About Max Swisher

14-year-old web developer and writer. Avid collector of vinyl, cameras, and typewriters.

No more mirrors!

Posted on March 7, 2009 by Max Swisher

This post is outdated and false. For the newer alternative then Jing, look here

What?? I finally bought captivate? no…..
But I did get Jing! Jing is a free, simple, screen capture software. Unfortunately, the saved output file is a really disgusting kind of swf file. What I mean by disgusting is that it really doesn’t work with many kinds of swf to _____ kind of converters. The only way to view it is through safari(/Probably any other browser with flash installed), and since I don’t have a server for myself set up yet (I have a domain and a server, waiting to be setup!!!), I can’t put that there for you to view through the web. I would really like to have the video right below here. That is possible, but I would have to pay $15 a year for it. I know, not allot, but to me all free things are good. But to get it below, I would get the pro version of Jing, which I can upload it to youtube, and in youtube there is an embed feature that I could just put right below or in the code of this post. But luckily, TechSmith (the creators of Jing) have registered www.screencast.com, where you can upload your jing video. Which is how I am showing you the video I made here: http://screencast.com/t/MrUZCeFWon

You need to zoom WAY out to see my whole screen!

Email: Empty or full?

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Max Swisher

According to the most recent NYT Tech talk podcast (my favorite), Responding to your emails quickly and moving them and archiving them immediately is very important. They also state that That empty inbox is a beautiful sight. But to tell you the truth, I have to disagree. I always love to get emails. Also, if you have one email you use for your work stuff and everything else, You know that it is hard to know on weekends when that email is useful to read or should wait until the next workday. For this I would highly recommend getting a gmail account and getting all of your personal emails there. Using outlook? On the Gmail help site they show how to set up your gmail account in outlook. Have OS X Mail? Just type in the full email address, not username (username@gmail.com) and your password. Mail will automatically set it up for you. Notice that this is a prime example of where Macs are so much easier than PCs. But the point is, delete the emails you never want to be reminded of, organize some of them into folders / mailboxes, and the rest? Keep is your inbox! Wondering where something is? There is a place for searches called a search box! I use mine all the time. But the question is, If you have an empty inbox, where does the rest go?? I love having stuff in my inbox. with a flick of 2 fingers (a scroll wheel on a PC!) I can go back in time and see some conversations from a long time ago. Do you disagree with me? I am begging of you to post your answer in the poll in the sidebar! Also, There are 2 comments on this whole blog. Please, comment! you can select anonymous, so you don’t have to give your name or anything! I will do my best to answer your comment/question. To add a comment/question, just click the 0 comments at the bottom of this post!

GO SAFARI!

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Max Swisher

Well, I take back my fact about flock being the best! Well lookie here, Safari 4 beta is here! I have no idea how long I have been missing this, but I found out about it last night on the awesome blog Life Hacker. The new Safari is free, and works on PC and mac (unlike google chrome). Here are some new features and screenshots:

Top sites page

New Tabs

And the capability of importing from the previous install of Safari.

I mean, this browser is just plain awesome! It is also very quick, and has a wicked post-install video.

GO GET IT!

Homepage

Download

MappedUp

Posted on February 22, 2009 by Max Swisher

Despite having a Mac-like name, MappedUp is also in a version for PCs. This app is great for news junkies.

Ever wondering what is going on around the world, and on a map where it is happening? This is a free app just for that.

Sorry for the amateur quality, I am unable to afford software like captivate, or another video camera with a microphone.

DOWNLOAD IT!

Macs:

PCs:

Dashboard developer mode

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Max Swisher

The developer mode of the apple application is very convenient, and easy to use. As you can see in the screenshot above, I can put dashboard widgets straight on to my desktop. They run there as if applications, but it really has one annoying problem- they always are on top of your apps.
To click something that is under a widget in developer mode, you have to move it first.
Also, it can be convenient for those with Mac OS X server who need to always be monitoring their stats while working. You can download the iStat Pro widget and put it on your desktop, and it will then look like this.

You may also notice that my Desktop picture is changing on every screenshot, and that is bcause have it set to rotate my desktop wallpaper every 1 minute.
You can also download many, many more widgets from apple.com, which you can also put on your desktop.
Of course with everything else on this site, to do this is easy and free. First, you have to download Deeper, which is an app where you can go into Deeper system preferences, including the dashboard. There, you will find a checkbox that says “Enable the Developer Mode of Dashboard”, as shown in the screenshot below.

Then, all you have to do to get a widget onto your desktop is click and drag a widget at the same time you are closing the Dashboard, and the idget you were dragging will not dissapear with the rest of the dashboard. you can then safely drop it on your desktop. you can click and drag it on your desktop to change its place, and you can click the i to change the preferences and do everything you could do with it as if it was in the dashboard.

iChat

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Max Swisher

I recently started to use Adium, which was yahoo, google, and everything else known to man. But I am always interested in all of Apple’s computer products, And iChat I had tried and was not satisfied. I have a yahoo, google, and facebook IMs, and iChat only worked with AIM. So I used Adium. Then I was looking at pictures of the OS X desktop, and I saw the iChat icon in the dock. So I gave iChat another chance. I opened iChat and put in my AIM, and I was like, Okay. This works. then, I saw what other accounts I could use. I saw a Google Chat account, and I put that in. It calls it the Jabber list because that is what it uses to connect the gmail with iChat. Then, I got an iChat account, and that was awesome. It is called an Apple ID, which apparently when browsing the Apple Store your checkout will already have the info from your Apple ID put into the info. it gives you a _@mac.com username, but sadly you cannot use that as an actual email address. I haven’t met anyone with an iChat account, but when I do I think it will come in handy. Sadly it doesn’t work with Yahoo! IM, but most of the people I know that have yahoo IMs also have AIM IMs.

The UI is very nice, and I really like the chat interface. The buddy list interface is also nice. I like using it with the spaces function so I can assign it to all of my spaces so when I switch spaces my conversation will come with me. I don’t usually like to keep my buddy list open when switching spaces, so I can just press the X button or do a Command+H, and keep my chat windows open.

I think that iChat is a great IM application, and you can be reassured with compatibility with OS X because all macs come with it.

Use iChat if you have an AIM or Google account that you want to take care of chat capabilities.

Quicksilver

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Max Swisher

Pre Script:Quicksilver is not to complicated but easy to use. also, in the screenshots of this page wallsaver is not enabled because it sucks up 2 things-

Battery life and RAM.

Spotlight is a very convenient tool. only with key commands, you can search applications, files, folders, web history, and much more. But some things you can’t do, like type in urls, or run scripts, or execute large text. Quicksilver is

pretty much a spolight, but you can execute urls. for example, here is typing in google.

To get to this text entry tool, just press the period key. it will look like this. this is after I had done the search for Financing. It automatically selects what ever you had come in the results of whatever you had typed in before pressing the period key.

Then you can do things like Large Type, and URLs. To open any item, just hit enter. it will do whatever the action is that is to the right to whatever is on the left. After Pressing the period key, I typed some stuff in. Here I typed in Apple is awesome!  and as you can see on the right it said Large Type (if all you see after Apple is awesome! is a square, it is actually an apple logo. if it is a square, you obviously have a PC).

Once you hit enter and execute it, the text will appear huge ( in this case “Large”, as Quicksilver says) accross you screen in white text. you can then hit the enter key or hit the escape key to exit large type.

Then when you hit enter, it will execute the Large Type. Once executed, it will do exactly that- Make it really big over your screen.

Plugins can also be used to do other things with quicksilver.

If you find to be using quicksilver more often than spotlight but find that you are used to the spotlight command-space, you can go into the spotlight preferences and disable the key command, then go into the quicksilver preferences and configure it to have the same key command.

Wallsaver

Posted on January 6, 2009 by Max Swisher

Here’s it simple-

Wallsaver puts a screensaver as your desktop.

I use it all of the time, with my LotsaWater screensaver, which takes a screenshot of your screen and makes ripples over it. the only problem with using the screenshot feature with wallsaver is that when something moves on your dock with wallsaver enabled, Then the same thing of when you didn’t click on it will be there too. so thats wy I just used some image behind it. in this case, a cool apple spotlight picture. this one.

But to have wallsaver use lotsawater is very hard. What you have to do is open the .saver file in system preferences, change it in system preferences to have the apple image under the options button, then it will actually modify the .saver file itself. then, you need to open the folder containing the .saver file in finder, at the same time as haveing wallsaver open then click and drag the file from the folder in finder to the wallsaver window. I enabled the aoutoactivte as well as the hide after activation, then on top of that had wallsaver open on startup, so the window would appear, then the wallsaver would activate, then the wallsaver window would disappear again. also, you can quit the application and the wallsaver wil still be in activation. also, after you sleep/close the lid of your mac it will still be activated when you open it back up, even without the wallsaver application running.

Here are the download locations.

LotsaWater:

Download Webpage

Wallsaver:

Download Webpage

Skype

Posted on January 1, 2009 by Max Swisher

I have been using skype for a very long while, in fact almost two years. One of my friends Sergey recommended it to me before I got my mac. We only got to see each other at orchestra practice, which was only once a week. He lives 30 minutes away, which is too long to have to drive. And phone calls? come on. $$$$$! Anyway, we are both on our computers most of the time. so I decided to get skype to talk to him. He had a webcam, which in the beginning I didn’t. But for free over the internet, we could talk and I could see him. Then I got a webcam. It was a creative webcam, Live! chat, which wasn’t bad, but not great either. Then, I wanted to get a better one and take a step up, so over amazon, I ordered a Logitech QuickCam Chat (I think) so we could now see and hear each other over the internet. All for free! The only problem was, he was nocturnal. I had the normal hours of sleep. So the only times we could see each other was late at night and about 9 when he had just woken up and I was about to go to sleep. But at least we could leave chats for each other with text, another cool feature. Then, my PC got all v!$T@d up (even though it had xp ;-)) and there were numerous reinstalls, grub problems, and things like not loading that stupid dang explorer.exe file. COME ON! I mean, on a mac, you are unable to delete the finder, and it will force startup at login. it’s like that app itself is its own operating system! If the Mac turns on and it shows the logo and the throbber, it is an VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY small chance that it will not boot finder. What happened to me was after I logged in on windows, All I got was a gray screen and a mouse. Reinstallation came next. Then I got my MacBook. SO EASY! I installed skype on it as well, and with the built in microphone and webcam, calling sergey on skype was so easy! I could move my macbook around! with my PC, even though it was a laptop, I always plugged it into a monitor, which was where the webcam was. So it was a pain to try to mobilize with that thing. also, skype JUST WORKS. If you pay for it, you can even use it to call people over landlines and cellphones, just like a normal cell rate! even worldwide calls! and it REALLY cheap. If you want to go for free, it has to be computer to computer over the internet. video is free, chat is free, everything is free if over the internet. You can make worldwide calls over the internet as well for free. Internet=FREEEEEEEE!

I recommend you download it, get a Skype Name, and Start giving it to all your friends! I have alot of friends who travel alot, and go on cruises but and do have internet, and this is how I can call them and SEE them when they are on the other side of the world!

DOWNLOAD!!!!

cocunutBattery

Posted on December 23, 2008 by Max Swisher

cocunutBattery is a very cool application for Macs. you can see all about your battery, the age of your mac, and how much it holds compared to how much it held when you first bought the mac/battery, and even battery load-cycles. The application is very simple, and that is about all it has. it only works on macs.

DOWNLOAD NOW

(728KB; Required: MacOS X 10.4.5+)

Time Machine Problems

Posted on December 10, 2008 by Max Swisher

Time Machine is a very cool application. I can use either a USB external hard drive, or use a time capsule. It will automatically backup my data, and with my backup drive attached, I can view and restore my backups in an AMAZING UI (user interface).

But as I realized the first time I tried to use it, there are MANY downsides.

1) To backup using time machine, I need my backup drive to be twice the size of my internal Hard Drive.

2) It gets unhappy with FileVault. Apperently, I was told that you should never have FileVault on anyways by an Apple Genius at the Genius Bar at my local Apple Retail Store. then why do they include it in OS X?

3) You can’t use it with network drives.

Fables

And heres a heads up. If one of the first things you did when you got your new Mac was turn on FileVault, and you have used up ALOT (I mean around 80 GB of a 160 GB hard drive (internal) then it will be impossible to turn it off. You will have to move or delete about 10 GB from your hard drive To turn off FileVault.

Moral: Keep your Hard Drive uncluttered, and ORGANIZED!

I went and tried My 200GB hard drive with Time Machine, and I have a 160 GB backup drive. When I try to backup, it said I needed to have a whole 300GB on my backup drive. I gave up at that point and started running in circles wondering what was wrong.

Answer:You need to have at least twice the size of your internal hard drive on your external backup drive (in this case, my backup drive would have needed to be at least 320 GB).

I go to do a backup and Time Machine is messing up. it is unable to interpret how big my home folder is.

Answer:Turn off FileVault

From those, you can probably tell that Time Machine is incredibly specific about the things it is happy about.

Conlusion: Time Machine overall is a very good product. It jut depends what conditions it is working in, such as cluttered, or encrypted.

Good Morning Geek

Seize the mouse.

Author Archives: Max Swisher