Be Smart with Smart Folders

Most of us don't use OS X to its fullest potential. Here are some great tips for getting the most out of Smart Folders. I have several of these set up, including for System File searches, PDFs, and Preferences. It's kind of like a searching shortcut.

Want to keep track of all documents you have greater than 500MB in size? All your PDFs? All your OpenType fonts? Pictures taken with your Canon PowerShot within the last two weeks that have less than a specified focal length and greater than a specified exposure time? If you can set up a search for something in the Finder, you can make a smart folder for it too.

[From Smart ways to work with smart folders | Business Center | Working Mac | Macworld]

Photo Editing Noobs: Use Layers

And you don't need Photoshop to use Layers. Just download the free, open-source GIMP editor and enjoy! GIMP can do most everything that Photoshop can and it doesn't cost you a dime.

Do you edit your digital photos using layers? If not, you're missing out on the single most powerful tool in your photo editing repertoire. Layers may seem baffling at first, but they're not hard to use—and they permit all sorts of powerful digital editing tricks.

You can use layers to combine photos, create double exposures, achieve special effects like selective color in a partly black-and-white image, and even correct a shot's exposure or color balance.

[From Basic photo editing tricks with layers | Digital Photo | Digital Photo | Macworld]

Great iPhone Power Management Tips

Running out of juice too early? Here are some great ways to manage your battery between charges. I do all of these, but my greatest advice is to TURN OFF features you're not using--like Bluetooth, WiFi, Notifications (like Push notifications), auto mail fetching (do it manually), Location Services, and 3G. Unfortunately, some of these are spread out and need a little tapping to turn them all off. If you just need it to be a phone and iPod, turning off the previously mentioned services will greatly expand your battery mileage.

If you only need the features of an iPod or PDA, Apple makes it easy: Just flip the Airplane Mode switch under Settings.

Every iPhone user knows that the battery life isn't fantastic. Well, us heavy users anyways. If all you do is type out 10-15 texts a day or maybe make a phone call the iPhone will last easily. For those of us using WiFi, and browsing the web, and constantly reading our feeds, checking emails, testing out applications, and who knows what all day, the battery life can be a little bit on the lacking end. Here are a few of my personal tips to help you get a little bit extra out of your battery.

[From iPhone Battery, How To Help Make It Last | iGadget Junkie | iPhone App Reviews & Giveaways ]

User accounts and file sharing in Leopard

Computerworld - User accounts and file sharing in Leopard: What's new:

NetInfo is no more, and you can now create groups and share any folder on your Mac.

Apple has made some major improvements in Leopard when it comes to creating and managing user accounts, file sharing and remote access. The biggest change, though, is something most Macintosh users may never see because it was accomplished so seamlessly: Apple has retired the proprietary NetInfo database that has stored and managed local accounts since the beginning of Mac OS X.

Make your own fun banner in Terminal

5 Ways to Use the Terminal in OS X, from Useful to Just Fun:

Just type banner followed by a phrase of your choosing to create a huge text banner. For example, banner Welcome to Low End Mac will create a banner out of the phrase "Welcome to Low End Mac."

It's pretty neat to watch it flow across the screen, but you can actually make a printable version.

First let's change directories to your Desktop:

cd ~/Desktop/

Then create a new blank file called banner.txt:

touch banner.txt

Now type your banner command, followed by > banner.txt:

banner Welcome to Low End Mac > banner.txt

The ">" directs the output of the previous command into the specified file. Double click the banner.txt file on your Desktop, and you'll see your printable banner in your default text editor.

Office 2008 Update Problems

Microsoft continues to have issues with its Office 2008 updates. Don't use Monolingual until they can sort this out!

Office 2008 12.1.2 (#2): More fixes for problems installing; Word bugs - MacFixIt:

Users continue to report issues with installing Office 2008 12.1.2. MacFixIt reader David Badovinac has discovered a somewhat kludgy fix, as follows:

Download the standalone Office 2008 12.1.2 updater
Mount the disk image then control-click the updater file and select "Show Package Contents"
Navigate to Contents -> Resources
Open the script "package_updatable" with TextEdit or another plain text editor.
Remove these lines:

• if not found_valid_version:
• sys.exit(48)

Save the file then close it and reattempt the update.

Changing the login background

Neat for when you get tired of looking at the same ol' image.

macosxhints.com - 10.5: Change login panel background:

While attempting to get rid of the gaudy pink and purple Aurora login picture, I found that it is no longer enough to simply rename your picture of choice to Aurora.jpg and drop it in Desktop Pictures a la Aqua.jpg in previous releases.

To change the picture behind the login panel in 10.5, one must name the picture of choice DefaultDesktop.jpg, and drop it in to /System » Library » CoreServices. Doing this as the admin user is required for authentication purposes.

[robg adds: It's the simple things that can make using one's OS of choice more pleasant :). I used Terminal to create a backup of the original image first, just in case. After cding to the CoreServices directory, I then did sudo mv DefaultDesktop.jpg DefaultDesktop_old.jpg, then moved my new image in.]

Got a new Mac? Now what? Macvideotraining.com

A friend of mine, Paul Garay (composer and podcast producer, and founder of the Inside Home Recording podcast), produces training videos for Macs and related software, specifically the software that comes with every shiny new Mac...all those wonderful Apple goodies that make your new Mac a super-machine. Check it out and learn how to get some serious mileage out of your machine!

Mac Video Training

How to open .docx files on a Mac

MS always feels the need to throw its users curve ball with every new release, such as completely changing the interface of MS Office or migrating to an entirely new document format! Thanks Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates.

Here's a bandaid solution for the frustrated, though you'll most likely lose formatting. Best thing to do is download the converter mentioned at the end of mindplunge's post or upgrade to Office 2008 for Mac.

Open .docx files on a mac | mindplunge:

Ever had to open up a docx file on a Mac and you had no idea how to? Here is the simple solution:

• Change .docx to .zip
• Unzip it.
• Go to Safari and File > Open File…
• Navigate to the /insert_name_of_Word_file_here/word/document.xml and open.
• Read text.

Update:

Microsoft released a converter for the Mac last December. It’s still in beta but it does the job perfectly. Download Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 0.2.1 (Beta) here.

Shutting down with the newer keyboards

Losing my old Kensington keyboard means losing my power button. But even though I can't power up from the keyboard anymore, I can still shutdown or restart easily:

Apple - Support - Discussions - The ole keyboard shutdown ...:

Hit CTRL (yes, CTRL, not CMD) and EJECT key. This will bring up 'Are you sure you want to shut down.... dialogue box. Once in there, hit enter/return for shut down or hit 'S' to sleep.

And to bypass the dialog:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Power up from keyboard. ...:

Sleep = opt + cmd + eject
Restart = ctrl + cmd + eject
Shut Down = ctrl + opt + cmd + eject

Sharing iTunes and iPhoto on One Machine

This must be one of the biggest pains in the world. I don’t know why Apple doesn’t address this better.

Sharing a single iTunes (or iPhoto) Library is very tough, because of separate user accounts and permissions issues. If you do a search on Google, there are about 8-gajillion methods for achieving this; most of them are too hard and many of them don’t work. The one I had previously used under Panther required setting up a new group with NetInfo Manager.

Even Apple’s current support document on the issue isn’t 100% right. However, (as usual) digging through the discussion board (where Apple plays no official part) I was able to find a key omission in Apple’s version. The original can be found here, but I’ve summarized it below:

Holding down the command key & select the iTunes Music folder and drag it to a shared folder along with a copy of the iTunes Library file from your iTunes folder... leave the original Library file where it is... set your iTunes pref. > advanced tab Location is Shared folder.

Set correct permissions on the Shared folder ...

To set preferences using BatChmod is very easy... This compact GUI will perform the same tasks as a 'command line in Terminal ' drag the complete Shared folder with libraries and iTunes Music folder inside to the BatChmod Icon and drop.... check path is correct.... tick if not already.... Owner=R W , Group=R W, Others=R W, then tick 'Apply ownership and priviledges'... 'Unlock' & click Apply... provide password... all done very quick...

The next time you login to the other A/C replace the iTunes Library file in the iTunes folder with the copy in the Shared folder and check the name is iTunes Library without 'copy' added.... start iTunes and set the pref. the same as above.... if you make major changes to library you can swap the library file to the other user A/C the same way.

This didn’t work for my situation, because I want to share our ENTIRE library among users, including playlists and so on. So I eventually pieced together advice from various different sources such as these:

Symbolic links Sharing iTunes and iPhoto Libraries with entire family Using ACL under Tiger (I did not go this route)

A probable avenue for doing this pain free was seen here, but the developer has no demo version available (this software was once donationware). Sounds nice but I won’t pay even $5 for something if I don’t know it will work. And there’s a shareware app called Sandbox that might work as well for doing ACL, but I didn’t try it.

Here’s what I did (basically):

1. Moved /User/Music/iTunes/ directory to /Users/Shared/
2. Changed permissions to allow RWE for all users in that folder
3. Made a symbolic link to the library in each user’s /Music/ folder pointing to the shared folder; note: Path Finder makes doing the above tasks easier
4. Repeated steps 1-3 for iPhoto library as well

It’s working as of now, but we’ll see if I run into any ‘gotchas’. I created a test playlist from one user’s account and then deleted it from another account, so it seems to be working. I can play music from either account. iPhoto is working as well.