Mac Tricks And Tips

Have Multiple Instances Of VLC or QuickTime to Play Movies or Music

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:55:02 +0000

Hey

Here is a trick that will allow you to have two or more instances of VLC or Quicktime Player open, which can allow you to play more than one movie at the same time. This is useful if you are in an environment where you have an attached monitor and want to play one movie on one screen, and a second movie on a different screen. All running from the same Mac. This tip can also be used to play more than one movie or music file (or any media) at the same time. Useful if you want to watch a whole season of The Simpsons, but don’t have to time to watch them individually.

Opening Up More Than One Media Player

To be able to play more than one media file at a time, using the same app, we need to open more than one instance of the media player. I have tested this command with VLC and Quicktime Player, I assume that it will work with any other app as well. If you try double clicking on the app in Finder it will only open one copy. To get round this we are going to use Terminal and force it to open more than one version. Therefore, open Terminal located in Applications > Utilities and type the following:

open -n /Applications/VLC.app

and the following if you want to use Quicktime Player:

open -n /Applications/QuickTime\ Player.app

If you have your apps stored in a different location, all you have to do in Terminal is type open -n and then drag and drop your app onto the Terminal window.

Simply repeat the command for every instance of the app you want open. If you need two media players, use the command twice. For quickly repeating previous commands in Terminal, press the up arrow to load in the previous command.

The final step is to load the file which you do the normal method. Either use the File > Open menu bar item or drag and drop the media onto the window. You have to keep track of which app you are using as there will be two or more instances of the app in the dock.

You can now play the files at the same time, in different or the same screen all day long. Useful if you Mac is connected to a media outlet in a shop or other venue.

Syncing File Start Times / Automatically Loading a Play List

If you want the media you have selected to start playing at the same time in each instance, or you want to automatically load a play list, you can do this in Terminal as well. You can also load the file to play from Terminal using the same method. Simply type the following:

open -na /Applications/VLC.app /path/to/playlist/or/media/file; open -na /Applications/VLC.app /second/instance/path/to/playlist/or/media/file;

The -n option loads the app, and the -a option ensures the play list file is opened with the app you have selected and not the default app. The repetition of the open command is split between the semi colon, which is defined as a new command in Terminal. Simply select the file you want to play or the playlist you have created. Note that you can use the first half of the command to open VLC and play the file. What actually goes on is Terminal opens one instance and begins playing, then opens a second instance and then plays that file. However, since the gap between the two is so small you don’t notice it. If you find the path is too long to type, or has plenty of spaces, you can drag and drop the file onto the Terminal window to automatically load the file path.

Once the command has ran, you will have two copies open of VLC or Quicktime playing the movies or music file from 00:00 at the same time. You can repeat this command depending on how many instances you want open.

It is worth noting that each instance you open takes up bandwidth to your hard drive. Use Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder to measure how much disk access you are using, and when you will reach the limit. If you find your Mac stuttering when playing a couple of files at the same time, it is because your Mac can’t access the disk quick enough to play the files.

If you have any questions or comments about this trick, please leave one below.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Have Multiple Instances Of VLC or QuickTime to Play Movies or Music,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Test The Disk Speed Of Your Hard Drives

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:09:19 +0000

Hey,

Very are various different bottle necks on your Mac that effect the performance of your computer. Originally it would be your CPU being too slow, then RAM was an issue and resulted in a lot of disk paging. Now, I think, the issue of bottle necks on your system is your hard drive. This post will show you a cool app designed to test your hard drive speeds. Its one of the nicest looking, and easiest to use apps out there. Although you can use Activity Monitor to gauge the hard disk speed, this app can be used on individual disks.

The app in question is Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. It will test the speed of your hard drives in both read and write mode. When you open the app you have a couple of choices, the drive you want to test, which is useful if you have multiple drives and the size of the file it will test for. The bigger the file the more accurate result as it smooths out the inaccuracies due to the system having to access the disk at the same time.

After you hit run, you will be presented with an image similar to the following:

Disk speed test is great at showing how fast your hard drives are running at.

The app shows what speed you are running at for both the read and write operation. The app is also useful for showing many many frames per second you can watch HD movies at, although I do think these values are slightly inaccurate.

My super fast hard drive speeds are due to an SSD drive, I have the Corsair Force Series GT and it is amazing. My Mac boots super fast and apps open instantly, you sort of expect this to happen if you can read data at 420Mb/sec. I have also heard that the Crucial m4 and OCZ Vertex 4 are realy good too.

This is only a quick post, however I really do like the blackmagic tool. It is one of the best looking apps for doing this sort of thing. Its free, simple and does its job.

If you have any questions or comments about this app, please leave one using the form below.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Test The Disk Speed Of Your Hard Drives,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Rebuild Mail’s Mailbox

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:00:42 +0000

Hey,

This is just a quick post detailing a neat feature of Mail and the ability for it to solve minor problems relating to emails appearing twice, not at all or it being generally confused if you updated your POP settings. The trick is to rebuild your Mailbox. This method causes Mail to delete the database and catalogue each email that you have downloaded. It will rebuild the database, so if an email appears twice or looks a bit strange this should clear it up, it also helps if you can’t find an email when you search for it.

To rebuild mail’s mailbox, select the mailbox you want to rebuild from the sidebar. Then go to Mailbox in the menu bar and select rebuild.

Select the rebuild option from the mailbox menu item

Mail will proceed to rebuild the database. Depending on how many emails you have this can take from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. During the process Mail will behave a bit strangely however it will return to normal when the process is finished.

The rebuild process does take a while if you have thousands of emails

When the process if finished, I recommend restarting Mail so the changes take effect. Everything should be back to normal.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Rebuild Mail’s Mailbox,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Find Duplicate Photos In Your iPhoto Library with PhotoSweeper

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:23:34 +0000

Hey,

With the ever growing trend of digital cameras and the ability to take many shots a once, particularly if you have an DSLR, you may find you have a lot of duplicate photos. Although disk space isn’t a premium as it once was, having many duplicate files of the same image really is pointless. Today’s app is called PhotoSweeper and it is designed to search through your iPhoto, Aperture or simply the images you add to the app, and see which are duplicates. It does this based on how the image looks so it can be pretty good.

Find Those Images

When you start the app, you are given a blank screen. The first step is to add the images you want to compare. This can either be from iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom or by dragging and dropping images onto the workspace.

Drag your images into the app, adjust the settings and away you go.

The next step is to set up the criteria to compare the images. The method to find the comparison is to create a thumbnail of the image and then compare the thumbnails. This allows the app to run quickly; since it doesn’t have a massive image, pixel by pixel, to compare and the ability to automatically weed out anomalies and errors within the image. This allows the app to get a match spot on over the whole image. If the app compared each pixel of a full size image, any subtle change would be reported, it would also take for ever to go through your library. There is a good manual included with the app which gives you a bit more detail.

The settings allow you to compare the bitmap, which is the pixels within the image. The histogram, which compares the amount of colour within each image or the time interval, so you remove shots that were taken too close together. You can also combine the time interval with the bitmap or histogram method, this allows you to pick up images that are taken close together and then compare them by the image. If you want an exact duplicate option, rather than a ‘fuzzy’ match, there is that option too. Each one is explained, with plenty of settings, within the side bar.

When you have picked your option, you hit the compare button and the app does it’s thing. It managed to use all 8 cores on my mac, at 800%, and blasted through my iPhoto library in a matter of seconds.

Review Those Images

When the app has reviewed all of the images, you can now begin to sort and remove the duplicates. The review section has the ability to adjust the match settings on the fly, so if you want more or less images, you can quickly change this setting without having to re-compare your entire selection.

Two images which look very similar, one can be deleted.

You can then move through your library one by one, looking at the images and seeing which ones can be deleted. The app gives you a comparison metric, in terms of percent, showing you how close it thinks each image matches. In the screenshot above, it thinks the image match 92.1%, enough to satisfy a duplicate copy.

When you have gone through the images, you move them to the ‘box’ by dragging them into the drop zone. It took me a while to work out what the ‘box’ meant, but it is a final holding pen before the images are removed.

If you really can’t be bothered to go through each image, one by one, you can use the ‘auto put’ option which will select the duplicates for you and put them in the ‘box’.

Delete Those Images

The final step is to delete, move or copy the duplicate images. You can either delete them, move them to a separate location, or copy them away. There are option for the move and copy, to rename or append the file name. Deletion is the last step.

Conclusion

Overall I think this app is pretty good. It finds duplicates well and has a lot of power under the hood. A lot of time has been spent getting the core of this app to work. The settings and the work flow through the app are simple and make it easy to understand.

There are two problems I find with this app, that would otherwise make it a complete application. Nowhere obvious does it tell you what it means by ‘box’. It makes sense what it means when you use the app, but it takes a bit of guessing. I would like to see some clearer, more obvious instruction as to what it means, or re-name it. The manual in this regard references the ‘box’ plenty of times, but doesn’t explain what it means.

The second change I would like to see if the ability to delete image straight from iPhoto. When you hit delete, to remove your duplicates, it will remove the images by opening up iPhoto and then moving them to the trash. You then have to manually delete the images, again, in iPhoto. It is a little bit of a pain, since iPhoto takes so long to open up, and then having to delete the image. I suspect this is a technical reason this isn’t implemented.

I do like this app, it works really well and under the hood is written to utilise the abilities of your Mac. I was amazed it was using all 8 cores of the system. It is very useful and although there are some problems I can see these being resolved.

The app costs $9.99 and is available from the App Store. Bargain. There is a demo available from there site.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave one using the form below.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Find Duplicate Photos In Your iPhoto Library with PhotoSweeper,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Ignore / Disable File Extension Change Warning

admin — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:14:59 +0000

Hey,

Every time you change the extension of a file, whether it be an image, movie or a system file you Mac will throw up a warning telling you about the change. Although this is useful most of the time, sometimes you may just want to get rid of it and ignore the warning. Thankfully I was given a solution to this problem allowing you to change this setting with Terminal. From my understanding this tip works in Lion and Snow Leopard, it probably works with older version too.

The annoying warning dialog box. Easy to get rid of.

To remove the warning open up Terminal located in Applications > Utilities. Copy and paste the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder FXEnableExtensionChangeWarning -bool false; killall Finder

This will change the setting and restart Finder so the change takes effect. The warning dialog box will not appear

If you want to revert the change type the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder FXEnableExtensionChangeWarning -bool true; killall Finder

Its only a simple change, however one that I find useful. Really useful if you want to change a lot of file extensions and don’t want to constantly accept the change.

If you have any questions about this tip, please leave a comment.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Ignore / Disable File Extension Change Warning,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Select Colour Photography with Color Splash Studio App

admin — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 18:19:51 +0000

Hey,

There are a wide variety of apps out there for modifying photos, you could use something as powerful as Photoshop or something built into your Mac such as Preview. Today’s app is called Color Splash Studio, its a simple app designed to desaturate images and allows your to selectively colour portions of the image, hence the term ‘Select Colour Photography’. This technique allows you to highlight areas of your image and is an interesting way to define focus and create unique images. Although you can do this with a powerful image editor this app allows you to do it simply and quickly, producing really good results.

Desaturate and Colour

The app isn’t designed to do everything under the sun. The main function is to desaturate – make your image black and white – and then give your a ‘brush’ to recolour the image based on the original colours.

A light bit of highlighting of the eyes brings this image to life.

The process is very simple, when you load an image, either from iPhoto or another folder, the image will be turned black and white. You then, using the brush, recolour the image. This allows you to pick out areas of interest, by being selective and highlighting colourful areas you can achieve and interesting effect.

The tools for the colour layer allow you to adjust the brightness, contrast blur as well as the hue and saturation. This means you can alter the colours hue, which means you can easily change something that is blue to red. The gray scale options allow you to change the contrast blur, and the amount of desaturation, so you can bleed in a bit of the original colour. You can also change the desaturation mode to sepia, shades of browns, or bluetone. Each is a different effect.

The tools also allow you to have a mask. In essence allows you to see where you have painted with the ‘colour’ brush. A quick an simple way to ensure you have highlighted only the areas you want. The app also takes advantage of built in track pad controls (and I assume mouse) such as pinch to zoom, this was a nice and unexpected touch.

The Result

Overall I really like the results. The selective colouring allow you to make a focus point on your image and may allow a crowded image have an interesting subject.

The comparison tool allows you to make sure your changes look good.

You can save the image out in a variety of different formats to suit your needs. The app also has an interesting built in share option which allows you to quickly post the image to Facebook, tumblr, flickr, Twitter or what ever social app the kids are using these days. If you are into photography and want to create some interesting images this app seems like a good stepping stone to make them more unique, the added share options make it easy for other people to see your work.

Conclusion

This app works well on it’s own or with other of image editing apps. If you are a regular reader of this site, the same developers also released Snapheal, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. I can easily see the two apps working together.

The app costs $4.99, currently $2.99 since it is on sale. Even at full price this is a bargain. You can find it on the App Store.

With a good selection of original images, and a small amount of time spent on this app you can easily create some smashing images. If you have any comments about this app, please leave one using the form below.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Select Colour Photography with Color Splash Studio App,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

How To Move Your iPhoto Library

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:48:33 +0000

Hey,

Today is a quick tip about moving your iPhoto library. If you want to move your ever growing library of photos to an external disk, or another internal hard drive it take no time at all. Your Mac is clever enough to work out the change and update the library as needed.

To move your library, first open Finder and locate the iPhoto library. If this is from a default install it will be located in Users > [name] > Pictures. Select the file title ‘iPhoto Library’. Now move this library to its new location. This can be on another disk or any location you choose. Once the file has copied across (which may take a while) double click on it. iPhoto will realise the library has moved when you open the file and will make any necessary changes. Now every time you open up iPhoto it will load your new libary. You can delete the old version if needed.

Its only a simple tip, but one that took me a while to figure out.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read How To Move Your iPhoto Library,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

MacX DVD Ripper Pro – Review and Free Copy

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:56:35 +0000

Hey

There are a variety of different DVD rippers available for your Mac. However, one app that tends to be quite popular and full of features is MacX DVD Ripper. Its a DVD ripper and converter all in one, so you can take your favourite movie or video, rip the file out with the app, and then rebuild the video file in a format your want. Since you are such a special reader MacTricksAndTips has been able to get a free copy of the app to every reader who downloads to app from there site.

Don’t Tear, Rip

Ripping disks can be a chore if you don’t have the right software, however MacX DVD Ripper allows you to take the pain out of ripping DVD’s.

Plenty of options to rip and covert that file

When you insert a disk, you click the DVD load button to begin the process. You can also select a DVD ISO if you have a DVD in that format.

The next step is to select the output version. In the screen shot above you can see the different options you can chose. There is a variety of different formats. Within each format there are plenty of options regarding audio quality, video quality, codec and video resolution. There are also inbuilt options to set a size depending on your device. For example if you are going to use the video for your iPhone, select the iPhone tab, the model and the resolution you want to output the video.

The final option is to select the number of CPU cores you want to use, I recommend the number of physical cores you have installed to get the best performance overall. You can also select if you want to deinterlace and force the audio and video to match (useful if you have problems).

After you have set up every setting, press the start button. Once the file has completed the rip process it will be found in your Movies folder. Simple.

Overall the quality is very good and doesn’t take that long to complete. The myriad of options allow you to customise the video to meet the specification you set. Allowing you to rip and compress video. There is also a built in backup option meaning you can clone a DVD using the same simple options.

Free Copy

If you like the sound of MacX DVD Ripper you can get a free copy of the Pro version from the developers for a limited time only. Head over to the giveaway page to receive your free registration code and the option to download the software. The page is valid until the 20th of April, and the code needs to be used by the 30th, with this version there is no option for a free upgrade when they come around. There is no limitation with the app so you can use it the same way as if it was a purchased copy.

Not bad for free. So act fast and download your copy.

Conclusion

To conclude this app does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a little expensive if you paid full price, however if you see yourself ripping DVD’s regularly to use with your iPhone or some other application it would come in handy.

My only drawback of this app is the interface. It looks dated and a bit un-mac like and detracts from the running of the app.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave one below.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read MacX DVD Ripper Pro – Review and Free Copy,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Change The Modification Time Of A File

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:31:24 +0000

Hey,

Here is a rather cool trick that allows you to change the modification time of a file. There may be a variety of reasons for changing the modification time of a file, usually get an app to work with the file. Making the change is simple and involves a simple in built command within Terminal.

To change the files modification date open up Terminal located within Application > Utilities. Then type the following:

touch -mt YYYYMMDDhhmm /path/to/file

Where YYYY is the year, MM is the month, DD is the day, hh the hour and mm the minutes. For example today’s date, 16th of April, 2012 at 19:26, would be written as follows: 201204161926. You need all but values for the best effect. The path to file section can be simplified by dragging and dropping the file on to the Terminal window after you have written the command.

When you hit the return key the command will alter the modification date of the file. Note that if you modify the file in another app, the current time and date will added.

If you want to know more about the touch command you can type the following into Terminal:

man touch

This will give you the manual for the command.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave one using the form below.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Change The Modification Time Of A File,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Rebuild / Delete Spotlight Index

admin — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:34:59 +0000

Hey,

Every so often you may need to delete the spotlight index or rebuild it. There may be a variety of reasons, for example if you clone your hard drive and spotlight isn’t picking up every file or folder, or you believe that you can’t find the file you want when you do a spotlight search. Rebuilding the index is simple, and it doesn’t take long for spotlight to be up and running again.

To rebuild your index open up System Preferences > Spotlight. Then open up the privacy tab. Normally you would place files or folders in this area that you don’t want to be indexed. To rebuild the index drop your hard drive from Finder into this window.

Anything can be placed into the drop area of spotlight privacy.

Repeat this for as many hard drive you have or want to re-index. Once you have done this, select the drive and press the minus button from the bottom of the list. This will delete the delete the hard drive from the privacy options and force spotlight to remove and start re-building the index.

The re-indexing will start a second or two after you delete the hard drive from the list. It will then proceed to rebuild the index. Depending on how many files you have it may take a while to update.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Rebuild / Delete Spotlight Index,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Malware On Your Mac – Checking For Flashback Trojan

admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:58:17 +0000

Hey,

Mac’s are generally known for not having many viruses are malware, however there is a recent trojan – known as Flashback – making the rounds that has infected a large number of Mac’s. Although it has probably only infected a small proportion of the number of Mac’s out there, being the only one that has done any real damage it is worth checking your system to make sure you are safe. There are a variety of tools to remove the system vulnerability.

Removing Flashback Trojan

The trojan makes it way into your system through Java. If you don’t use Java at all I recommend you disable to in the browser you are using. To check that you are not injected you can do one of two things. Run a small apple script app, or a slightly more complex Terminal command.

The apple script app for removing Flashback, can be found on the f-secure website. Download the zip file, extract it and run the app. It only takes a second to run. It can then visually check to see if you system has the malware installed.

Ensuring your system is safe from the flashback trojan.

If you don’t want to run the apple script you can run two Terminal commands. Open up Terminal located in Applications > Utilities and copy and paste each of the following commands.

defaults read /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment

defaults read ~/.MacOSX/environment DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES

If the result is ‘does not exist’ you have a healthy system. If you get anything else you can use either the flashback removal tool linked to earlier or you can follow the instructions on f-secure.

Protecting Your Self

So how do you protect yourself in the future? The first step is to update you system using Software Update, this will update the Java vulnerability on your system. Apple will soon release an update to detect and remove the trojan, so it is worth keeping your system updated with the latest software.

The next step is to disable Java within the web browser you use. If you don’t use Java there is no reason to have it running.

Hopefully this will help you protecting your self against the latest trojan. Even if you don’t think you have it installed, it is always worth checking.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Malware On Your Mac – Checking For Flashback Trojan,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

15 Awesome Text Editors – Infographic

admin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:48:50 +0000

Hey,

We have a rather cool post today, an info graphic about text editors for developers. It was created by the guys over at Conosco, an features some awesome text editors for developers. It has a couple of personal favourites including Coda and TextMate, plus a couple that you may not have heard before. Check it out by clicking on the image to see it in full screen.This info graphic is the first for MacTricksAndTips, so I hope you enjoy it.

If you have any questions of comments, please leave one using the form below.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read 15 Awesome Text Editors – Infographic,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Insert The Date and Time With A Keyboard Shortcut

admin — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 17:53:33 +0000

Hey,

Your Mac has some fantastic shortcuts and workarounds to allow you to get things done faster. Today’s quick tip is inserting the time and date with a shortcut. It uses the built in Services options that come with your Mac. It only takes two seconds to enable and allows you to write the full date, time as well as the short date with a keystroke. Comes in very useful if you find you are writing the date frequently.

To enable this service open System Preferences. Select the keyboard option, and then “Keyboard Shortcuts” from the tab options. Within the left hand options select “Services”. Within the list that appears in the right hand box select “Long Date”, “Long Date & Time”, “Short Date”, “Short Date & Time” or “Time”. You can add and remove as many as you want. When you select the options they will appear in [App] > Services menu, if the application supports the function.

Adding the date, time is now easy with the services menu option.

The keyboard options allow you to enter them with a keystroke. The long date is in the following format: Day in Words, day number, month, year. For example: Monday, 2 April 2012. The short date is day/month/year. This may depend on you system set up.

It isn’t much harder than that. The service menu will appear any time your Mac recognises a text box, so will work in app such as Mail and Safari to name a few. It is only a simple feature but something I use regularly.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Insert The Date and Time With A Keyboard Shortcut,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Angry Birds Space – Game Review

admin — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 18:35:47 +0000

Hey

Angry Birds is probably one of the most popular games for any iOS device. Its pretty popular on the Mac too. Today I am going to review its latest incarnation Angry Birds Space. It takes the fun of Angry Birds and puts it in space, with the added concept of no gravity and even more challenging puzzles. If you enjoy the Angry Birds series, you will certainly enjoy this version.

Birds In Space

With a normal game of Angry Birds, you fling your birds at the pigs in the hopes of defeating them and claiming back the eggs that they stole. However in space, gravity has kindly taken a day off and the parabolic arc which your bird would normally follow doesn’t apply, this means objects will keep flying in a straight line until another force acts upon them. This would probably make the game a little boring, however to spice it up and make even more challenging levels, there are certain asteroids that have a gravity field. This means there are a variety of orbits and gravitational quirks to get your head around and figure out.

The blue fields dictates where gravity will take hold, outside this objects will fly in a straight line for ever.

Due to the lack of gravity in certain levels, you can attack them from a different perspective. For example, in the image above anything inside the blue field will be influenced under a strong gravity field, meaning they will fall into the centre. This means on some levels you can go both ways around the asteroid to achieve the goal. On certain levels you have to get the orbit correctly for the bird to fly in the right direction, usually into another gravity field.

Due to the lack of gravity you can use this to your advantage. In some levels there is space junk flying around. You can use the birds to knock these pieces out of space and use them to hit your target. The space dimension makes completing some of the levels fun and interesting. You have to think more outside the box than you do with the normal Angry Birds levels.

There are a number of new birds to use.

The levels are well designed, to aid you on your quest there is a number of new birds to help you defeat the pigs. The handy tutorial guides between levels make it simple to pick up how to play the game. Great for new users.

Many levels to have lots of fun with.

Since this game is about space, there are plenty of space theme. Here on the level screen there are asteroids and more pigs, if you click on the pigs they freeze and pop, fun. Within the game there are plenty of levels you to keep you entertained. There is also a lot of replay value as you try and achieve three stars within each level. Some are easy to do, however some levels getting more than one stars is a bit of a challenge.

The Extra Bits

The game doesn’t just have the levels. There is also links to NASA to allow you to learn more about space in general. NASA actually helped with the physics of gravity and orbits which help to the realism and fun.

There are also a number of mini games you can play that appear at certain points within the levels. They are not that common put allow you to earn extra points and do something slightly different and interesting.

A fun mini game, there are many of these in addition to the main levels.

These mini games are fun, and something you can come back to. They are hard to find in the main levels, so you have to keep your eye out for them. There are lots of little easter eggs within the game that you have to find in order to achieve the high score.

Conclusion

I like this game, and most of the other Angry Birds games. There are plenty of levels, the gravity aspect is really fun and makes for some interesting challenges.

If you have a track pad, you may have this game very difficult possibly unplayable. The track pad is very sensitive and almost impossible to aim and click. For some reason it breaks the game, you need to use a mouse to have any control over the sling shot and when you need to click. If you don’t have a mouse don’t bother.

Other than the track pad issue, I found it fun, re-playable and definitely worth the $4.99. You can get it on the App Store.

If you have any questions or comment please leave one below.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Angry Birds Space – Game Review,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Erasing Free Space To Ensure Those Files Are Gone

admin — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:18:39 +0000

Hey,

When you delete a file on your Mac (or any other operating system), you don’t actually delete the file. The data for each files still resides on your hard disk and given good recovery techniques you can get it back. When you empty the trash all you Mac is doing is removing the entry to where you the file is located. Since the block of data on your disk doesn’t have an entry file associated with it, your Mac will write over the space. This is why files you have stored on your Mac don’t get over written. Now if you want to ensure those files are gone for what ever reason, I am soon going to do a block level duplication of my drive and I only want the actual data, you can erase the free space by over writing it.

This is really simple, it does take a while because your Mac has to physically write to every single block and byte on your drive. When the process is done, any data that was stored in the deleted space will be gone and unrecoverable.

To complete this task, open Disk Utilities located in Applications > Utilities. Select the drive you want to erase the free space on. Select erase from the tab at the top and press the button Erase Free Space.

Erasing free space only involves two button clicks, and a long wait.

An option box will appear, giving you three options. One pass, seven pass or 35-pass. One pass will go over every single byte that doesn’t have a file stored on it and write a set of zeros. Seven and 35 will do the exact same thing, but either seven or 35 times respectively.

One pass will suffice, 35-pass is over kill.

I recommend the one pass setting for pretty much everything but the security conscious. Seven pass is suitable if you have a lot of time, 35-pass if just ridiculous.

You mac will proceed to write to disk. Assuming your can write at an average of 30mb/s (check in Activity Monitor) 1Gb will take 34 secs. So assuming its 2Gb a minute you can quickly work out how long it will take.

During this time Disk Utility will become a bit unresponsive. Just leave it and let it run. It will tell you when it is finished. Note that the process will begin to eat up disk space. Eventually you will have no space left on your main drive. After your disk is full, the app will then delete this file and the process will be complete. Note that when you have no disk space left on your Mac, doing general normal things becomes a bit difficult.

Having no disk space left is normally a worry.

After it has finished your disk will be clean and no other data will be stored. If you want to do this every time you delete a file use the secure empty trash option in Finder.

If you have any questions or comments on this tip, please leave one.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Erasing Free Space To Ensure Those Files Are Gone,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Download Manager For Mac – Folx – App Review

admin — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:46:53 +0000

Hey,

I remember back in the era of dial up, where downloading a file in two days was good going, that to get the best performance out of your connection would be to use a download manager. I remember using GetRight for Windows, which always helped speed up any download. Now most of the Internet has moved to either cable, fiber optic or ADSL, the use of download managers has changed from speeding up your connection, to managing the download process, even going so far to slow it down. Today’s app review is going to be Folx, a fully fledged download manager for the mac that can handle all of you downloads. As a bonus, I also have a discount code to get 20% off.

Downloading Files

The app interface will be familiar to any one who has used any Mac app used for downloading files, you have your files currently being downloaded on the right of the app, each showing various different bits of information. On the left is your group and tagging options for organising the files you download. Since the Internet connections are getting faster, I have found I download more files. Having an organisation system like the one in Folx is very useful.

The download manager has an interface which is easy to use and intuitive.

There are a plethora of settings within the app, many which I will skip over. One of the main features is tagging and sorting the files you download. It will automatically download movies, in to the movie folder it creates. You can also tag files so you can quickly find them later.

One of the other features, which I don’t see many other places is the ability to manage the download speed of a file. I find sometimes in Firefox, it will try and download the file as fast as possible, normally not a problem, however if you want to slow the download speed down so you have some more bandwidth available to other apps, this can be a problem. Folx has a manual and automatic download option which allows you to adjust the download speed to suit you needs. Very useful.

The Extra Features

Folx also has the ability to pause, resume and schedule files to download. If you have a limited connection, or find the best time to download a file is in the dead of night, you can use the settings within the app to only download when you want to. The ordering of the files also means you can control how many to download. If you have a hundred files to download, you can tell the app to download only 5 at a time. It means you don’t have many downloads running at a stupidly slow speed.

Adding files to the download manager is simple and customisable.

One minor feature is the ability to split files into threads, so it starts the download from a certain point within the file and builds the file as you go. I have yet to find the purpose of this feature as most downloads saturate a connection, removing the needs for the speed increase associated with splitting the file into threads.

You can also rename files before you download them. No longer will you have to suffer the pain of downloading a file and having to remember what the contents where from a truncated and shortened name. This may only be a minor feature, but one I really like.

Torrents

Torrents are one of the more popular methods to download files. What ever the use of torrents, having a good download manager is paramount to manging the download process so some torrents can get quite large. The built in torrent facility of Folx works really well. It integrates with normal download process so you can mix and match downloads, and apply the tagging and other download processes easily. From my small test, torrents download just as fast as any other files and you can find the majority of the features present in other torrent managers.

Conclusion

Overall Folx is a really good app. It downloads files as fast as any other app, with the added features built into the app it has taken over as my main download manager. One quick tip, if you have an existing manager installed, such as a plugin to Firefox, disable it before you use this app. Otherwise Folx will not be able to pick up the download. The app installs a small plugin to your browsers, so you get a good integration with your existing setup.

The app costs $19.95, which is a reasonable price for such an app. There is a free trial which you can try to test the waters. If you want a discount on the app you can use the coupon/code MTAT-20 on the purchase page. This will get you 20% off. It can also be used on SyncMate, reviewed previously.

Try this app out, and tell me what you think using the comment form.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Download Manager For Mac – Folx – App Review,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Disable Font Cache Rebuilding Every Time In VLC

admin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:55:06 +0000

Hey,

I use VLC as my main video player, however in the recent update to 2.0 I have noticed that every time I open the VLC app or play a video, it will build the font cache. Although this takes a second or two to finish, it is a bit annoying. This post will show you the setting you can change within VLC’s preferences to stop the app rebuilding the cache.

To change the setting open up the preferences from VLC > Preferences within the menu bar. Select show all at the bottom of the window. Within the option on the left hand side select Video > Subtitles/OSD. From the many options select ‘Dummy font renderer’ from the ‘Text rendering module’ drop down list.

Disabling the font cache rebuilding involves changing the text rendering module option.

The change is simple and from what I see stops the rebuilding cache option appearing every time I open a video. Its only a simple change, but works. The power of VLC means there is so many options and settings, its just finding the right one to alter. If the changes don’t take affect right away, restart VLC.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Disable Font Cache Rebuilding Every Time In VLC,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

AudioBook Stitch – Make Your Own Audio With This Simple App

admin — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:41:36 +0000

Hey,

There is a popular market out there for audio books, Amazon has thousands of them, some very popular. However, if you want to make your own audio books, this can be quite difficult, there are probably various methods around on the Internet which you can follow. Today I am going to show you a cool little app called AudioBook Stitch, it is a very simple and easy to use app for putting together your own audio books. The app also extends as a way of joining other audio files, great if you want to join an album together into one long audio track with chapters.

Stitching Tracks Together

To make your own audio book you first need some recording that you have made, these could be your own voice files, or some other files you have saved on your computer, you can also use audio tracks of music if you so wish.

The first step is to set up the name and author of your audio book. It requests a title, author and an image. The image is displayed when you play the music file.

AudioBook Stitch has a very intuitive interface that guides you through the process.

In step 2 is to add the music files. This is a simple drag and drop exercise from Finder. You place the music files in the order you want. This will become the basis of the audio book.

You can change the tempo of the tracks to suit.

Step 3 is to adjust the tempo of the audio book. If you have recorded audio tracks where you are speaking too fast, or too slow you can adjust the tempo so it sounds better. The play button below the speed selection slider allows you to preview the speed of the final audio book.

In four steps you have your final audiobook. Couldn't be any simplier.

The final step is to press the stitch button. It will combine your music files and various other bits of data into one file. The final m4a file can then be played in iTunes, Quicktime or any other music player that supports the file. The final file will have the chapter markers which is very useful if you want to save your place in a long audio file.

The Final Output

I really like this app, it is very simple and easy to use. You follow the four steps and within a couple of minutes you have your audio book. I really can’t fault the app and for $7.99 you really can’t go wrong. You can use it make your own audio books, however I think it can also be used to combine many music tracks into one long track for easy listening.

If you have any questions or comments about this app, please leave one below.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read AudioBook Stitch – Make Your Own Audio With This Simple App,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Summarise Any Text On Your Mac With Summary Service

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:10:11 +0000

Hey,

Sometimes you get a PDF or another text document that has paragraph after paragraph, page after page of text. If there is no informative summary or abstract this can be a pain to read. However, Apple has kindly built in a summary service which you can use to summarise long paragraphs of text into something that is quickly readable. For the most part it is pretty good, and useful in forming quick a quick summary of long complicated articles. It only takes a moment to set up and can be used for almost anything.

Setting Up The Summary Service

In older version of OS X, this service was automatically switched on. However, it seems in Snow Leopard at least, you have to turn this service on before you can use it. This is nice an simple. Open up System Preference and navigate to the keyboard preferences. Select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, and select services from the left hand options. Within the long list scroll down to ‘Text’ and at the bottom of the options select the ‘Summarize’ option. Select this check box.

You need to select the summary service option before you can use it.

Summarise That Text

You are now ready to create summaries of any text you want. In Preview, TextEdit, as well as browsers such as Firefox and Safari, select the text you want to summarise. Then go to App Name > Services > Summarize from the menu bar.

From the previous step, the summarise option now appears.

The app will open in the menu bar and you will be presented with a summary from the text you have selected. Use the slider to increase the summary length. The closer to 100% the slider, the closer it is to the original article. Around 50% is a good starting point, increase and decrease the slide as you see fit.

The summarised text from a long article.

The summary option gives a good summary to a long and complicated article. I can quickly see what the article is about without having to dig through a 6 page journal article on a complex topic.

Now all I need to do is find an app that can create an article from a summary I write.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Summarise Any Text On Your Mac With Summary Service,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.

Snapheal – A Cheap Image Touchup App For Mac

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:29:25 +0000

Hey,

Everyone wants perfect photos, with the advent of high quality cameras in point and shoot cameras and even iPhones, it isn’t hard to take a good photo. However, with a small amount of image editing most people can take those photos and make them look excellent. Although built in apps such as iPhoto have image editing tools, some people may not have iPhoto installed (or don’t like to use it) but still want to edit images without having to pay out thousands for a tool such as Photoshop or the cheaper version Elements. That’s why an app called Snapheal, was invented. Its a cheap photo retouch that can edit images and make them look fantastic.

Retouching Photos

The app interface showing the tools on the right and a sunny Greek beach as the photo to edit.

This app is all about tweaking and re-touching images to remove blemishes and imperfections from images you have taken. This is really useful if you have an image that you want to frame or use, but it isn’t quite perfect. Snapheal has plenty of tools and features to get that image looking perfect. In this example I am going to use a photo I have taken from a recent holiday, for those interested it is the beach in Kefalonia used in the filming of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and popular book and film.

The tools that you have access to in the app are located on the right hand side. There is erase, clone & stamp, retouch, adjust crop and rotate. The first step is to erase the parts of the image you don’t want. I am going to use this tool to remove the people and umbrellas from the beach. You simply select the parts you don’t want, select the erase mode which varies depending on the image an complexity and then you hit erase. After a small amount of processing those imperfections disappear. The resulting changes are very good, better than what I could do.

Image editing can take a while to process. Although you are given a fact to amuse, while you what.

The changes do take a while to take effect, especially if the image is large, however the progress bar and amazing fact do keep you entertained.

The other tools in the app are very useful, the clone and stamp tool is great if you want to remove or add something that that erase tool can’t quite do.

The retouch tool is designed for altering specific areas. It works like a brush, so you paint over the areas you want to change. For example, if you have a person that is in a shadow because you have taken a picture into the sun, the lighten retouch tool can bring them to life. It allows you to alter the image in specific areas.

Finally the other tools such as the crop and adjust, which can alter the contrast and other features of the image as a whole, can bring the image to something that most people would be proud of.

The Outcome

The final image, something to be proud of.

The final image, which has the cars, people as well as the umbrellas remove looks a lot better than the original. I have also altered the colours using the adjust tools to make the image brighter and the colours greater.

If you spend a while learning the tools and features of this app, you can make some really good images. It took me about half an hour to get to this stage. I reckon after an hour or two with a couple of different images you can get pretty good with the tools. If you get stuck at any point the video help located in the top right will load a youtube video showing you how to use the tool.

Conclusion

Overall, I quite like this app. It has a good Mac interface and the tools it has a really good. The erase tool is particularly good at removing blemishes and errors within an image. I am sure if you spend a weekend playing with this app you can make an album of good looking images.

There are a couple of problems with this app, it sucks up memory and can slow you computer down when it is rendering changes (such as using the erase tool). This may be due to the image I was editing but it did detract from using the app. I am sure updates to this app will keep speed it up.

The app costs $14.99 which is a great price for what you get. There are more expensive apps out there, that probably do more, but for this price you can’t go wrong. You can get it on the App Store to download right onto your Mac, you can find a trial here.

If you have any questions or comments about this app, please leave a comment.

Want to catch up on the latest Tweets about this site, follow me on Twitter.

You have just read Snapheal – A Cheap Image Touchup App For Mac,

On Mac Tricks And Tips - The site all about Mac Tips, Tricks, Tools, Guides and so much more.