Posts tagged How To
I cant format my hard drive that has strange partitions on it help!
Mar 25th
If you have a hard drive of unknown origins there are times when you just can’t format it using the normal methods like an OS’s installer or Windows built in Disk Configuration Utility. NTFS’s good old security tries to do you dirty as well. It can be a real pain in the ass.
But AtA has been through this MANY MANY times and we know of an old school solution to blowing away almost any fussy hard drive.
‘Old School’ you say? How ‘Old School’?
Is Dos 6.22 old enough for you? Fdisk and format are your friends… You didn’t forget about them did you? 6.22 is before NTFS so it doesn’t worry about the security – isn’t that special?
Don’t worry loyal AtA fan we won’t make you go scurrying back to your domicile looking for your old dusty box of floppy disks because we have an image for you right over here…
You can use this with a blank floppy disk to boot into 6.22 and get down and dirty (You do know what a floppy disk is don’t you?).
How do you deal with formating issues? Hit us up in the comments.
_TheFlashBackAdmiN_
How to make a quick transparent image for your website using Photoshop – A quick How-To for beginners
Mar 13th
Hey Kiddies,
Commodore 64 here with a quick how-to for Photoshop. Have you ever downloaded an image you’d like to use on your website but it was sandwiched on top of some ghastly color which totally doesn’t fit with your “flow”? Well here is a quick, no-frills, way to a transparent image that you can set to a background of your choosing.
First we start with simple image of a leaf:
Double click the “Background” and then hit enter when the dialog pops up. You should now have a transparency capable layer which is ready to have it’s fat trimmed, the layer name should change from “Background” to “Layer 0″:
We then take out our trusty magic wand tool and select the white around the leaf by clicking the white part around the leaf. In this cased I’ve used a tolerance of 80 to produce a decent result. You can play around with the tolerance depending on the image you choose to work with to get the selection border where you need it. In this case, our subject image has a dark shadow. Our tolerance of 80 has allowed the selection form to come in closer to the leaf, eliminating most of the shadow from the inside of the selection border as shown in the following image:
Hit delete to produce the following:
At this point you have a choice of filling in your own background color, in Photoshop and saving for web as a jpeg, or you can save for web as a transparent gif and apply matting in the intended target’s background color of your choice. In the following example I want to put the leaf on a blue background on my intended destination for this graphic. I do this buy removing the selection I already have by clicking anywhere in the work window with a marquee tool, or pressing ctrl-D for “deselect.” I then go to File menu, Save For Web and save with the following options:
Hit the save button, name your file and give it a home. That’s It. Now this isn’t the most professional or precise way of doing this, but if you need a quick easy design flow control with image backgrounds, this is the 5-step, 5-minute move to get you on your way.
Enjoy!
Commodore64 (The one you used to play Bruce Lee on)
Moving Emails from Outlook (Windows) to Entourage (Mac)
Mar 9th
Given:
Microsoft Outlook – created by Microsoft. Platform: Windows.
Microsoft Entourage – created by Microsoft. Platform: OS X.
Requirement:
Move emails from Microsoft Outlook to Microsoft Entourage.
Common sense suggests:
In Windows, launch Microsoft Outlook, export everything to a .pst file. Copy this file to a USB drive or burn it to a disc. Copy it to Mac OS X, launch Entourage in Mac OS X and import the .pst file.
Well, that’s what I thought.
The real solution:
It turns out Microsoft does NOT support email interchange between Outlook and Entourage. I was horrified shocked Not Surprised to learn about this lack of interoperability.
Entourage can only import from it’s own archive format .rge or mbox files (text format files). Unfortunately, Outlook can NOT export to either of the two.
After doing some research and reading about convoluted methods of exporting one folder at a time from Outlook, converting those to mbox format and importing it in Entourage, I stumbled upon this excellent utility.
It’s a Windows application and costs $10. You can download it and pay for it online.
Simply install it on your Windows OS and launch it. It will automatically read your Outlook files and convert them to Mbox format, and PRESERVE the attachments!!
Once the export is over, copy the newly created mbox files and port them to Mac OS X. Launch Entourage and import the files. You will lose Outlook Rules though. Also, the folders will be renamed per ASCII standards i.e. no blank spaces. Blank Spaces will be replaced with underscores.
It’s possible that Entourage may suddenly not recognize mbox files either but don’t worry – there’s a work around. Import the mbox files in iMail. Then, import iMail emails into Entourage.
Another Microsoft horror story? What’s your take.
I want to test some stuff without messing up my machine. Can you help me?
Feb 4th
Fellow MakeUseOf blogger, Mark O’Neil, put us onto a method of running an installer in a “Safe Space” using the Run As command (This uses “The protect my computer and data from unauthorized programs” activity check box).
This is a great method for running programs that might be a little suspicious. That little check box prevents the newly launched app from intermingling with protected system files.
I should remind you before continuing that you should only install software from reputable sources. And just a little FYI: BigFatPornSite32 or AllYourSchoolsTestAnswers is not a reputable source.
But if you just HAVE to install that iffy installer… If you got that itch and just can’t shake it….
Then you got a bad case of the downloads… and when your Admin sense kicks into over-drive it’s usually to late. So
before you Install that Pron Video Bootleg Game legacy application lets think about loading it up in a Virtual Machine.
(Edit: As another good use for this -as seen in the image below you can run a VM with Vista in it on your XP machine – this can be a HUGE admin tool in trouble shooting when you don’t run Vista or another OS.)
What’s a Virtual Machine or VM you ask? Good question!
A VM is another computer or operating system running within your current machine. Did I loose you?
Ok let me try that again. So lets say you are running Windows XP and you have a few Windows 2000 Pro Licenses lying around, from some older defunct machines. You can run that Windows 2000 machine within your XP machine. That’s right with a different virtual registry, hard drive and everything. Load up whatever junk you want and then you can easily revert back to your original image when you are done if you need to…
(When it Turns out BigBlondePorn32.exe wasn’t exactly what you thought it was.)
And best of all Microsoft VM is totally free. All they ask is that you use a legal license for your VM (as it is another machine and all). But if you are like me grabbing a COA from the computer graveyard isn’t a big deal. And look you made good use of something that was collecting dust!
How can I resize windows that are stubborn?
Dec 24th
Adam Pash covered this tiny app on LifeHacker a while back. This Resizeable goodness is ever so cleverly called resizeenable and it lets you resize system windows that you normally could not. You guys always seem to find what I am looking for before I’m looking for it! Thanks LifeHacker…
Some of you may wonder why we are so anal-retentive that we need to do this (is there a hyphen in that – wow now that’s anal)…
Well screen real estate is a commodity (much like sleep these days) that we can never have enough of.
Take your resizing self over to the authors site and grab this app and you will be resizing like a pro in no time. Its 39k and the screen contents scale down or up to what ever size you choose.
PC power users switching to Mac? Mac’s got a toolbox that’s right up your alley!
Dec 24th
HAPPY HOLIDAYS kiddies,
Comodore64 back again to shed some light for any newly ordained Mac users that are carrying over from the M$ world. Since Mac is gaining a kind of strangle hold on the industry, I’m pretty sure there are a lot of guys like myself who have a PC for certain purposes and a Mac for others. In my case, it’s a Powerbook. But not just any Powerbook, this is one of the last Powerbooks made with a PowerPC processor, right before Jobs and Co. made the switch to Intel processors. In retrospect, it was one of my better purchases in life. Worth every penny, and keeps on tickin. Unfortunately, a lot of you didn’t stay on the PowerPC bandwagon, and jumped over (maybe not even by choice) to the new Intel Macs. From what I’ve seen and heard , they are quite the problematic little buggers. But my PowerPC Powerbook has been rock solid since day 1 (gleam.)
Shortly after buying this Powerbook over 2 years ago, I was rummaging around the hard drive for whatever pre-installed goodness I can come across a folder that looks like the image above. This collection of proggies is sure to make any former M$ user feel right at home.
Here is a rundown I’ve found courtesy of http://www.freemacblog.com/exploring-the-utilities-folder-on-your-mac/
Activity Monitor – Activity Monitor let’s you know what is going on with your computer. It can let you know where your memory and CPU is being used most.
Airport Admin Utility – The application will let you configure your Apple Airport products.
Airport Setup Assistant – This app is used when you first set up your Airport product. It’s an easy wizard for setup.
Audio MIDI Setup - You can use Audio MIDI Setup to configure the audio input and output devices you use with your computer, such as microphones and audio playback equipment. If you need this app, you probably already know how to use it.
Bluetooth File Exchange – If you have a cell phone or PDA with bluetooth, this application makes it very easy to send files back and forth. This is a great way to take your photos off of your phone, or to add ringtones to your phone.
Colorsync Utility – This app gives you access to to Apple’s Colorsync specs. In this app you can set different profiles. There is also a nifty calculator that can convert between RGB and CMYK. This is another of those apps that isn’t useful to most people.
Console – Console gives you a “behind the scenes” look at your Mac. While you see all the pretty pictures and graphics of Mac OS X, there is a ton happening in the background. Console lets you watch that. It’s especially helpful to see error or status messages.
Digitalcolor Meter – If you are preparing your work for professional printing and you have an Apple monitor, you can use DigitalColor Meter to match the color on your screen against several industry standards.
Directory Access – Directory Access lists the different kinds of services that Mac OS X can access. The list includes directory services, which give Mac OS X access to user information and other administrative data stored in directory domains. The list also includes kinds of network services that Mac OS X can discover on the network.
You can enable or disable access to each kind of service. If you disable a kind of service in Directory Access, Mac OS X no longer accesses services of the disabled kind. The different services can be found here.
Disk Utility – There is all kinds of power in the Disk Utility. Here you can reformat a disk, check and fix permissions, and so many other things.
Grab – Grab will let you “grab” screenshots of your Mac. Of course, you can already do this with key combinations, but Grab does have one nice feature. You can do a timed grab. Start the timer and ten second later the Mac will grab a screenshot.
Grapher – Grapher lets you create 2D and 3D graphs from equations.
OS 9 came with a graphing calculator. OS X versions before Tiger had no graphing options. But, with Mac OS X Tiger, we now have Grapher.
Installer – You’ve probably used Installer a hundred times and didn’t know it. Whenever you download a new application that comes in a package or a metapackage, Installer makes it possible to install that application.
Keychain Access – Keychain Access gives you access to the keychain. Duh.
Anytime you save a password to a site or a server or anything on the Mac, it is stored in the keychain. If you forget one of those passwords and it isn’t filling in automatically, you can access keychain with this application and find your password.
Migration Assistant – This is simply one of the most amazing applications. If you’ve ever purchased a new Mac and migrated from your old one, this is the app you used. You can also use it to get a use from a different machine.
Netinfo Manager – Netinfo is the built-in Mac OS X directory system. It stores information about users and resources and makes it available to Mac OS X processes that want to use it. This application helps you manage it.
Network Utility – Since I run a fairly large network of Macs this app is great. It makes it easy to ping machines, lookup name server and DNS, do traceroutes, port scans, etc. It also is a quick way to find info on your Network interfaces. (e.g., ethernet, airport, etc)
ODBC Administrtator – This will give you access to database management systems using Open Database Connectivity standards.
Printer Setup Utility – When you get that new printer and hook it to your Mac, this app comes to the rescue. It will lead you along to get the printer working.
System Profiler – If you need information about your Mac, here is the place to come. It will tell you about your RAM and your drives and your processors and anything thing else you’d need.
Terminal – This is the gateway to the true power of Mac OS X. It is a terminal emulator that will let you use the Unix base of Mac OS X.
VoiceOver Utility - Voiceover is a Mac OS X feature that lets you interact with your Mac via voice. It will read the text of websites, email, and documents. It also allows you to control your Mac using audible commands. Voiceover Utility lets you determine how Voiceover will behave.
Well, kiddies I hope this helps you settle into your new Mac a little easier. Some of these Utilities are clutch and definitely make me feel more in control of my MAC.
Til next time,
Commodore64 (The one you used to play Bruce Lee on)
