Gonna be on TV
It had to happen someday. My nerdiness has escalated to the point where not even the mighty internet can contain it. On Wednesday, August 3, your's truly will be featured on
Call For Help, a TV show designed to answer your computer related questions. My question involves the transfer of large files between computers on the internet, commonly known as FTP. For whatever reason, it seems unable to work for me, so, hopefully the Call for Help guys and gals can help me out.
Finder Tip #2
Managing Open Applications
Sometimes while using OSX, all those open application windows can make your desktop a little bit cluttered. To instantly hide the foreground application, simply hold down the
Option button on your keyboard and click the application's icon in the dock.
Alternatively, you can Option + click on any other application icon in the dock to open it and hide the program who've just switched from.
Finder Tip #1
Monitor Disk Space Using Smart Folders
Using Mac OSX 10.4, you are now able to use iTunes styled
Smart Folders to help better organize your files. One neat application of this feature is to keep an eye on big files that may be cluttering up your disk space.
In the Finder, hit Apple + F to open the Search window. Set it to search your Computer, then set the parameters to Size > Greater than, and then enter in 10 MB (or whatever size you want. Click "Save," enter a name for the search, and save the search anywhere you want. By default, the Finder has a "Saved Searches" folder somwhere in your library, which you should probably take advantage of. Also, make sure "Add to sidebar" is checked
on.
Now whenever you click on your
Big Files smart folder in the sidebar, you will know just what files are taking up all that space on you hard drive!
Organizing iTunes
iTunes is brilliant. It organizes your music so effortlessly and efficiently that it has revolutionized the way we think about our computers. However, if you're like me, iTunes feels like it's missing out on something, like it could be even more powerful.
Genres and Smart Playlists and the like are great ideas, but limited by the content that they work with. That is to say, if you're album by
Death From Above 1979 is somehow genre-labelled as "Classical," then your Smart Playlist of "genre> is >"rock"" isn't gonna satisfy your DFA 1979 yearnings.
I'm gonna show you how to maximize iTunes so that you're library is as accurately indexed as
the one in New York. You know what I'm talking 'bout.
Step 1: Gather Your Tools: We're going to be unleashing the power of
Applescript for this little exercise, so get on over to
Dougsscripts.com and get the "
Append to Comments" script.
Follow the built in instructions to install the script into iTunes. Don't worry, it's easy.
Step 2: Sort it out: In iTunes, sort your library according to comment (by clicking the comment column header.) Then select every song that has either unfilled or poorly filled comments (e.g. "Mr. Furyo®'s Mean Classic Rock" doesn't help organize your music, unless of course Mr. Furyo is a close, personal friend of yours and you'd like to keep track of his Mean Classic Rock.)
Create a new smart playlist by clicking
File > New Smart Playlist, or by holding down the Option key and clicking the gear button in the bottom left hand corner of iTunes. notice that when you release the option key, the button reverts to a + sign which will create a normal playlist. Set the new Smart Playlist to "
comment>contains>"comment"," as pictured below. You now have a complete list of all the songs in your library that require tags.
Step 3: Keywords: Think of the ways you want to classify your music. What words would you use to describe each song? Think of about 10 of these, and create a regular playlist (click the + button) for each. Prefix each playlist with a period; this will keep the conveniently grouped together.
Step 4: Rock out! This next step is pretty easy, just listen to your music. Make sure to listen to songs from the "Require Tags" Smart Playlist you made in
Step 2, and as you listen to a track, drag it into each applicable keyword playlist. For example, as I'm listening to
"Creep" by Radiohead, I'll drag it into the downbeat playlist, the male vocals playlist, and the slow playlist. Do this for as many songs as you want. Once you're done, go through each playlist and ensure there are no duplicates. Do this by going to
Edit > Show Duplicate Songs, and then removing the extra tracks by hitting delete.
Step 5: Thank Jobs for Applescript! You're probably wondering why I made you download that Applescript way back in
Step 1, right? Well, stop it, I'm getting to it. "Append to Comments" does just what it's called. It adds any word of your choice to the comments of a (or many) selected song(s.) It's important to note that it adds the word in, rather then replaces it. Make sure the Applescript is installed before going any further.
Step 6: Do it, Doug!: In iTunes, go to your first keyword playlist you've made and hit
Apple + a on the keyboard, followed by
Apple + i. This will select all the songs in th playlist and then show you there shared metadata information. Clear out the comment field so that it's empty, but leave it checked on. Click "Ok." Ensure that each song in the playlist is selected and that it's comment field is blank. Click on the pretty little Applescript icon in the menu-bar (it's right before the Help menu) and click on "Append to Comments." Enter in the tag correspondent to the playlist in the little dialogue window that pops up. Select "After," and then click "Thanks," and, badaboom! Instant comments!
Repeat this step for each keyword playlist that you've created, and soon will have an accurate and fully customized index of all your music!
Step 7: Ok, but who cares? Accurately tagging your tracks allows you to take full advantage of the power of iTunes' Smart Playlist, giving you immediate access to the songs you wanna hear, Try setting up a Smart Playlist of all male vocalists, that are slow, and downbeat. Or try one with only female vocalists, that are fast, upbeat. I'm also going to recommend that you keep your genre list as short as possible. Consolidate all your "Altern-Rock," "Alternarock," Punk Alternative," and crap into just "Alternative." Change all your "Thrash Metal," "Hardcore" and "HardRock" into simply "Metal." The fewer genres you have, the easier it will be for you to, say, play all Punk female vocalists, that are upbeat, or all your male and female vocals, that are downbeat, and Alternative. Catch my drift?
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
BBC's
Top Gear is one of the smartest shows on TV right now. It's absolutely brilliant, and if you're not already watching it, you definetly need to. Every episode, these witty brits test drive
the hell out of the coolest cars on the planet. Ferraris, BMWs, Audis, Porsches, Land Rovers... every car I"ve ever heard of, and a bunch that I haven't. I'm not a motorhead by any stretch; I can't drive stick, I've never looked under a hood without feeling perplexed by the engines intricities... hell, I don't even
own a car. But I love this show. The dialog is sharp, the cinematography is
absolutely breathaking, and the programing is startlingly original (who in there right mind would test drive a Land Rover against the best, fastest, and meanest Brittish tank?)
Tune your dial to the BBC every Sunday, or if you don't have a decent TV box,
try downloading some episodes.
Here are some quotes and actual frames from the show...
Well, some kid out there has released a
slew of screenshots of Windows' new operating system Lohnghorn. I think it's a bit too shiny, plasticy, Apple-wanabe, but until I've seen it in action, I'm on the fence. Kerr, you might wanna get some tissues before clicking the link.
What to do if you're ever sent to court.
Sick of .Mac?
I've just found this absolutely amazing utility called
iCal Exchange that publishes your iCal Calendars that is similar to, but wayyyyy better then the built in .Mac service. It's absolutely brilliant, and I totally recomend trying it out.
From the website:
OverviewThe iCal Exchange was created to give the Internet community an easy way to publish their calendars using the built-in "Publish to a web server" mechanism.
You can publish your calendars here for free. When you share your calendar URLs, visitors will be able to download the .ics file, and even view your calendar through a Web browser. Ordinary WebDAV servers do not have this capability. In addition, we will have advanced features like password-protection for individual calendars.
Go try it now
Bit Torrent RSS-a-riffic!
I stumbled across
this post one day, about using
Gmail to browse Torrent RSS feeds. This idea just blew my mind! imagine only seeing the torrents you're interested in, never again having to wade through pages and pages of irrelevant torrent files. This idea really got me going, so I kind of adapted it, making it more suitable to my own personal needs. if you've got a minute, read on, and I'll show you how to download smarter.
Getting StartedFirst of all, the original concept relied on Gmail, but I don't really think it's necessary, or practical, for the process. I want all my RSS feeds in one place, and since I use an excellent program called
Newsfire (developed by
David Watanabe) for that purpose, I'm going to use it instead. I imagine that
many other news aggregators will have the same funtionality and features as Newsfire, but I really recomend trying it out either way, even if only for this tutorial. The other program I'm going to be using is
Bits on Wheels (BoW), a Bit Torrent app. Again, any torrent downloader will work, but try out BoW anyways.
Step 1: Torrent HuntingFor this tutorial, I'm using a feed each from
Mininova.org,
Rokanova.com, and
NewTorrents.info, but you can, again, substitute any Torrent site with an RSS feed if you want. To find out if the torrent site has an RSS Feed, open it up in Safari, then open Newsfire. With the webpage open in the background, select "FEEDS" from the menybar in Newsfire, then "DISCOVER FEEDS FOR CURRENT SITE IN SAFARI...." The keyboard shortcut is Shift+Apple+D. Repeat for as many torrent sites as you'd like.
Step 2: Get OrganamazizedOnce you've added in all the feeds from the torrent sites, create a New Group in Newsfire by clicking the + button in the bottom left hand corner, and selecting "Group." We'll name the group "Torrents." Next, simply drag the feeds into the new "Torrents" group.
Next, simply drag the feeds into the new "Torrents" group. Your Newsfire window should look something like this, though can ignore the "Blogs" and "Tech" groups - those are just my other feeds I'm subscribed to.
Step 3: Specifically SpeakingI'd like to be able to distinguish between torrents for Movies, Music, and TV shows, so I'm going to create a group for each category that I'd like to keep an eye on. Of course, you can make a group for anime, games, or anything else you're interested in.
Step 4: Crank it up a notchNow this is where things get a little complicated. If you've never heard of "
Smart Folders" before, then I'm actually pretty impressed you've managed to turn on your computer. Congratulations. Smart folders first debuted in iTunes, and were immediately seen as the best way to organize data that update or changed frequently. Think of it as conditional sorting; IF a file as this attribute, then collect it here. Smart folders immediately caught on, and have started popping up everywhere from the Finder to the Address Book, and even to - you guessed it - Newsfire.
In Newsfire they're called "Smart Feeds," but they're still basically the same thing. Smart Feeds collect any particular item or entry from an RSS Feed based on criteria that you specify.
We're gonna make a bunch of Smart Feeds today, base on each category we've just made, starting with Music. Click the + button again, and this time, select Smart Feed. Name the feed music. Match the rest of the criteria to the image below.
Repeat this step twice more, changing the "TITLE OR DESCRIPTION" field to CD, and then MP3. Drag all three smart feeds into that group you created called "Music" (remember it?) By having these multiple smart feed searching for different but similar criteria, you're sure to find all the music torrents you need. HINT: Click the triangle beside "Music" in the group header, compressing the list. Click on the group name, and suddenly all three smart feeds are displayed in one window. Handy, eh?
Keep doing this for movies and TV shows, adding a Smart feed for each criteria ("movies," "video," "AVI," DVD" etc, etc...) untill you're satisfied you're gonna get the most thorough results. You're feed list should now look something like this:
Step 5: Get to the Good Stuff Already!OK, OK. So you've done all this work, and you're anxious to see it payoff. Well, lets get to it. With all your torrent feed groups compressed (or collapsed), pick a category, say, Televison, for instance, and select a show you'd like to download.
Click on the link again.
Depending on the source feed of the file, this will either automatically download the torrent file through Safari, or direct you to the source website's page for the file, where there will be a link to download the torrent file from there. Either way, you're on you're way.
Once the file is finished downloading it will be placed in Safari's download destination forlder, most likely your deskop. The file will be small - around 28 KBs in size - and have the extension ".torrent:" Open Bits on Wheels, and drag the torrent file onto the Bits on Wheels icon in the dock. This will open the torrent file. Chose a download destination.
Et voila! You're in business! downloading custom content, right to your desktop!
Let me know how it goes, and thanks for reading.
Gmail
I wanna Gmailaccount! Gimme! Gimme!
Anybody with invites please. please share 'em.
Pretty, pretty please
Nevermind, I got one. And it aint all that, folks.
