Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with osx

Best video codec for embedding into PowerPoint?

limon — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:51:55 -0800

I'd like to embed video clips in a PowerPoint presentation. It would need to play correctly on both Windows and OS X. What codec is ideal? My first attempt won't play on Macs.

A real Apple TV.

malaprohibita — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:14:10 -0800

Is it crazy and/or overkill to consider getting a 27 inch imac to replace my tv? I have a 10 year old 27 inch Sony CRT that still works well, but I'm running into its limits for adding peripherals (DVD player, xbox, etc.). I know I can probably get a mac mini or other small form factor pc plus an HDTV for less, but I'm really intrigued by the imac's possibilities. What little tv watching I do is usually Hulu, streaming Netflix, and dvds. I am not interested in Blu-Ray capabilities, as I see the format becoming obsolete sooner rather than later.

Pros:
--2560 x 1440 resolution led lcd.
--can add a tv tuner via usb if I really wanted to.
--a built-in computer and dvd player (convergence!)

Cons:
--may not be able to connect the xbox without some kind of adapter voodoo (although Crossover+Steam is possible).
--there are some issues reported regarding flash playback( = Hulu problems), which may be indicative of other system issues.
--diy repairs and upgrades may be difficult.

I don't really need a bigger display. My wife and I will be sitting > 8ft away, but not by much, and any HD resolution will be better than what I have now.

I'm looking forward to your pros, cons, and even any alternatives you might have.

How do I start using OS X Mail?

Junior687 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:46:45 -0800

How can I start using OS X .Mail App when I'm so in love with Gmail on the web? I recently purchased a Mac and I'm really interested in using OS X's Mail program. The only problem is Gmail is my bread and butter. It has a lot of different features and I love the labeling system. Is there a way to integrate labels, IMAP, and some other Gmail features with Mail? Will it hurt my current setup on the iPhone? What are the pros and cons? Thanks!

e-mailing multiple addresses within one Entourage Contact.

jmd82 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:43:21 -0800

Using Entourage to send to multiple e-mail addresses with one Contact. Staff members are using Entourage for e-mailing groups. These groups often contain people with multiple e-mail addresses, and for various reasons, all these e-mail addresses must be contacted. So Jon Doe will have a home and work e-mail. However, when sending to a Contact with a Group (or even individually), it will only send to their default address instead of all listed, like Outlook would.

So my question is: Is there a way to send to all e-mail addresses within one contact by default? Some users have hundreds of contacts, each with multiple e-mail addresses listed, in their distribution groups, and we'd rather avoid having to go back and modify all their groups.

Hard drive back from the dead. Should I trust it?

KirkJobSluder — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:42:14 -0800

A week ago as part of a Snow Leopard install, I wanted to wipe and resize my boot camp partition. Disk Utility wasn't able to fix the file system, and recommended a reinstall from backup. A restore from backup later, and Disk Utility was still showing problems. Shortly after that, the disk stopped showing up in Disk Utility at all. Fast forward a week, I'm running off of a firewire spare, and the disk reappears again. I repartition the hard drive, double-check with Disk Utility and a SMART utility, and the thing seems to test clean and empty. So what do I do from here? The other bit of data is that I started a restore, and at 5%, it seemed like it wanted an extra hour to do it. Perhaps I'm a bit stubborn, but are there other diagnostics I can run that might point to the nature of the problem? Or should I resign myself dismantling my iMac and just replacing it?

Backing up a messed up older Mac?

southvie — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:59:51 -0800

Best method/software for efficient, non-annoying backup for a slightly older Mac (G4 running 10.3.9)? Trying to back up a ton of Pro Tools sessions and other audio junk from an older G4 running OS X 10.3.9 onto a newish LaCie external drive. From several years of misuse, mismanagement and abuse, there are a lot of duplicate and corrupt files. Simply dragging and dropping the folders in Finder is getting annoying, because every time it encounters a corrupt or wonky file I have to start over and be super-diligent to ensure every single possible file is copied. Trying to get about 200G copied this way is becoming annoying and wasting lots of time.

Is there a better method or application I could use (ideally, free or cheap) to let this run for hours and have it automatically skip, check or even fix any messed up files -- and just have it done?

Help me write a script in OSX

Thrillhouse — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:54:00 -0800

How do I create a file-handling script in OSX? I want to create a script that will throw whatever is in my CF card in the trash, empty the recycle bin and then eject the card.
I frequently transfer pictures from my card to my computer and with lightroom 2 they don't automatically erase off the card so I need to do it by hand.
I find that if I trash the files on the card and DON'T empty the recycle bin the data stays held up in the card and eventually have to format it.

Are there any other options? If not, how would I write a script. I tried "recording" a script in Applescript Editor but that didn't work at all.

Thanks!

Adding ADDITIONAL audio to an avi file

Charlie Lesoine — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:23:01 -0800

How do I add an additional audio track to a .avi movie file in OSX? I downloaded a full length movie, it had stereo channel audio, but one of the audio tracks was still missing, possibly the center channel that was lost from a surround sound mix when it was bounced to standard 2 channel audio. I now have the missing audio file and need to add it to the other two. I could just remove one of the existing tracks, or turn the existing two tracks into a mono track and then add the 3rd missing track. It doesn't need to sound amazing...but I don't know what software to use to do this. Any ideas?

I'm trying to win a bet

metacort — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:30:50 -0800

Is Windows 7 an upgraded version of Vista (like Snow Leopard presumably is of Leopard) or completely re-built from the bottom up?

I just want my stupid games to be silent

NoraReed — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:00:55 -0800

OSXFilter: Is there a way to mute individual programs in OS X? Vista allows you to adjust the volume of specific programs in its volume control. I switched to Mac but that's one of the features from Vista that I really miss. (If it matters, I'm using Leopard.) I want to listen to my music, not my games/browser, dang it!

[Mark]down is the new up

natalinha — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:40:17 -0800

What happened to HumaneText.service? I have been searching about Markdown or Textile markup in OS X, and every couple of articles that come up mention this HumaneText.service, which is supposed to be cool and great. The site of the project seems to have been abandoned for at least a couple of months, and there does not seem to be anyone mentioning the service since 2006 or so. I really wanted to try it, but it just seems to have vanished into thin air.

Combining partial bittorrent downloads.

pompomtom — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:54:21 -0800

Can I combine two partial bittorrent downloads? (OSX Leopard, Transmission) I have two part-downloaded files, each obtained with Transmission, on different macs. I'd like to combine. Is there any way to do this that doesn't involve the data going out over my 'net connection to the swarm? It's the end of my billing month, and my data allowance is all gone.

Options for a small & cheap Mac laptop?

attercoppe — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:01:07 -0800

What are my options for a cheap, small Mac laptop? I'm on a tight budget, but would love to get a laptop. I've been looking at netbooks because I love the light weight and small size. However, I may be about to get a job at my school, which basically is an Apple campus, so now I'm considering a Mac instead. I'd still like to find something cheap, small and light, and with some serious battery life. Of course one option is to buy a used or refurbed Mac (maybe an Air?). Could I also buy a netbook and install OS X? Or install some *nix - how compatible (not look and feel but interoperability) would this be?

P.S. I could probably do some research and get some good info, but I thought I'd see what ya'll can tell me first. I've read other questions here, and they seem to be either out of date or about desktops (or both).

How do I rescue files from an internal drive when OS X won't boot?

wheat — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:26:26 -0800

OS X won't boot. Time Machine stopped working at noon. How can I nab some files before I reinstall Leopard? Due, I think, to my son playing with the power strip one too many times, my iMac will not boot. I can boot from the Leopard system disc, and I've run Disk Utility. It repaired problems, but it still won't boot.

I run Time Machine, so I'm willing to restore from that and/or reinstall Leopard. But I got a lot done today and would like to copy some PDFs I crated today. The last Time Machine backup was at noon. But I worked until five. I don't know why Time Machine stopped backing up.

When I use the "burn" option in Disk Utility, I can see the files I created, including the ones that are not in the most recent Time Machine backup. Is there a way to get them? This is my only Mac, so target disk mode isn't an option. What should I try?

Trying to print Word documents with a specific preset from the Finder. Impossible?

bigmusic — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:22:04 -0800

OS X (10.5) Printing difficulties: Trying to print Word documents with a specific preset from the Finder. Impossible? I hate clicking documents open to print and then having to close them. I have to print up about 20 word documents in a folder multiple times every week - those documents should be printed with a 4x4 layout - single sided. (n-up 4 in CUPs speak) - I'm switching from Windows and in windows I had two printers installed (actually the same printer) with different layout options, so all I had to do was make sure the default printer was the one with right layout options. However, on OS X presets seem to be ignored if you print from the finder [Finder |File |Print], it goes with the "Standard" preset no matter how I try it, from the automator, the terminal, applescript. If I open it directly in Word, the correct preset always shows up as the default preset.

Things I've tried:
I've located the PPD file and didn't see an option to set up the N-Up 4x4 as an option anywhere.

I've option clicked the print button with the correct preset.

I've tried switching the printer preset in the terminal.

I've tried using the automator, with the supplied word 2008 actions.

I've looked at the cups documentation, and see that there is an option for using the 4x4, I'm just not sure how I would go about setting that option for a specific printer instance, or how I would print to to that specific printer instance - any clues?

Snow Leopard upgrade

Science! — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:01:05 -0800

Does the $29.99 upgrade version of Apple's OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard come with iLife and iWork 09 like the box set, or will it update older versions of iLife and iWork to the 09 version? I own a macbook running 10.5 and I want to buy the $29.99 update, but I'd really like to also update iLife and iWork. I have the iLife apps that came with my macbook, and I bought iWork 08. Will the upgrade version of Snow Leopard update these apps or do I have to spring for the box set?

A link to an article or store site detailing this would be appreciated.

Lotsa kernel panics on OS 10.6 Snow Leopard w/ MacBook

delladlux — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:54:02 -0800

Why does my MacBook keep kernel panic'ing under 10.6? Log dumps inside! Here's /var/log/system.log:

Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Sending on VNet/vmnet8/192.168.192.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Internet Software Consortium DHCP Server 2.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 The Internet Software Consortium.
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: All rights reserved.
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Please contribute if you find this software useful.
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/dhcp-contrib.html
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook pcscd[56]: Non-smartcard device launched pcscd [Vendor: 0X3F0, Product: 0X6C11]
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Configured subnet: 192.168.43.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Setting vmnet-dhcp IP address: 192.168.43.254
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Opened:
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Recving on VNet/vmnet1/192.168.43.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook com.vmware.launchd.vmware[43]: Sending on VNet/vmnet1/192.168.43.0
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook pcscd[56]: Non-smartcard device launched pcscd [Vendor: 0X3F0, Product: 0X6C11]
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook vmnet-bridge[91]: Starting up.
Sep 21 15:26:03 XXXXXX-MacBook vmnet-bridge[91]: Examining network configuration.
Sep 21 15:26:04: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Sep 21 15:26:04 XXXXXX-MacBook configd[13]: network configuration changed.
Sep 21 15:26:04 XXXXXX-MacBook vmnet-bridge[91]: Intf: en1
Sep 21 15:26:04 XXXXXX-MacBook vmnet-bridge[91]: Turning on bridge for: en1
Sep 21 15:26:08 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.SystemStarter[21]: Starting HP IO Monitor
Sep 21 15:26:08 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.SystemStarter[21]: Starting HP Trap Monitor
Sep 21 15:26:09 XXXXXX-MacBook loginwindow[28]: Login Window Started Security Agent
Sep 21 15:26:09 XXXXXX-MacBook loginwindow[28]: Login Window - Returned from Security Agent
Sep 21 15:26:09 XXXXXX-MacBook loginwindow[28]: USER_PROCESS: 28 console
Sep 21 15:26:09 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[132] (com.apple.ReportCrash): Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self
Sep 21 15:26:11 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[132] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[160]): Exited with exit code: 1
Sep 21 15:26:14 XXXXXX-MacBook WindowServer[59]: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
Sep 21 15:26:14 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.WindowServer[59]: Mon Sep 21 15:26:14 XXXXXX-MacBook.local WindowServer[59] : kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
Sep 21 15:27:12 XXXXXX-MacBook mds[26]: (/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/5A30616A-1C82-4B6D-BF81-EB0086574585)(Warning) IndexStore in setAttributes:Items's transaction id 7 is too low for the current index 8. Discarding oid 0.
Sep 21 15:34:03 XXXXXX-MacBook Safari[233]: CantParseData: errno 0, euid: 501, egid: 20, pathInfo: { Target path: /Users/angela/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist, modTime: 2009-09-21 15:20:50 -0500, size: 145536, st_uid: 501, st_mode: 100644 st_flags: 0x0 acl: none parentInfo: modTime: 2009-09-21 15:20:50 -0500 st_uid: 501, st_mode: 40755 st_flags: 0x0 acl: none}
Sep 21 15:34:27 XXXXXX-MacBook com.apple.WebKit.PluginAgent[236]: Debugger() was called!

Anything else to consider? It's happening 3-4x a day now.

CD manufacturer identification on the Mac?

ignignokt — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:18:38 -0800

Is there a Mac equivalent to CDR Media Code Identifier. This could be run in Parallels, but I'm not sure it'll be able to get what it needs out of the DVD drive. And of course, it'd be nice to not have to run Parallels.

Sleep that's too deep

umbú — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 12:50:00 -0800

Why can't my Macbook Pro wake from a coma? I have a Macbook Pro 2.4 ghz pre-unibody 17” with 4 gb of RAM running Leopard (10.5.2 I think? 10.5.something). I’m having trouble getting my computer to start up from a sleep-like mode, and I’m not sure what has caused the problem, so here are the possible factors:

1. Since I bought the computer a year and a month ago, the graphics card had been malfunctioning intermittently. Sometimes when I would scroll, the screen would stutter, leaving a trail of whatever I was scrolling. Other times, when I played a video, squares of video would flicker, missing.

So I sent it in (I have Applecare, luckily), and 5 days later, they had replaced both the logic board, and some connector for the battery, which I hadn’t asked them to do. Ever since, there have been moments that the computer doesn’t recognize that there is a battery in it, which is odd, because even when the little battery with an x icon was present, the computer didn’t immediately shut down when I unplugged the AC adaptor.

2. A was doing a video editing project recently that took up way more hard disk space than I expected. There was one point when I received the warning “Your startup disk is almost full.” When I got this warning, I immediately shut down, booted up again, and transferred 30 gb to an external hard drive.

3. I started to have trouble waking the computer from sleep, but I could always hard boot by shutting the computer down holding the power key for a few seconds, and then rebooting. I wondered whether something was wrong with the sleepimage, so I turned off safesleep (hibernation) mode through the console using the instructions in this link.

4. That fix worked for a couple of weeks. Then, the other day, I took my computer out of my bag, and to my horror, it had been turned on with the lid closed for what I assume was an hour or two. Either it never went to sleep, even though I closed the lid, or it spontaneously woke up with the lid closed in my bag. The fan was going full throttle, and the screen was still on. I turned the computer off, let it cool down, and then later when I started it up again, it seemed fine.

5. Then, by accident, with safesleep still disabled, I let the battery on the computer completely drain. After that, even though I recharged the battery completely, when I try to boot up, I hear the beginnings of the process (the optical drive engaging, for one) and the sleep light goes on, but the screen never does anything. I’ve tried to use a flashlight on the screen to see if there was any activity, but as far as I can tell, nothing is happening. Target disk mode, safe boot, external hard drive boot, zapping the pram don’t change anything.

6. Another thing that I feel I should mention is the fact that I’ve been using the Freedom freeware program, which I assume affects the network preferences temporarily to block all internet connections while you’re using it. I include this because, based on what I’ve read on-line, a couple possible causes of this problem could be this one—that waking from sleep gets messed up if a certain system program isn’t present—or this one, in which somehow ethernet preferences being messed up causes the problem.

What do those of you who know about these things think? What should I do?

Please recommend PDF indexing software for OS X.

NucleophilicAttack — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:41:35 -0800

Please recommend OS X software which can generate indexes from PDF files. Freeware is best, but shareware is also fine. I have a number of PDFs which are several hundred pages in length, for which I would like to generate indexes. Some wishlist features:

* indexes both rare words, and words from a list.
* can adjust the page numbers it outputs to match the actual numbering on each page of the PDF, rather than the logical page numbers.
* tweakable with respect to what kind of words get indexed, and what kind do not

If only Bescherelle was a program

djgh — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:06:48 -0800

Verb conjugation tester for OSX? Are there any verb conjugation testers for OSX, whereby the question is either "fill in all the blanks to this verb table" or "2nd person plural of verb x" (etc.)?

I've tried repurposing flashcard programs for this, but having to have one card per conjugation (i.e. a card for 1st person singular, card for 2nd person singular etc. of the same verb) is really wearing and not the way I want to be able to do this.

I've got French Verb Games, but it's not doing what I want it to do - the question shows an entire verb table with one blank (allowing me to figure out the answer rather then know it), and the tests include hundreds of verbs I don't know rather than testing me on what I do know.

I would therefore prefer to input the verb tables myself.

I'm more than happy to accept a non-GUI Ruby, Python etc. script for this.

How to centralize adminsitration of multiple Unix machines (and others)?

Imhotep is Invisible — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:45:34 -0800

I'm curious as to what are the current "best practices" when it comes to centralized administration of a network of Unix (primarily Linux, but not necessarily so) machines? Essentially, what is the equivalent of Active Directory for a network with one or more Unix hosts? The immediate answer I come up with would be something like OpenLDAP plus PAM but what I'm looking for is the suite of tools (GUI and CLI apps) for managing the directory, deploying software, centralizing sign-on and security, managing printers, etc. In a perfect world, I would like to centralize administration of Windows, Unix, and OS X machines via a single directory service, though I imagine such a solution would be expensive and/or cumbersome if it even existed. Or is this something Samba 4 will do?

A network between two adjacent buildings

eustacescrubb — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:44:19 -0800

I need advice on the best and least expensive way to have a network between two adjacent buildings. I'm part of a writer's residency, and the organization owns two houses next door to each other. We want to have one network, with one internet connection, between the two houses. One house has the only desktop there will be, and at least one WiFi-capable laptop. The other house has nothing but WiFi-capable laptops. There is a mixture of people running Windows XP and Mac OSX (nothing older than Leopard).

Ideally, I would like to have a blazing fast internet connection, and one router, to which the desktop is connected, and then maybe have some kind of powerful antenna to boost the WiFi signal over to the other house. It would be awesome if I could also get printer sharing, Bonjour (or whatever they're calling it this week) for Windows and Mac set up, file sharing, etc -- basically the ideal would be to have an honest-to-god network set up. I can do all that once I know how to share the network between the two buildings. Our org doesn't have a lot of extra money so I would like to keep the cost as low as possible.

Looking for a leightweight MP3 player that plays nicely with OS X.

darainwa — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:20:26 -0800

Is there a good lightweight, skinnable MP3/AIFF/FLAC/etc. player for the Mac? As someone who finds iTunes to be overkill for my day to day use, I have been using Vox (previously Tool Player) for several years now. Unfortunately, Vox has issues with 10.6, is crashy when switching between formats, and has no real playlist support. I used to use Quintessential Player back in my Windows days and MacAst (previously MacAmp) back in my OS 8-9 days.

I'm looking for something with a feature set similar to these two media players as they did pretty much exactly what I wanted (playlists, no video playback, no library, skinning with alpha transparency, etc.). Ultimately, I'd like to be able to skin it to look like this, but I'd settle for something that's lightweight, with no library but some playlist support.

(Before anyone asks, VLC is out because it doesn't parse MP3 metadata in it's playlist. Cog is pretty close, but is lacking a few key features: repeat a single track and a mini player being the two big ones.)

Safari 4 and Delicious.com together?

xmutex — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:29:10 -0800

Do you use Safari and Delicious.com together, successfully? HOW!? I'm enjoying all aspects of Safari 4 so far, and happy to bid adieu to bloated slow crashy Firefox, but I'm really jonesing for a useful Delicious integration. Delicioussafari.com seems a little (a lot) less than I need. What I need is my bookmark list right there as in the wonderful Firefox Delicious plugin. Any tips?