. Click Start to begin.

10) Once your DVD is finished ripping all you need to do is add it to your iTunes library (or whatever iPod manager you use) and then transfer it to your iPod.

Troubleshooting
If you have trouble with the video and audio settings from the presets, you should try the following settings instead. These settings are more strict and should work on any iPod with video capabilities.

File format: MP4 file
Codecs: MPEG-4 Video/AAC Audio
Average bitrate (kbps): 700 (again lower numbers mean less quality and smaller files)
Check 2-pass encoding
Picture settings -> set Width: 320 and the height will auto adjust to something close to 240 (will be lower for widescreen movies)

Once you find the settings that work the best for you, you can save them as a custom preset.

For more information on how to use HandBrake take a look at these websites:
How to Rip a Move for your iPod with HandBrake v0.9.0
How to Rip a TV show for your iPod with HandBrake
HandBrake Documentation

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Assign Applications to Open in Specific Spaces (Mac Monday)

Michael — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:33:59 +0000

Spaces, a new feature in Leopard, allows all Mac users to become much more efficient in their desktop space and usage.

As a Linux user, I use compiz-fusion with my 8-sided ‘cube’ so keep all of my programs organized and allow me to be as efficient as possible with my desktop space.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

How do you organize your apps?? I keep Thunderbird on one space, my instant messenger app on another, my music program on a third, and my internet apps on the rest.

Wouldn’t it be easy to keep all of these apps organized if I could just say ‘this app only opens on this space, and this other app opens on another space’? Well, you can do just that, and this is how to assign apps to open in specific spaces:

Step 1: Open ‘System Preferences’ (you can get to it my clicking the apple in the top left of your screen)

Step 2: Click Expose & Spaces

Step 3: Select the Spaces tab at the top (red) and then click on the ‘+’ symbol (green)

Step 4: After clicking the ‘+’ symbol a window will open that will allow you choose a specific application. Choose the one you want to assign to a specific space.

Step 5: Once you have chosen an application (and clicked apply) the app will be listed on the Expose & Spaces windows. In the picture above (the mail.app) is an example of an app that was chosen. Under the ‘Space’ bar you will be able to choose which space you want your app to open on. In this case the Mail.app will always open on Space 1.

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Save a bit of text the easy way (Mac Monday)

Michael — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:57:39 +0000

I know this is a short tip, but I thought it was pretty cool (and useful).

Have you ever wanted to save a bit of text from a website? In Windows you would have to highlight the text, right click, open a document, and paste it in. In Mac however, all you need to do is highlight the text and then drag the text over to the desktop. It will create a document and save your text in it automatically.

For all you Linux users out there; this tip works for you too! (It saves your text in a file called ‘dropped text.txt)

Mac Monday: Thinking of buying an Apple TV?

Michael — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:23:55 +0000

So you’re thinking of buying Apple’s new 40/160 GB Apple TV. The concept is great, but there are a few drawbacks that are keeping me from buying one. If you don’t know what the Apple TV does, here’s a quick summary. The Apple TV is essentially a small computer that you connect to your TV so you can watch all those movies you’ve been downloading through iTunes.

Picture taken from www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

The device itself can connect to the internet using either a wireless connection or your basic Ethernet cable. It will connect to your home computer and get your iTunes content from there and it supports streamed content from sites such as YouTube. With Apple’s new rental service, you don’t have to go down the street to Blockbuster, or wait a few days for that Netflix DVD to arrive. The biggest plus is that it supports content up to 720p, so that high def video you downloaded (or rented) can be watched on that nice HD plasma of yours.

So by now you’re thinking, I think I’ll drive down to that Apple store and get one of these things, but here come the drawbacks. You’ll have to create, convert, or buy compatible formats so that your videos will work with the Apple TV’s limited number of formats. Watching those YouTube videos on some of the larger TV’s can look absolutely horrible. You can’t connect to network storage devices or even to other Apple TVs. Connecting a keyboard is also impossible, so you’ll have to make do with that little remote they give you. You can only sync with one computer, so if you have media on multiple computers and you can’t put all of it onto one computer then this isn’t a viable solution for you.

All-in-all: If you’re looking for a small device that is as simple to use as that iPod in your pocket, then this could be the device for you. I, however, would rather build a media computer and connect that to my TV. With a media computer I can do much more and have as much storage space as I want. With 500 GB drives at around $100, you could have 2 terabytes of space quite easily.

Windows Linux Mac Tips » Mac Monday

Completely Uninstall Your Programs with AppCleaner (Mac Monday)

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Instant Dictionary Lookup (Mac Monday)

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Screen Capturing Shortcuts (Mac Monday)

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How to See Boot Up Text (Mac Monday)

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How to Rip DVDs to Your iPod Using HandBrake (Mac Monday)

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Assign Applications to Open in Specific Spaces (Mac Monday)

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Save a bit of text the easy way (Mac Monday)

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Mac Monday: Thinking of buying an Apple TV?

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