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Filed under: How-to

How-To play .ogg files on the Mac

Over the last week I've been editing various audio files from a voice-over session for a couple casual games. The developers require the final mixes to be in .ogg format for the game, but that is not a native format in Snow Leopard.

I've been searching around for the best solution to get ogg files to play natively in QuickTime and iTunes and I came across the following component which allows me to do so. Not only will it playback ogg files but if you open an audio file in QuickTime 7 (not X) you have the ability to export the files as ogg's as well.

http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/download.html#

The next step will be building an Automator action which will automatically convert audio files to the ogg format. Give me a couple more days for that one.

Auto-enable Safari's "Reopen Last Session"

One of the main reasons I used Firefox over Safari was the ability for FF to remember my tabs and windows once I quit the application. Since the release of Safari 4 however, I am finding it to be much smoother and faster than FF and have moved to it exclusively. The problem still remains that users are not able to have the browser launch directly into the previous sessions so I decided to stop complaining and write an AppleScript to solve the problem. The first thing you need to do is "Enable access for assistive devices" which is located in the System Preferences under Universal Access. Then just run this application anytime you want Safari to open your last sessions (prior to quitting the application). If you would prefer to create the script yourself simply open Script Editor and enter the following text: 
tell application "Safari"

activate

end tell

tell application "System Events"

 tell process "Safari"

 tell menu bar 1

 tell menu bar item "History"

 tell menu "History"

 click menu item "Reopen All Windows from Last Session"

 end tell

 end tell

 end tell

 end tell

end tell
Then save the script as an application and your good to go. If you want to change the icon so it looks like Safari simply "Get Info" for the application and drag the Safari (or any other) image to the icon preview  (top left) in the inspector window.

How-To: Add Meta Data to JPEG’s with Automator

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Recently I started working my way through Automator and AppleScript in an attempt at mastering my computer.  Since starting I’ve realized that it will take quite a while to get to where Sal Soghoian is but I think it’ll be worth the ride.  Through this process I plan to post some of the more popular examples and my own personal scripts and exercises.

This first example is an Automator workflow that makes it easy to add meta data to a handful of JPEG files at a time.

  1. Download the Automator script (Edit JPEG Meta Data.zip)
  2. Unzip the file
  3. Select one or multiple JPEGs
  4. Drag the selected files to the newly downloaded Automator app

     

    Media_httpwwwjustinwahkancomwpcontentuploads200903autodragjpg_vrejewlazgdhfft
    • A Finder window will open showing the selected JPEGs so you can see which JPEG you are adding meta data to
    • Another Dialogue window will open where you can add the meta tags
      Media_httpwwwjustinwahkancomwpcontentuploads200903picture2png_hskdkwnnwauvccg
  5. Add the meta data you wish into the dialogue window (Note: The data you add will be searchable through Spotlight so feel free to add various keywords)
  6. Once you have added the appropriate tags click Continue
  7. In the Finder window the next file will be selected which you can now add meta data for
  8. If you selected more JPEGs than you have the patience to tag just hit cancel and select a smaller group and start again
  9. To check that your tags have been added select a JPEG and click “Get Info” or ‘cmd + i”

This tutorial was features in the Macbreak Dev podcast.  This is the first of many scripts I hope to learn and share.  Enjoy.

iTunes 8: How-to disable genre column with browser view.

With the release of iTunes 8 various features have been updated, introduced and unfortunately removed.  The ability to toggle the genre column on and off in list view with the browser open is indeed one of them.  I came across this solution on Macosxhints.com. It will give you the ability to remove the genre column and regain your artist/album space. In the terminal type: 
defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-genre-when-browsing -bool FALSE
If you so choose to reverse this action you can do so by typing the same text into the terminal but change the ending from FALSE to TRUE.

Wordpress 2.6 'Add Media' buttons not working.

Since upgrading to Wordpress 2.6 I noticed the Add Media buttons appear to be missing and in fullscreen mode are greyed out. The lack of 'Add an Image' and 'Add Video' buttons make it much harder for adding pictures and youtube videos to your blog posts and pages. A quick fix for this is to install the following Wordpress plugin TinyMCE Advanced by Andrew Ozz. This plugin will give you easy image adding and many other customizable features. "This plugin adds 15 plugins to TinyMCE: Advanced hr, Advanced Image, Advanced Link, Context Menu, Emotions (Smilies), Date and Time, IESpell, Layer, Nonbreaking, Print, Search and Replace, Style, Table, Visual Characters and XHTML Extras."

QuickTime 7.5 audio fix

Myself and many others had a bit of an issue when updating QuickTime to the latest 7.5 release. The updated version played back many of my avi files with video but no audio. The simple solution is to install this QuickTime component, Perian, which is a free open source solution which adds support for various file formats.

Perian enables QuickTime application support for additional Media Types:

  • AVI, FLV, and MKV file formats
  • MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), MPEG Layer II Audio
  • AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
  • Subtitle support for SSA and SRT

Solution for Hotmail and Leopard 10.5.3 problems.

Since the latest Leopard update many long time Hotmail users including myself have been having problems retrieving our mail.  There seems to be much confusion as to what the actual reason for these problems.  The Leopard update (10.5.3) which coincidentally overlaps with Microsoft's end of June termination of WebDav creates a second issue. I have been using the HTTPMail Plugin by Daniel Parrnell till now, which has worked wonderfully. However, as of the Leopard update this plugin no longer works and because of the situation with Microsoft even if it is patched it won't work for much longer anyways. Now to the good news!   I came across this solution in the Apple forums which seems to be working smoothly for me so far. Its called IzyMail.
IzyMail enables you to access webmail from major providers such as AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, Windows Live, Fastmail or Gmail with any eMail application.
Whether you want to use Gmail, Outlook, Thunderbird, Evolution, iPhone, Palm PDA, Pocket PC, Smartphone or other applications, whether you want to automate eMail processing with rules or use advanced anti-virus or spam protection, IzyMail provides the technology you need.
This service allowed you to forward your Hotmail mail to another email and it can also remove the mail from the server if you prefer.  There is a free option which checks your mail once every hour but you can also subscribe for a premium service which provides more options. Hope this helps. [digg=http://digg.com/software/Solution_for_Hotmail_and_Leopard_10_5_3_problem]   *UPDATE* - http://soundstechnical.com/2008/06/hotmail-now-working-in-leopard-1053-httpmail-152-released/
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