Archive for category OSX Apps
NHSMail Now Available In Snow Leopard Mail App
Like many Mac using NHS Staff I was excited then quickly disappointed to discover that the new Exchange 2007 compatibility did not extend as far as allowing me to access my NHSMail email account at home. When trying to configure Mail to connect to the NHS Email service over the Internet the connection would fail during initial setup. This turned out to be due to a compatibility issue with the patch level on the NHS Mail servers and Mail app which interestingly did not affect connections from Macs on N3 ( the NHS Private network )
Thankfully with the release of 10.6.2 this issue has now been resolved and NHSMail is now fully accessible through Mail as well as via your iPhone.
Calaboration – Setup Google Calendars In iCal
Calaboration is a simple application from the Google Code library that allows you to easily setup to link to your Google Calendars. Upon launch you are prompted to login to your Google account ( it supports Google Apps for Domains accounts ) after which you are presented with a list of the calendars associated with the account to select from.
Once selected the calendar will appear in iCal allowing not just easy review of Google calendars but also updates to be made.
iPhoto 09 Now Works from External Drives and Network Shares
Tidbits.com has a report on the 10 new features that appeared in the latest update to iPhoto 09 ( xx ) that Apple neglected to advertise. One of the new additions that is particularly interesting to me and many others with more than one Mac, is the ability to open iPhoto libraries from external drives or network drives. This works for any logged on user not just the person who created the library.
This is a real benefit and means I can now maintain a single library on the network and a backup on a removable drive. Not sure as yet what the performance will be like and it may be that it is not really practical to use a shared network drive for this ( on 100Mb network anyway ). I will have a go and report back on my findings later, meanwhile if you had already spotted this and have tried it out I would be interested to hear how you got on.
Coming Soon Free Copies of Norton AntiVirus For Mac
Coming soon on Ukmac a Free giveaway of Norton AntiVirus for Mac. Check back here soon for more details.
Spotify – Streaming Audio Done Right
Spotify is a new audio streaming service that is unlike most of those that have gone before it. Once you have downloaded the app ( Windows and Mac versions available ) you have a world of music available to listen to with no downloading required. Unlike other streaming services Spotify streams are high quality 160 kb/s Ogg files and begin playing the instant you click on a track with no signs of buffering or delays in startup.
Spotify has signed a number of deals with record labels and distributers who provide the content for the service. Currently the free services is only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain with other countries coming soon.
Maximize Windows in OS X Just Like Windows !
Posted by Scott in Hints And Tips, Microsoft, OSX Apps on March 17, 2009
One of the things that many switchers from Windows to Mac find odd is the way in which OS X manages windows when you click on the Red ( Close ) , Amber ( Minimize ) and Green ( Zoom ) buttons. Red and Amber do what you expect but unlike in Windows where the Maximize button expands the window to fill the screen in OS X the Green Zoom button expands the window Apple style…
A quick fix to make switchers feel more at home is to download Right Zoom from BlazingTools.com. This small utility changes the default behavior of the green button to mimic the Windows way of expanding the current window.
Safari 4 Beta Released for Mac and Windows
The big news of the day ( well the month really ) is todays release of Safari 4. The release is actually a Beta so not currently included in Software Updates and has to be downloaded separately from this link. The download includes an installer package and an uninstaller package ( just in case ). The installer replaces the current Safari install so this isn’t something you can try alongside your working setup and as such some people may shy away for a while until the more adventurous types have given it a run in.
Having said that the initial reported impressions appear to be good, certainly Twitter has been buzzing with conversations throughout the day and as yet the only negative comments seem to be revolving around the decision to move the Tab bar to the top of the window ( ala Googles Chrome ). Some seem to like this whilst others are shouting heresy from the roof tops. Personally I think it is fine and certainly will enable a slighter larger browser window on machines with more restricted pixel counts ( Macbooks for example ).
Forthcoming Fix for Adobe Air Shift-Space Problem
According to DestroyToday the bug in Adobe Air which prevents spaces from appearing if you type Shift-Space will be fixed in the next release, though currently there is no timeframe for this new version.
I will be glad to see this fix as I use DestroyTwitter Twitter client which runs under Adobe Air and I am really fed up of sending Tweets with missing spaces…
Windows 7 Performance Tested on Mac Virtualization Apps
Techbuzzwords.com have an interesting comparison of the performance of Windows 7 running on VMWare Fusion, Parallels and VirtualBox.
If you want to know which product is speediest ( at least at the moment ) this is a useful review. You should bear in mind however that Parallels and VMware have played leapfrog since first releasing their Mac solutions, overtaking each other with each new release ( competition in this case is delivering better products for the community )
How To Geotag Your Photos Ready For iPhoto 09
The recently announced update to iLife includes a number of really desirable new features, not least of which is the iPhoto function called Places. If you missed the KeyNote you can see a demo of Places at http://www.apple.com/ilife but basically it is a very cool way of browsing your photo library using Google Maps. Of course this is dependant on iPhoto knowing where you were when each photo was taken. This won’t be an issue for iPhone users as photos taken on Apples phone are automatically tagged with the location courtesy of the built in GPS receiver. A number of other mobile phones will also do this as well as a small number of consumer digital cameras, however if your camera is not state of the art you are left with the task of manually tagging photos to get the benefit of this new feature. This might not be to hard for the odd photo, but if you are about to embark on a trip and intend to take many hundreds of photos then it could be quite a major undertaking when you return home.
Well there may be an answer for you which if you already have a phone with a built in GPS such as a Blackberry in the shape of two applications, the first being a free GPS Tracker for Blackberry and a small number of Nokia handsets called bbTracker and the second a free OS X application called GPSPhotoLinker.
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