Keep auto-timeout Transmit connections alive

I use a shared host which unfortunately, due to circumstances outside my control, terminates my Transmit FTP/SQL sessions after 15 minutes of idleness. Good for processor cycles, poor for my sanity, especially during intensive coding/research sessions.

After gleaning the internet for a solution and finding none which worked, I decided to whip up my own. Copy and paste the following code into Script Editor, and save it as an application with the 'stay open' option checked:

repeat
    tell application "Transmit"
        tell document 1
            tell current session
                refresh list their stuff files
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
    delay (60)
end repeat

If anyone wants to follow up this with a touch of AppleScript that cycles through every connection, that would be great. This is my first AppleScript project, so woot for me!

Force Eject a CD or DVD that is stuck in your Mac

This previous hint explained how to download Flash videos in Safari via the Activity Viewer. This still works in Leopard -- most of the time. However, I had trouble with a large video one day, and found it was stored in the Google video cache. The download would stall and timeout (pausing the Safari download and restarting it caused Safari to restart the download from the beginning -- I suspect it was meant to be streamed only.) The download would work fine in the YouTube Flash player, and it would even cache fully within the web page.

YouTube uses Adobe Flash file format *.flv files. Adobe FLV files used by the YouTube flash player are not stored in the Leopard 10.5 Safari cache. Even if they were, they would be stored inside a SQLite database file, which is not very useful. (If you are looking for other Safari Cache tools, there's a variety of tools to read the SQLite DB and retreive images and html from the database -- Google and ye shall find.) After some digging, I found that my video file was stored here:

/var » folders » V4 » V46lRYwnH3uc8gj98CH+t++++TQ » TemporaryItems » FlashTmp0

The middle part is randomly generated, and will certainly vary for everyone. I believe the first entry in /var/folders/ will always be in capital letters. Read on to see how I saved the movie...

Force Eject a CD or DVD that is stuck in your Mac

Every once in a while you may find that you have a CD or DVD stuck in your Mac that just refuses to eject. If it happens - it’s frustrating. There are a few things that you can do to force you Mac to eject the disk.

1) First, try iTunes. Sometimes the iTunes eject button will work, even if your Finder eject button, or keyboard eject button won’t.

2) Open Terminal.app and type "drutil tray eject" - this will eject the disk tray most of the time.

3) If you’re still having no luck, you can restart your Mac and hold down the mouse button. Keep your finger pressed down until the disk ejects, or the login screen appears.

If you’ve tried all three of these, and you’re still having trouble - you may want to call Apple Support.

One way to use secure communications on an iPhone

Although the AIM iPhone application works great, the chats are not encrypted. Although iPhone email is great, there is no way to receive or send SMIME email. So, if you are an iPhone user who wants to send a secure message or have a secure conversation with another iPhone user or a computer user what can you do? Without spending a fortune? In fact, doing it for free?

What we did is create a "sharing" IMAP Gmail account with https set as a requirement in the Gmail settings. Then all persons who will need to have the ability to send/receive secure communication get login credentials for this shared Gmail account. (Granted, anyone who has access to this account can read any messages, but we obviously could create other shared email accounts as needed to deal with smaller groups.)

With that set up, when someone needs to send a secure message, they send (via email or AIM) notification to the other parties that they are posting a secure communication. Then, using the wonders of IMAP Gmail, they create a message on the shared Gmail account via an encrypted SSL connection (with no To: addressee ... just to be sure it doesn't accidentally get sent!), and save the message as a Draft. (On the iPhone, to save a draft, you compose a message and then choose Cancel -- it will then ask if you want to save it as a draft.)

Once the Draft is saved, the users who need the message and have the login credentials can access the Gmail account via an SSL encrypted connection from any computer or iPhone. Once they have the info, they then delete the Draft message.

Mass change video tags in iTunes 8

One of the missing features of previous iTunes versions was the ability to mass edit and update ID3 tag video information of self created/ripped video content. The only available solution up till now was using third party scripts -- for example, the excellent AppleScript "Set Video Kind of Selected" from Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes. Alternatively you could edit them one by one.

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How to search via contacts' nicknames on the iPhone

While the nickname field of Address Book entries does sync to the iPhone, it's not searchable on the iPhone. Also, it's not used as the display name in call lists or SMS chats. I much prefer reading friend's short names or nicknames instead of their full name when they call.

The easy solution to achieve that is to turn your friends into companies. Use each person's nickname as the company name, and check the Company box in Address Book. The only downside to this solution is that now their full names are not searchable on the iPhone anymore.

Quite a simple and obvious hint, but maybe helpful for some nonetheless...

Set up a basic workgroup file server the simple way

For Mac users in small businesses, or even on home networks, one issue arises when they want to find an efficient way to share files—how to set up a Mac as a shared file server for a workgroup so that multiple users can create, modify, and delete files and folders on that machine. The geekier readers know about permissions issues related to users modifying files and folders created by other users, setting up accounts for users and groups, or even, under Mac OS X 10.5, setting up sharing only accounts.

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Bugs & Fixes: Fixing a Connect to Server error

When attempting to access a server via the Connect to Server command in the Finder’s Go menu, you may get an error message that states: "The text entered does not appear to be a recognized URL format." The message may appear even if the server address you entered is entirely correct.

According to Apple, this erroneous message can crop up if you are either (a) running Mac OS X 10.5 via an account that was updated from 10.4 or (b) using data from a Time Machine backup that was initially created via data migrated from another Mac.

n either case, the solution is to delete a folder named URLMount (from old Mac), located in the /System/Library/Filesystems folder. Then restart your Mac.

Change Default Application

Most of the time, the contextual menu labelled Always Open With will be used in order to open file as default application. And this leads to mistake being made most of the time.

Why…?

When a file is set to always be opened with particular application, the change will only apply to that particular file. Let's say there are hundreds files of the same type, changes will be needed for all of those files, what a waste of time!

Solution: Use Info Pane

If the changes are to be made for every single files with the same type (same extension name), Get Info pane will be required. Here are the full and complete steps:

1. Select a file
2. Open Get Info pane of that file (keystrokes: Command-I)
3. Find section with name Open with: and choose appropriate application to open that type of file
4. Click on Change All… button
5. Finish! That application will now be set as current default application

Remove VMs from Parallels VM startup list

If you end up with unused virtual machines in your Parallels startup list, you can get rid of them by removing aliases from your ~/Documents/.parallels-vm-directory folder.

Choose the Finder's Go to Folder command under the Go menu, paste in the above path and go. In the folder, delete the VM aliases you don't want.

You may want to also delete the actual VM data, or maybe just find out where it lives. To do so, right-click on a VM alias and choose Show Original or Get Info from the contextual menu. You'll be taken to, or shown the path to that VM's files.

The handy thing about only having one VM in the list is it's selected automatically when you start Parallels.

10 Most Practical Apple Photoshop Tutorials

As a Mac user, I'm sure you also have a good sense of design. But, having good sense of design alone isn't enough, it'll be much better if you can actually learn and master the way to design cool things like what Apple did in Photoshop. So if you haven't had a Photoshop, buy one?

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Eight ways the iMac changed computing

The iMac made an instant impression when Apple first unveiled it in May 1998. But it didn't start to really shake things up until it began to ship--which happened 10 years ago on August 15, 1998. Arguably the most influential desktop computer of the last decade, the original iMac's specifications seem quaint by today's standards. For US$1,299, you came home with a 233MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 32MB of RAM, a 4GB hard drive, a 15-inch built-in monitor, and stereo speakers--all in an amazingly stylish case.

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Create a Dock bookmark to show all Safari bookmarks

This hint explains one way create a bookmark in your Dock that will bring up the All Bookmarks page in Safari. In Safari, entering the URL bookmarks:// does the same thing as pressing the Bookmarks button in the Bookmarks Bar, or selecting Bookmarks >> Show All Bookmarks. Confused yet? Good! The only trouble is that LaunchServices (the program that Mac OS X uses to open URLs) doesn't know how to open the bookmarks:// protocol. So here's how to create the Dock entry and make it fully functional:

• Create a new Safari bookmark for the URL bookmarks://

• Drag this bookmark to your Dock, which will create a springy ampersand.

• Download and install the freeware MisFox. In the program, click the Protocol Helpers tab and press the New button. Enter the Protocol bookmarks, and for the Helper, choose /Applications/Safari.app.

Now the Bookmarks bookmark in your Dock will open your Safari bookmarks page.

Make captivating charts and graphs

Want to spice up your presentations and documents with better graphics? Terri Stone and top design experts share their tips on how to make charts and graphs that will enthrall your audience instead of boring them.

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Create any mobile phone plug-in for iSync

If you are slightly tech-savvy, Apple has introduced (on the Xcode Developer DVD that ships with Leopard) an application to help you create your own mobile phone plug-ins. If you have not already installed the Developer Tools, do so. If you have, go to /Developer >> Applications >> Utilities in the Finder.

The application you are looking for is named iSync Plug-in Maker, which is essentially a graphical wizard that assists you in rapidly putting together and then testing your own plug-in for any mobile phone device. After testing, the program helps you create a distribution/installation package.

A lot of people are using the tool and then making money selling their own plug-ins -- but now you know where to find the same tools, so you can do this on your own. Apple even has developer documentation on the app to help you in making a plug-in for your phone.

attention: Xcode can also be downloaded directly from Apple -- you just need a free ADC Online membership.

Perform Google 'lucky' searches from Safari's URL bar

If you use Firefox, and you Shift-Return a search in the Google search box, Firefox will perform an "I'm Feeling Lucky" search and show you the corresponding page. However this is not the case with Safari, but you can get a similar result using the free Safari plug-in Safari Stand's Quick Search feature.

In the SafariStand settings, enable Quick Search and add a new line called something like Google lucky. Set a shortcut (I use l) and define the URL as:

http://www.google.com/search?q=@key&btnI=I'm+Feeling+Lucky

You can now perform a Google "I'm feeling lucky" search directly in the URL address bar by typing something like l osxhints. When you press Return, Safari will open up the first match from Google.

Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server: How to Use Apple-Supplied RAID Software

You can use RAID technology to improve performance or reliability of a hard disk. Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server versions 10.1 and later accommodate RAID 0 (striping) and RAID 1 (mirroring) for ATA- and SCSI-based disks that are formatted in Mac OS Standard (HFS), Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus), UFS, or MS-DOS file systems. In server versions 10.1 to 10.1.4 and client versions 10.1 to 10.2.8, RAID volumes can be used as data volumes only - not as the startup disk on which system software is installed. You can RAID a startup volume in 10.3 or later.

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Change Flag Icon of Mail

When browsed through your inbox with your Mail application, sometimes you need to flag certain useful email for future reference. With simple keystrokes, Shift Command L you can flag selected mails.

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Bugs & Fixes: how to navigate your way out of app trouble

With the release of iPhone 2.0 software, and especially the App Store, the iPhone has taken a significant step toward being a Mac "in your pocket," rather than merely a smart phone. While the emphasis here is on the benefits of being a Mac, there are a few downsides to consider. In particular, there are application crashes. While these unwelcome events happened occasionally even with iPhone 1.x, their likelihood has increased significantly with the explosion of third-party software now available.

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