Help for mac, video, photo, and etc

Just found out that Jira is free. Almost. You can get 10 user license for $10 which include 1 year support. Awesome.

I just found a really useful, free tool for use in Mac. It’s called Jumpcut. I’ve spent countless seconds (yes seconds but they add up) copying and pasting commands in Terminal windows. As Mac keeps only 1 line in the clip buffer, I end up going through hoops to copy 1 line of command for 1 task and than another line of command for another task. That means lots of switching between windows and scrolling through command history.

With this really neat tool, Jumpcut, all the text lines I copy get saved into 1 central place and become available for quick copy.

No more using TextEdit for collecting lines of text!

Buying a laptop to use the built-in mobile Broadband Modem may sound like a good idea, but in my case it’s not.

One of our sales guy got a laptop with a built-in VerizonWireless Broadband Modem.  We initially didn’t plan on using that service. However when we realized the built-in Broadband chip was there, we signed up for 2 year contract as always do.  He got to use it and liked it well enough.  He didn’t have to hunt for wifi signal on the road.  A few weeks later, he lost his laptop.  We didn’t have a laptop with the built-in Broadband chip so we gave him a laptop without one.  He still wanted the wireless Broadband capability.

When I called VerizonWireless to order the USB Broadband Modem, I was in for a shock.  Because the laptop was not sold by VerizonWireless, it didn’t have any insurance.  So I was going to have to purchase a USB Broadband Modem at retail price.  To cancel the service contract that we couldn’t use anymore, I’d have to pay the usual penalty.  So here I was stuck with a 2 year VerizonWireless contract that I had no way to actually utilize.  I expressed my frustration and the rep offered to let us purchase a USB modem at 1 Year contract.  Still not cheap but better than paying the full retail price.

I think getting 2 or even 1 year Data service contract for a Broadband Modem built-in a laptop is a bad idea.  The kind of insurance/low-cost-replacement that used to work with cell phones doesn’t apply when it comes to laptops with built-in mobile Broadband Modem.  It’s far better to purchase USB or even the Intelligent Mobile Hotspot option (MiFi).  You can get the device insured by the cell service provider.  You can share it easily with someone else when they are on the road.  I really like MiFi option as you can leave the MiFi modem in your bag.  With MiFi, you can simply take out your laptop and start browing via mobile Broadband, without having to plug in any USB cable or USB device.

• When a directory is requested as URL and no default file is present, Apache generates an HTML page of the contents of the directory. The default layout is fine but not the best looking.
• You can use CSS to format the page and add a few tweaks. It’s pretty simple to do and a good practice.
• You need to have a Linux OS running Apache httpd-2.2.3-22. It doesn’t have to be the exact same version.
• In order to test this concept, add a directory with some files and subdirectories in the document root, which is normally /var/www/html/. So you should have something like /var/www/html/test/. In that directory create or copy in some files and directories.
• If you go to http://your_server/test/ you will see list of the files and directories in /var/www/html/. You can click on them to download them.
• Before editing /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf back it up.
• >cp /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.20090203

• Editing /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
• Search for ‘IndexOptions’ and you should see the following line:
• IndexOptions FancyIndexing VersionSort NameWidth=* HTMLTable
• Edit the line by adding FoldersFirst
• So you should see this now.
• IndexOptions FancyIndexing VersionSort NameWidth=* HTMLTable FoldersFirst
• Add this line below the line you just edited.
• IndexStyleSheet “/css/directory.css”
• That line specifies to use css and what css file to use.
• Save and close the file.

• Now create directory called css and create a file called directory.css. So on Linux file system you should have this: /var/www/html/css/directory.css
• Add following lines into /var/www/html/css/directory.css
• body {background-color:#E6E6FA;color:black;}

• /etc/init.d/httpd restart
• Now refresh the web browser that’s pointed at http://your_server/test
• You should notice the difference.

If you decide to code html or something like it on Mac with TextEdit (text editor included in Mac), don’t do it with TextEdit.  Get TextWrangler or some other text editor (some free) to do it.  I wanted to create a simple text file on my Mac but TextEdit only allowed me to save the file in either RTF or some other format but not as a text file  (.txt).  You could force TextEdit to save in .txt format by turning off Rich Text mode  (Shift + Command + T).  But this obviously isn’t a good solution.

So if you want to learn html or do some other task on your Mac that requires editing a real text file (.txt), get TextWrangler or TextMate. I use TextMate which costs about $50. Well worth it. TextWrangler is free.

My blackberry camera started taking pictures that looked very blurry and dark. I thought the camera was going bad. However when I cleaned the camera lens with cotton swab,  it was fixed!  The pictures look pretty good again.  Who knew!

I’ve struggled with managing thousands of digital photos like everyone else.  And no, I’m not a professional photographer but I like taking many photos to get that one I will like.  When I first got my digital camera a few years ago I was happy that I could take as many pictures I wanted without worrying about paying for developing them.  What I didn’t expect was the ‘cost’ of storing/organizing the many digital photos.  I’ve tried different methods to organize them and I basically came to the conclusion that you need to keep the digital photo in a filename that matches the data/time it was taken.  Unfortunately digital cameras themselves so far seem to lack that feature, which means the files need to be renamed after they have been downloaded to the Mac. And you obviously need a software to automatically rename the files.

And that software would be, ExifRenamer.  It’s a Mac software that’s free and really good at what it does.

Some people don’t pay much attention to the time stamp setting in their digital camera.  However if you enjoy taking tons of digital photos but don’t enjoy wasting time trying to organize them, you should set correct time stamp on the digital camera.  Having correct time stamp is the very basic foundation to managing photos easily.

Also, you want to make sure to change the data/time if you are traveling to a different time zone.  Let’s say your family lives on the West Coast of USA and traveled to Hawaii for a family vacation.   During the trip you take photos of your child still sleeping in bed at 7AM.  However the time stamp on the photos will show 10AM, if you didn’t change the time on the digital camera.  When you see the photos years later, you’d think that kid was pretty lazy.  But of course the fact is that the photos were taken at 7AM local time, not 10AM.

While holding down Apple Command Key, hit Spacebar and you will see Spotlight search box open up at top right corner of the screen.  Just start typing   mail   and you will see  Mail.app highlighted.  Hit Enter key and Mail will open.  Many times faster than using mouse to open Mail.  This Apple Command + Spacebar combination works no matter what app or window you may be in.

Now try doing the same for a any file or document you were working on earlier.  Instead of using Recent Items or Finder, simply use Spotlight to open the file.

I used to miss the Start key in Windows.  I could open applications pretty quickly just using the keyboard.  I thought Mac didn’t offer such shortcuts but I was wrong.  You can open Spotlight quickly just with 2 keys and open pretty much any application or file.  In fact the Spotlight is even better than the Start key.  You can open any file because search is done seamlessly.  Brilliant.