OS X - The Graphic Mac

Is your favorite app compatible with Mac OS X (10.7) Lion?

Mac & OS X
22 Mar, 2011

Mac OS X Lion app compatibility chart

RoaringApps has put together a fairly extensive, and constantly updated, list of current applications that reveal their compatibility status with Apple’s next big OS update, OS X 10.7 Lion. You can view the collection in list format, or as an icon grid as seen in the screenshot above.

As far as graphic designers concerned with Adobe apps, it appears that most do run under Lion, but with some issues. I’m sure Adobe will be providing updates shortly after Lion’s release.

Delay the launch of your OS X apps, utilities and helpers at startup

Mac & OS X
21 Mar, 2011

DelayedLauncher 2.0 allows to set the order and delay time between app launches at startup

If waiting for all those startup utilities, helpers and applications annoys you every time you boot up/restart your Mac, rejoice in the fact that their is a simple solution.

While you could spend the time to set up an Automator Applescript to set the order and delay time between apps launching, it’s far easier to use DelayedLauncher to do the job.

Delayed launcher allows you to set the order your helpers, utilities and apps launch at boot time, as well as set a delay between each one. This can be quite helpful because OS X attempts to launch all the items in the Startup Items list (in your System Preferences/Accounts tab) at one time – thereby slowing the time until you can actually use your Mac down. In some cases, it can bring your entire system to a crawl until they’ve all launched.

Mac OS X Lion screenshots

Mac & OS X
18 Mar, 2011

The new OS X Lion Address Book app according to screenshots

Razorianfly has (re)posted screenshots it acquired revealing some of the new interface enhancements found in the upcoming Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion).

Among the screenshots is one of the new Address Book app, which appears to take after the iPad version of the app. It should be noted that these screenshots being posted break the NDA the original author accepted.

Google Chrome gets a new icon

Internet
16 Mar, 2011

Google has dropped the robotic chrome icon in favor of a new, flattened and more balanced icon for their Chrome browser. The open source version of Chrome, Chromium, got the refresh last week, and now the Developer Builds now sport the new look.

Google's new Chrome browser icon

The new logo should work it’s way down into the beta and stable release version soon. While I had nothing against the old icon, the new version is definitely more recognizable in the OS X Dock. The only problem I see with it now is that it looks too much like Google Picasa.

Shortcut: Full screen Quick Look

Mac & OS X
23 Feb, 2011

One of the handiest features of Mac OS X for me has been Quick Look, the ability to quickly view a compatible file simply by selecting it in the Finder and hitting the Space bar.

The two faces of Mac OS X's Quick Look feature: Regular and full screen

But OS X has the annoying habit of displaying the selected graphic at an arbitrary size on your screen (as seen on the left in the image above). You can then hit the double-arrow icon in the Quick Look preview to zoom it to full screen. This is doubly annoying for anyone with a large screen because not only do you not use the full size of your screen, but you then have to move your mouse all the way down to the bottom of the screen to click the icon.

Thankfully, you can avoid all that mousing around and enjoy a full screen Quick Look preview (as seen on the right in the image above) simply by using the keyboard shortcut of Option + Space bar instead of just the Space bar.

You can also view a slideshow in full screen mode by selecting multiple files before entering Quick Look. To exit full screen Quick Look, simply hit the ESC key in the upper left of your keyboard.

Mac OS X startup key combinations

General / Mac & OS X
19 Nov, 2010

Startup keyboard combinations have been around since the early days of the Mac operating system. Holding down specific keys while pushing the power button offer a plethora of options for troubleshooting when your Mac starts up.

Here are the most useful keyboard startup combinations:

Key/Combo	What it does
⌥ (Option)	Display all bootable volumes (Startup Manager)
⇧ (Shift)	Perform Safe Boot (start up in Safe Mode)
C	Start from a bootable disc (DVD, CD)
D	Start up in Apple Hardware Test (AHT), if the Install DVD 1 is in the computer
T	Start in FireWire target disk mode
N	Start from NetBoot server
X	Force Mac OS X startup (if non-Mac OS X startup volumes are present)
⌘-V	Start in Verbose Mode
⌘-S	Start in Single User Mode
⌘-⌥-P-R	Reset NVRAM
Mouse button	Eject CD/DVD and start up from hard drive

Most of these keyboard combinations will work with any modern Mac, but some models may have variations that work or don’t work.

Troubleshooting: List installed 3rd-party kernel extensions

Mac & OS X
16 Aug, 2010

Back in the days prior to OS X, it was easy to find 3rd party (and Apple) system extensions on your Mac. They were all located in the System>Extensions folder. With OS X though, the task of even knowing which kernel extensions are installed isn’t quite as easy, which can be particularly frustrating when you’re troubleshooting an issue on your Mac.

For the geeks among you, it’s quite easy though. To list all 3rd party extensions, simply launch the Terminal app located in your Utilities folder and type the following:
kextstat | grep -v com.apple

You can also list all the Apple-installed kernel extensions by typing:
kextstat

I came across this little hint over at OSXDaily, a site I visit quite often because of the variety of topics covered.

How to create customized OS X Mail stationery in Snow Leopard

Mac & OS X
13 Jul, 2010

Back in 2007, I wrote a tutorial on how to create your own customized OS X Mail stationery when Leopard was first released. To this day, it’s still one of the most popular articles on this site. I decided it was about time that I took a look at it again to make sure nothing had changed with all the updates to Leopard, and the release of Snow Leopard.

You can create your own customized Mail stationery quite easily

This tutorial is fairly simple, and you’re only limitations are your graphics skills. Of course, if you have knowledge of HTML, you can do a lot more with your customization. For the sake of this tutorial though, I’ll keep it simple.
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Hide files and folders in the Mac OS X Finder

Mac & OS X
10 Jun, 2010

If you share a computer with someone, or your office computer is accessible to prying eyes and you want to hide a file or folder of private documents, it’s quite easy to do without the need to download any software.

Let’s say you want to hide a folder in your Documents folder called “MyStuff.” You can do it simply by launching the Terminal (found in your Utilities folder inside Applications) and typing the following:
chflags hidden ~/Documents/MyStuff

Once your MyStuff folder is hidden, it will not appear in the Finder, but it will still be accessible via the Finder’s Go>Go to Folder (Command + Shift + G) and typing in the path to the folder.

To unhide your MyStuff folder, simply type the following:
chflags nohidden ~/Documents/MyStuff

If using the Terminal isn’t your thing, you can download Hideaway, which does the same thing, only you just click a few buttons instead of typing code into the Terminal.

How to truly delete a file in Mac OS X

Mac & OS X
28 May, 2010

Most people aren’t aware that when you empty the trash in Mac OS X, you aren’t actually deleting a file. It’s true. Selecting Empty Trash from the Finder menu, or using the Command + Shift + Delete keyboard shortcut simply marks the chosen files or folders in a way that allows the system to overwrite them whenever it needs to. The actual files remain on your hard drive until the system actually writes another file on top of them.

In order to truly delete a file or folder, you must use Mac OS X’s Secure Empty Trash command under the Finder menu. When you use this method to empty your trash, the system actually overwrites the file with gibberish data, mostly ensuring your file is unrecoverable.

Securely Empty Trash If you’re concerned about security, you can set Mac OS X to always securely delete your files when you empty the trash the normal way by going to your menubar and choosing Finder>Preferences, and turning on the Empty Trash Securely item.

Tagged: OS X