Category Archives: mac
The great Mac OS X Software Update chart
Recently, my friend Rob posed a question to twitter: Is Mac OS X 10.5.7 the single biggest patch Apple has ever released, or just one of the biggest? I thought that was an easy question to anwser. I was wrong. … Continue reading
HOWTO set the default target in Xcode
Your Xcode project has one or more targets. Each target builds something—a command-line tool, a framework or an application. The Target popup menu lets you determine the active target. The active target gets built when you click “Build” or “Build … Continue reading
HOWTO set up an SOCKS proxy via an SSH tunnel on Mac OS X
Recently, I came across some streaming video that was only available to Canadians. Being a Canadian in the US, I felt somewhat entitled. Yes: I wanted to watch a hockey game. I knew I could do this with an SSH … Continue reading
HOWTO disable overlays in Boinx FotoMagico standalone players
FotoMagico is program that lets you create amazing slideshows. In FotoMagico, slides advance in one of two ways: automatically, after a set time period after a mouse click If you’ve picked option (2), you see a “fast forward” overlay when … Continue reading
Mac Productivity 101
Here are the tools I mentioned in my Mac Productivity 101 session at the San Fran MusicTech Summit: Know your instrument Inquisitor: Google inside Safari Quicksilver and LaunchBar: application launchers Collaboration SubEthaEdit: collaborative text editor Screen Sharing: built in to … Continue reading
Hidden Leopard feature: System Profiler
Here’s a neat Leopard trick I haven’t seen anywhere else. Hold down the option key while choosing  > About This Mac, and the menu item will change to “System Profiler.” That’s much quicker than the old method of (i) … Continue reading
Gruber, you missed the obvious pun
It’s not Bungie Spins Off From Microsoft, but rather “Microsoft cuts cord.”
Speaking at WWDC: Bug Reporting Best Practices
At this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, I’m giving version 2.0 of my Bug Reporting Best Practices talk. The official blurb: Bug reports that are complete and reproducible help to isolate known issues in system and application software, making a … Continue reading
Troubleshooting a SanDisk SDDR-95 reader whose cards won’t mount
Say you have a SanDisk ImageMate (SDDR-95) USB 2.0 card reader with a Fuji xD card inside it. And you have a Mac running Mac OS X 10.4.9. And you attach the card reader, insert the card, and … nothing. … Continue reading
Address Book AppleScript example
Here’s a simple AppleScript that exports all of the email addresses in your Mac OS X address book as a comma-separated list: tell application “Address Book” set emailList to {} set peopleCount to (count every person) repeat with i from … Continue reading