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fusion94Feb 25,2008

Disable Space Switching - 10.5.2

The 10.5.2 version of OS X has a new preferences command for Spaces although tt's hidden and not available through the System Preferences.

What it does is allow one to Command-Tab to the app you want and create a new window in the current space. No more switching to the space that the app was originally launched in.

Here's the terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.Dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool NO

Then just restart the dock using:

killall Dock

If you need to back out your changes just change the first command from NO to a YES then restart the Dock once more.

fusion94Feb 05,2008

Quicksilver and Leopard

Ever since I upgraded all my boxes to Leopard Quicksilver has been having issues. While searching for a new release I've located a solution that seems to have fixed most of my issues. Here's what to do.

  1. Quit Quicksilver if running.
  2. Delete all traces of Quicksilver by deleting these 4 files.
    • /Applications/Quicksilver.app
    • ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver
    • ~/Library/Preferences/com.blacktree.Quicksilver.plist
    • ~/Library/Caches/Quicksilver
  3. Head over to http://lipidity.com/software/quicksilver/ and download and install Quicksilver B5X.
  4. Launch Terminal and run the following commands.
    • chmod 0644 /Applications/Quicksilver.app/Contents/Info.plist
  5. Open Quicksilver and go through the setup WITHOUT installing any plugins.
  6. Open or relaunch Terminal and run the following commands.
    • defaults write com.blacktree.Quicksilver "Cutting Edge Features" -bool yes
    • defaults write com.blacktree.Quicksilver "Feature Level" 3
  7. Quit and relaunch Quicksilver.
  8. You can now adjust your settings and preferences and install some plugins.

I'm not saying this will work for you but is has made Quicksilver more stable for me.

Also to note is that the Quicksilver Interface plugin - Bezel HUD is pretty sweet.

fusion94Apr 24,2006

17" MacBook Pro

Apple has the new 17" MacBook Pro up for order in the Apple Store. Near as I can tell the only difference between the one I have and this is the screen size and resolution as well as weight.

I've now had 2 17" Powerbooks in the past as well as as 3 15" models and I have to say that I love the screen real estate of the 17" ones but they are completely useless while traveling on a plane.

I'm thrilled with the 15" MacBook Pro that I have and since I'll be traveling overseas a fair amount I think it was the right decision to go with.

fusion94Jan 15,2006

Adding Metadata Tags to iPod Videos

In an earlier post I linked to an excellent guide that showed video iPod users how to convert their existing movies over to iPod compatible video.

While this is an excellent guide it was lacking in how to read, parse, and set iTunes-style metadata into mpeg4 containers (m4a, m4b, m4p, m4v, mp4).

The video type is stored in the file as an ATOM (metadata for QuickTime and MPEG4) called stik. You can use a hex editor to modify the ATOM directly, but this is very clunky and dangerous (I repeat it's dangerous).

Instead you can use a tool such as AtomicParsley to do this for you. Once you've dowloaded and installed AtomicParsley you can run the tool from the command line to set the metadata tags properly. For example once I ripped Stargate Atlantis - Season One - Episode 101 to mp4 I ran the following command from the terminal to set the tags.

/bin/AtomicParsley RisingPart1.mp4 --title "Rising Part 1" --TVEpisode "101" --TVEpisodeNum 101 --tracknum "1/20" --description "The discovery of an amazing city left behind by the Ancients in the most unlikely of places, leads a new Stargate team to the distant Pegasus galaxy. Once there, the new team encounters a planet of primitive humans being decimated by a terrible alien race - the Wraith." --year 2004 --genre "TV Shows" --stik "TV Show" --TVNetwork "SciFi" --TVShowName "Stargate Atlantis" --TVSeasonNum 1 --artist "Stargate Atlantis" --album "Stargate Atlantis, Season 1"

The only downside that I see to AtomicParsley is that instead of altering the mp4 directly it copies the file and makes the changes into a temp file which is written to disk.

If you aren't comfortable with using the command line at all you can also download Lostify which is a "gui-wrapper" to AtomicParsley.

Anyways, I hope this helps some of you out. Have fun.

fusion94Jan 12,2006

iPod Radio Remote

I bought a 60GB Video iPod awhile back (to replace my 40gb whose battery would last all of an hour tops) and have absolutely loved it. It's a beautiful machine although I do believe I'd appreciate it more if it had 100-120GB storage capacity.

Anyways, one of the coolest things that came out of Macworld this week was the ipod Radio receiver & remote. It's a FM receiver and remote for the video iPods/iPod nano. All you need is a firmware update (v 1.1 or later) for your iPod and the unit itself. If you're listening to a station that supports the Radio Data System (RDS) standard, you'll be able to see the song title/artist or radio station information from within the iPod display.

I ordered mine from the Apple store on Tuesday and it arrived today (even thought the order status page told me shipping on 1/18/06). So far so good although I do have a few bitches about it (initial bitches). The first thing is that it would appear that there's no "scan" function for moving in between stations. If you have a preset set then you can jump between presets but general scanning doesn't appear to be available. The other gripe is that reception in San Francisco isn't the best in the world. Anyways, once I get to play with it some more I'll post more information.

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