ilife

Apr 27 2009

Skin the Widgets on Safari

Safari isnít even out of beta and there is already a load of freeware. Weíll take a look at a few, as well as some iCal enhancers on this weekís Freeloader Friday.

Safaricon

Brought to you by the creator of Chimericon, this is probably the best of the plethora of Safari skinning apps out there. This one gives you the choice of several themes as well as the option to swap the metal appearance for aqua. It requires the BSD subsystem to be installed.

Mail2iCal

Appleís iLife is clearly one based on frivolity and digital media and not so much organization. Conquering the task of making the iApps more responsible is this set of AppleScripts. These are simple tools to export a mail message to an iCal calendar or to do list.

Insert Safari URL

This little goodie is for Entourage users. It allows them to stick the URL of currently-open-in-Safari web pages into a mail message. Itís perfect for the Mac user who has gotten over Internet Explorer, but just can’t give up Entourage.

Event Horizon

Too many iCal subscriptions driving you nuts? Event Horizon is a web site that will merge your subscriptions into a single one, allowing you to keep things simple. Try it out.

Thatís all the fun Iíve got for you this week. Tune in next week for a special PC version of freeloader. Iíll outfit you with all the freeware youíll need on your hiatus from the Mac OS.

Brian

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

iDVD/DVD Burning FAQs

Brought to you by: James



((Update: Updated to reflect changes introduced by iDVD v5 and v6. This FAQ is now obsolete and will not be updated beyond this point.))



Ken Tidwell has a very informative Unofficial/ad-hoc iDVD FAQ & Troubleshooting Guide.



DVD-R(RW)s and DVD+R(RW)s only have one layer. Many commercial DVDs have dual-layer technology which allows twice the amount of data on one disk. (Burnable dual-layer DVDs can now be purchased from your favorite blank media retailer.)



DVD+R(RW)s have a longer shelf-life while DVD-R(RW)s are more compatible with house-hold DVD players.



iDVD versions prior to v5 are only capable of burning to internal Apple Superdrives.



iDVD requires its movie files to be any QuickTime-supported media file.



iDVD (v1-v3) can only burn 60 minutes to a DVD-R, or 90 minutes if you’re willing to sacrifice quality. (iDVD will ask to sacrifice quality for a 90 minute DVD when you choose to burn a project that is 60-90 minutes in length.) iDVD v4 (iLife ’04) can burn up to 2 hours on a single-layer DVD-R (sacrificing quality).



Toast 6 will burn to any DVD-R(RW) or DVD+R(RW) drive with any QuickTime-supported media file, and can burn “over 60 minutes” to a disk with optimal quality at 60 minutes or less (quality slowly decreases over 60 minutes). See Create a Quick and Simple DVD for details.



Apple’s DVD Studio Pro is a full, professional DVD authoring suite. Among several, more powerful features, DVD Studio Pro supports burning to several DVD-R(RW) and DVD+R(RW) burners and allows you to change compression settings, which enables you to choose the correct balance between video/audio quality and the amount of video on the disk.

By admin • Articles, Power User Monday Tip of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

iPod Access – Notes, Photos, Music and More

Apple has created an easy to use, closed system in its iPod+iTunes duo. But, what if you want to get at your iPod’s contents without using iTunes or iPhoto? With the following free downloads you’ll be able to access and extract music, photos and notes with no help from iLife applications.

iPod Notes

This new release is the best iPod notes manager I’ve seen yet. iPod Notes allows you to see your complete notes heirarchy and edit them right on the iPod.

ipodnotes iPod Access Notes, Photos, Music and More

And that’s only the beginning. The application also helps you create links to other notes, create notes and folders and sync your notes folder with your Mac.

Keith’s iPod Photo Reader

Keith has come up with a utility that previews the images on your iPod – not the full size copies it puts in the folder, the actual photos in the iPod’s database.

keithsipodphotoreader iPod Access Notes, Photos, Music and More

You can also extract photos as pict files – making this a great recovery tool if something goes wrong. Its a great tool for examining and extracting images from your iPod.

expod

There are a hundred solutions for pulling music off your iPod, but this is the newest.

expod iPod Access Notes, Photos, Music and More

expod is fast, and includes a search feature. Browse by playlist and send selected songs to a directory on your Mac. Simple and sweet.

todoPod

Eager to get tasks on your iPod? Of course once you ‘pod them, you’ll never remember to browse your notes to check you list. That’s why todoPod doesn’t use notes. Instead of adding your tasks as text, this free application converts your text to audio and sends it to your player.

Brian

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8