Google Wave Invitations

I've been using Google Wave for a while now and they were kind enough to send some invitations for me to distribute around. So, I have 3 left. If you want one, just leave a comment here or send a reply/DM on Twitter with your e-mail address.

Geek alert: I'll be using FIFO as the sorting protocol in case there are more candidates than the number of invitations. Good luck :-)

How to recover emails from .emlx files in Mail

The other day I was transferring some emails from one IMAP account to another (in Mail) and suddenly when a error occurred I noticed that, not only the emails did not transferred to the destination IMAP account, the original emails disappeared from the original source IMAP account.

My first thought was (right after the cursing): "well, I can use Time Machine to recover the emails by restoring the corresponding folder in the Mail archive folder". And so I did. But for my surprise, that only restored a bunch of .emlx files (one for each email) and when I opened Mail again, the folder was still empty. I guess it tries to consult the server version first and since it is now empty, it won't show you any emails.

So I'm stuck with these .emlx and have no idea how to put the emails back on Mail. However, using some Google-fu, I was again able to find this very useful blog post that perfectly explains how one can use .emlx files to import emails back to Mail. Enjoy

Well, this is just embarassing

Really, it is. I just noticed that my iTunes was no longer allowing me to use half-star ratings and then I remembered that the upgrade to Snow Leopard must have screwed that up. So, I did a quick Google search for "activate half-star ratings" to try to fix it again.

And guess what was the first result. That's right: this one.

Installing Snow Leopard (on a Mac OS X Tiger machine)

So, as you may know (and probably getting tired of knowing by now) I upgraded to Snow Leopard. The process was very simple and there's really no point in doing a thorough analysis of it, so I'll just leave some photos that I took while waiting.

Just before that, a few tips for those of you that want to upgrade as well:

• Backup your old data before upgrading
  
• Have you backup everything? No, go ahead... I'll wait
• And when you think you've backup everything just make a final check :-)
• Then insert the disc and install Mac OS X 10.6 a.k.a. Snow Leopard

Chances are that everything will go smoothly and no problems will arise from installing the new operating system. But since uncle Murphy is always looking waiting for the right moment to appear, you might as well be prepared with all your data safe somewhere.

Another quick note: this post is about my experience which consisted on upgrading from Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) to 10.6. So, this post is not really helpful to those of you upgrading from Leopard.

I bought the Mac Box Set (which includes Mac OS X 10.6, iLife'09 and iWork'09). Yeah, I know I could have just bought the $29 update package that can also do the upgrade from Tiger, but didn't so for two reasons:

1. I would be in violation of Apple's license agreement
2. I wouldn't have iLife'09 and iWork'09

So, with the package on my desk, it was quite easy to see what I should do:

(I like these little messages that Apple pust on the packages with "slight" hints of what to do)

After inserting the DVD, one clear difference from the Leopard upgrading process was that installing it from Tiger, requires restarting the machine right from the beginning of the installation process:


After a quick restart, the installation process asks which language you want to use:


And then, you're ready to start the installation. In my case, I decided to wipe clean the hard disk with the Disk Utility to make sure that all the accumulated garbage I had on the previous version of Mac OS X (yes, I backup everything before. Did you?)


After cleaning up the hard disk, it was time to start the real installation:



Obviously, the "time remaining" part of the installation process is never accurate and it more or less bounced from 30 minutes to 28, back to 29 and then to 26 (for a really long time), then 23 and then going on normally until 11 minutes and then suddenly it finishes. So, in total it took about 26 minutes to finish this part. At this point, I decided to read the manual that comes with the disc and get myself acquainted with the novelties in 10.6.


After copying all the files and restarting "again", the new OS boots with the usual flying "welcome" messages in several different languages:


And then after just setting up the usual stuff (language and keyboard preferences, user accounts, etc...)...


... I was ready to use my new Mac OS X:


So, from start to finish, I took exactly 48 minutes to upgrade. Not bad for a clean install.
After that, I just inserted the iLife'09 DVD, installed it and then the same for the iWork'09. More or less 10 minutes for each.

Loving the new Operating System

Yes, it's fast... and I mean really fast. Clicking on folders and files seems to open these a lot faster and navigation is usually more fluid. The new features (remember that I was coming from Tiger) like Spaces, Time Machine and Stacks are really cool.

Recovering my data was quite straightforward and I didn't face any major problems (except one that I'll mention bellow) so in a couple of hours I had my machine up and running almost like the previous version.

Now for the boring part

The boring part was in fact checking compatibilities for applications. I backup my previously installed applications so that I could use them now. Most of them worked without any problems, but some of them required installing new versions. And not so amusing, some of them are only available for Snow Leopard in beta versions. Which means that bugs may surface. But so far, it has been quite peaceful.

The only app that I'm having a hard time is QuickSilver. Because I use it all the time and some of its plugins are not yet available in the 10.6 version, in some ways it is more or less useless for me right now.

I also had some problems with a few of my calendars. I have 5 calendars that I used in the previous version of iCal (in Tiger). I backed up everything but when it was time to import them to the new iCal, only 2 of them imported successfully. I don't know why, but for some reason those other 3 calendars were being very stubborn.

Since I heard that Snow Leopard now had built-in support for Google Calendar integration with iCal, I decided to try the following:

1. Create new calendars on Google Calendar
2. Import the information of the 3 non-working calendars to Google Calendar
3. Synchronize with iCal

Guess what? It worked perfectly. Now, I have GCalendar <-> iCal dual integration working perfectly.
Why didn't the calendars import on iCal and did so on Google Calendar, I'll never know. But it's good to know that Google is always here to help :-) By the way, the same built-in integration between Google Contacts (and Yahoo Contacts) and Address Book is also available, provided that you use iSync for the synchronization process.

So, in the end I'm quite pleased with this process and it was a lot less painful than I thought it would be. I fully recommend upgrading to Snow Leopard but bare in mind that some of the applications may not work in Snow Leopard. So, do your homework, and check the compatibilities beforehand.

Retro-blogging: best posts of June 2008

Previously, on "The Mac Newbie":

• How to open a terminal path in Finder
• How to see High-Definition Trailers on FrontRow
• How to open PDFs on Firefox 3
• How to download musics from MySpace using Safari and "wget"
• How to make your Mac sing to you
  

How I (kinda) turned my iPod Touch into an iPhone with just $29

With these Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic, and using Skype for iPhone/iPod Touch, I just got myself a nice pseudo-iPhone.


Of course, it requires some WiFi available somewhere near my location, but what the hell? It's still great.

Photobooth tips

I didn't know how to disable the "pseudo-flash" setting in Photobooth (and there's no setting that you can change directly to override this) and so, to this day, I used the reversed contrast setting trick: in my case I have to press Command+Option+CTRL+8 to activate it and then the "pseudo-flash" will be black instead of white. But then again, using this trick doesn't allow me to fully control the quality of the photo because I still have to see it with that x-ray look.

Lucky enough, Mac Tricks and Tips has posted these useful tips to use with Photobooth:

• Disable Flash in Photo Booth

Disabling flash in PhotoBooth is really easy all you have to do is hold the Shift key while you click to take a picture and the screen will not flash white.


• Disable Countdown in Photo Booth

Disabling the picture count down in PhotoBooth is just a matter of holding down the Option key while you click to take a picture, your photo will take immediately.

You can also combine the keystrokes by holding down Option-Shift and you’ll immediately take a picture without the flash.

Tweeting from Terminal

I still prefer the Twitter+Quicksilver integration tip, but if you're a Terminal geek addict, then this tip is for you.

Retro-blogging: best posts of February 2008

Previously, on the "Mac Newbie":

• Strange problem with Quicksilver (to this day I still haven't found a solution for this)
• How to open PDFs in Firefox in Mac OS X
• How to turn off the startup sound on your Mac
• A few interesting applications for your Mac
• iMovie and iDVD: the apps that could be great, but aren't
• Avoid Apple Remote's evil twins
• How to burn MP3s to a CD with folders on iTunes

The consequences of being a popular OS

If you're one of those that think there are no viruses or other malware for Mac OS X, then you're mistaken. The only reason why viruses haven proliferate to Mac OS X is only because viruses' creators are busy devising new nasty malware programs for Windows and because the market share of Mac users is still too small to justify the time spent creating them.

But now that Apple has been cutting a larger and larger piece of the market's pie, the attention of these "evil-doers" has turned to Mac OS X and other Apple-related software.


The latest news on this issue are related to torrent-based downloads. People downloading the latest version of iWork'09 or Photoshop CS4 through the popular file-sharing network are likely to also be downloading a trojan that gives access to your computer to a mal-intentioned user.

So, you might want to consider installing an anti-virus, specially if you're downloading this software from these "not-so-legal" networks.

How to make Command-Left Arrow 'go to the start of the current line' rather than 'go back one page' on Firefox

As you may have noticed, this blog is hosted on Blogger under the Blogspot.com domain. One thing that really annoys me with the Post Editor in Blogger is that, when using Firefox, if I try to use the Home key shortcut (Command-Left Arrow), instead of going to the beginning of the line on the text box where I'm editing a post as expected, the browser goes back one page.

This problem occurs because that specific combination of keys (Command-Left Arrow) is configured in Firefox to behave as Going Back one page instead of the usual Mac OS X-like behaviour of Home key.


Luckly, and for every problem that exists in Firefox, there's an extension that is ready to save the day: Keyconfig. It adds the ability to create new or modify existing shortcuts defined by a element. Basically, all you have to do is install the extension and then navigate to the Tools --> Keyconfig, click on the "Back : Command-Left Arrow" entry, then click the Disable button.

In case you're having problems installing the extension, leave a comment here and I'll try to give some help. Enjoy!

Source: Mac OS X Hints

How to fix converted QuickTime movies that have no sound

I've been making some short videos of my son with my new digital camera, a Sony CyberShot DSC-H50, with the goal of syncing them to my iPod Touch so that I have them around to show to family, friends and colleagues.

However, when I use QuickTime to convert the video to the iPhone/iPod Touch format, I get stuck with a video with no sound. And why is that? It's because my digital camera (and as most digital cameras) records the video and audio on the same stream within the movie file. And QuickTime is only able to convert movies that have separate video and audio streams.


In search for a solution to this problem, I found this neat program that takes care of that conversion real easily: MPEG Streamclip.

So if you're having similar problems, make sure you give this program a try.

Why wait for the Apple Keynote Remote App?

One of the interesting things presented at MacWorld'09 was the new feature on iWork: the possibility to remote-control a Keynote presentation using your iPod Touch or iPhone. This is done by using this app (iTunes link).

However, if you browse the iTunes App Store a little bit you'll see that this is no innovation at all as many of these applications already exist (most of them require installing an extra app on your Mac to allow the controlling process):

• Keymote - free (Donationware)
  
• Pointer Remote - $0,99 (allows working with PowerPoint)
• iPresenter - $2,99 (works with PowerPoint only)
  
• jfControl - $3,99
  
• AirMote - $4,99 (doesn't require installing an app on your Mac)
  
• StageHand - $7,99 (more complete with some interesting features)
  
• RemoteBuddy - $19,99 (allows controlling much more than just presentations)

Source: TUAW

How to activate half-star ratings on iTunes

Since my iPod Touch 16GB doesn't have enough storage to hold my entire music library (along with some videos, photos and apps) I have to be selective regarding what songs I should sync to it. To do that I use the star rating system built-in on iTunes. For example, only 4 or 5 star-rated musics are chosen to get synced to the iPod.

However, sometimes using a 5 star rating might not be enough to differentiate the musics the way we would like. Lucky enough, there's a way of activating half-star rating on iTunes, thus turning, in theory, the 5 star rating system into a 10 star rating system.

Just open up Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE

That's it. When you initiate iTunes the next time, you'll notice that the rating stars have a new symbol (as pictured above).

Mac Highlights of 2008

The UsingMac blog has made an impressive post with the highlights of the Mac world of 2008. From apps to tips, tricks, tweaks, plugins, wallpapers and tutorials, you'll find everything there. Have a look.

Best apps for the iPod Touch

And what better way to start the year than to show you my list of the best apps you can install on your iPod Touch. Keep in mind that this list is exclusive for the iPod Touch and not the iPhone. Since the iPhone has some features that are not available on the iPod Touch (such as GPS and phone capabilities), the advantages that could arise from apps using those features are irrelevant for the Touch. Hence, the warning of iPod Touch exclusivity.

Basically, this list comprises the set of apps that "survived" on my iPod Touch. Since the app store is easily accessible from the iPod Touch, I spend quite a long time browsing the latest available apps and try them out. I basically install everything with a slightly interesting description, but only those worth keeping, "survive" the "cleaning phase".

Because so many apps in the App Store are free, I seldom found the need to actually buy an app to get some interesting functionality running on the iPod. So, with fairness in mind, this list reflects (almost) only free apps and, thus may obfuscate some interesting apps that are really cool but that I didn't try because I'm too cheap :-)

It's also easy to perceive why so many of the chosen apps are games: the iPod Touch is in fact the funnest iPod ever :-)

Enough said. Off with the list (in alphabetic order):

• AppVee (free) - With the ever-growing number of apps available at the App Store it's quite difficult to keep track of the ones that are really worth it. AppVee, with insightful reviews and videos, is a great resource to know exactly which ones to install and try.
  

• Black Gold (free) - With the price of Oil behaving like a roller-coaster it's always interesting to keep an eye on the market value of these resources. Black Gold provides updated access to the current price of Crude Oil, Gold and Fuel prices.

• Blue Skies Lite (free) - This game is absolutely fabulous when it comes to using the acelerometer. The helicopter is controled by tilting the iPod in the desired direction and missiles and bombs are fired by touching the screen in certain areas of the display. This free version only includes a few levels, but it's enough to get you hooked on it.
  
  
• Brain Tuner Lite (free) - If you want to keep your brain in tip top shape then this game is for you. Basically, you only have to say whether or not each row represents a true statement. But you need to do this in as less time as possible. This way you can keep improving your scores and train your brain.
  
  
• Cannon Challenge (free) - This game is very addictive. It's one of the first games that I installed and I'm totally hooked up on it. Mainly because it's so simple and yet somehow challenging. The goal is simple: destroy the yellow targets using the cannon on the left. All that you can control is the angle and speed of the cannon. Simple, right? Yeah, but it takes some time to master it...
  
  
• Dactyl (free) - Just click on the bombs before they explode. Looks simple, right? Well, let's just say that the speed at which new potentially exploding bombs appear is close to a rat's heartbeat (in case you're wondering: 500 beats/min).
  
  
• Facebook (free) - If you're into Facebook, one of the most popular social networks in the web, then this app is mandatory. It gives you clean and simple access to most Facebook features.

• Google Earth (free) - that wonderful Earth navigability that you have on your computer is also accessible on the iPod Touch. And it feels even better with the multi-touch display.
  

• iPint (free) - Totally useless, but since this was the first app I installed on my iPod Touch it's hard to let go. Plus, it's always fun to use when showing off the iPod Touch to nearby people. This app simulates a pint of beer that behaves pretty much like the real thing, except this one won't actually leave a stain on the floor when you spill it :-) It also includes a cool game for you to guide a pint from one side of the bar to the other, all by using the accelerometer.
  
  
• Labyrinth Lite Edition (free) - Another game to show the excellent feature brought by the accelerometer. You just have to control the ball through the maze to reach the goal and avoid the holes. It feels just like the real thing.
  
  
• Loops of Zen Lite (free) - Another Puzzle game. Simple, yet sometimes quite challenging. Loops of Zen requires you to connect all the symbols together so as to create a figure where all lines end in a circle.

• Lumen Lite (free) - Excellent puzzle game where you only have to find ways of turning all the lights on. The free version only include a few levels but some are quite challenging.

• Lux Touch (free) - If you like the board game Risk, then you'll love Lux Touch. That's it :-)
  
• MazeFinger (free) - This cool game is very simple: just use your finger to go trough the maze as fast as possible. As it gets harder and harder, new obstacles will appear and the path will become more difficult. Plus, the visual and sound effects are stunning.
  
  
• NetNewsWire (free) - For a long time now, I've been using NewsGator as my RSS feeds reader and, on my Mac, I use NetNewsWire to access those feeds (for offline viewing) and the synchronization process is quite good. Most naturally, on the iPod Touch I also use NetNewsWire. This way, no matter what channel I use, the feeds I read are always in sync.

• TapDefense (free) - If you're into tower defense-like games, then you'll love this game. You have to defend your gate against the evil beings from Hell and for that you'll need to place towers across the path to slow them down and eventually destroy them.
  
  
• Tap Tap Revenge (free) - Are you a Guitar Hero fan? Tap Tap Revenge is the solution for the iPod Touch. Just tap tap the dots at the sound of music and try not to miss :-)
  
  
• Tweetie (2,39€ - $2.99) - I tried every free Twitter app available at the App Store and none (with the exception of Twinkle) is enough for the average Twitter user. While Twinkle may actually do the trick for most Twitter users, Tweetie is more complete allowing you to easily keep track of everyone you're following by clearly separating tweets, replies, messages and other parts of this social network (such as location-based tweets, trends and access to profile information).
  

This list is obviously incomplete and as I have the time, I will be updating it with new apps. So, keep tuned. Also, I welcome your suggestions and I thank you in advance by any help you can provide in improving this list.

How to sync a Nokia 2630 with your Mac

Since I now carry my iPod Touch everywhere, I only need to additionally carry a cellphone to make calls and send SMS. So, why carry a heavy and clunky smartphone like a Nokia N80 when all I need is a simple cellphone? That's why I bought the cheap, light and simple Nokia 2630.

I can have access to all my information (like calendar, contacts, photos, mails and movies) on the iPod Touch, so there's no real need to sync the Nokia 2630 with my Mac...except, for the contacts. I have quite a few contacts (more or less 200) on my Mac's Address Book and I wouldn't like to add each one by hand to the cellphone.


Since the Nokia N80 had automatic synchronization to the Mac using iSync, I had my hopes up for the Nokia 2630. Sadly, it doesn't. But fear not, as Google is always available to save the day: I found this blog post that explained just how you can hack iSync to work with the Nokia 2630. Simple and fast...and it worked perfectly. All contacts (and calendar too, if you want) got synchronized to the Mac almost instantly.

1 year of Mac: Quicksilver, the best Mac application...ever

I already included Quicksilver in my list of essential applications for Mac OS X but due to the impact that this application has had on my productivity, I decided to make a special post to show how powerful this application is.

Basically, Quicksilver is an application that waits on the background for the user to call it (using a particular keystroke - I use Alt (Option) + Space) and then invoke a specific command by writing just a few letters (usually the initials of the command). So, let's have a look at the kind of commands we can use:

The basic functionality of this application is to work as an app launcher:


But it can also be used to open individual files (to use a group of files, you just have to insert a comma ',' to separate the several files):



There's a bunch of options to be used with files. For example, I can rename them, get more info, copy/move them to specific folders or simply delete them by moving them to the Trash:




And for when you have the Trash full, you can use Quicksilver to empty it:



Quicksilver can also be used as a calculator. After invoking Quicksilver, just insert '=' and automatically the app will interpret this as new math function:



Using a set of Apple Scripts, you can also use Quicksilver to control iTunes playback by skipping to the next or previous song or playing/pausing/stopping:


You can also browse your iTunes library using simple browsing/searching commands:


Quicksilver can provide access to your contacts and allows editing the contact's info and even create mail messages:


In fact, you can use Quicksilver to send a specific file (or group of files) by e-mail for a bunch of your contacts without even opening Mail.app:


If you need to Zip a folder, just select it and invoke the Compress command.


Then you can use the result to store the file somewhere in your computer or simply e-mail to a contact of your choice:


One of the most amazing commands that you can use on Quicksilver is image manipulation. For example, you can automatically scale an image using the "Scale Image..." command and providing the scale ratio (in percentage or pixels):


One useless command (but always funny) is the "Speak Text" command. Basically it can make your Mac speak any text that you input on Quicksilver (only in text mode, which is accessible by entering '.' as a command):


Since Quicksilver also monitors Safari and Firefox's bookmarks, you can take advantage of a special feature of the application. Whenever a bookmark URL contains '***', Quicksilver interprets that as input text. So, you can create your very own custom search engine directly from Quicksilver. For example, to search on Wikipedia, create the following bookmark on Safari: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=***". Then rescan Quicksilver's catalog and invoke the bookmark and insert the input text:


For searching Google, use the following Bookmark URL: "http://www.google.com/search=q=***":


And finally, a tip for Twitter fans. If you like to post constant updates on Twitter but don't like to have to access the website just to enter your new status, you'll be glad to know that there's a way to integrate this functionality directly into Quicksilver, thus turning it into the simplest Twitter client that ever existed:


Some of these commands are not accessible in the default installation of Quicksilver. To make these commands available, you may have to install the correct plugins, but that's easily done through the application's preferences.

I hope you find this post useful and hopefully it will trigger your curiosity into testing this great application. I know it may take some time to get used to it, but once you do, you won't regret it.

Enjoy!