Archive for the ‘Applications’ Category

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Safari: Open .torrent Files Automatically After Downloading

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

I’m all about efficiency — especially when it comes to downloading my torrents. I’ve been gradually getting more and more annoyed that every time I download a .torrent file, I have to double click it (in the Downloads window) to have it open in Transmission.

Solution: Download this zip file which contains a revised version of com.apple.DownloadAssessment.plist. This is the file that tells Safari what files are safe to open after downloading – it’s been revised to include .torrent files as “safe.”

After unzipping, just move the file to YourUserName/Library/Preferences; replace the file if it already exists.

Happy Downloading!

P.S. Thanks to Manuel Studer for this tip!

Popularity: 5% [?]

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Posted in Applications, Automation, Efficiency, Hint, Torrents | 1 Comment »

Hawk Wings’ Page o’ Apps!

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Just wanna give a shout out to Hawk Wings, a website I just discovered today. This page is just filled with tons of free and cheap apps and scripts (or “plug-ins” as they call them) for the most commonly used Mac apps. I highly recommend checking it out to see what cool things your missing… for example, there’s DockStar, which allows you to “assign a separate notification badge to different mailboxes.”

dockstar.jpg.jpeg

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Posted in Applications, Outsourced, Websites | No Comments »

Trick to Easily Rotate Address Book Photos

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Since I just bought Cyntact for my iPhone, I’ve been moving my photos from iPhoto’s “Faces” into Address Book. Unfortunately, there is no easy (free) way to do this automatically, but I did stumble upon a neat trick when adding pictures to your Address Book contacts:


Option clicking the picture allow you to rotate it!

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It’s these little hidden niceties that make me love Macs!
Oh, and option+shift will snap to the hash marks along the circle :)

Popularity: 6% [?]

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Posted in Applications, Easy, Hint | No Comments »

Listen to FLAC Audio Files in iTunes Without Converting

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
flac+itunes=fluke.jpg

While most online songs are in MP3 format, which is compressed and degrades audio quality, some are available in another format called FLAC. FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. FLAC file sizes are much larger in exchange for superior sound quality (like a CD) — they also aren’t supported in iTunes.

I recently downloaded some FLAC audio tracks and started looking for the best way to get them into iTunes; enter Fluke.
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Popularity: 7% [?]

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Posted in Applications | No Comments »

Use Text-To-Speech (”Start Speaking Text”) in Firefox

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

A few days ago I made my yearly move from Safari to Firefox. It starts up quicker for me than Safari and web pages load 2-3x faster.

However, I was stumped today when I wanted my Mac to read me a Flash 101 tutorial. I went to Firefox -> Services -> Speech, but “Start Speaking Text” was grayed out.

text to speech in firefox.jpg

After a quick Google search I found a simple 2-step solution (thanks to aynmensch @ mozillazine): setup a shortcut key for “reading selected text” which can be evoked within Firefox.
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Popularity: 7% [?]

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Posted in Applications, Hint, Keyboard Shortcuts | 2 Comments »

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