The Joy of Tech

Thanks to David Pogue post mentioning it, I have discovered the Joy of Tech. Many many hilarious comics, and supportive of Apple and cats! Does it get better?

The Joy of Tech!

Disabling Finder Indexing (Sort Of...)

Still on my quest to find out how to disable Finder/Spotlight indexing, I have found a solution of sorts. My ultimate goal is to prevent finder indexing any external drives by default, but this is a partial solution that will at least prevent any further indexing of a specific drive. Unfortunately, you will still have to go and delete the indexing that occurs when you first plug it in.

So, the solution?

Launch Terminal.app and use the command

sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/

You have to do that for each drive in turn, but at least you should only have to do it once.

You can check the status of the drive by running the command

sudo mdutil -s /Volumes/

It should give the status as "Indexing disabled."

Note: You will probably have to eject and (when applicable) shut off the external drive and reconnect it to have the status accurately displayed.

Photo Organisers for Mac

I have been trying to find a replacement for ACDSee for Macintosh. I hate iPhoto because it lacks any useful editing tools and it forces you to import all of your pictures into your iPhoto library on your local drive and tries to organise them for you. I like ACDSee because it functions as a photo viewer as much as it does an organiser.

Thus began the quest. Quite a while ago I checked to be sure that there wasn't already an ACDSee for Mac, and there wasn't. They made one a long time ago, back in 2000 I believe, but I 1) can't find a place to obtain it, and 2) don't want something that old that probably lacks the features and stability that I like in ACDSee.

I got the demo version of Aperture 2.0, but it still rubs me the wrong way. It still won't function as a photo viewer, only an organiser. Although it allows you to leave the photos in their current location, it still forces you to create an Aperture Library on your local drive that gets fairly large very fast. This is not helpful on a laptop.

Another product I have demoed is Picture Arena. This is a nice programme that I liked. It is an excellent Macintosh version of ACDSee's viewing and organising features, but it lacks any editing tools. You could use Photoshop for any editing, but the you have two programmes doing the job of one, and since I would have to boot into Parallels to do that anyway, it isn't really worth it. Thus it also falls short.

There are a few other programmes out there I have yet to try; the next one up is Photo Mechanic. I will post as I figure more stuff out.

Links: Aperture
Picture Arena
ACDSee
Photo Mechanic

Ejecting CDs in Boot Camp

I have been annoyed ever since I got the Das keyboard that I no longer had an eject key in Boot Camp. With Mac, you can just hold F12, but in Windows, you have to open windows explorer, right click on the drive and eject it (and again to put it back in with the "close tray" command). However, I recently discovered this little piece of software: WinEject.

You can assign hotkeys to eject the drive (default is Shift + PageDown for eject, Shift + PageUp for close). I like it all few minutes I've been using it.

Link: WinEject

Connecting a Server at Startup

I have recently been wishing I could connect my NAS at startup. I thought it would be complicated, and was muddling my way through an Automator command when I found out it is quite simple (why did I ever underestimate Mac?).

Open System Preferences -> Accounts -> Login Items and then drag the server into the list. Simple as that.

Shortcuts and Word 2004

Until yesterday I had to boot up Windows with Parallels in order to run Microsoft Word. Not so any longer! I am completely freed from Windows (except for Photoshop... and Winamp. The Winamp vs. iTunes for iPod is still unresolved). A few things I have discovered recently...

You can customize pretty much any shortcut imaginable for Word 2004 by going to the Tools -> Customize -> Customize Keyboard... panel. But, the reason I had been trying to customize things proved to be unnecessary.

After about 10 minutes worth of research trying to find the Ctrl + Enter shortcut (to create a new page) for Mac, I discovered it myself. Cmd + Shift + Enter

However, while researching, I discovered a new shortcut: Command tilde (Cmd + `). This cycles through all of the application windows. Useful when you have several Firefox or Word windows open at the same time.

Art. Lebdev Studio

Just thought I'd throw out this website. I found it a while ago (after finding out that it is the source of several ThinkGeek products) but never thought to post it here. Their recent release of the Optimus Maximus keyboard has aroused my interest and wishes for funds with which to purchase it. As for now, however, I will suffice with the Das II Keyboard.

Art. Levdev Studio Website