Posts tagged ‘Apple’

A while back I posted a way to show/hide hidden files in Leopard. Now that I am using Snow Leopard and needed to see the hidden files, I went in search of a more elegant way to accomplish this. Read this blog post. It’s pretty much the same steps. It also includes optional steps to add a keyboard shortcut so that you don’t have to go to the services menu to toggle the hidden files.

This time, in Snow Leopard, when you toggle the hidden files, it is much quicker and it doesn’t close out all of your open Finder windows. It relocates them to the last Space but at least it’s not closing them.

I was having problems with my mouse. I have a Logitech MX 620 Cordless Laser Mouse on my home Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard MacBook Pro that was upgraded from Leopard.

Many times, when I single left click, it decides to double click instead. The double click happens instantly like it sees my single click as a double click. This double click doesn’t happen all of the time. I checked all of the preferences and even deleted all Logitech preference files from the /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preference/ folder that started with “com.Logitech” and that didn’t help. So far the only thing that seemed to help was replacing the batteries. I’m still having the problem but not to the extent that I was before.

I did a quick Google search and it turns out I’m not the only one havinng this problem. There was something posted to the Logitech Forums which just says they are having a problem. No resolutions so far. There is also a lengthy discussion on MacRumors which has shown that Leopard is not having this issue, only Snow Leopard. It also ruled out users who upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. It also ruled out, then ruled back in, a Logitech driver issue.

So far, like I said, changing the batteries seems to work. I don’t know what the batteries have to do with the single vs. double click though. Sounds like a driver issue though. If it is an Apple issue, hopefully the 10.6.2 build will fix this. If it is a Logitech issue, I have my Logitech Control Center set to automatically update so now it is just a waiting game.

[Update 10/19/2009 @7:24 PST] Changing the batteries didn’t help for very long. It worked for maybe a day then went back to double clicking everything. I’ve been using my Mighty Mouse and it’s been working like a champ. So it looks like it is a Logitech driver issue.

Something that’s been bothering me latey is the fact that, in forms, I can’t tab through all of the form elements. It completely skips checkboxes and radio buttons. It does this in both Safari and Firefox. I thought it was a preferences issue in the browsers. I searched through the preferences and got nowhere. It turns out it is a system issue, not a browser issue. And there is a simple way to correct the issue.

Open the System Preferences and go to Keyboard & Mouse. Click on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab. At the bottom there is a radio button for “Text boxes and lists only” and “All controls.” Select “All controls.”

This worked for me in both Safari and Firefox without having to restart Finder.

I had computer issues on Friday. I had an old external drive that I had a bunch of files on. The drive is going slow so I think it is about to die. I needed to copy a bunch of the files from the external drive and on to a network drive. I thought it might be a little smarter if I copied the files from the external drive to my computer and then from my computer to the network drive. It was 40 Gb but I thought it might be less time doing that. I was wrong. Apparently it was going to take 11,305 hours. Except it errored out after abut an hour.

At the same time this was going on, I decided to empty my trash. It usually takes me a while to empty so it can get pretty big. This time I had 32,047 files in my trash can.

I hope to God this happens because this would just be really cool.

Apple has filed for a patent that is a “computing device with dynamic ornamental appearance.” The idea being for the casing of electronic devices, such as an iPod or a Mac computer, to be able to change colors. “For example, the light may be used to exhibit a housing behavior that reflects the desires or moods of the user, that reflects inputs or outputs for the electronic device, or that reacts to tasks or events associated with operation of the electronic device.”

Here is a direct quote:
“The invention pertains to electronic devices capable of dynamically changing their ornamental or decorative appearance, i.e., the outer appearance as seen by a user. The electronic devices generally include an illuminable housing. The illuminable housing, which includes at least one wall configured for the passage of light, is configured to enclose, cover and protect a light arrangement as well as functional components of the electronic device. The light arrangement, which generally includes one or more light sources, is configured to produce light for transmission through the light passing wall(s) of the illuminable housing. The transmitted light illuminates the wall(s) thus giving the wall a new appearance. That is, the transmitted light effectively alters the ornamental or decorative appearance of the electronic device. In most cases, the light is controlled so as to produce a light effect having specific characteristics or attributes. As such, the electronic device may be configured to provide additional feedback to the user of the electronic device and to give users the ability to personalize or change the look of their electronic device on an on-going basis. That is, a housing of the electronic device is active rather than passive, i.e., the housing has the ability to adapt and change. For example, the light may be used to exhibit a housing behavior that reflects the desires or moods of the user, that reflects inputs or outputs for the electronic device, or that reacts to tasks or events associated with operation of the electronic device.”

Think of your Mac or iPod as an expensive mood ring.

One one hand, how bad ass would it be to color code your iPod to your outfit for the day or have your Mac turn red when an error has orccurred? On the other hand, why more eye candy? Why should Apple be playing with colors and lights instead of making their already fast OS even faster? I guess you haven’t heard that Max OS X Snow Leopard supports up to 16 Terabytes (theoretical) of RAM? Which mean you could run your entire OS in memory if you wanted.

I was wondering what other subversion tools were used. For the PC I use TortoiseSVN. I know Flex comes with a plugin for Eclipse called Subclipse. I’ve tried it and I’m not a fan of that one. To me it seems likes it says it updates but it doesn’t fully complete. For the Mac I use SCPlugin. I’ve been pretty happy with it so far. There are a couple quarks but for the most part it’s pretty good. What else is out there?