Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with software and osx

Writer meets arthritis

grumblebee — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:18:40 -0800

Mac voice-recognition software for a writer with arthritis. My father's arthritis is making it more and more difficult for him to type. This is hard for him, because he's been a writer for decades (over 25 books and countless articles). He is considering switching to voice-recognition software.

Here are some things to note:

- He is originally from England but has lived in the US since the 1950s. He is a very clear speaker, but his accent is a mix of British (cockney originally) and American.

- He owns a Mac.

- He is not highly computer literate, but he lives in a university town and could find people to help him set things up if necessary. He probably will have trouble if the voice-recognition software itself is overly complicated to use.

I am looking for any advice and experiences with this. What is the state of the art these days? What's available for the Mac? What is the experience like for people who are heavy users?

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.

Wanted: video editing software for OSX?

acb — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:49:40 -0800

I'm looking for OSX video editing software to use for preparing live music videos for uploading to YouTube. I want to overlay audio tracks from an audio recorder over video footage from a digital camera, cropping either as needed, and exporting the finished video as MPEG4 or H.264. Final Cut seems like overkill (and costs a fair bit), and iMovie doesn't offer the precision to easily align the separate tracks. Can anyone recommend a good, reasonably inexpensive package that will do the job?

Morae for OS X?

needled — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:10:34 -0800

Is there an equivalent to Techsmith's Morae for OS X? I will consider running Morae on a Mac through Parallels or some such as a last resort, but was wondering if there was something similar that was OS X-native.

Just screen capture won't do, I want screen capture + audio recording + keyboard and mouse activity logging.

OS X Speech Transcription

aladfar — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:07:39 -0800

OS X dictation/transcription software: is it worthwhile? I've recorded several hours of audio onto an MP3 voice recorder. I'd like to move the files to my mac, and run them through dictation software. Is this feasible? It seems my only choice in this space is MacSpeech Dictate - it runs $199, and no demo is offered. I'm happy to pay, but only if I can be assured that it runs reasonably well. I don't mind putting some time into training, and will be very happy if it can reduce the overall effort of manual transcription by 50% or so.

Alternatively, I've given some thought to outsourcing the task to Mechanical Turk or an overseas freelancer (a topic discussed previously). But as these audio files constitute a personal journal, I'm wary of sharing them with a third party.

Disable "Inline Search" in Safari 4 Beta for Mac

Leech — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 13:19:19 -0800

Is possible to disable "find in page" on Safari 4 Beta? Hi,

I hate that the "find in page" is activated by just typing anything in the page instead of Cmd+F and then search.

On some pages that requires some keystrokes to do some actions it's annoying.

Do you know if it can be disabled to use only the Cmd+F and search box instead?

(Also I'm worried if it's a plugin I've installed functionality, so please confirm me if you're experiencing the same thing or it's only me)

Can I use a software program for a more up-to-date version of OS X than mine, without upgrading my entire computer?

world b free — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:42:34 -0800

Can I use a software program for a more up-to-date version of OS X than mine, without upgrading my entire computer? Basically I bought a computer game that they made available only for the newest version of OS X. Is there some way I can get it to play without upgrading anything? Maybe some kind of "emulator"? I wouldn't know where to begin looking, so maybe you guys can help.

How secure is Time Machine backups?

Leech — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:07:57 -0800

How secure is Time Machine backups? I'm worried about security of the data stored by Time Machine. I'm worried about security of the data stored by Time Machine.

I have a WD My Passport external HD that I use with Time Machine for my complete backups.
But I'm worried if I lost the external HD or someone stole it.
Is the data accessible? Or it's encrypted in some way?

Is there a way to automatically encrypt it?

Because I travel a lot and I think it probably could be a big problem if it's accessible to anyone that connect it to a mac (because it's formatted to mac).

Thanks.

Best Mac DJ software?

kdern — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:28:35 -0800

Best Mac DJ software? What OSX software do you recommend for a newbie? I'm looking for something that does enough to DJ a dance party, nothing too complicated.

Would like to know about the best free and not-free options.

I've seen these but haven't tried them yet...

Mixx (free)
DJ-1800 ($)
djay ($)
Ultramixer DJ (free and $ versions)

Spend our money by suggesting software!

furtive — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:34:13 -0800

We're a web dev shop with $700 that needs to be spent on software by the end of fiscal. What should we get? We're a small team of three developers, all running OSX with Windows running on Parallels/VMWare for Outlook purposes. We're running Adobe CS3 with a mix of TextMate and BBEdit for the rest. Back end is .net stuff running on ms sql.

What we are looking for are tools that could make us more productive, communicate with each other better, track work or just have fun. $700 max, can't go over.

Help me trick out my kid's Mac

mds35 — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:23:44 -0800

Help me trick out my old Mac for my preschooler. I'm handing my old G4 down to my son who is almost 4 years old. What kind of fun learning software (for Mac OS X 10.4 - PPC) do you recommend?

He's starting to learn to read and he likes trains, dinosaurs and space. I'm looking for educational games that he can enjoy on a rainy day. I'm thinking simple reading/spelling skills, matching games.

The computer is an old G4 "Sawtooth" PowerMac, 450MHz, 768 gigs of RAM, running OS X 10.4.11. It has trouble with Flash, and there is only 32MB of VRAM, so I want to avoid graphics-intensive games.

I'd also like to hear your own experience with setting up computers for kids. And if you have peripheral hardware recommendations as well, please share!

Older Photoshop Upgrades

alan — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:57:44 -0800

Are there any upgrade paths for Photoshop that don't require a version of CS? I have a licensed copy of Photoshop 7, which worked fine for me until I upgraded to Mac OS 10.5 (on an Intel based mac). Now it doesn't run at all.

I'd like to upgrade to Photoshop CS 4. However, all the upgrade paths I've found online require a recent copy of *some* CS version.

Before I call Adobe and ask, are there any legitimate "in-between" upgrade paths? I'm down with paying more than $199, but not down with paying for a full price new version.

I've thought of finding a used copy of and older Photoshop CS, and then using that to upgrade. However, I'd like this done sooner rather than later and finding someone with an old copy seems like a giant dick around. All older versions for purchase online gave off the appearance of sketch. If anyone knows where I can find a legit version of an old CS online that'd be quite helpful too.

Thanks in advance!

(Yes, I know there are compelling Photoshop alternatives these days, but I need the real deal to facilitate working with other people using the Adobe Creative Suite.)

Software for .gpx files on a Mac

jcdill — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:50:32 -0800

Software to process and display (map, etc.) .gpx files on a Mac I don't have a GPS yet, although a friend is sending me her old unit. Today I went on a mountain bike ride with a group, and someone else had a GPS with him and recorded our ride. After the ride, I downloaded the .gpx file from his GPS to my MacBook Pro (OS X 10.5.5). I uploaded the file to a site (mapmyride.com) to map the ride, which was cool. I'd like to map the ride on my Mac, and also map the altitude changes, etc. It would be super to find software that was open source or freeware.

How can I tile windows in OS X

creeront — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:42:11 -0800

How can I easily tile my windows in OS X like I do in MS Windows? I want to easily and quickly tile my windows in OS X (especially word documents so I can read them side by side) like I do in MS Windows. In Windows, I use Winsplit Revolution and right clicking on the taskbar and hitting 'tile vertically'. Is there any way to do this?

Software Update has no permission

silsurf — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:00:57 -0800

G5 PPC Tower never lets me auto update software? I have two computers, a G5 tower and a Macbook.

They are running the same OS X level, except one is Intel and hte other PPC. For as long as I have had these two computers, the PPC never allows any software (other than the Apple Software Updater) to auto update, like when the software does a version check and a dialog box comes up to ask if you want to update. I say yes, it downloads the updates, prompts me to install and restart the software, then I get a dialong box that basically says I do not have permission to execute. The wording is not alwasy exactly the same. Here is a screen shot from the CyberDuck attempt this morning:

Any thoughts appreciated.

Henry

Is there a good folders comparison tool for Mac?

Leech — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:06:43 -0800

I need a good and fast tool to compare two folders side by side, with the ability of exclude .SVN and other useless files. I've found some ones like Compare Folders and DeltaWalker but I haven't tried these yet. Do you recommend them?

Free software to write on PDFs with my tablet?

jk252b — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:55:10 -0800

PDF editing software for Mac to use with my Wacom tablet? I recently bought a Wacom Bamboo tablet thinking it would revolutionize my graduate school research by allowing me to write directly on PDF documents without having to print them out.

Does anyone know of software that exists to allow me to write directly on PDF documents, and save them in their original format.

I know about Skim but that doesn't work to draw directly on the page.

FormulatePro starts to get at what I want, but any documents you write on are saved in the ".formulate". I know I can print to PDF, which is better than nothing, but it's an annoying step that I'd like to avoid if I can.

It seems like PDFpen and PDFclerk do what I want, but I'd prefer NOT to pay $50 after having spent $70 on the tablet.

Does any freeware or really cheap (<20$) software exist to do this?

Picture a Venn diagram with 3 circles: LaTeX, Emacs, Mac. I'd like to live in the intersection.

gleuschk — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:08:47 -0800

Mac users who write LaTeX documents in Emacs (with or without AucTeX), please tell me about your workflow. My wife and I both recently switched (back) to Macs from Windows machines. We're mathematicians, and we both live -- or used to live -- pretty much completely inside an Emacs buffer, writing LaTeX. We've had a terrible time approximating our Windows setups on the new Macs. What Emacs version do you people use? (I've tried Aquamacs and Carbon Emacs.) What PDF previewer? (Skim, Preview, something else?) Most importantly: how is everything tied together, in your .emacs or elsewhere?

Finally, please help me understand what the point of AucTeX is. Both the emacs versions I've tried come with it pre-installed. So far, all I can see is that it adds unnecesary keystrokes when I want to typeset something, and destroys all my useful muscle-memory. Do you use it? Does it make your life better/easier?

Mac server backup software

jmd82 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:36:12 -0800

Getting some Mac servers and looking for suggestions on backup software. I'm completely new to the Mac scene, but we're converting from a Windows to Mac environment which will eventually host 700 or so clients and am getting some Mac OSX servers we'll be using as file & print server, iCal, wiki, etc, initially, but host more applications as this project grows.

The problem is that from what I've gathered, Retrospect is one of the few cheaper enterprise Mac solutions (as in under $2000 per edu license), but apparently hasn't been updated in quite some time and is mainly used for just data backup, not SQL/db/user profiles/system state/etc applications like Backup Exec or True Image.

So, any suggestions for backup software on Mac servers?

(I've also read previous mac backup questions, and they were all more along the line of personal backup data or SOHOs, whereas I'm looking more for disaster recovery capability to restore everything in one click, which again, sounds like Retrospect isn't ideal for).

What Mac software is good for organizing collections of bootleg recordings?

nowonmai — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 08:07:41 -0800

What Mac software is good for organizing large collections of live concert recordings? Something that is cheap or free, and makes it easy to store info.txt files, cover art and additional notes, then search, summarize and export lists. I know there is Windows software that is designed for this kind of thing, but can't find anything for OS X.

Exactly what did I do on September 3 between 3 and 3:15 pm?

Mcable — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:19:05 -0800

I'm looking for software for the Mac that logs open documents (and how long they are open). Does such a thing exist? So it doesn't sound too espionage-y, here's what I need it for... I'm a graphic designer for a small firm and we don't log job times with timesheets. We enter time spent on a job bag that travels with the job through the shop. This doesn't work for me, for a lot of reasons, and it's easier at the end of the month to submit a big list of hours I spent on individual projects. However, at the end of the month there is always a day or two I didn't get down in my logs and I have to recreate missing days from searches.

So...any ideas?

How do I setup a blog within OS X on an EarthLink-hosted domain?

Lucy2Times — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:16:17 -0800

Resources for setting up a blog under OS X on a domain hosted at EarthLink. Does anyone have experience starting a blog on a domain hosted at EarthLink? I think WordPress might be the way to go. I'd like to do this on a Mac running OS X 10.5.4. I'm not looking for heavy database integration or fancy backend scripts of any kind. I'd just like to post text, links, and photos, and some Google AdSense ads. I'd like to be able to tweak the formatting of templates with my own banners, buttons, etc. This doesn't seem like anything major, but I've been unable to find clear tutorials, etc. on how to make this happen. Thank you very much for any assistance you can provide.

Diavlogs for the masses!

ecmendenhall — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:17:45 -0800

What's the best way to record split-screen video dialogues to post on my blog? I have recently grown enamored of the budget punditry of bloggingheads.tv, which features hour long conversations between wonky writers, bloggers, and thinkers that make for a refreshing alternative to TV talking heads. Each "diavlog" is essentially a glorified split-screen video chat session that appears to be recorded over Skype, iChat or similar, and later edited together.

But why should the upper echelons of the Web commentariat get to have all the fun? I'd like to create and circulate similar conversations on my own personal Internet, but I'm not entirely sure how to do so.

Unfortunately, Google only serves to confuse, thanks to the constantly changing terminology for video on blogs (am I looking for video blogging? Vlogging? Vodcasting? Video podcasts? Vlogcasting? Diavlogging? Streaming vlogocastalogs!?). All the results that do turn up don't seem to indicate a simple way to do split-screen interviews.

It seems easy enough to record an iChat session, edit it into a splitscreen video, and post it to a site like YouTube or Vimeo. But there are also loads of services offering simple video recording and hosting, many of which can even broadcast live. It's hard to believe none of them can do a split-screen chat between two users, or that a utility for something like this doesn't exist out there in the depths of the Tubes.

So what's the best way to bring bloggingheads-style punditry to the people? I use mostly macs, and I'm not opposed to doing this with iChat + iMovie or final cut or something, but I hope the hive mind can come up with some other ideas. Thanks!

Wanted: personal dictionary

poorlydrawnplato — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:24:34 -0800

I'm looking for a piece of software, either for my Mac or online: I'm a philosophy major, and there's a huge number of thinkers, schools of thought, and concepts to manage in the area. What I want, ideally, is something that holds terms and definitions and allows me to drag them into categories (i.e. a page for poststructuralist writers.) Tags are better than hierarchies because I want each term to appear in several areas. I'm sure something exists but I don't know what to call it to do a good search. (I already use Evernote for notes and it might roughly work, although I really want something more focused and lightweight.) (I hope this is different enough from this other question, which is pretty far from what I want.)

can front row be bookmarked?

luriete — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:16:35 -0800

Can Front Row be run in a window, or can videos being played in front row be bookmarked? I hate to have to try to skip back to where i was in a movie or tv show after doing something else...