In the latest version of OnyX, there is a new tab in the Parameters for iTunes. Among those new parameters is the possibility of enabling half stars. Once enabled, this lets you rate songs using a much more accurate system (ten possibilities instead of five). This latest version of OnyX is in beta, so use it at your own risk. Here is a link to download OnyX from MacUpdate.
Automator never stops surprising me. I discovered another new possibility today. It is possible to use Automator to create a script that will add a watermark to any PDF quickly. You just have to add the “Watermark PDF” Automator action. From there, you can select where to add the watermark, the photo or logo you want to use and the transparency. It works great for adding a logo watermark to corporate documents.
Like in any other application, copy/paste in Final Cut Pro is “Command - C” and “Command - V”. After using “Command - C”, you can use “Option - V” instead to paste only the attributes. Final Cut Pro will then even ask you which attributes you want to paste. Here are the choices:
It’s July 1st. Happy Canada day!
The TWiT network has a huge selection of podcasts and TWiT Live really made it even more available. Unfortunately, streaming video is heavy. It is not a good option for the iPhone and even on the Mac, if you don’t watch the video and you need your bandwidth for other tasks, an audio-only live stream would be better. There is actually an audio stream: http://twit.am/listen. On your Mac, you can’t just open that link in your web browser. The best way to listen to the live stream on your Mac is in iTunes, under “Advanced” and “Open Audio Stream…”. You now paste the URL in the text box that appears. It works differently on the iPhone. There is actually an application on the App Store specifically for listening to the live TWiT. An advantage of the application is that it displays the Google calendar schedule of shows. I still don’t use the application, because since Apple doesn’t allow apps to run in the background, it is not possible to use another application while listening to the stream. Apple does allow their own application to run in the background though. So the best option is to type the stream’s URL in iPhone Safari. The stream will start playing and it won’t stop even if you close Safari and go to another application!
Automator is a very powerful tool, because it makes scripting accessible. I was going through old photos that were classified in folders and that weren’t in iPhoto yet. I wanted to sort the photos before actually importing them. A lot of them really weren’t edited at all and all the photos that had to be rotated weren’t. Opening them in Preview separately just to do this would have taken way too much time. I just wanted to use QuickLook, but unfortunately, there are no editing capabilities at all. Instead, I just created a quick Automator script that I saved in my script menu. Using “Get Selected Finder Items” and “Rotate Images”, I was able to quickly apply the change and even sometimes apply it in batch.
I don’t really understand why, but since I restored my iTunes library from my Time Machine backup, the Applications category is always gone. All my applications are visible in the Finder, but they don’t show up in iTunes. I downloaded a new application to get the category back, but it disappeared again after a while. I haven’t figured out what is causing the issue, but I found a quick fix for when it happens. I just double-click on any iPod/iPhone application in the Finder and it will immediately load the Applications category in iTunes. The mobile applications are located in your home folder, then “Music”, “iTunes” and “Mobile Applications”.
The slideshow feature is everywhere on the Mac: iPhoto, Aperture, iMovie, iWeb and even OS X. Creating a slideshow of image that is rendered into a video file just doesn’t make sense anymore… well unless you want to send that slideshow to someone who has a PC (and unfortunately that’s still over 80% of the computers). iPhoto still has built-in slideshow exporting capabilities. It will convert the images into a nice QuickTime movie that you can playback on any device. The feature is under “Export” in the “File” menu.
I have to admit, I am not power user in terms of spreadsheet applications and it is probably why I enjoy Numbers so much. I have no idea if this feature is well known or if it is even in Excel, but I just figured it out today and it is such a timesaver. In the past, when I wanted to quickly get the sum (or any other formula) of a bunch of numbers, I’d just create the formula temporarily in a box, anywhere on the spreadsheet. In Numbers, however, I just have to select the list of numbers and the “sum”, “avg”, “min”, “max” and “count” are automatically displayed under the Styles. There is now no need to create a temporary formula just to get a quick calculation!
I don’t know if this also works on the iTouch, because I don’t have an iPod Touch to test it. Even though the feature is in iTunes, you absolutely need the iPhone 3.0 software to be able to use this feature. What it basically does is it encrypts the iPhone backup that is stored on your hard drive. It is like a FileVault for iPhone backups. The new feature called “Encrypt iPhone backup” is under “Options” in the iTunes’ iPhone main page. iTunes will also require that you set a password for the backup. Although I haven’t tested restoring from the backup, I assume iTunes will ask for that password again during a restore.
The feature “Revert to Saved…” is part of many applications made by Apple (including QuickTime Pro, Pages, etc). It works great for reverting changes. Before I found this feature, I used to close the file and navigate through the Finder to reopen it. You can find “Revert to Saved…” in the File menu of many Apple apps.
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