Need to convert a DMG disk image file to a CDR or ISO disk image format? Don’t bother downloading any third party tools, all you need for conversion is built right into Mac OS X and you don’t even have to go the command line route for most cases.
Have you ever noticed that iPhone video gets recorded according to the orientation of the device? If you haven’t noticed that yet, pay attention to it now, because you’ll create significantly better videos if you just rotate the iPhone into horizontal orientation before hitting that record video button.
WMV files typically are played in Windows Media Player, but Mac users don’t have that app. Not to worry though, there are plenty of solutions to play WMV video right in Mac OS X and you can go ahead and forget about WMP because the Mac apps are better and more versatile anyway. Without further ado, here are three different ways to play WMV movies on a Mac, each are free downloads:
MPlayerX closely resembles the Quick Time user interface but that’s about where the similarities end, because MPlayerX will play just about any video thrown at it with flying colors. WMV files are no exception, but because it supports so many other popular (mkv, divx, etc) and obscure formats, MPlayer is debatably one of the best free video players available for the Mac platform.
VLC is the classic swiss army knife for video files, it will play virtually any video format, it’s cross-platform compatible, it’s quick, and it’s free. VLC’s other benefit is that it works fine with obscure audio formats, and if you’re wanting to stream a video from one computer to another you can easily do that too. If you want the video codec support of MPlayerX but with even more features aimed at advanced users, VLC is a great choice.
Last but not least is Flip4Mac, which is a set of video components that install into OS X that allow Quick Time to play WMV files directly. It’s a perfectly reasonable solution, but because it’s limited to WMV and WMA formats it’s just overall less useful than going with a free app like VLC or MPlayerX. My view is that if you’re going to be downloading a new app to play videos, get one that is multifunctional and that will play everything, that way you won’t have to go hunting around again when you encounter some other video file down the road. One potentially huge bonus that Flip provides though is the ability to convert the wmv videos to .mov format, letting you play them on an iPad, iPod, or iPhone, or any other Mac, without the need for them to download anything.
Not sure which to get? It’s probably safest to go with MPlayerX, it’s dirt simple to use, installs through the Mac App Store, and plays so many different movie formats that you’ll likely never have to download another video player again.
Not long ago we showed you how to announce when a command line task was finished by using the ‘say’ command, but because it speaks aloud it may be inappropriate to use in a quiet environment. A much more subtle notification takes advantage of Terminal apps new usage of the BEL alert, which in OS X Lion onward pushes a red notification badge to the Dock icon rather than sounding the awful hardware beep.
Adding a notification alert to a completed command is simple, just append “&& tput bel” to the end of a command. For example, to throw the notification alert when the make command is finished running it would look like the following:
make install && tput bel
When finished running, the default system alert will sound, the Terminal dock icon will bounce with a new red notification badge added.
If you want to see it in action in OS X, try it with ping and then go away from the Terminal app:
ping -c 5 www.google.com && tput bel
This can be much better than the “say” alert because it remains useful even when the computer is muted, and it’s more versatile than the Growl notification method since it does not require any additional software to be installed to function. It works in OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion.
Thanks to Austin L. for sending this in!
Diptic is an app for iPhone and iPad that makes creating diptych and triptych photo collages easier than ever. With a ton of layouts, filters, basic editing tools, and customizations, you can quickly build a visual story using either freshly taken photos or pictures stored in your iPhone camera roll. When you’re finished, Diptic let’s you send the collage directly to Facebook, Instagram, Camera+, Tumblr, Twitter, and a variety of other services, so you can share your creation with the world. This is a fun app and if you’ve ever wondered how people were making quick diptychs while on the go, this very well could be the answer.
Usually costing $0.99, Diptic is the App Store free app of the week, get it while you can:
This app fits right in with the camera tips we’ve been posting lately to help you take better pictures with the iPhone. Grab it while it’s free and have some fun.
The third beta of iOS 6 has been released to developers running compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod hardware. The new build is 10A5355d and contains many bug fixes and improvements over beta 2, pushing the newest version of iOS closer to it’s public debut later in the year.
For developers already running iOS 6 beta 2, they can download the beta 3 release quickly as an over-the-air delta update, found in Settings > General > Software Update. The new builds IPSW files are also hosted on Apple’s iOS Developer Center.
Some devices are seeing beta 3 marked as beta 2, despite already having beta 2 installed. This appears to be a typo and downloading the update installs the newest version anyway.
Apple has stated that iOS 6 is due for public release this fall. It’s looking increasingly likely iOS 6 will coincide with the launch of iPhone 5, and possibly even the much rumored iPad mini.
There’s a strong love and hate relationship with the leather UI skeuomorphism that has adorned many OS X and iOS apps as of late, and if you’re in the “hate” crowd then you’ll probably be pleased to discover that a free tool called Lion Tweaks makes removing the leather appearance from the interfaces of Address Book and iCal easier than ever.
No more manually changing iCal UI files, Lion Tweaks includes two simple one-button installers to change the leather user interface back to the traditional aluminum appearance. Reversing the change back to the default leather look is just as easy.
We’ve discussed Lion Tweaks before as a helpful tool for those looking to customize Mac OS X without getting into the nitty gritty of defaults write commands. The newest version supports both OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion, and includes a variety of helpful tweaks like showing the Library folder, always showing scrollbars, and enabling AirDrop for unsupported Macs and ethernet, and many other tricks we’ve covered here before.
A smaller 7.85″ screened iPad will be announced this year and cost much less than the current $499 iPad, according to a new report from the New York Times.
The iPad mini is anticipated to arrive later this year, according to NYT’s sources. There also seems to be a suggestion that Apple is releasing the device in order to maintain control of the tablet market. Amazon Kindle, Google Nexus, and the upcoming Microsoft Surface are all significant potential tablet competitors to the iPads current dominance.
Interestingly, the Times also says that Apple originally prototyped a 7″ tablet some years ago, but shelved the smaller form factor in favor of the existing 9.7″ iPad, because the late Steve Jobs found the small tablet to be questionably useful “besides surfing the Web in the bathroom.” Recent mockups have shown the difference between a 7″ and 7.85″ display is 40% more usable screen space, however.
The report from the New York Times joins other recent reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal on the topic of an “iPad Mini”, combining to provide strong credibility to the rumors.
The Photos app in iOS includes a built-in crop tool that works very well for quick edits on the go with the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The bundled function offers a free transform options, thereby providing the ability to crop an image down to any proportion you’d like.
If there’s one thing that modern keyboards and Macs are missing compared to old fashioned typewriters, it’s the loud typewriter sounds of yesteryear, because let’s face it, who doesn’t like an incredibly noisy keyboard? NoisyTyper is a hilarious Mac app that satisfies the need that nobody has, with different key and typing sounds for letters, spacebar, delete, scroll up and down, and even the classic ‘ding’ carriage return. Once loaded, it works across all applications, guaranteeing those sounds from last century will follow you regardless of where you type on a Mac.
You really have to watch the video embedded below to get an idea for just how noisy the app is, or download it yourself and find out the hard way.
I think this app is hilarious and while it has a retro kick to it, it would also make for an excellent prank to play on unsuspecting colleagues and roommates.
There’s a brief multi-step installation process:
Because Noisy Typer runs in the background so you’ll have to quit it by typing “qaz123” or by finding it in Activity Monitor and killing the process.
Just in case the app isn’t enough for you, there’s always the ridiculous full-on USB typewriter iMac conversion kit for the dedicated.
If you like simple and clean workstation setups, this weeks Mac desk should be right up your alley. Coming to us from Ed W., he uses his Mac mini for photo editing and word processing, and it also doubles as a media server. Hardware includes:
shelf attached to the Cinema Display holding 1TB External HD
Not shown is an iPhone 4 16GB, used to take the picture, and you can’t see the Backpack shelf because it attaches to the back of the Cinema Displays and iMacs.
The wallpaper on the Cinema Display is from OS X Mountain Lion. If you don’t want to wait until it’s released later this month you can get that one directly or see all the wallpapers here.
Do you want to be a featured Mac setup on OSXDaily? Send in a good picture or two with a list of hardware and a brief description of what you use the Apple gear for to osxdailycom@gmail.com
If your Bluetooth device connections seem flakey, or if your Apple wireless keyboard or Magic Mouse isn’t as responsive as you think it should be with your Mac, there are two easy ways to check Bluetooth signal strength in OS X. Using the Bluetooth signal data, you can then make adjustments accordingly to improve the connection, either by reducing obstructions, changing batteries, or limiting interference.
Here’s how you can check Bluetooth signal strength from OS X from the menu item, and from the preference panel:
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For those that rely on passwordless logins via ssh, rather than generating a new SSH key for a new client machine, you can easily move SSH keys from one computer to another. This is a quick and easy solution for a temporary machine or username or for use on an auxiliary workstation. You could also use this to copy SSH keys between user accounts on the same machine.
If you’re already connected to a networked Mac, using the Finder is an easy way to copy the SSH keys. First you’ll want to show hidden files in OS X either through defaults write or a tool like DesktopUtility, then just open up the .ssh directory on both machines and do a drag and drop:
On the other hand, if you’re already in Terminal to enable hidden files, you may as well just use the command line to move them over.
Copying SSH Keys from the Command Line
Using the terminal is faster for many of us, you’ll obviously have to be connected to the other computer through a network for this to work.
cp .ssh/id_rsa* /Network/path/to/username/.ssh/
Simple enough, and will work for any version of OS X and most variations of unix or linux.
If you wanted to, you could also zip the key files and then transfer them through AirDrop, but that’s probably more work than necessary.
Because SSH keys allow for passwordless logins, you’ll want to securely delete or better yet securely format the hard drive before it goes to a new owner. This is especially true with temporary computers or loaner machines.
Want to quickly make an iPhone photo look even better? The iPhone Photos app includes a nice little trick called auto-enhance that will make a few various adjustments to an image that almost always improves the look of the photo being adjusted. It’s not an overwhelming effect by any means, it’s more of a subtle boost to contrast, saturation, and some other image qualities, which generally makes the picture look closer to how it would be seen in real life.
So sure, the iPhone takes pretty good pictures as is, but why not make your photos look even better by using the built-in Auto-Enhance tool? This article will show you how to easily use the auto-enhance tool on iPhone.
With the countless paid options that offer file conversions out there, it’s always a huge relief to discover an excellent free service. Today that comes to us from Google, and if you’re looking to convert a PDF file to a DOC, while retaining it’s formatting and serving as a PDF editor too, you won’t find a better free choice than Google Docs, the web based office suite from Google. The other perk to this approach? It’s completely cross platform compatible, so you can convert and edit the document from any browser on any OS, be it Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X, and you’ll know the document will turn out the same every time.
Yellow Jacket is an all new iPhone case that doubles as a powerful stun gun, zapping potential threats with 650,000 volts of electricity. Not only that, the case also doubles as an additional battery for the iPhone itself, providing up to an additional 20 hours of use – assuming you don’t use the stun feature of course. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?
The story behind Yellow Jacket is also interesting if not disturbing, apparently it was created by a guy who was robbed at gunpoint in his own home. That story and more are told in the slightly overdramatic promotional video embedded below, but it does a good job of showing the cases application as a self defense tool.
As you probably expect, the Yellow Jacket case does add some additional bulk to the iPhone, totally about an inch thick and weighing 4oz. Even still, that could be a small price to pay for some added security for those who feel they need it.
The Yellow Jacket stungun case will retail for $125 after it’s produced, but can be “pre-ordered” through IndieGogo at $85 and $100. Current versions fit the iPhone 4 and 4S, but more smartphones will be supported soon.
We’ve seen some weird iPhone cases before, but this is certainly the most unique iPhone case I’ve heard of that actually serves a purpose. What do you think? Would you want a stun gun case for an iPhone either for yourself or a loved one?
Quite the find by Macgasm
Have you ever wanted to show a list of the entire download history of a Mac? Maybe you know you downloaded a file but you can’t quite pinpoint where you got it from and the “Get Info” trick didn’t work. Or maybe you are trying to track down a file that has been placed on a system that led to problems. Whether it’s for troubleshooting, personal interest, or forensics, the following command will show you everything that you’ve downloaded to a Mac regardless of the application that it came from:
Tired of Auto-Save continuously saving files in the background? Does Versions annoy you with it’s saved states of your work in each apps? For the vast majority of users, Auto-Save and Versions are excellent features in Mac OS X, but some advanced users are annoyed with the features that came in Lion (and are here to stay in Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan). If you fall into that crowd here is how to disable the automatic file saving and the entire Versioning system on a per-application basis.
