Dropbox doesn’t update automatically. You have to go and check manually. The current version is 1.1.40 and was updated this feel.

If you haven’t signed up for Dropbox, it’s a must have for Mac Users. You can sync most IOS programs with your MAC via Dropbox in the 3GB free space they give you. I also exchange files and documents with coworkers this way as well.

Sign up to Dropbox using this link and they will give me some extra space on my Dropbox account.

Download Dropbox : ""

My Internet Connection at home is relatively slow, less than 1Megabit/second down and shared between the family. And I’m often using a 3G modem because I travel a lot. Thus I rarely look at YouTube because it takes too long to load.

One time while downloading some Youtube, it occurred to me that there might be a way to permanently select using low quality so that videos download much faster. Its annoying when Youtube videos stop and start all the time.

In the settings:

Select this.

Restart your browser, and it should be done. But it doesn’t seem to work, or at least I couldn’t’ confirm that it worked. . Regardless of browser restart or reboot these setting don’t seem to take effect. I’ve checked my iPad but doesn’t seem to work in the YouTube app either. Maybe it’s just me but if you have any feedback, I’d appreciate hearing about it.

Safari 5 extension

Then I was looking at the YouTube5 Safari extension

This plugin puts an overlay over your youtube video that exposes a number of preferences such as resolution. Choosing a lower resolution if useful when on slow Internet connections such as 3G modems or broadband (in my case).

You can find more about the Safari YouTube extension at http://www.verticalforest.com/2010/10/27/youtube5-version-2/

Disable the character picket that appeared in OSX Lion (which is basically the same as iOS on the iPhone / iPad)

When you press and hold a character, it doesn’t repeat. Instead the pop menu appears.

You can disable this in the terminal.

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

And reverse the choice with

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

Apple Mail in Lion lets you see not only the conversations in email, but with this small change, you can see your own replies in the thread.

By default, you can see only the email that is sent TO you, but it’s much more useful to see what you sent - thus follow the entire conversation.

then select the expand all conversations from the menu lie so:

and the full conversation looks like this:

This suits the way I work since I don’t track all my conversations very closely and I can check what I’ve said at previous times.

Since installing OS X Lion I’ve found the Mission Control Feature to be very useful. Although you can use two finger swipe on the Magic Mouse, I’ve found the four finger down swipe on the Trackpad to be more intuitive.

Although I’m right-handed, I taught myself to use a mouse left-handed many years ago because then I could use the mouse left-handed, and write with a pen and paper with my right hand thus requiring less hand movements. It doesn’t take long to overcome the muscle memory and I;d like to think that it helps stimulating the left/right brain thing.

[caption id=“attachment_788” align=“aligncenter” width=“595” caption=“I use both - Click for a larger image”][/caption]

I also SizeUp to provide keyboard control of my screens - best ten bucks I ever spent.

I’ve had SizeUp for a long time, and now part of my daily workflow - the keyboard shortcuts really work for throwing things around the screen. I highly recommend it to you. I’ve tried Moom, but found it was nowhere near the quality of SizeUp. SizeUp works for more applications and software including Microsoft apps (notoriously bad for window munging).

Best all purpose, heavy lifting, munging, all singing, kitchen sink, regex’ing, funky features, HTML, FTP/SFTP browsing, CVS/Subversioning, multi file opening text editor for OS X.

And now it’s forty bucks. That’s very good people. Very good.

Bare Bones Software | BBEdit 10 is here!

OS X Lion hides the ~/Library folder from view in an effort to prevent users from tampering with sensitive files or unwittingly tossing out their precious data. It’s easy to get to your user’s Library folder with a simple Go > Go to Folder command in Finder, then typing ~/Library. But moapp found a Terminal command that can bring your library folder back into focus:

Open the Terminal and type:

chflags nohidden /Users/[username]/Library/

In iTunes, Command+Option+Right Arrow and Command+Option+Left Arrow will jump forwards or backwards in the currently playing item, respectively, by five seconds.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V51OJr0ee6E&rel=0&w=580]

Ken Robinson talks about ways to adapt modern education to move from an industrial, “one size fits all” education that forces conformity and convention to an “organic” system that creates an environment for the student to flourish and grow in their own way - like a farmer creates the conditions for crops to grow but doesn’t force them all to be the same size or weight.

I’m a passionate believer in decentralised education having experienced far too much socialist nonsense in previous jobs- “no child left behind” and “all students are equal” is complete bunk. Even in teams of IT people, it takes as many low skilled, low motivation individuals to do some work, while the motivated and learned people work in other areas.

Inspirational Sunday viewing - humour, warmth and genuine insight. A must watch.

I’ve been in Las Vegas for the Interop conference. I’ve been taking photos and here is a random selection, in no particular order.

[gallery link=“file” columns=“2” orderby=“ID”]

Padlock allows you create a shortcut key to lock your screen. Something I’ve always needed.

USD$3 or GBP£.159.

Shame it isn’t in OSX by default, but this works.

http://mizage.com/padlock/

Stupid, crap idiocy from Microsoft in their products yet again.

I know that the Microsoft products are not reliable, not to be trusted and their software WILL crash. So the first thing I configured was the AutoRecover interval so as not to lose much data when it happens.

However, until to you configure an autorecovery directory. It doesn’t work.

So, thanks Microsoft you bunch of loser turds. A little forethought and care would suggest that you popup a menu or notice to tell someone that AutoRecover has to be set. But, no, you couldn’t give a toss about customers. Screw em.

So I lost four, maybe six hours works, after diligently configuring my insurance against your crappy software. And you still manage to make my life a misery. This is the first major data loss due to software crash in nine months because of poor programming and design in your faulty products.

I hate Microsoft Office, its slow, it ugly, it’s hard to use and now another reminder of why I hate it so much. It’s not reliable or trustworthy.

I use these tools and the same textexpander snippets.

[vimeo 21877731 w=400 h=250]

Writing Markdown using LaunchBar and TextExpander from Eddie Smith on Vimeo.

Listening someone else talk about the same productivity tools that I use on my Mac is weird, strangely weird in a good way. I’ve put together a bunch of tools into my own workflow but it turns out that it’s the same as other people. That’s a bit crushing BUT, I learned heaps from listening to this http://macpowerusers.com/2011/03/mpu-046-workflows-with-merlin-mann-ii/ podcast at Mac Power Users where Merlin Mann talks about using Markdown, iThoughtsHD on the iPad and OPML format to create document outlines and then to import those to Scrivener for writing.

The key to this workflow is where you outline something that you need to work on. For myself, this means identifying each area / chunk / section of what I want to write, sort of like a powerpoint outline.

Then use a writing environment that optimises the writing for working in PIECES. That is, you don’t write a document as a single thing, it’s actually made of sections or chunks and concentrating on writing each piece is what Scrivener helps you to deliver. At the same time, you can select the entire document and review the whole of the writing at any time. It’s an awesome workflow that’s helps me to focus the research and the writing process.

Anyway, go and listen to this podcast episode and find out how some people optimise their creation process. I highly recommend it.

Modern web browsers, by default, block third party cookies which that websites/companies cannot track you once you leave their website. Which is, of course, how real life works: once you leave a shop or place of business, they cannot track your every move for the rest of your life. That’s called stalking.

However, Adobe Flash does allow Third Party Flash Cookies and that’s why they deliver flash ads - to track your every move. This means that any website can check your Flash Cooke store. Thus when you visit an online shop, it can deliver a cookie to your Flash Cache. By providing flash ads on other sites, they can determine more information about you.

Here is a simple way to disable those Flash Cookies, because I don’t mind sharing some data, but not everything.

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager03.html