Category — How To

I had the occassion today to need to determine which contacts in my Microsoft Outlook Corporate Address book where new or modified. I found a very easy way to sort the Microsoft Outlook contact list my the date the record was recently modified.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

I feel like I'm tempting the fate of the LazyWeb / Hoosgot gods, but… here goes….

Is anyone familiar with a good Mac OSX client for Amazon S3? I'm using Leopard and trying out Forklift, however, I would prefer some way to treat S3 as a connectable share or server within Finder.

I have found BucketExplorer and JungleDisk, with JungleDisk looking to be more in line with my ideal implementation.

So… what say you, oh Internet brethren??

Popularity: 1% [?]

I like to catalog my pictures in iPhoto by event and location. It's not only helpful as a reference, but it allows me to make cool travel photo maps online at Flickr or in Google Earth. For example, here's my geotag map from Flickr.

Since iPhoto doesn't offer a native interface for adding geotags to pictures (although some use this hack — !not recommended!), here's a quick and easy way to add location information and geotag your pictures in iPhoto, using Google Earth.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

170 Spoons
Originally uploaded by orangejack.

If you're looking for a great new resource for tech tips and tutorials that are easy to understand, I think you should check out the new site by team Orangejack, 170 Spoons.

Not only are you going to learn some really cool things, but you're going to find some new ways of doing things online that's going to make your life easier.

And who doesn't want easier, right?! Right!

Check out 170 Spoons (because you'll be kicking yourself if you don't!)

Popularity: 2% [?]

One of the great new changes in iPhoto 08 (ok, iPhoto 7 if you want to be technical) is the bundling of the iPhoto library as one package file, a la unix. The advantages are numerous, with the largest being that it is now very difficult for users to accidentally delete or corrupt the library file.

The downside to this new file structure, however, is that it also very difficult for users to browse pictures via the Finder - which makes it very hard to attach your photos to Gmail, for example.

Have no fear… here's a quick and easy guide on how to email your iphoto pictures using Gmail.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

Since I didn't know this and it is a fairly popular support topic, I wanted to post a quick and easy method for importing pictures from Mail.app into iPhoto.

How To: Import pictures from Mail.app to iPhoto

1. Open an email with photo attachments in Mail.app
2. Click and hold the "Save" icon in the message header
3. Select "Add to iPhoto to add the attached messages to iPhoto.

Pretty easy, huh? Yeah, I was kicking myself, too.

Popularity: 2% [?]

With the holidays approaching, many people will be wondering how to download their AOL email address book to use in Mac OSX's default Address Book.

Luckily enough, AOL already has a tool that will allow you to download your AOL address book into OSX. To convert your AOL email contacts, all you need is to download the AOL Service Assistant and run the application.

The program will download and sync your AOL contacts into the Mac Address Book. (Ta-da!)

Popularity: 2% [?]

As you probably know, Google's GMail is all the rage (and has been for the past few years). But as the service continues to expand, more and more people are leaving AOL and using the Google Gmail email.

The one drawback — of course — is that all of your AOL email address contacts are stored on your AOL account and need to be downloaded and converted to Gmail.

Have no fear - converting your AOL email address book to Google is pretty easy.
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Popularity: 3% [?]

My Palm Treo phone (a Treo 650) has some decent output for mp3s, so I wanted to convert a song in iTunes to use as a ring tone .

How to convert a song in iTunes to ringtone for Treo:

1. Open iTunes, choose a song you like, and play it. NOTE: [purchased music won't work this way]
2. Watch the time on the top of the window and make note of the start time you want the sound to start and the sound to end….so for example, it you like the part of song 30 seconds into it then that would be your start time and if it ends 20 seconds later then your start time is :30 and your end time is :50
3. With the song still selected, go to File>Get Info
4. This brings up the window with Summary, Info, Options, Lyrics and Artwork, CLICK options.
5. Now just add the start and end times.
6. Close window
7. With the song still selected….go to ADVANCED>Convert Selection to Mp3. It will make a copy of the snippet for you in Mp3 format. Your original song remains untouched.
8. Drag the new Mp3 into the Install on Card window in Missing Sync. And do a sync and BINGO…you have customized ringtones added to your SD card on your Treo!!!

If you want to take this one step further, you can assign a different ringtone per caller using mRing.

Enjoy!

Popularity: 3% [?]

For those of you looking to download music from an iPod to a computer using Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Mac OSX, here's all the tools you'll ever need.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

Simple Thoughts happened upon this little loophole that will allow you to use any upgrade version of Windows Vista to install full copy without needing Windows XP.

This is particularly helpful if you have a computer without Windows and want to install Vista. For the sake of argument, this would make any upgrade version you purchased just as powerful as the full retail edition.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

This is a follow up to my How To: Upgrade Windows XP to Windows Vista for those that are looking to install Windows Vista as a dual-boot with Windows XP.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

A lot of my PC brethren are beginning to take the plunge and upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista. There are a lot of new features in Vista, and it seems well worth the upgrade. But, before you cross that bridge, there are several steps to take to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista. [Read more →]

Popularity: 3% [?]

One the difficulties in switching to a new browser is loosing all the "good" from your old browser - bookmarks, cookies, you name it.

With Camino 1.1 in beta, it's time to review how to switch from Safari to Camino.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

One of my few complaints about OSX's Mail.app is that it can be slow when opening large folders like the trash or when opening Smart Folders.

Well, thanks to a brief comment in a Hawks Wings post from last October, there is now a simple way to speed up Mail.app:

1. Close Mail.app
2. Launch Terminal
3. Type the following:
   

   sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope Index/ vacuum

   (if that's hard to read, there is a space between 3 and tilde and a space between slash and vacuum)

That's it. Fire up Apple's Mail.app and enjoy the new found speed!!!

Or, if you want to take this one step further, download the Mail Vacuum Automator Action and use it as a recurring iCal plugin.

NOTE: Instead of using the default Mail Vacuum action, I've modified it slightly for my purposes, adding the "Quit Application" Automator Action as step one to ensure that Mail.app is closed before the vacuum. I then saved the entire flow as an iCal plugin. Works for me.

Popularity: 3% [?]