Mac OS X Over The Years

Mac OS X Over The Years

It’s neat to see how the interface has been refined over the years.

ThisService

ThisService is a handy MacOS scripting doohickie you can use to turn any Perl, Python, etc. script into a systme-wide service. I’m using it to convert older weblog entries from HTML to Markdown.

Mac OS X 10.4: How to prevent .DS_Store file creation over network connections

Mac OS X 10.4: How to prevent .DS_Store file creation over network connections

I’ve read this isn’t a problem for 10.5 (Leopard), but good to note for future reference.

Applescript to toggle F1-F11 keys as function keys - Mac Forums

Applescript to toggle F1-F11 keys as function keys - Mac Forums

Very useful. For some games you need the F1-F12 keys to be function keys, but normally I want them to control volume, show Dashboard, etc. Save this script as an application, put it in your Dock, and it will open System Preferences and toggle the checkbox.

Happy iCal Day

Happy iCal Day

Google Calculator Service

Google Calculator Service

Install for your Mac OS Services menu, highlight some text, and it’ll ask Google Calculator for the answer. (ex.: give it “four plus four”, it’ll replace the text with the solution)

The Design of the Mac OS X Shutdown Feature

The Design of the Mac OS X Shutdown Feature

Piece on how the same feature was done in Mac OS X. I agree that there needn’t be any options at all. Either you don’t use your computer for a few minutes and it sleeps, or you hit the power button.

Daring Fireball: Can I Get an "Hallelujah" for Auto-Completion With the Esc Key?

Daring Fireball: Can I Get an “Hallelujah” for Auto-Completion With the Esc Key?

I never knew about this. Quite handy, but sadly on for Cocoa apps.

Google Software Downloads for the Mac

Google Software Downloads for the Mac

Zoom Using Scroll Wheel

Okay, I linked to this yesterday, but I didn’t realize how cool it was going to be until I had the update installed. If you’re using a Mac, run Software Update (go to the Apple Menu if it hasn’t popped up already), then hold control and use your scroll wheel (or use two-finger scrolling if you’re using a MacBook or MacBook Pro).

Daring Fireball: New in 10.4.8: Zoom Using Scroll Wheel

Daring Fireball: New in 10.4.8: Zoom Using Scroll Wheel

Cool new feature. (You could do this via the keyboard before, now you can use the mouse.) Very useful for blowing up small YouTube movies.

Apple - Apple - Mac OS X - Leopard Sneak Peek

Apple - Apple - Mac OS X - Leopard Sneak Peek

.7

Apple released Mac OS 10.4.7 yesterday. Why do I write about a software update? One magical little fix: adding trackpad right-clicking¹ to MacBook Pros and recent PowerBooks.

The whole “one-button mouse” thing is one of the topics that people like to trash Apple for. Really you don’t think much of it once you’re used to using a Mac (or, like most, you just get a two-button mouse). Most of the time, when you need to click something, it’s a normal click. The oft-repeated reason that Apple’s never caved and just started including two-buttons on all their Macs is that it forces software designers to think about how they design their programs. It’s easy to bury things in contextual menus, but maybe by making them think about it, they might come up with a better way. I buy that explanation, but being that I’m not a programmer. I’ll leave it at that.

So back to this software update. Mac laptops have one big mouse button below their trackpads. This is a good thing. Most people use their right hand to use their mouse. (I, a lefty, use my right for real mouses, and use either for trackpads.) Given the premise that most clicks are left clicks, that means that on a two-button laptop you’re always crossing your hand over the un-used right button to click the left one. This isn’t the worst ergonimc situation in history, but having an entire button that you’re free to click anywhere does make a difference. You don’t have to contort your hand to fit the design of the machine. But with only one button on a Mac laptop, how does one right-click? In the past, you held down the CMD key while clicking. This wasn’t a big deal. Usually you just keep your left hand on the keyboard, anyway, while moving your right hand off the keyboard to use the trackpad, so you just hit CMD with your thumb. Not too bad.

All Mac laptops released in the last year or so include a nice feature. If you drag two fingers across the trackpad, it will scroll whatever window has focus. (See it in the right column of Apple’s page about the MacBook Pro.) This is great when reading webpages. No using the mouse to drag down the window’s scroll bar, no having to press a tiny ↓ key. You just drag the page with two fingers and it scrolls. It might be one of those things you have to use to appreciate, but it really is great and you get used to it in minutes.

Now, with 10.4.7, any Mac that allows two-finger scrolling also allows two-finger right-clicking. Place two fingers on the trackpad and click, and you get a right-click. No more having to click CMD witih your left hand. Yes, I know, I just wrote five paragraphs describing how great a silly new software feature is that took Apple 30 years to come up with just to replace one button on a mouse, but man, once you use it for a few minutes, it really is an elegant, civilized solution.

1. Enabled via the trackpad pane of the Keyboard and Mouse settings in System Prefences, off by default. ↩

Boot Camp

I actually didn’t expect this to come right from Apple, but it makes a huge amount of sense for them to release it officially, and it was inevitable someone would do it: Boot Camp lets dual boot your Mac into Windows or MacOS, in beta now. The program is free, but you’ll still need a copy of Windows XP SP2. It basically solves the problem of people who are hesitant to switch to a Mac because they have one or two programs that they have to use that only run on Windows. It’s not a perfect solution, because you’ll still have to log out of your MacOS session to use Windows, but it should get people pretty close. It also opens up the option that you can have people in the house sharing the same machine, some of whom only use Windows and some who only use MacOS.

Five years of Mac OS X : Page 1

Five years of Mac OS X : Page 1

It would be overdramatic to say I remember exactly where I was five years ago, right?

macosxhints - Scroll arrows at both ends of scroll bars [10.1]

macosxhints - Scroll arrows at both ends of scroll bars [10.1]

I’m constantly needing to look this up whenever I make a new user account on a Mac.

HumaneText.service

HumaneText.service

New version of this great little MacOS service. I just can’t write plan HTML anymore, and this helps a lot.

Wikipedia Dashboard Widget

Wikipedia Dashboard Widget

Neat little dashboard widget that lets you query Wikipedia. I anticipate using this a lot.

Super OS X Menubar Items

super OS X menubar items

Handy list of MacOS X menu bar widgets.

Gcount and Gmail Notifier

Now that I’m using Gmail as my primary mail provider, I’ve gone searching for a few utilities to make it work more like a desktop client.

The two biggest gripes I have with webmail are that it doesn’t work with mailto: links and that you have to check manually to see if you have mail. I’ve found good solutions for both of these issues. At work on my PC I use Google’s own Gmail Notifier, which pops up a little dialog by the system tray. It also lets you associate it to mailto: links, but seems to get confused if you also use Outlook for another account. For MacOS X I’m really liking gCount. It sits in your menu bar and turns red and optionally plays a sound when you get new mail. To make gCount your default mail handler you’ll need to open Apple’s Mail, go to its General Preferences, and select it instead of Mail.

I considered using Gmail Loader to import all my old mail, but decided against it because the mail doesn’t get imported with the right date and I think it’ll only be a matter of time before Google implements an import function (they already have for contacts).