Macworld July 2009

Macworld July 2009

DVD Copying Goes to Court--Why You Should Care
- RealNetworks and the MPAA

Newsweek wrote about how the U.S. Military is extensively using the iPod touch.
macworld.com/4831

LaCie offers iamaKey USB flash drives that look like keys.
4GB, $27 ; 8GB, $37.

Anti Mosquito app for iphone/ipod
High frequency sounds generated by Anti Mosquito stop mosquitos flying around you.
macworld.com/4802

CUPS-PDF 2.4.6.1
Free
It's a virtual printer driver that lets you create a "printer" that will save documents as PDF files. Choose it and click on Print to create a CUPS-PDF folder on your desktop. If, like me, you save to PDF more than you print to paper, you can set your virtual printer as the default through the Print & Fax preferences pane; this makes saving documents as PDF files as easy as pressing Command-P and then return.

The biggest drawback to CUPS-PDF is that the PDF files it creates are larger than thse than OS X's built-in Save as PDF feature creates--sometimes twice as big.

iClip Lyrics 1.3.3
Free
For each track that plays, iClip Lyrics shows the lyrics if they exist in iTunes; otherwise, it uses the track and artist names to search LyricWiki.org. If it finds them, iClip Lyrics displays them and adds them to the current track's ID3 tags.


Troubleshoot Like a Genius

Quick Fixes
- Restart
- Repair Your Disk.
- Make Sure Things Are Up-to-Date
- Reinstall (misbehaving software)
- Do a Safe Boot (hold the shift key at startup)

Problems You Usually Solve Yourself
- Root Out Corrupted Preferences Files
- Dump Corrupted Cache Files
- Purge Problematic Plugins
- Rebuild the Program's Database


Mini Media Hub
Turn your mac mini into your entertainment headquarters

WPA is useful in a mixed-platform network, because Windows, OS X, and iPhones can all use the same passphrase.

Gmail Power Tools
- Tasks
- Canned responses. (helpful for removal from mailing lists.)
- Forgotten attachment detector
- Quote Selected Text

Because Tasks is web-based, you can view, add, and edit your to-do list from your iPhone.

Access a Mac When You Don't Know the Password

"The State of American Broadband"