Simplified deleting in OSX Finder

I finally got around to solving a longstanding irritation I’ve had with Finder. Well, when I say that, what I mean is, I posted the irritation to a forum, and some helpful folks there gave me the inspiration for the solution.

The irritation:

Quite often I copy a bunch of images off my phone on to my laptop. In Finder I open them up and use the quickview (using spacebar) to quickly view and delete items [using the keyboard only]

However, when I delete an item, Finder loses focus. If I press UP or DOWN I start at the top or bottom of the list. Is there a way to delete an item from the list and it to stay at the same place in the list?

Your workflow is completely ruined when every time you delete, Finder loses focus and you have to use the mouse to get back to where you were. The solution? Labels. This is some simple functionality that allows you to set the backgorund color/label of a Finder item. It’s been in the OS for donkey’s years… but I’ve never got in to it. Little need, maybe. After this, I might use it more.

You can see above how to set the label/colour of a finder item and the effect. The trick though is being able to do this via the keyboard only which is not possible out of the box. Step up cute application of the year: Spark. Completely free (unlike your Butler/Quiksilver) it lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to a bunch of activities, including executing Applescript. Nice guide to it is here.

Which rather alludes to how we’ll do this: with some simple Applescript:

property file_color : 2
– replace ‘2′ above with the number for the color you’d like to use:
– 0=none, 1=orange, 2=red, 3=yellow, 4=blue, 5=purple, 6=green, 7=grey

tell application “Finder”
activate
set selected to selection
repeat with n_file in every item in selected
set label index of n_file to file_color
end repeat
end tell

So in Spark, create a new Applescript hotkey, paste in the script and away you go. Open the image in quickview, and if it needs to be flagged for deletion, hit your new hotkey. Then when you’re done, sort by label and you can quickly find all the flagged images and delete in bulk.

Note: you may need to enable labels in the finder view. Hit Apple + J and check against label

Job done.

(Freebie: in researching this I “found” a neat little keyboard shortcut: CTRL + Apple + 4 = rearrange desktop icons!)

New Apple TV sized doorstop

My Apple-powered home continues to grow – to go with the medley of Apple powered computers, screens and wireless kit, I’ve just added an Apple TV. I previously had no interest in them since as I really only use iTunes for music, and still haven’t bought in to the whole downloading and renting TV over the wires.

But when I learned that AirPlay – a feature of iOS 4.2 – would support streaming video over the air, it instantly had new appeal – I have an old TV that has no digital box so is essentially useless but AirPlay in theory meant that I could stream iPlayer from my iPad to the AppleTV and watch it on the TV.

Any H.264 content from the web can be broadcast over Airplay to your HDTV.

I’ve used AirPlay extensively in the house (with three Airport Express…) so figured this was a good solution, and reason enough to invest in an AppleTV. Apple’s marketing confirms this:

If it’s on iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, it’s on Apple TV. Coming Soon.

You can already stream music and video from your computer to Apple TV. With AirPlay, you can stream music and video from your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch too. So if you feel like watching a film you have on one of your devices, you don’t need to rent or buy it again. Just tap to start playing content on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, then tap again to instantly stream whatever you’re watching — or listening to — directly to Apple TV. AirPlay is coming soon to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch near you.

Simple right? Except, it doesn’t work like that. Now that it’s hooked up, the only video that can be streamed to AppleTV from my iPad is from Apple apps, like the Video app. But since the video needs to be synced to the iPad (via iTunes) and then streamed, this is of little value. Embedded videos (e.g., YouTube) can stream their audio to the TV, but that’s of no value. Most pertinently, I can’t watch iPlayer off the iPad on the AppleTV. It’s unclear whether this is something the BBC could fix by creating a dedicated iPlayer App.

So for the first time in a long while, I’m left disappointed by a piece of Apple kit and the promises I’d heard. Maybe things will improve in time, but until then, it’s just going to be an albeit good looking but nevertheless very expensive dust catcher.

Shake to sh… confuse

My iPod was doing a curious thing lately. Every now and then, it’d make a low pitched sound, then skip to the next track. Sometime it would do it in quick succession. I’d try to go back to the previous track, but no dice. Most confusing. I was getting really worried that it was a problem somewhere – iPod screwed, was it a couple of tracks in my library… what was causing it? It was a mystery… until I did what most people never do… read the manual. (Well, more accurately, I fired up ye olde Google.)

And… it’s actually a feature called “Shake to Shuffle” which is OS3.0 is switched on by default.

So if your iPod Touch or iPhone is acting a bit odd, fear not… you can turn it off.

One iTunes/iPod Touch/iPhone app you must use

Despite its failings as a phone, I really did like bits of the iPhone. The interface is amazing. The apps and app store stuff is brilliant. And whilst I love my Archos, as a Mac & iTunes user, getting music on to it and syncing and all that sort of stuff was just a nightmare I could no longer live with. So the obvious choice was to get an iPod Touch. So I have a 2nd gen 32gb iPod Touch and it really is brilliant. OK, so it’s missing the GPS, but other than that, it has all the benefits of the iPhone, minus the crappy phone bit.

And that, in particular, means apps. Yes, there’s been a hoohar over Apple’s policing of what apps it deems to be acceptable, but that does ultimately mean that the apps available to you are top notch. And one of those is the ITunes Remote*. It’s so simple – it connects to your shared iTunes library over wireless, and turns your iPod Touch or iPhone in to a full featured remote for your iTunes library. Which means, if used in conjunction with say Airport Express to distribute music around your house, you can have a really – erm – awesome home media thing. Your computer with iTunes can be anywhere in your house, you can have speakers wherever you are, and all you need is your Touch to adjust what’s playing. It works brilliantly. And – it’s free!

Thumbs up.

* I don’t know how to link to a iTunes app, but if you access the store, look in the free section and it’ll be there.

My iPhone experience

As a fully-fledged Apple fanboi (as the idiots would call me), I was waiting with great anticipation for the iPhone to arrive in my area. In mainland UK, the iPhone is locked to o2, but here in Guernsey, we have three mobile carriers (none of which are o2) so there was a long, long wait for them to arrive here. And when they did, they were by no means official – that is, the two carriers offering them are importing them certain European countries for sale unlocked, and I’m reasonably sure Apple has little to no idea about it. As I was on the waiting list, I was one of the first to get my hands on one.

I’d needed a new phone for ages, as the ghetto orange Sony Ericsson I had been using was both a) a girl’s phone and b) a lesbian one at that. Not to mention totally beaten to hell and displaying typical “old phone” behaviour in randomly turning off when it ballywell felt like it. Not a good look. When the iPhone arrived here, it was a no-brainer to get one. And, as it turns out, I really had disengaged my brain in getting one.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wireless backups: USB drive, Airport extreme and Time Machine

Quick hint: if you’re having trouble getting wireless backups on Time Machine and an Airport Extreme working, then try this – I had the same problem and fixed it for me. Plug the USB drive in to your Mac and using disk utility, veryify and repair the disk not the actual partition. Alternatively, remove all existing partitions from your drive, and then recreate the necessary partitions for your backup scenario. It seems that if you only verify / repair the partitions then the Airport Extreme won’t necessarily mount the drive properly (meaning you can’t use it as an Airdisk, and you can’t use it with Time Machine.)

No guarantee this will work for you and also note: wireless backups create sparsebundles (as opposed to real actual files) so it’s more of a headache to restore from a backup. But wireless backups are far less of a headache than having to periodically plug my Macbook Pro in to the drive, so for me, it’s worth it.

New York

New York, New York. The Big Apple. Don’t think I’ve actually seen any apples, but it’s great being here anyway. Strictly speaking, I’m in Connecticut, staying with my brother in his new house in Stamford, but it seems that anyone within about 3 hours of said massive fruit describes themselves as living in New York.

I just need to get this out the way first: we were robbed. Rugby, that is. I don’t care what any of my South African friends say – we were robbed. (OK, maybe not robbed*.) But nevertheless England were the better side and a far-cry from the side that got drubbed 36-0 by the Springboks earlier in the tournament. Our attacking game was strong and that try could have gone either way. From where I was standing – about 12 foot from a widescreen TV in an Irish pub in Stamford, with at least one pair of beer goggles on and about 50 other English, South African, American and Irish people in a similar state – it was a try. Lewis Moody dropped the trophy for us, though, with that outrageous trip tackle – it was totally unnecessary and 6-3 would have been a much easier position from which to recover. But alas, it was not to be, and fair play to the Springboks for 80 minutes of solid defence. But equal amounts of fair play to Brian Ashton and the whole squad – nobody was expecting England to do so well and I’m pleased they were able to flick some V’s at the unbelievers. We can now look forward to regaining the cup in 4 years time.

Quick question: what the heck is the “biscuit” you get at KFC here?

For anyone reading who hasn’t seem them on Facebook, there are a few photos from, well, me getting drunk:

• Drunk in NY 1
• Drunk in NY 2
• Misc Stuff

I’d love to say that I’ve been making the most of time here, but that would probably be a lie. I mean, I’m getting pretty good at Tony Hawk’s Underground Wasteland, which is probably not time well spent. Since this is my third (maybe fourth?) visit to NY, I think the gloss has worn off a little, and so I’ve only been in to the City once. (It’s a one hour $20 train ride. And even that ended with a hangover.)

The crazy winking gal over there is my brother’s new dog – she’s a rescue dog from the local shelter who arrives later this week. She’s apparently a german shepherd collie mix, though we now suspect there may be a bit of bull terrier in her as well. She’s currently named Rain – so that’s clearly changing – and top of the list at the moment is Iggy.

I’m staying here for a few more days to help dogsit before moving on again. It’ll be good to get “on the road” again.

-MT

P.S. If you’ve never played, check it: Beer Pong – much amusement. (Being reasonable darts players ensured that my brother and I showed those sorry yanks a thing or two!)

* Let’s face it, if we lost we were sure to have been robbed.