Firefox 4 and the disappearing app tabs
The main thing I looked forward to when downloading Firefox 4 was the increased speed. But then I learned about app tabs — I figured they would come in handy at my other job where Firefox is a requirement.
An app tab is an icon-sized tab that stays on the left and appears every time you fire up Firefox. If you have certain websites you need daily, it’s convenient to have them tucked over on the side.
That’s the theory. When I tried it out, though, it didn’t work. I was able to make the app tabs easily enough — just right-click on a tab and select Pin as App Tab. But when I quit and restarted, the app tabs were gone. That’s not good.
After much searching through the Firefox forum, I found the solution.
1. Open the Firefox preferences.
2. Click on Privacy.
3. Uncheck “Clear history when Firefox closes”
It doesn’t seem right that you should have to do this. After all, the two features — app tabs and history — are likely not related in most users’ minds. And there could very well be circumstances where you want app tabs, but would like your history cleared for the sake of privacy.
Oh, and one other thing — this latest version of Firefox no longer supports Tiger or PowerPC Macs.
Posted Friday, March 25, 2011 in How-to
Air Video and Apple TV 2
The latest beta version of Air Video now allows you to use the AirPlay feature built into iOS to stream video from your iPad to an Apple TV 2.
Sound confusing? Let’s start at the beginning.
First download and install Air Video Server 2.4.5 beta 5. You can get it from the Air Video forums. Then install Air Video itself on your iPad. This will allow you to stream movies from a Mac to an iPad with live conversion. For example, if you had an avi file, you could watch it right away without having to convert to an iPad format.
With this setup, you can tap the AirPlay icon while watching the video on an iPad, and direct the stream to an Apple TV 2. How great is that? Live-converstion video streaming from a Mac to Apple TV via an iPad.
One other thing: make sure you have iOS 4.3 (the latest version as of this writing) installed in the iPad. It looks like you need to update the software in the Apple TV as well. In past versions of iOS, AirPlay would only stream video from Apple’s apps. AirPlay now works with third-party apps, although they need to be updated by their developers to make this happen. As far as I know, Air Video is the first to do this.
Posted Saturday, March 12, 2011 in How-to
Free up space on your menu bar
After mentioning a couple of days ago that I tend to be fussy about what I allow in my iMac’s menu bar because I dread the clutter, I came across a couple of little apps that seek to solve this very problem
One is NoMenuBar and the other is Menuola. Basically, you fire them up and they run without any menus. So, for example, if you’re using Mail, which has nine menus, and they’re crowding out your many menu bar items to the right, you can just click on NoMenuBar or Menuola in the dock to clear some space.
Menuola actually runs with only the letter “M” on the left, which makes it a better choice than NoMenuBar, which runs with its full name. Depending on your point of view, these are either ingenious solutions or bizarre hacks. In any case, at least you now have options.
Posted Sunday, November 14, 2010 in How-to
How to use Gmail from Apple Mail
I’ve discovered, with my incessant fiddling around, that you can access a Gmail account directly from within Apple Mail. I find it handy because it means I can use Gmail, along with accounts from my Internet service provider, all within the same interface.
There are a number of reasons why you might want Gmail. I like it because it uses the IMAP protocol, which means you can get at your mail from the server. If you read, delete or answer mail in your Gmail account from one computer, all those actions will be reflected when you use another computer. Such is not the case with an account using the POP protocol, which is more typical of what you’ll get from a service provider.
The first step, of course, is to create an account with Gmail if you don’t already have one. Next, go into Apple Mail’s preferences and click on the Accounts tab. At the bottom left is a plus-sign you click on to add a new account.
Fill in your name, Gmail address and password — then click on Create. Apple Mail will do the rest, and you’ll find a new account in the sidebar called Gmail. If you would like something more distinctive, you can click in the Description field and change “Gmail” to something more personalized. When you try to close the Preferences, you’ll be prompted to save the change.
You should now see a new inbox for Gmail in the Apple Mail sidebar. Also, at the bottom will be whatever folders you created for mail categories. Gmail provides four in the default setup. Plus, you can click on a separate Gmail folder in the same area and get subfolders for Drafts, Sent Mail, Spam, Starred and Trash.
If you want to send mail using your Gmail account, just make sure you’ve first clicked on the Gmail inbox.
Posted Friday, June 11, 2010 in How-to
Automatic backups with Dropbox and SugarSync
Backing up to a separate hard drive with Time Machine brings some peace of mind, but things can still go wrong. What if it is stolen? What if it malfunctions? What if it is destroyed by fire?
So it’s good to know that services such as Dropbox and SugarSync offer 2 GB of free storage that can be used for off-site backup. Dropbox has a slick, easy-to-use interface, but using it for automatic backups requires a bit of tinkering. On the other hand, SugarSync is a bit awkward to use, but it’s still easier to make a folder on your Mac sync with one in the cloud.
Dropbox and symbolic links
The thing about Dropbox is that it is designed to be a “box” (actually a folder on your Mac) where you drop files so that they are synced with Dropbox on the Internet. But you have to do it yourself.
That’s why I was happy to come across this article at Frugle that shows how to use Terminal to create symbolic links in the Dropbox folder so that any changes made to a file in the linked folder would be reflected in the cloud. (A symbolic link is similar to an alias, but apparently an alias won’t work.) And so I made a symbolic link for Documents.
Steamed up
This method was working fine until I downloaded a game called Portal, which (as I write this) is being given away free as way of promoting the Steam gaming website. The trouble is that Steam insists on storing the data for Portal in the Documents folder. If you take it out, it loses track of the data and asks you to download the game again.
Needless to say, this data quickly maxed out Dropbox’s free 2 GB limit. The solution was to take out the symbolic link to the Documents folder, and replace it with several symbolic links to subfolders. But doing that in Terminal would be just plain tedious.
Where there’s a will, there’s freeware
Luckily, freeware once again came to the rescue in the form of SymbolicLinker. You add it as a service in your Mac’s Library folder, and when you right (or control) click on a file, you see the option of making it a symbolic link.
I got busy and did that with the folders I really wanted backed up, and now have plenty of space in Dropbox.
But why not avoid this fuss by using SugarSync?
SugarSync is not as well known as Dropbox, but it too offers 2 GB of free space. This service is poorly promoted, but if you hunt around the site, you’ll find it.
SugarSync, although a bit gangly, has a lot in common as Dropbox in the way it is implemented. The big advantage is that it will automatically backup changes to your files without the rigamarole of creating symbolic links. You simply use the free file manager to point at the folders you want synced.
So which is better?
Of course, there’s nothing to say you have to choose one service over the other. If you’ve got a lot of data to backup, why not use both?
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2010 in How-to
A thrifty version of Apple TV
One of the things that puts me off about buying Apple TV is the thought of adding yet another device to the tangle of wires in what passes for the home theatre at thriftmac headquarters.
Here’s what we have hooked up so far: a TV, a PVR, a CD player, a record player, a DVD player, a karaoke machine, the receiver, two speakers with extra-fat cables, a Nintendo 64 and a Nintendo Wii. Wait a minute: did I say Wii?
It turns out that if you’ve got one of the ubiquitous Wiis, you may not have to spend hundreds of dollars on an Apple TV after all. Try $19 on Wii Transfer instead. I did, and I’m pretty happy with the results.
In a nutshell, Wii Transfer allows you to create a website on your Internet-enabled Wii that can wirelessly receive movies, tunes, photos and web-browser bookmarks from your Mac.
Connecting your Wii to the Internet
If your Wii is not connected to the Internet, don’t despair — you can connect for free using your Mac’s built-in AirPort.
Here’s how it worked for me. First turn your Mac into a wi-fi hotspot for your home. Go to System Preferences -> Sharing -> Internet Sharing. Set it up so that “Share your connection from:” points to Ethernet and “To computers using:” points to AirPort.
Next, click on AirPort Options. Give your network a name and — to keep hackers out — enable encryption. I suggest the 13-character string to be extra safe. When you’re done, click on OK to close the options, then click on the box beside Internet Sharing.
You should now have a handy little hotspot.
But what about the Wii?
Now let’s turn our attention to the Wii. I’ve seen instructions that suggest all kinds of Terminal voodoo to allow the Wii to get in touch with AirPort. But try it the simple way. If that doesn’t work, I have some links you can try.
First, get your Wii to the opening screen and choose the Wii Options button in the bottom left. Now click on Wii Settings. Move one screen over and click on Internet. Click on Connection Settings and pick any of the three options. Choose Wireless Connection, then click on Search for an Access Point. The one you created with AirPort should be on the list. Click on it, enter your password, and save the settings.
If this method doesn’t get your Wii tuned in to AirPort, try clicking the Manual Setup button instead and follow the instructions found here or here.
The wonderful world of Wii Transfer
Assuming your Wii and Mac are now sympatico, you should have an Internet channel on the Wii, which is cool enough — you can go surfin’ with the built-in Opera web browser to YouTube and watch videos of cute kittens. Better still, you can download Wii Transfer, pay for it and get your very own website — one that brings in all the media on your Mac.
You can watch slide shows of your photo collections, listen to any DRM-free music (pretty much all of it these days), watch movies (more on that later), and access Safari and Firefox bookmarks to drop in on your favourite sites.
How to watch movies
Watching movies does require a little extra work. First of all, you have to drag the movie file into Wii Transfer so it can be converted to a format the program can handle. For the most part, this just means you have to factor in a bit of prep time before watching a movie. Wii Transfer will not, of course, convert DRM-laden movies you’ve purchased from iTunes.
Apparently, there are ways of stripping DRM from iTunes movies, but, frankly, it doesn’t seem worth the effort. You’re better off either avoiding iTunes for movies or putting them on your iPod and plugging it into your TV with AV cables sold by Apple.
So who need Apple TV now?
Those kinks aside, Wii Transfer makes for a nifty alternative to Apple TV. It does a great job of bringing your DRM-free media to the living room at a reasonable price and without adding to the clutter.
Posted Friday, March 19, 2010 in How-to
A more magical mouse
I received a Magic Mouse a few days ago and, at the risk of sounding like the dreaded Mac fanboi, I’m quite smitten with the device. It looks like something from the future that — in some science fiction way — was brought into our time.
But, of course, you can only sit and admire something for so long. So I picked it up and started using it.
I’ve never used a wireless mouse before, so that in itself took some getting used to. Once the novelty wore off a bit, I started to think about some of the criticisms I had read previously about Magic Mouse: tracking is too slow and it doesn’t have as many functions as its predecessor, Mighty Mouse. I felt confident, though, that Mac freeware would provide the solutions.
Tracking: At first it seemed normal, but then I wondered if it could go faster. According to the mouse’s preferences, the answer is no. Tracking is already cranked as high as it will go.
The solution is a third-party preference pane called MouseZoom. When you click on it, you see a slider that can be goosed up to 10 or, as noted, OS X Crazy Fast!!! I decided to go for the max, and I must admit I like it a lot better.
You can also fiddle around with settings in Terminal, although this is apparently just another way of doing what MouseZoom does. CNet has instructions if you prefer to go this route. (It does bug me a little that the MouseZoom pref pane is 32-bit.)
Missing functions: Many people have complained that there is no middle click with Magic Mouse. With Mighty Mouse, the button can be set up so that clicking on it will invoke Exposé or open a link in a new tab, among other things. These are both handy and I can see why they would be missed.
As it turns out there are a couple of freeware solutions, although they are both experimental at this point. MiddleClick was originally designed for MacBook track pads, but it also works for Magic Mouse. Once installed and running, you can give your mouse a light tap with three fingers and — by default — it will open links in a new tab.
But if the mouse can do that, you ask, why not other things you can do with a track pad? It turns out there is much more. SecondBar has created an app called BetterTouchTool that allows you to assign a multitude of functions to various swipes and clicks. For example, I set it up to show Exposé with a three-finger downward swipe and hide the current program with a two-finger upward swipe. Of course, the three-finger tap is also there.
BetterTouchTool is still very much in the preliminary stage, but the developer, Andreas Hegenberg, seems pumped and is putting out new versions almost daily. I look forward to his improvements. I found, for example, that the three-finger tap didn’t work as reliably as it did with MiddleClick. With the swipes, I would have to try a few times before they finally worked.
I’m not complaining, though. If these two apps are any indication, Magic Mouse has a great future ahead of it. More developers will jump in, and no doubt Apple will offer updates of its own.
With the tracking, on the other hand, Apple should move quickly to fulfil the need for speed demanded by many of its customers. We shouldn’t have to resort to the inelegance of MouseZoom or Terminal twiddling.
Update: MouseWizard is $2.50 shareware that, among other things, allows you to put your Mac to sleep by covering Magic Mouse with your hand.
Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 in How-to
How to make Google ads show in Firefox
You may have thought you read that headline wrong. Why would anyone want to see ads — wouldn’t you rather make them go away?
This article is for web designers who need to make sure their designs work in various web browsers, including Firefox. A frustration that occasionally comes up is that ads from Google’s Adsense program don’t display in Firefox. There are a few solutions scattered around the web, but none of them worked for me, and I get the impression that a lot of other people have been left hanging.
Here are some typical answers:
1. You’ve got the Ad Block extension on. This is sometimes offered with a wink, because — duh! — how could you not figure this out for yourself? I’ve never used Ad Block, so that wasn’t the solution.
2. You’ve got Javascript turned off. How many people take the trouble to go into their preferences and turn off Javascript? I suppose it’s possible, but, really, if you’re smart enough to turn it off, you’re likely smart enough to know that it will affect your browsing experience. Again, this didn’t apply to me.
3. Clean out your cache and delete your cookies. This seems like a good all-purpose solution for a lot of problems. Apparently it works for for some people, but it didn’t for me.
4. An oblique mention of a file called userContent.css finally clued me in. This is a text file you can create using cascading style sheets to control what you see on various websites. One of the things you can do with a file of this type is instruct a web browser to block advertising. You can download one that does just this from Floppy Moose.
I’ve never used such a file for Firefox, but I have tried it for Safari. The great thing about Safari is that you can turn it off or on in the preferences under the Advanced tab where it refers to Style sheet. With Firefox, it’s simply installed in a certain folder and goes to work. As a last-ditch effort, I decided to see if userContent.css was in indeed in this folder — even though I never actually put it there.
And wouldn’t you know it, there it was in all its ad blocking glory. I have no idea how it got there, but I removed it and the ads came back. Hallelujah!
And where is that folder? home:Library:Application Support:Firefox:Profiles:profilename:randomstring.default:chrome: You can learn more at Floppy Moose. It’s also documented at mozilla.org.
Oh, and one last thing: I’ve given this post a search-engine friendly headline in the hope that it will help others in the same boat.
Posted Monday, September 28, 2009 in How-to
iStat Menus installation mystery solved
I was disappointed when Snow Leopard broke iStat Menus, but even more disappointed when the new version of iStat Menus — which aims to fix the problem — wouldn’t install for me. So I was left waiting for the next update . . .
But then iTunes 9 came out — and it wouldn’t install either. Now I knew something had to be up with Snow Leopard. It was one thing for third party freeware not to install — but a flagship app from Apple?
After a bit of searching, I found this thread in the Apple support forums, and had a hunch in might be related. So I went into the Language & Text preference and clicked on the Input Sources tab. I unclicked the box beside the Canadian flag. If you’re having the same problem, I would suggest unclicking anything that seems international.
It turns out the installers were working, but the wrong type of keyboard input would prevent a dialogue from popping up to ask for your administrator password. Clearly, this is a bug in Snow Leopard. The good news is that I don’t have to wait for OS X 10.6.1 to get iStat Menus working. Or iTunes 9 for that matter.
Posted Wednesday, September 9, 2009 in How-to
AppleWorks and Snow Leopard
When Snow Leopard comes out, you’ll have the option of not installing Rosetta, a translator that allows you to run PowerPC programs on your Intel Mac. Doing this won’t save much space by itself, by it could encourage you to update or delete those PowerPC-only programs lurking on your hard drive. TUAW has an article urging you to do just that.
I fired up System Profiler and had a look at which programs are which on the thriftmac iMac — PowerPC, Universal (both) or Intel. There was a surprisingly large number in the PowerPC category, but the vast majority of them could be updated or turfed without much trouble. There were a couple, though, that I really wanted to keep: Cro Mag Rally (a game from Pangea) and AppleWorks. Yes, that’s right — AppleWorks.
It’s not just that I enjoy using the program. I do — it’s fast, easy and covers the basics. The bigger dilemma is what to do with all the hundreds of AppleWorks files that have sprouted over the years. Without Rosetta, AppleWorks won’t run. And without AppleWorks, those AppleWorks files won’t open — at least not easily.
There are two no-Rosetta solutions: one simple but pricey, and the other tedious but free.
Pages — part of Apple’s iWork suite — easily opens an AppleWorks file and keeps all the formatting. But that costs US$79. It’s a good program, but who wants to pay that much just to open some old files?
The free solution is to open the AppleWorks documents — before installing Snow Leopard without Rosetta — and save them as .rtf files. This allows you to open them in NeoOffice or OpenOffice with formatting — including pictures — intact. Bean and TextEdit also open them, but without pictures. Of course, if you have hundreds of AppleWorks documents, it’s going to be a drag to open them all and make the conversions. A good idea would be to delete a bunch you don’t need any more.
When all is said and done, you might want to just install Rosetta and be done with it. This way you can let AppleWorks slide and keep some cool games.
Posted Tuesday, August 18, 2009 in How-to
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