Stephen Withers' Weblog

Thu - November 29, 2007

Activity Monitor Curiosity

I noticed an unusually high figure (45G) for VM size in Activity Monitor and Googled for an explanation.

This thread in the Apple support forums suggests it's a bug in Activity Monitor and that if you use the View menu to display additional columns, a more realistic figure appears.

Posted at 06:26 PM

Leopard Terminal Tips

Mac OS X Tips offers some interesting customisations that can be made through setting preferences via Terminal.

I particularly like the idea of removing the menu bar translucency (I've already achieved that with Leopaque), and setting the expanded form of the Print dialog as the default.

Posted at 03:15 PM

DIY Digital Photo Frames

People are putting obsolete notebooks to use by converting them into digital photo frames. Although off-the-shelf frames are now affordable, the cheaper ones generally have very low screen resolutions.

Here's an example project that might inspire you. As much as I like working with Macs, you could probably get a more recent Windows-based model with USB ports (so you can use a thumb drive to transfer photos) for a similar price.

Posted at 03:07 PM

Quay 1.0

Quay (shareware, €7) - the Stacks replacement that restores the traditional behaviour of Docked folders - is out of beta.

Call me a cheapskate, but the freeware OldFolder is close enough for me.

Posted at 02:49 PM

Wed - November 28, 2007

Quick Look Plugins

There seems to be a growing cottage industry in developing Quick Look plugins for filetypes that aren't supported by Apple or by the corresponding application's developer.

Examples include one for peeking inside zip files.

If there are any you've tested and recommend, please let me know.

Posted at 06:23 PM

Office 2008

Microsoft continues to drip-feed information about Office 2008.

The latest snippet is PowerPoint 2008's ability to export a presentation as a series of JPEG files that are automatically loaded into iPhoto for transfer to an iPhone or picture-capable iPod.

As you might expect, there's also a facility for adding pictures stored in iPhoto to PowerPoint 2008 documents.

Another sensible feature is support for the Apple Remote.

Posted at 06:10 PM

RapidoMap 1.0

App4Mac's RapidoMap 1.0 (freeware) looks like a handy - and Leopard-compatible - way of geotagging photos stored in iPhoto.

Posted at 06:03 PM

Mon - November 26, 2007

Compress PDF

Missing the Compress PDF option when printing in Leopard? Compress PDF Workflow 4.0 fills the gap.

(Thanks, Mike.)

Posted at 09:13 AM

MoneyWorks 5.0.8

MoneyWorks 5.0.8 provides Leopard compatibility (among other unspecified enhancements) for the accounting software. Updates are free, the software isn't - prices start at $A225 for the Cashbook version.

Posted at 08:09 AM

Thu - November 22, 2007

Shades

Like many other users, I find the display of the current iMac too bright for comfort. Shades (freeware) was one of the first utilities I installed, but I have noticed a couple of quirks.

Firstly, the cursor appears over the top of the Shades 'filter', so you'll often see a bright white fringe around the arrow cursor, or a bright white hand. This can make it easier to locate the cursor, so I'm not complaining.

More irritating is that when Shades is running, typing Command-Shift-4 followed by Space captures the whole screen instead of the desired window. Presumably this occurs because Shades generates a full-screen window above all the application windows.

While writing this item, Shades has alerted me of a new version. 1.2b1 makes several changes, including the fundamental change of altering the monitor's gamma. This is said to be more efficient than drawing an overlay, and more compatible with Spaces and Expose. The utility "now consumes no measurable amount of CPU when running" - always a good thing.

Posted at 05:43 PM

Leopard Quarantine Bug

iTWire reports on the reappearance of an old vulnerability in Mac OS X 10.5 - Mail attachments are not properly quarantined, and this re-opens the possibility of Trojans masquerading as image attachments.

Posted at 02:25 PM

Mon - November 19, 2007

Final Cut Express 4

Final Cut Express 4 ($A268) is based on Final Cut Pro 6 and supports AVCHD cameras (only on Intel Macs), Open Timeline Format (allowing DV, HDV and AVCHD to be combined in one project), and imports iMovie 08 projects.

FCE4 also includes more than 50 FxPlug filters and LiveType 2.

Posted at 01:26 PM

Quay

Don't like OldFolder, even though it is free? Maybe Quay (beta, but expected to cost €7) is more to your taste.

Both utilities support the traditional hierarchical folder menu in the Dock as an alternative to Leopard's Stacks.

Posted at 01:22 PM