As has been already reported in Macworld, Automator actions that talk to iTunes all broke upon the release of iTunes 10.0. This is because each action specifies in a text string in its Info.plist file that it requires iTunes version 4.6 or higher, and alphabetically, '10.0' is smaller than '4.6.' I frequently use 'Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track' (activated in System Preferences » Keyboard » Services). Here is how I got it working again. 'Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track.workflow' is found in /System/Library/Services. Navigate to that location and double-click the workflow file. Don't Panic! We are not going to modify this file; we're just looking for error messages when it's opened in Automator.

Automator complains that the actions 'Import Audio Files' and 'Add Songs to Playlist' could not be loaded because the application iTunes is the wrong version.

Navigate to /System/Library/Automator. WARNING: Do not modify files found under ...

iTunes 10 includes a QuickTime X-like controller available right from the album art!

I was playing around with iTunes 10 today and happened to click on the album art in the Now Playing section (lower left corner) and the album art window popped up full-size like normal. I noticed that there wasn't a title bar and alas, there was a controller, just like the one on QuickTime X videos, that you can use to play/pause, skip, scrub, fast forward, rewind, and change the volume of the track! So now there's one additional way to control your music in addition to the mini player. I'm not sure if this is a Snow-Leopard only thing, but it's very nice.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. Was this available in 9.2.1 on Snow Leopard? I never use the Now Playing drawer in iTunes so I didn't notice if it was or not. I looked on Leopard and it wasn't there in 9.2.1. How about in iTunes 10 on Leopard? I doubt it, since it looks like it uses QuickTime X. ]

In iTunes 10, Apple has removed the filter/search field from the Sync Apps window for an attached device. The text field allowed you to search for a string and filter your list of apps like in Spotlight. It's not really missing; it has just been replaced.

Just like in any iTunes window -- whether browsing the App Store, Music Store, etc. -- the universal Search field in the upper right can now be used to filter/search through your own apps in the Sync Apps list.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described.]

A lot of people find the new iTunes 10 icon unattractive and out of place. This hint goes well together with other hints about restoring what was preferred about iTunes 9.

This simple trick will restore your old iTunes icon (or you can replace it with another of your choice), and will work for any other app as well. Right-click on iTunes.app and select 'Show Package Contents', browse to Contents/Resources and copy the file iTunes.icns to a safe location.

Now take the the old icon and overwrite the new icon with it. You will need to authenticate from an admin account to do this. The old icon can be obtained from an old version of iTunes, if you have access to a non-upgraded machine or a Time Machine backup.

You need to start and stop iTunes a few times before it picks up the new icon, and you might even need to reboot your computer.

A demonstration video can also be found on ...

The iTunes Classic Visualizer is great. For starters, it keeps you interested, and it seems uncannily good at matching the mood of the visuals to the style of music. The new Visualizer style just doesn't make sense to me -- pulsating orbs?

Anyway, the problem with the Classic Visualizer is that it would always force a low resolution on you when using full screen mode.

I'm happy to point out that the Classic Visualizer in iTunes 10 now uses your current display resolution when you go into full screen mode. Now it looks absolutely awesome on a nice 720p/1080p TV set. Unfortunately it still blanks secondary displays in full screen mode.

I know I'm not the only one to have searched for an answer to this, only to be disappointed with the 'Use screen zoom' solution that's been around for years.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described, although I didn't try the external output. Thanks to Tom Karpik for this hint.]

iTunes 10 provides a different layout for the Close, Minimize and Maximize buttons. Instead of being ordered horizontally, in iTunes 10 they're arranged vertically, like a traffic light. Reverting the buttons to a horizontal layout can easily be done. With iTunes not running, open Terminal and enter the following code:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1

To restore the vertical layout, simply use this command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -0

[crarko adds: Thank you very much. iTunes 10 has a lot of good points, like better performance, but some of the UI changes are perplexing.]

Since iTunes does not give you a lot of information via print or export of your apps, I wrote a little shell script to retrieve information from the app files themselves.

The script creates and opens a .csv file. To correctly display the columns, choose 'semicolons' as the column delimiter in your csv viewer (e.g. OpenOffice Calc). You can choose what information to retrieve by commenting/uncommenting them in the Attributes definition at the beginning of the script.

To run the script do the following: [crarko adds: Note that the path to the Mobile Applications folder may be different depending on your previous upgrade path(s), for example mine was located at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Mobile Applications. Just be sure to put the script in the same folder as the app (.ipa) files.]

• Save it as getproperties.sh in your Mobile Applications Folder at ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications.
• Open that folder in Terminal and run ...

Whenever I go to a website that asks for my location I wonder what exactly I am giving out. I found a neat Safari 5 extension from Upper Atmosphere called FindMe. FindMe displays your location in a tool bar. Your location is just a button press away. You can also click on the result to display it on a map.

Interestingly, Mac OS X Location Services are only available if you have a wireless connection enabled. I would've expected Apple to default to your external IP if it couldn't determine your location based on your wireless connection, but it doesn't.

Most people probably already know where they are but this tool is surprisingly useful.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. It asks for permission to find your location just like an iOS app would.]

This hint is an update to this rather old hint which explains how to record HDTV signals from a FireWire capable box. For the most part, everything is the same as in the original guide, however there are a few differences.

First, with the rise of FireWire 800, you should note that cable boxes supplied by your provider will have FireWire 400, so if you only have FW800 cables, you'll need to get a 400-800 cable or adaptor.

Second, Apple's Firewire SDK is rather old, and its contained applications, like VirtualDVHS, are designed for Tiger, and are rather buggy and difficult to use. A better choice is FireRecord, a simple app that does most of the work for you, including detecting which channel to stream from, which can be frustrating to do manually. (63, 0, and 1 are the common channels).

Third, while the file forma ...

Apple made it quite easy and intuitive to quit out of apps in iOS 4; however I have not seen this method mentioned anywhere.

Double tap the Home button to bring up the multitasking applications view, then tap and hold on an app (as if you were arranging your home screen). A small red circle will appear on each app; tap one to close that app. And, of course, you can still swipe through the list to see more.

[crarko adds: I can't test this one on my iPhone 3G. Please confirm that this works.]

There are some obsolete plugins that can give Safari 5 a lot of grief, and there are some reports on the Apple forums of a problematic plugin called FastBrowserSearch. It's apparently not new but I didn't see it posted here so thought I'd submit it. It's not hard to uninstall but it's a little tricky where it's placed. If you open Safari and get the FastBrowserSearch Plugin error, this hint is for you.

Quit Safari the delete this plist file (If you look in this plist, it calls MTWB.osax):
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.MTWB.Product.plist

Next, delete the MTWB.osax file located here:
~/Library/ScriptingAdditions/MTWB.osax

Relaunch Safari and it should be working again.

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one. I didn't have the MTWB.osax installed, as FastBrowserSearch is a third party plugin. If you liked the feature you could ping on the developer ...

I dislike the Windows-like arrows in the lower left corner of alias icons. Ever since Panther came out, I'd been using the technique described in this hint to get rid of them. After updating to 10.5.8 the pesky arrows were back, I had a little trouble locating the tip for 10.5, because it is categorized for 10.3, and updated information for Tiger users is only presented at the end of the comments. This method works for Leopard [crarko adds: and Snow Leopard] as well. Hence, this version summarizes (and slightly elaborates on) the Tiger-specific instructions from the original submission. The procedure, which renames the arrow-image file AliasBadgeIcon.icns so that the System won't find it, affects all users and accounts and requires administrator privileges. Open Terminal and type or copy/paste:

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources

Pre ...

I had moved all my /Applications to /Volumes/apps/Applications, and VMware Fusion 3 would not start.

What VMware Fusion is looking for is to use the shell command "cd" ../Library to look for its files. So I sym linked /Library to /Volumes/apps/Library, and it started right up.

The Terminal command used to do that was:

$ sudo ln -s /Library /Volumes/apps/Library

If you have a separate volume or partition for your applications, use the appropriate name in the command.

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one. In general it's not a good idea to move programs from /Applications elsewhere, especially the Apple installed programs. You can do this by creating symbolic links, but if you miss anything, Software Update may break moved applications. Many third party apps can be placed elsewhere, and if there are problems fixing them may be as simple as using the method of this hint. It may also be neces ...

Services are all the rage in 10.6 now. Since Apple let non-developer users make their own Services in Automator, people (like me) have been suggesting many services.

This hint is how to make a shortened URL using a lesser-known service named qgf.in. You can use other services too, as long as they have an API (usually the syntax is 'http://shortener.name/api?url=http://foo.bar').

Credits to all the people in the MacOSXHints Forums who helped with writing of the Perl script. Download the pre-built perl modules and source code from CPAN here (or here is that same link after being shortened using the Service), unpack it, and put it somewhere in your Home ...

These are not my creation, but I've found the tips in this webpage very useful for mastering iPad (and iPhone) typing. Full credit goes to that site.

There is a list of ten useful tips for making efficient use of the onscreen keyboard(s) in iOS based devices. Some of them are generally known, such as the URL autocomplete and spellchecking completion, but others are less widely publicized, such as the final tip about toggling the alpha and numeric keyboards.

[crarko adds: I tested some of these on my iPhone, and they worked as described. There are some screen captures and a video on the referenced web site which shows how these tips appear. I'm putting this up because keyboard shortcut hints are generally useful things, but I refer you directly to the original site to preserve their copyright.]

The QuoteFix plugin for Mail.app formats your email reply for bottom posting. It puts the original message on top of your reply and sets the cursor between the original message and your signature. Mail's default action in to place the reply text at the top of the message.

QuoteFix can be downloaded from here. Following the description from the developer's site: QuoteFix is a plug-in for Mail.app which fixes some issues with replying to email.

• it removes the signature from the original message
• it removes certain unnecessary empty lines
• it positions the cursor below the original message, instead of above it (in other words, bottom-posting instead of top-posting)
• it can (optionally) prune nested quotes from a specific level and above

QuoteFix should be Snow Leopard (10.6) compatible from revision 25 onwards, and 10.6.1 from revision 27 onwards. From revision 28 onwards, y ...

I've been noticing for weeks now that several of my repeating appointments are showing up at the wrong time on my iPhone's Calendar application, even though the right time shows up in iCal on my desktop. The appointments are showing up on the right day, but many hours earlier, e.g. 4:00 AM.

In iCal on my Mac, I opened one of the events that was showing up incorrectly on my phone. Lo and behold, the 'Time Zone' setting was set to floating, rather than to my local zone (North America Central Time). Apparently this was true of all my repeating events that had been around for a long time, presumably before I upgraded to Leopard or Snow Leopard and iCal included time zone support. Just set the time zone to the appropriate region, make sure to change this for all future events, and all should be well.

[crarko adds: I looked in iCal on my machine and all the time zone information appeared to be correct, so this may, as implied, be the residual result of m ...

I was changing some preferences in iMovie '09 when I noticed there's a cool font in the last tab - Coolvetica.

I was sure I don't have it installed on my system, so I dug in the application itself and there it was, together with some other nice fonts, like Duality or Strenuous, which I might use later for some titling in FCP - that's what those fonts were used for.

Right-or control-click the iMovie icon in Applications folder, and select Show Package Contents. Then go to Contents/Resources/Fonts, and double-click and install those you like.

I searched Hints but only found a story about one font in Aperture. People in the comments there are discussing the legality of extracting fonts from Trial software, but iMovie is on every new Mac.

[crarko adds: If you have iLife '09, I would think your conscien ...

This might already be well-known but I've never spotted it before. If you right-click a Stickies note, there's an option for Capture Selection from Screen. This effectively brings-up the screengrab tool and you can click and drag to not only capture part of the screen, but also automatically insert it into the note. If you use Stickies for research and note-making purposes, like I do, this is a superb and fuss-free way to grab a photograph or diagram from a web page, or even a document you're reading (or a block of text if you can't be bothered to cut and paste).

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. Stickies has been around forever (since System 7.5), and there are many hints about it. This seems to be a new thing added to the program in Snow Leopard; I looked at a 10.5 version and the contextual menus did not have this op ...

In Mac OS X, there's a cool feature that let you search in Google from the contextual menu in a lot of apps (Mail, TextEdit, iCal...) but this features uses Safari instead of your default browser (Firefox in my case). I wanted to be able to do the same with my default browser; read on to see how this was accomplished using OnMyCommand. OnMyCommand is a program that executes shell scripts and AppleScripts. You can build your own Contextual Menu Items or GUI applications with it. If you don't already have OnMyCommand installed be aware that it logs you out as part of the install process, so save everything first.

• Download and install OnMyCommand/OMCEdit.
• Run the OMCEdit application (in /Applications/OMC/).
• Click on 'Download Commands' in the toolbar and then 'Download.'
• Click on 'Command Library' in the toolbar.
• Choose #22 (Search google for) and click on 'Append to ...