O’Reilly’s MacDevCenter has a good article about creating volume backups using Mac OS X’s built-in tools. It requires a bit of Unix scripting, but nothing too hard to accomplish. I’ve just gone through the instructions and successfully completed a backup of my startup partition, including all applications, user and system files on an external hard […]
Ambrosia have released a new version of their flagship screen capture utility Snapz Pro X. While the interface has been significantly revamped, the only really big new feature is advanced video capture. I am a registered user of Snapz Pro X 1.0, and I use it almost exclusively for static screen shots. The Purchase Options […]
pMachine, the company that makes the blogging software that I use, has just announced their next-generation product called ExpressionEngine. It sounds good, but… It’s going to be a significantly more expensive product ($199 vs $45!), and will require quite a bit of work for existing pMachine users who want to “upgrade” their blog, because the […]
The excellent system enhancement Default Folder X has just been updated as well. If you spend quite a bit of time in Open/Save dialogs navigating from folder to folder in your hard drive volumes, you’ll soon find that Default Folder is an indispensable enhancement. Version 1.9.3 is a minor update, but it restores the flexibility […]
Regular readers of this blog and of my Applelust.com columns know that I am an avid user of Rainmaker Inc.’s Spell Catcher X. Lots of things have happened since the release of version 10.0 of the product, which had to be rewritten from scratch for Mac OS X. Casady & Greene is gone and Evan […]
I am pleased to report that the recent Backup update released by Apple (exclusively through the .Mac web site for .Mac subscribers) appears to have fixed the reliability issues that plagued version 2.0 (at least in my configuration). It’s been three days now and Backup has successfully archived all my essential files on an external […]
It was more of the same today in the English Premier League, although Everton did give Manchester United a decent scare. Everton were extremely poor in the first half and gave themselves a mountain to climb, with Man U leading 3-0 at the break. But the manager made a triple substitution at half-time and it […]
A couple of months ago, I mentioned the fact that I was going to be responsible for setting up a new Xserve running Mac OS X Server 10.3 as a web server, mail server, DHCP server, etc. for one of my employers. The Xserve replaces a Power Mac G4/450 (my old desktop machine) running Mac […]
Apple Peelcolumn at Applelust.com
The second part in my series of articles entitled “The Mac OS X Hall of Shame” is now up at Applelust.com. It includes more comments about the Dock, buggy updates, and interface inconsistencies. Feel free to comment on the column below.
Whenever you try to open a new web page in a new window in Safari, Safari adds the window to its “Window” menu, as expected. But what it actually adds to this menu is a reference to the window title for this new window. The problem is that, due to the way that Safari works, […]
I think I’ve finally identified the reason behind my recent FireWire woes. Today, I wanted to do a search for a file in the Finder. I chose to search “Everywhere” because I couldn’t remember which volume it might be on. The searching process started, the search results window appeared and started filling up, and then […]
In the recently released Safari 1.2, when you fill out a form, if you activate the “Submit” button (or whatever it’s called) by hitting the Return or Enter key rather than using the mouse to click on the actual button on the screen, there is a short visual effect that highlights the button in blue […]
I’ve already written extensively about issues with brushed-metal windows in Mac OS X. Another issue is with the use of the keyboard shortcut for the “Cycle Through Windows” command that is available in most Mac OS X applications. On my Canadian CSA keyboard, the shortcut is cmd-ù. I think it’s cmd-~ on US keyboards. I […]
There must be something about Tottenham leading 3-0 at home at half-time… First there was the famous Premier League game against Manchester United a couple of seasons ago where Tottenham were indeed leading 3-0 at half-time and ended up losing 3-5. And now this… But this is even more unbelievable. For one thing, Manchester United […]
I suspect most of you have heard about the so-called “breast-baring incident” during the Super Bowl half-time performance last Sunday. I know very little about American football and don’t watch it, so I didn’t see the thing live, but it was replayed several times during the Monday evening newscast on CBC here in Canada. If […]