corewerkz

A new hint was posted today on Mac OS X Hints explaining how to re-gain use of the arrow keys in Quick Look’s full screen mode. The solution worked but I thought that there had to be a better, quicker, easier way.

So, I started trying various other keys when in Quick Look full screen and I stumbled upon a much easier solution:

[video solution after jump]
Read more…

Popularity: 8% [?]

Have you ever needed to connect to your iPhone when you don’t have a wireless network available?

Probably not, but I had to a few weeks ago, here’s why:

While on vacation I took a video using Cycorder on my iPhone. I needed to move the video to my MacBook to edit and upload it to the web. Unfortunately, the only way to get a video off the iPhone (that was taken with Cycorder) is to wirelessly connect to the iPhone and copy the video (I avoid the Terminal and just use Transmit to connect via ssh).

The problem was that even though I paid $15 for internet access at my hotel, it would only work for one device at a time (either the iPhone or the MacBook). Rather than spending another $15 to connect my MacBook and iPhone to the same network so I could copy the video, I set out to find a better (read: free) solution.

The easy 3-step solution I discovered was right under my nose:
Read more…

Popularity: 8% [?]

Although I (kinda) like Spotlight for searching my internal drive, I almost never want Spotlight indexing external drives I connect to my computer. Since I often work with bad and dying hard drives, the last thing I want my computer to do upon seeing a new drive is to index the whole thing.

Luckily, there is a simple solution that is quicker, easier, and more reliable than adding the volume to Spotlight’s privacy list.

CloneEject by Tracy Valleau.

Download here.

After dragging the CloneEject application into your Applications folder, drag it down into your dock. Next time you mount a volume or hard drive you don’t want Spotlight to index, simply drag the volume’s icon on CloneEject’s dock icon.

This simple app works by creating a file on the specified volume called “.metadata_never_index” which tells Spotlight, “never_index!” Then it ejects the drive so it can be remounted, because Spotlight will only check for “.metadata_never_index” when the drive is first mounted.

Many thanks to Tracy Valleau for this app, it’s invaluable to me!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Just about every time I open Finder on my Mini, I end up navigating to the same folder on my external “Video” drive. It’s the folder with all my newest Torrent downloads from uTorrent.

Today I realized that there has got to be a more efficient way — a way to have Finder automatically open new windows to my new downloads folder, instead of having to navigate there manually dozens of times everyday. Sure enough, there is — and the solution is only a few click away.

Open Finder. Click “Finder” (top left of your display). Click “Preferences” – Under the “General” tab, change “New Finder windows open:” to any folder you like. Easy.

Popularity: 8% [?]

In Safari, when you create a new bookmark by pressing Command+D or by clicking the “+” icon in the toolbar you see this pop-up window:

As a highly organized bookmarker, not having the option to make a new bookmark folder from this pop-up is a big pain. As you can see, I’m bookmarking a motorcycle helmet, but don’t have a folder for “Helmets.”

BTW… a sub-hint here is that you can click the folder list (“Computers” in the above image) and start typing the first letters of the folder you want to appear instead of finding it manually in the list.

However, the problem this hint fixes is when you don’t already have a folder. The hint is that at this pop-up window, you can press Command+Shift+N – this will automatically open a new “Organize Bookmarks” window and create a new bookmark folder, ready to be named:

Just put the folder where you want, go back to the original bookmark pop-up menu, and select the new folder you just created.

Popularity: 8% [?]