by on September 30, 2009 2 Comments

Use iTunes With Other Devices

If you have a portable media player that isn’t an iPod, you know how frustrating it can be if you own a Mac. Apple has done a great job creating an iTunes, iTunes Music Store ecosystem. This is great if you have an iPod or iPhone but it is really frustrating for the millions of other people who own Blackberrys, PSP, Android and other devices.

Now, new software is availalble from a company called doubleTwist which will let you use your devices on your Mac, in iTunes.

A quick video demonstration of it’s capabilities are below.

The software was developed by Jon Lech Johansen (aka DVD Jon). He is the same guy who cracked the DVD copy protection scheme. If anyone can figure out the interoperability problem, it’s him.

by on September 26, 2009 2 Comments

Attaching Finder Files to Mail with Services

In an earlier post, we introduced you to OSX Services. These application services provide a way for applications to communicate with each other.

One particularly useful way to use Services it to send file attachments through Mail. The typical workflow for attaching a file to an email message is to open Mail.app, create a new draft, open the Finder to the folder with the file you want to attach and drag it to the email draft. With services this is much easier.

I was going to create a video illustrating this but found this instead.

As you can see, it’s simply a matter of selecting the file in the Finder and choosing the Services Send To menu.

If you have other ways to use Services to make computing easier, let us know.

by on September 25, 2009 2 Comments

Mac OSX Services Speed up Common Tasks

Services, a feature introduced in the early days of OSX is unknown to many Mac users. However, learning about Services will take your understanding of OSX to the next level.

Services are a way for applications to communicate with each other. These services allow you to use a set of features from one application while using another. For example, the Mail service in the Finder opens the Mail application so that you can email a file directly from the Finder without opening the Mail application separately. This is a handy way to send file attachments.

In this video from C|Net, OSX Services and the Services Menu are introduced.

by on September 22, 2009 Leave a Comment

Change Default OSX File Associations

The Mac OSX Finder does a good job picking the right application to open for a given file type. What happens when it doesn’t? In this video tutorial, we show you how to change the Finder Application file associations so when you double click a file it opens the proper application.

by on September 22, 2009 Leave a Comment

Sharing to Facebook and Twitter in iTunes

iTunes 9 has added the ability to share recommendations to your Twitter and Facebook social graphs. This is handy if you come across a cool song that you want to tell your friends about.

In this brief video tutorial you are shown a demonstration on how this feature works.

« Older Posts