You don’t need to dig deep into your System Preferences to change the position of your Mac OS X Dock on Leopard 10.5. Using a simple, but undocumented feature, you can quickly reposition the Dock on Mac OS X Leopard.
Locate the Divider in the dock, hold down the “Shift” key and shift-click on the Dock divider with the mouse pointer.
Shift-Drag to Move the Dock to the Right Side of the ScreenContinue to depress the “Shift” key and drag the Dock to the right side of your screen. The Dock will automatically snap from the bottom of the screen to the right side of the screen and become anchored to the right.
Using Shift-Drag to Pin the Dock to the Left Side of the ScreenTo move the Dock to the left of the screen, Shift-Drag on the Dock Divider and drag the mouse pointer to the left side of the screen. The Dock will automatically snap into position on the left side of the screen. The Dock can be moved to the right, left or back to the bottom of the screen using the Shift-Drag command at any time.
In addition to its sleeker looks, Mac OS X Leopard is an elegant operating system that makes some changes from Tiger and makes the Mac even more useful. It contains one of the best (and automatic) backup programs, and it makes functions run more smoothly in the Intel-based newer Macs.
Time Machine backs up your Mac automatically.Use Time Machine. This is Leopard’s backup software. Get an external hard drive, the bigger the better. Clicking on Time Machine in the dock the first time will walk you through the steps to set up this external HD as your backup disc. You can select the disc and tell Time Machine how often to back up your Mac. As long as the external HD is on and connected, and the Mac is on, Time Machine will back up everything for you without you having to think about it.
Cover Flow gives you a new, visual option for sorting through and finding files.Use Cover Flow. This search mechanism became popular on hand-held devices such as the iPod. It allows you to see a picture of the file (whether it be music, image or text) and “flip through,” as if you were looking through an album or CD collection. You can use the slider at the bottom, click the files or use the arrow keys to sort through files. To use Cover Flow instead of the traditional Finder gizmos, open a Finder window and click the Cover Flow icon at the upper left.
Use Stacks. Leopard automatically “stacks” such things as downloads and gives you easy access in order of download, with the newest on top. As you click the Stacks icon in the dock, it fans out and up, so you can see all of your recent activity. Clicking on any one will open it in its appropriate program. This is a quick way to access downloads without them languishing on the desktop or somewhere where you can’t find them. You also can create Stacks by taking a folder with the items inside and dragging it to Stacks on the Dock.
Use the Search function in the Finder. While Mac OS X has contained a search option for some time, Leopard allows you to search more quickly and gives you options of where to search. It even allows you to search across a network. You also can search based on contents of files or file names. To use the search, go to “Search” in the upper right corner of any Finder window and type a word or part of a word. The search engine begins immediately.
Use Spaces (Exposé) to organize your files. Go to “System Preferences>Exposé” and turn it on. Then select how many Spaces you want to use. For example, you can have one for blogging, one for presentations, one for writing and one for photos. Close “Exposé” and go to the first thing you want to add to Spaces. If you open Safari, for example, it will be added to Space 1. Go to the Spaces icon on the dock and click it. Select a second Space, then go to “Keynote” for presentations. It will be added to the second space. This makes it easier to navigate while doing multiple projects.
Mini-menus on the dock give you access to files and folders.
Use the Dock mini-menus. Click and hold on any program or Stack in the dock, and a mini-menu will pop up displaying options. For example, Documents will allow you to sort by name, date or other criteria. The mini-menus also allow you force-quit any application that has frozen, without going to the Apple menu. You also can quit an application using these mini-menus and survey which files are open in each.
Cities XL is from a French company who thought they would bring out their own take on Sim Cities.
Sadly though they haven’t developed a Mac version of the game, and at the time of writing don’t intend on creating one. You could set up a bootcamp partition and run Cities XL via Windows, but well…I’d rather not have to boot out of OS X to play the game.
Several hours later I have Cities XL running on my 13″ Macbook Pro without using bootcamp or running something like Parallels. Here’s how.
Downloads
I should note that I purchased the download via Steam because the Cities XL site’s purchasing section wasn’t working at the time. These instructions should work fine with a standard install.
You’ll also need to download the latest version of Darwine here.
Installation
Install Darwine as would any normal program.
From the dropdown menu in Darwine (top right hand side of the screen) select Winetricks. In Winetricks install Direct X 9, MS .NET 2.0 and MS Visual C++ 2008 libraries. If Direct X 9 doesn’t install, don’t worry too much because the game will attempt to install it when it is setting itself up. If you have ongoing problems though, grab Direct X 9 from Microsoft direct and try running it.
Install Cities XL.
I had a problem with graphics, although being on a low end Macbook Pro might have had more to do with it. If you get a popup about failure to deal with screen resolution (or similar) the way around it is to change the settings in Wine to “emulate a virtual desktop” (Wine Configuration/ Graphics.) You will need to restart Wine + X11 for the change to take place.
Thats is!
The game itself: not bad, although the online component is over priced and underwhelming so far
Google Reader is a very useful service for consuming your news feeds, but it lives in the browser, which means it doesn’t the responsiveness and polish of a desktop app. For all those Mac users out there looking for the best of both worlds, I present to you Gruml, a new desktop Google Reader application.
What’s great about Gruml is that it brings a lot of the features in Google Reader that we’ve come to know and love and brings them into the desktop client, including features like starring, “liking,” and sharing posts (with notes and tags), and reading headlines that friends share with you.
And for those Twitterholics out there who need to tweet their news, Gruml comes with Twitter support, allowing you to tweet articles (converted to short URLs) directly from the app.
It’s important to note that Gruml is still in beta, and has its faults, like running slowly on startup, and missing some settings in the preferences menu. But overall, it’s a great application that runs well and shows promise.
MacBooks are just so much sexier than PCs, but there are still several places in which the Mac is behind the PC. The main one for me is the lack of speakers. Im a huge music fan and I just have to be listening to music when Im using a computer.
While tinny little laptop speakers can serve fine for belting out mediocre mids and highs, they just aren’t powerful enough to drive those low frequency waves to your drums.
Enter the new BassJump. The BassJump provides a great depth to your music that normal laptop and desktop speakers just cant provide.
Software separates the incoming frequencies, ensuring that mids and lows are delivered to your BassJump. Everything higher is handled by your regular speakers.
While any speaker system could provide similar gains, this one is designed to blend seamlessly with your Mac and it’s fully portable. So if you’re one of those shallow bastards who’s all about looks, it’s available now for $80. [BassJump via Dvice]
There’s nothing like finding that application that helps get you through your day. Whether it’s a productivity application, or a business appliation, or a creative application, whether the need, it’s nice to know that there are alternatives to the costly pay versions. Sometimes freeware or shareware is just as good to get the job done and we turn to the internet for those downloads.
Now I admit in the past I had been going to Download.com, and found what I needed on there. But recently I was introduced to Softonic, and it’s equally as impressive as Download.com, but I’m just not a fan of the interface. I found it confusing, kinda clunky, and Download.com seems to have gotten the site structure of its heirarchy better laid out.
Still there’s tons of great apps on the site, which also features apps you should have. Sometimes you find apps that you didn’t now you needed, and that’s when you know that a site is bringing value to you. That value comes in what Softonic covers; Windows, Mac, Phones, Palm OS and Pocket PC’s. Seems like a healthy library, and growing everyday.
Give it a try and let us know which one you like better.
PC users have been able to use the Google Chrome browser for some time now, however for everyone using Macs they have been waiting patiently for their own non-developer version. Chrome day for the Mac is coming very soon.
CNET is reporting that recent discussion in a Chrome mailing list points to an early December launch. We could be just weeks away from a beta version of Chrome for Mac.
The Google group update in question is light on details, but by requesting that developers update to support Browser Actions, it also suggests that a December launch date for a Mac version is fast approaching.
Google Chrome’s product manager, Nick Baum, writes:
“The extensions team has been working hard to get BrowserActions ready, and
they’re already working great on Windows and Linux. We’ve noticed that many
of you have updated your extensions to take advantage of the new UI. We’d
like to encourage the rest of you to do so as well!
Why make the switch now? The earlier you switch, the more time you will have
to polish your experience for our Beta launch in early December. We realize
this means dropping Mac support for a couple of weeks, but we already have
people working on that. If you prioritize the Windows and Linux versions,
we’ll bring you cross-platform parity as soon as we can!”
The post provides an interesting clue to the future of Google Chrome for Mac. We can only hope the early December beta launch date is accurate.
A lot of people have big issues converting files from PDF format to any other format. Today, I wanted to run through converter programs which change PDF files to JPG (image) files for both Mac and PC.
Zamzar
Zamzar is probably the most well known file conversion site. The process is simplicity personified: Choose the file to convert then choose the format to convert to (e.g. JPG) then enter your email address to receive the converted file then convert. The minuses with the free service are that the file size is limited to 100MB with just 5 simultaneous conversions. Also, you might feel a wee bit uneasy uploading sensitive data without encryption support.
YouConvertIt
YouConvertIt is a new site that lets you upload 5 files at a time and then convert them from PDF to JPG format.
Neevia Document Converter
Neevia Technology has a web interface which facilitates the conversion of PDF documents to image files. Select the conversion settings and upload your file. The converted file can be rendered in the browser or can be downloaded via an email link. Two dropdowns further give you control over image quality and resolution. The only visible restriction is the 1MB file upload size limit.
If you are wary of uploading sensitive files over the net, you need to look beyond the online solutions to something much more local. Thankfully these three pieces of free software take up the task.
PDF-Xchange Viewer
PDF-Xchange Viewer is a light feature-rich PDF document reader. The free version of the software is a capable document handler with most of the standard features expected. Add comments and annotations, mark-up pages with texts and objects, type within the PDF document along with plug-ins for both IE and Firefox are also included.
But the feature which interests us is the ability of the software to export a file or a page to the supported image formats like JPEG, BMP, TIFF, PNG and more.
Open the PDF file in the viewer, click on File – Export to Image and the dialog opens up where you can set the pages to convert, the image type to convert to and the destination folder. More importantly, the ‘Export Mode’ setting allows you to designate the number of image files for the subject PDF file. The ‘Page Zoom’, ‘Resolution’ and ‘Page Background’ also allow added finishing touches.
The world’s sexiest DJ software DJay has just launched their version 3 for the Mac OSX.
DJay has to have the best looking interface on the market for DJ software and im sure it is making Windows users wonder why the hell they cant get anything like this on their system. DJay is very featured rich and it even reads your iTunes library, thus turning your Mac into a full DJ system that is suited to both beginners and professionals alike.
Features include:
Drag and drop from your iTunes library
Mix manually to automatically
Full beat and tempo detection
Auto volume control and effects
Midi device connection options
It is as if any person can now become a DJ and make some money by pretending to mix in their local bars and clubs.
Gone are the days when a humble mobile phone and a stand alone PC were all the high profile office worker, self-employed person or whiz-kid had. Now, we all have at least three or four devices ranging from laptops, to cell phones, to smart phones to MP4 players. And the demand for them all to work together has never been higher. This is where syncing come into question. Syncing same-brand and compatible devices may be easy but using generic programs to sync items such as MacBooks and Windows Mobile smart phones that are from two opposing companies is no easy task.
SyncMate, which is mate by Eltima is available at the domain www.syn-mac.com holds the answer to syncing you Macintosh with several smart phones such as Windows mobile and Nokia S-Series phones.
The software is downloaded to your Mac and used to sync organisers, meida, contact info, e-mails and other such useful data. One user, Ann Clifford said:
“I am using SyncMate mainly to synchronize my Todos, my Google calendar and my contacts. SMS Manager Function is very useful too. Oh, almost forgot! The new iTunes synchronization is very cool. It syncs all my music, which is very important to me. SyncMate is a total ActiveSync for Mac replacement.”
The software is available here and I highly recommend it for the power-users with a Mac.
Our friends over at Sizlopedia have released a great new free Wordpress theme that is worth a look. The theme is called MacPress and is actually being currently used on the Sizlopedia site itself.
Here you go with some of the features of MacPress:
Compatibility – It is compatible with the latest version of Wordpress.
Elegant Design – Much like Leopard, the theme has a eye-catching UI of its own.
Theme Options – The theme also comes with a built-in Options panel.
Validated Code – From the XHTML to the CSS, every bit of codehas been validated.
SEO Friendly – It bears a fine code with SEO friendly tags and structure.
And some of the features planned for the future releases:
Styles Chooser – The Options panel would allow the user to select a pre-defined style.
Magazine Layout – A switcher between normal/magazine layout modes.
There’s nothing like finding that application that helps get you through your day. Whether it’s a productivity application, or a business appliation, or a creative application, whether the need, it’s nice to know that there are alternatives to the costly pay versions. Sometimes freeware or shareware is just as good to get the job done and we turn to the internet for those downloads.
Gone are the days when a humble 
