Podcast with preview
With the new iTunes 9.0.3, slightly released after the iPad Keynote, there is a nice and big surprise for all podcasters.
Previously, when a user clicked a link leading to a podcast, it brought you to an empty white web page. Then, iTunes was opened – and if not installed you got a offer to download the free ware. The user did not know what is to be expected.
The new change is, that you will now see a tiny preview with the same information that is presented only in iTunes, before. The behavior of starting iTunes or the download offer is still there. Click the picture on the right to see an example with my podcast.
You also can view video and pre-listen audio!
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February 16, 2010 • Posted in: Common, Cool Mac OS X Apps, Web Tipps
VirtualBox3 vs. Parallels5
The Parallels Desktop virtualization is great, and the update from 4 to 5 brings a lot new features. But there is one thing what makes me really angry: the price!
Pricing
In my humble opinion the price for this update is very much to much. Some months ago, I just bought the update from 3 to 4. If the performance increases, then it is some bucks worth, but this time…
The update
They offered a free v5 trial for 30 days. Thanks, that’s great! But using that in makes your v4 operating systems converted to v5. Guess, what happens when the 30 days are over! Right, your VM’s are dead until you buy the update. There is no way back to 4, except for you made a copy of that images before. Ok, the installer warns about that, but is it fair, yet? Why is there no option, that a copy will be created by the installer itself?
Alternatives
Are there alternatives for OS X for another virtualization software? The first application I had in mind was VMWare Fusion. They offer a free trial, too. So I went out to their website to grab my personal copy. Good thought, but that was only a idea. They force you to fill out forms with lots of your personal data. That is not the way I want to get a free trial!
So I went further and remembered some news I read about Sun’s Virtual Box. That is the way how it should be! Free download, free ware, full of rich features and available on Windows, OS X and Linux.
Virtual Box
First of all, I must tell you, that I am very impressed of that piece of software! It is tiny, easy to use and brings all functionality you need and supports all notable kinds of modern OS in 32 bit and 64 bit!
Approaching
In this article I will compare Virtual Box against Parallels 5. I tested several features and performance. The operating systems used are Windows 7 in 32 bit and Debian 5 in 32 bit – both given 32 MB Video RAM with activated 3D and 2D accerlation. Main memory is set to 256 MB.
Performance
Performance and speed is really important when using virtual machines – at least for me. And the winner is: Virtual box! It does not slow down my Mac with 2 GB RAM like Parallels does. It even starts and shuts down very much faster and it seems my harddisk is not tortured that much. Virtual Box is optimized to run multiple instances, and I think that brings the speed.
With performance at all I mean
- Pausing, resuming and sleep like hibernation
- Harddisk usage
- RAM usage left for Host OS
- OSX response (keyboard, mouse, usage of apps)
- Guest OS response (keyboard, mouse, usage of apps)
What’s missing?
Virtual Box is not that rich as Parallels, but here is a list of features which are not yet available in Virtual Box:
- Drag and Drop files between Host and Guest OS, but you can share folders!
- Application folder of Guest OS integrated in Host OS.
- No bootcamp partitions.
- Seamless mode (guest OS window integration into host OS) only works on primary monitor!
- Keyboard input is interpreted as “PC”-keyboard.
Conclusion
The speed of Virtual Box is much better, at least on my hardware. I never used bootcamp and I am a little bit sad, that the seamless mode does not work on my secondary monitor. Also I am missing the drag and drop, but get used to the shared folders quickly.
Parallels got deinstalled!
Loading ...Closed lid with open eyes
A MacBook can close it’s lid and then it is going to sleep. On some situations it could be useful your Mac would stay awake instead of using it magic power LED hypnotizing you.
One of those moments could be
- A party and your MacBook is serving some music, but you don’t want anybody to touch it and to see what is on your screen.
- It is bedtime and you want to listen to my podcast or some other music and set your sleep timer, but the display is too bright.
- You have a time intensive task like defragmenting harddrive, backup or downloading and want to prevent dust getting on the keys.
- The screen is no longer used while watching a movie on an external monitor.
- Just you want it!
A tiny freeware tool called InsomniaX puts some matches into the menubar to simply enable or disable the sleep functions.
Loading ...Social Whale
The Social Whale is a great replacement for the twitter.com website or a local installed application. It does look almost like the original website, but has some nice features the original should ever have:
- multiple accounts
- auto refresh with countdown and caching
- API limit counter
- view followers by reciprocals, new followers and quitters
- integration of twitter counter statistics
- picture upload, URL shortener
- spell checker
It is still in beta state, but if you want an invite, just leave a comment on this post.
Here is a picture how it looks like when logged in:
Loading ...January 11, 2010 • Posted in: Giveaways, Web Tipps, twitter
Lock your iPhone
My iPhone is my personal assistent, my friend, my all time companion, weather consultant, and so much more. Because of all those things on my device are private, I do not want anybody to have a look at.
Lock your iPhone
Like on all other mobile cell phones you can set a lock code. Once it is locked or fallen asleep by pressing the power button, you need to enter a code to unlock, and make it ready for use, again. To activate this option go to Settings -> General -> Passcode lock. Put in a PIN code. In the same settings, you can set how long it takes until it will be auto-locked either iPhone is unused or after what time it is sent to sleep.
Unlocking
Only with that previously determined code, your iPhone can be made useable after a lock.
Mistake, mistake?!
You have six tries to unlock your iPhone. If you mistake them all, it will be locked for one minute. No, problem! Just try again. Yet another mistake? The time to wait will increase to five minutes, then 15 minutes, followed by one hour! A clever idea would be just to reboot the iPhone, but Apple was clever, too, so this will not help you out. You need to wait until the time is expired!
Loading ...Youtube Video link power
When embedding or linking to a Youtube video, you have lots of parameters you can put in the URL. Those are influencing the player’s behavior and view. This is very useful, especially on embedding directly into your website or blog.
Playback with a seek
One of the most unknown and rarely used parameters is the playback with a seek. Let’s say, you want to show a video and the important moment your want to point to is at 1 minute and 28 seconds. Did you know, than you can directly jump into that position? Simply add #t=1m27s behind the video URL like this:
Video starts playing at 1 min and 28 secs.
This is very cool when sharing videos via twitter or instant messengers and you do not want your participant to watch the whole story.
Other options
There are a lot of other values like setting borders, enable related video recommendations, HD playback and some more which you will find on Googles API page. Have a look at it and I am sure, there is something useful for you.
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Chrome Browser for Mac
As a Webkit lover, of course I love the Safari browser. It is fast, reliable, powerful and easy to use. I wish Firefox would use its engine, but there are lot of discussions in the Mozilla forums, that it will remain using the Gecko engine.
From a technical perspective, Gecko is now very solid and no longer lags behind WebKit.
Alternatives
The only alternative I know what uses Webkit is the Google’s Chrome. Unfortunately, they say, a Mac version is not available, yet. But there is! You can download the developer edition, which is a completely compiled and ready-to-use application. Install it by just dragging the icon to the Application folder like any other program.
After the first start it asks for importing bookmarks. So I did, and it works very well. The passwords are taken from OS X’s Keychain Access and you do not need to enter all your identifications, again.
At the first look, compared to Safari
- it looks a bit more stylish,
- the preferences are easier to use,
- performance feels better on loading pages, working on sites containing Flash objects,
- the developer menu can be found at View, instead of a own menu column,
- no need for an extra search bar, just type into the address field.
Unfortunately I am missing two features, but I can shortly live without:
- Syncing the bookmarks with MobileMe or back to Safari,
- the option to merge all windows together
What Safari does not have is
- the function “New incognito window”.
Pages you view in this window won’t appear in your browser history or search history, and they won’t leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window.
- opening every tab or window as a own thread
- if one crashes, not all of the browser activity is lost,
- if one gets unresponsive, you can work with all the others.
- jumping through search results initiated with CMD+F.
Conclusion
I am using it now for a several time. It works very stable and fast. The workflow is great, everything works fine so far. This my new default browser!
Loading ...Welcome to the Google Wave
So many people are talking about the Google Wave. It is still beta and Google limited the amount of users who may have access. You can either fill out a form and wait for an approval or get invited by someone else who still has invites left.
Since I got an invite (special thanks to Leuk and Jack Brendon Smoke) I really like it. Sometimes it is quite slow and some things are not working fully, but hey, it is beta and Google stated it.
The Wave is a powerful tool which I think will be a future kind of team collaboration. You can see in realtime what the other participants are typing or changing. A playback function shows you all changes step by step.
Many public Waves are available, where everybody can join and take part. Also, you can make your Waves public by inviting a special email address.
There are a lot of things to do until it matches a fluently workflow, but even in this state it is quite useful.
If you want to join, I am still having some invites left. Just leave a comment below with your email you want the invite to be sent to.
Loading ...Getting back a lost podcast episode
For podcast management I am using iTunes of course. I like iTunes. Really!
Sometimes my fingers are too fast and something is trashed, especially podcast episodes. If you are wacking the same as me, then I am sure this or the other time you want it being undone.
Of course there is a simple and quick way:
Just select any episode or the podcast itself, then hit on the bottom left the unsubscribe button. Then it turns to subscribe, and press it again. Then iTunes will reload the feed and you can download the lost childen, again.
Loading ...G-Mail within Apple Mail
Do you use a Google mail account? Then add your account into your Mail application and have no more need to manage your mails via the webmail interface. The webmailer indeed is quick and easy to use, but I like having my mails all together and searchable on my computer.
Take the following settings, to enable it:
Incoming mail server: imap.gmail.com
Outgoing mail server: smtp.gmail.comUsername: yourmail@gmail.com
Password: yourpassword
You also may take these settings, even if you own a googlemail.com address.
On OS X’s mail.app you will find an extra area on the left hand pane for your Google mail account.
Loading ...November 9, 2009 • Posted in: Cool Mac OS X Tricks, Web Tipps
