Casey's Tumblelog

Random findings from around the Internet, with a few original items sprinkled in.

If you'd like, you can read about my journey into buying a Mac.

I can be contacted via e-mail via the username casey at this domain.
Wed Sep 17
My desktop. Just because it’s so prrrrrrrrrrrrrty. Wallpaper is an Aston Martin DBS from here. Menu widget thingees: Dropbox iStat Menus CPU/memory/bandwidth meters Airport Bluetooth Battery iStat Date & Time Spotlight Dock: Finder Firefox Terminal (I’m still a Linux dweeb at heart) Mail (Google Apps for your Doman + IMAP = awesome) iCal iTunes iPhoto VMWare Fusion Quicken (installed in Windows XP in VMWare) Documents Downloads Trash

My desktop. Just because it’s so prrrrrrrrrrrrrty. Wallpaper is an Aston Martin DBS from here.

Menu widget thingees:
  • Dropbox
  • iStat Menus CPU/memory/bandwidth meters
  • Airport
  • Bluetooth
  • Battery
  • iStat Date & Time
  • Spotlight
Dock:
Posted at 9:28pm

Sat Sep 13

smoothwheel - Firefox extension for smoother (Safari-esque) scrolling

Posted at 5:54pm

Fri Sep 12

Tips for new Mac Users

So now that I’ve been a Mac user for about three months, clearly I’m an authority on all things Apple.

Or something.

However, having recently made the switch I thought I’d take the opportunity to enumerate a few of the applications and tips I find most helpful. Note these are what work for me, so your mileage will (not may) vary.

And, for the geeks: Also, some system settings:
  • Appearance: Place the scroll arrows at top and bottom.
  • Desktop & Screen Saver: I like this screen saver and recommend this site for wallpapers
  • Expose and Spaces: set the upper-left screen corner to “All Windows”, upper-right to “Desktop”, lower-left to “Start Screen Saver”, and lower-right to “Sleep Display”
  • Dock: I happen to like keeping the dock quite small, at the bottom, with 50% magnification, with Genie Effect for minimizing. I know some experienced users will gag reading that, but I guess I’m still wowed by the eye candy.
  • Keyboard & Mouse: Set the trackpad to use two fingers to scroll, and two-fingers for secondary (right) click. This may be my favorite recommendation.

Finally, if your TV supports input via DVI or VGA, and you got a MacBook of some variety, get the appropriate adapter, as well as an Apple Remote. You’ll thank yourself. In fact, the remote should arguably be required regardless.

That’s just my recommendations, which may help serve as a starting point if you’re new to the Mac experience. Naturally everyone will have their own opinion about things, so if others have useful input (like Marco, and others, did) I’ll link it here.

Posted at 10:08pm

Fri Aug 29

OS X Tip: Combine PDFs using Preview

Using drag-and-drop and the sidebar, you can easily combine PDFs using Preview. You can also append PDFs with other files (such as images) by dragging them in the sidebar. Very cool, as I would have had to download a special app to do the same thing in Windows.
Posted at 11:07am

Sun Aug 10
The above pictures show one of my favorite differences between OS X and Windows. To back up a smidge, I should note I’m trying to periodically take a look at some of the things that make Apple computers… Apple computers.  Last time, I looked at the lack of a right mouse button, and concluded you don’t really miss a right button when OS X was designed around the idea of not having one. Today, I’d like to discuss modal dialogs.  For those that aren’t terribly geeky, a dialog is a transient window—you could say it’s a pop-up, but they’re more often used for the forces of good than evil, in this context.  A modal dialog is one that forces you to interact with it before you go back to what you were doing. In the example above, I’ve tried to quit the default text editors in OS X and Windows after changing the file I was viewing.  Naturally, both of them ask if I’d like to save my changes before quitting, not quit at all, or discard my changes and quit anyway.  These dialogs are modal because they will not let me continue using the program until I make a selection. Aside from the fact that the OS X options (Don’t Save / Cancel / Save) are intrinsically more intuitive and succinct than the Windows ones (Yes / No / Cancel), the thing that really makes me happy is the location of the dialog. In OS X, the top of a modal dialog is anchored to the bottom of the title bar of the parent window.  That’s a mouthful, but it’s easy to see above—the dialog is right under the title bar of the program, where it’s showing the name of the file I’m editing (in this case, Untitled). In Windows, modal dialogs are Windows.  They are detached from their parent, and can be moved about separately from the parent window.  While this at first seems more flexible, it’s easy for modal dialogs to get lost.  They can get lost on a different part of the screen as their parent, a different screen then their parent altogether, or perhaps by being covered up by another window. Further adding to the ugliness, if one were to click inside the parent while the modal dialog is still open, the reply is an error sound, while the title bar of the modal dialog flashes.  That modal dialog could be completely hidden from view in any of the ways described above, but still, it will flash away until you find it. That’s confusing for novice users, and occasionally either confusing or frustrating for experienced users.  The OS X approach makes much more sense—the integrity of the parent window isn’t compromised, and the dialog is clearly associated with its parent.  Further, clicking outside the dialog doesn’t make an error sound; the whole window will simply patiently wait for you to click inside of it. While it is definitely a little touch, the far superior handling of modal dialogs in OS X is one of the ways that makes you subconsciously confident in your computer.  The less lying and misdirection your computer performs in, the more you trust it to do what you want it to do.  Before too long, you start to feel like (on your Mac anyway), everything “just works”.

The above pictures show one of my favorite differences between OS X and Windows.

To back up a smidge, I should note I’m trying to periodically take a look at some of the things that make Apple computers… Apple computers.  Last time, I looked at the lack of a right mouse button, and concluded you don’t really miss a right button when OS X was designed around the idea of not having one.

Today, I’d like to discuss modal dialogs.  For those that aren’t terribly geeky, a dialog is a transient window—you could say it’s a pop-up, but they’re more often used for the forces of good than evil, in this context.  A modal dialog is one that forces you to interact with it before you go back to what you were doing.

In the example above, I’ve tried to quit the default text editors in OS X and Windows after changing the file I was viewing.  Naturally, both of them ask if I’d like to save my changes before quitting, not quit at all, or discard my changes and quit anyway.  These dialogs are modal because they will not let me continue using the program until I make a selection.

Aside from the fact that the OS X options (Don’t Save / Cancel / Save) are intrinsically more intuitive and succinct than the Windows ones (Yes / No / Cancel), the thing that really makes me happy is the location of the dialog.

In OS X, the top of a modal dialog is anchored to the bottom of the title bar of the parent window.  That’s a mouthful, but it’s easy to see above—the dialog is right under the title bar of the program, where it’s showing the name of the file I’m editing (in this case, Untitled).

In Windows, modal dialogs are Windows.  They are detached from their parent, and can be moved about separately from the parent window.  While this at first seems more flexible, it’s easy for modal dialogs to get lost.  They can get lost on a different part of the screen as their parent, a different screen then their parent altogether, or perhaps by being covered up by another window.

Further adding to the ugliness, if one were to click inside the parent while the modal dialog is still open, the reply is an error sound, while the title bar of the modal dialog flashes.  That modal dialog could be completely hidden from view in any of the ways described above, but still, it will flash away until you find it.

That’s confusing for novice users, and occasionally either confusing or frustrating for experienced users.  The OS X approach makes much more sense—the integrity of the parent window isn’t compromised, and the dialog is clearly associated with its parent.  Further, clicking outside the dialog doesn’t make an error sound; the whole window will simply patiently wait for you to click inside of it.

While it is definitely a little touch, the far superior handling of modal dialogs in OS X is one of the ways that makes you subconsciously confident in your computer.  The less lying and misdirection your computer performs in, the more you trust it to do what you want it to do.  Before too long, you start to feel like (on your Mac anyway), everything “just works”.
Posted at 8:17am

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