automating the world, one script at a time
Posts tagged Apple
Fine volume control on Mac OS X
Apr 17th
I came by this on lifehacker.com.
I often felt that volume adjustment offered by the volume control keys on your Apple keyboard didn’t adjust the volume to exactly where I wanted it and often supplemented the adjustment with turning the volume slightly up or down on my external speakers or headphones.
Turns out Apple thought of a solution to this already.
Simply hold down the SHIFT and OPTION/ALT keys at the same time as you use the volume keys an you will get 1/4 increments instead of a full block.
Awesome.
Fine volume control on Mac OS X
Plants vs. Zombies
Mar 2nd
(9/10)
Everyone knows that everything is better with zombies. Plants vs. Zombies is no exception.
This 28MB download from Popcap games will ensure that from now on, you won’t have a minute of boredom while sitting in from of your computer.
Essentially, instead of shotguns and chainsaws repelling hordes of the brain eating undead, you make clever use of your green fingers and some rather obviously genetically mutated plants to build a line of defense between them and your back door (and sometimes your chimney).
As you progress you build up an arsenal of flora that each have their own special abilities. I’m particularly fond of the cherry bomb that leaves the undead charred and with a look of bewilderment on their faces. The levels also get progressively more challenging requiring you to choose your green army carefully. Once you’ve found your groove for a particular level you shouldn’t have too much difficulty keeping the zombies at bay.
Plants vs. Zombies comes with a number of additional game modes (like survival, puzzle, zen garden, etc) that provide many hours of additional play if you are still craving for more once you have completed the adventure mode.
My only comment to improve the game would be to make adventure mode longer, or to unlock some kind of uber adventure mode once you’ve completed it the first time. Well, maybe survival is kinda like that. Anyway, I digress.
@simondingle chose it as his pick of the week on last weeks zatechshow as well. Surely two people can’t be wrong…
Stop reading and just go and get it !
It’s available on Windows, Mac, iPhone and in your browser and will only cost you R185.
Download Plants vs Zombies here – or they will eat your brains !
Plants vs. ZombiesVodacom wants to rob you
Feb 24th
Whilst making coffee at the office this morning I was informed that Vodacom have finally enabled the Visual Voicemail feature for the iPhone on their network. This feature has been available on the handset since the launch of the original iPhone 2G some 3 years ago.
I always understood that the feature wouldn’t be available on the Vodacom network as they would have to build some kind of additional functionality into their existing voicemail platform. This didn’t really bother me and I made peace with it years ago.
After a little digging it appears that it is relatively simple to enable VVM.
To activate: SMS “VVM ON” to 123.
To deactivate: SMS “VVM OFF” to 123.
The only catch is that Vodacom will rob you of R10 every month to have this feature enabled.
It’s not like they had to build a whole new voicemail platform to enable this service and I’m pretty sure that part of monthly subscription covers the voicemail service I currently don’t enjoy.
I’ll keep an eye on things over the next few weeks, but I’d love to hear some comment from someone at Vodacom to justify how they can charge for a service that was free from day 1 on AT&T’s network.
Vodacom wants to rob youThanks to http://www.marcforrest.com/2010/02/17/vodacom-launches-visual-voicemail-for-iphone/
Quick App for Xbox 360 Owners: 360 Live
Dec 2nd
Most of the apps I’ve installed that claim to deliver a great Xbox Live experience have fallen very short. This new app by Juan Xavier Larrea finally delivers the goods.
I guess you need to be a bit of an Xbox Live freak to see the value in an app like this, but I’ve found myself in a situation before where I wanted to check on either one of my own or a friends achievements, online status or some such.
Quick App for Xbox 360 Owners: 360 Live
If you are a big online gamer and own a Xbox, 360 Live [$1.99 - iTunes Link] is the app for you. There are many apps within the App Store that perform many of the same functions as 360 Live but none of them are this well integrated.
- Sign in securely using your Xbox Live credentials. 360 Live automatically retrieves your friends.
- Complete Gamertags management. Add, remove, accept or reject pending requests.
- An organized Friends List. Grouped by status (Online, Offline, etc.)
- Gamer Profile and details including gamerscore, bio, location, country, gamercard, avatar, etc.
- Check your friends complete games history.
- Compare locked and unlocked achievements per game and gamertag.
- Send and receive messages. You can even send messages to multiple recipients!
- Gamercard coverflow style carrousel on landscape mode!
The only negative that I’ve seen testing this app out is that at times, it can take some time to load. Hopefully that is cleared up with an update or two and if it is, this will be hands down the best Xbox Live companion piece.
(Via The iPhone Blog.)
Plex and the ultimate media center setup
Nov 10th
(10/10)
I’ve been using XBMC on my old Xbox as a media center for a few years now and it has served me well. In fact, it is still serving me well, but it doesn’t have the horsepower to get HD content onto my TV. It also doesn’t have some of the features that I’m after in a media center.
Plex for Mac
I lost interest in the application as I didn’t see a way to integrate it with my existing media setup. I was sad to see it go as the interface was really slick, it worked with the Apple remote (it actually doesn’t work with the mouse at all 
and it was exceptionally good at going to sites like imdb.com and tv.com to fetch movie posters, box art, plot outlines and theme music.
I’m now in the process of putting together a new setup which I think is the ultimate combination of features and cost.
An older Mac mini
Logitech Harmony
Whenever you add something to your media library, Plex automatically detects it and goes and fetches everything it needs. For TV shows it automatically sorts everything into seasons, it keeps track of what you’ve already watched and plays the theme music in the background while you’re choosing and episode.
Plex also has plug-ins for just about every decent media service on the Internet: Hulu, TED, BBC iPlayer, Youtube, Flickr and iPhoto, just to name few. So even if you don’t have your own media on a local server, you have access to hours of entertainment at your fingertips.
It almost seems to easy, but with the initial testing I’ve done and reports from other people on the Internet, I’m confident that it will be money well spent and will see me well into the future.
Plex showing you everything you need to know about BSG
Macheist warming up
Nov 4th
Macheist sounded their early warning system a few days ago. Claiming to have detected abnormal cosmic radiation levels. It seems that the countdown has begun. Navigating to correct galactic co-ordinates and sending out a solar tweet results in you getting a license for the disk visualisation application Daisy Disk worth $20.
Go to co-ordinates 151.7,174.4
I participated in the previous Macheist and scored a boot load of applications for $39 (retail value of apps was around $558). The concept gains momentum every year and I’m confident that this year the applications on offer will be better than ever.
Daisy Disk
The idea is simple, the guys over at Macheist set up a series of challenges that require you to do some serious detective work. They set up dummy web sites, embed stuff into images and generally make things super challenging. Never fear, you aren’t on your own and everyone participating in the event shares their successes. The bulk of the money raised goes to charity, some of it goes to the app developers and some obviously goes to Macheist – so this is all for a good cause.
It’s a heap of fun if you participate and even if you don’t, you still get all the listed apps. If you do decide to get a little more involved in the puzzle solving you unlock bonus apps that further increase the value of your loot.
There are usually a few bonus applications for first 25,000 people that sign up for the heist. The more people that join the cause the more apps are unlocked. From what I understand, the target had been reached every year for the past 3 years, so don’t worry about some of the apps not being unlocked.
Keep and eye on their website for further updates or follow them (@macheist) or me (@gordongreeff) on Twitter for more updates.
Macheist warming upKindle vs Nook (vs iSlate)
Oct 29th
A few lucky early adopters have already received the Kindles down here in deepest darkest Africa, but as much as I want to get my hands on an ebook reader immediately, I’m going to try to fight the urge until there a few more killer devices available locally. The Barnes & Noble Nook was recently announced and will be available soon in the USA, but no word yet on availability internationally. I’m pretty sure that they will want to distribute the device as far and wide as possible, especially if they want to compete with Amazon.
If a had to choose a device today, I’d snap up a Nook in a second. It has features that the Kindle doesn’t have and just looks like a much better device. I haven’t used either device yet, but when it comes to the actual reading of books, I suspect they will be pretty much on par as they share the same size screen powered by the same E Ink technology.
One thing I don’t really like about either device is that the content you purchase from the respective online stores isn’t portable. It’s the whole DRM saga all over again. We’ve been through this with the purchasing of online music already. It doesn’t work. That’s why you can now buy your music DRM free from iTunes. I know it just comes down the publishers being a little nervous having their content out there in the wild west, but in the end I want to be able to take my ebook content from device to device without being locked into a specific technology platform.
So there is a lot of buzz about the Apple iSlate/iTablet at the moment as well. A few media slips over the last few days seem to confirm that we should see something early next year and that there will definitely be some reader functionality built into the device. If Apple continue the trend of providing DRM free content from the iTunes store maybe this will be the first platform where I will be able to purchase an ebook and transfer the content from my iSlate to whatever my new ebook reader of the future will be.
I’m gonna hang on a bit longer before I make the leap.
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Device |
||
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Screen Size |
6 inch E Ink |
6 inch E Ink / 3.5 colour TFT |
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Touch Screen |
No |
Yes (Colour) |
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Storage |
2GB not expandable |
2GB Expandable up to |
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Wireless |
AT&T |
AT&T 3G and |
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Bookstore |
Amazon |
Barnes & Noble |
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Natively |
Kindle (AZW), TXT, |
ePub, “multiple DRM |
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Formats |
PDF, HTML, DOC,JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP |
Word, more to come |
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Web Browser |
Yes |
No |
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Sync with
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iPhone, iPod Touch |
iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, PC, Mac OS |
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Available |
Now |
Nov 30 ‘09 |
How to clean your Apple Mighty Mouse
Oct 27th
The little scroll wheel/ball on my Mighty Mouse gets lazy every few weeks and only lets me scroll in one direction. Sometimes only up, sometimes only down. Side to side never seems to be a problem.
A simple fix I learned about to solve this problem meant I didn’t have to keep phoning Digicape to complain about repeatedly being sold bad mice…
Simply turn your Mighty Mouse off (by sliding the cover at the bottom closed), turn the mouse upside down onto a piece of paper and move the mouse around putting pressure on the scroll wheel so that it makes solid contact with the paper.
As you move it around you should see it leave a gorgeous trail of finger dirt and residue. Depending on how bad it is, you may even be able to spell your name before it’s clean.
The video below demonstrates the process:
Apologies for the poor quality. I whipped this up quickly on my iPhone 3GS.
How to clean your Apple Mighty MouseEnabling click-to-dial on Snow Leopard
Oct 21st
As a follow up on my Dialectic article, I thought it may be necessary to post some information on how to enable click-to-dial in Snow Leopard.
The problem is that Mac OS X 10.6 no longer supports contextual menu plug-ins, so any plug-ins that you had will stop working after you upgrade to Snow Leopard.
Replacing this functionality is a much improved Services support and this can be used to dial selected phone numbers from most applications.
After installing Dialectic you can do the following to enable it:
- From the System Preferences application, select the Keyboard preference pane.
- In the Keyboard preference pane, select the “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab and scroll down to the “Services” item from the list box on the left side of the window.
- After selecting “Services”, scroll down to the “Text” Services group on the right and enable the “Dial Selection” Services item (see the screenshot below).
Works like a charm.
Enabling click-to-dial on Snow Leopard
