Top 5 Tricks to Make Your PC More Like Your Mac (4/24/2009)

ByMike Moffit

Last week, I wrote about how to make your Mac more like a PC. Now, here’s a Top 5 for the other side: those who want to make their PC more like a Mac! Whether you’re someone who wants the look and feel of a Mac because you’re used to one at home and your evil bosses make you work on a PC at the office (kidding) or simply because it’s fun to mix it up a bit, the following tips should help:

1) Get Firefox (or Safari): Seriously, ditch Internet Explorer if you haven’t already! Both Safari and Firefox are much faster, cleaner, secure browsers for the web. In addition, Safari has the same features you love on the Mac side, and Firefox offers a seemingly infinite number of extensions to customize it (including numerous Safari/OS X skins). It’s a no-brainer!

2) Use Thunderbird: Similarly, using Thunderbird will mimic your Mac experience. There are skins (themes) for it as well that emulate the look of Apple Mail—nice and clean. (We’ll be writing about our favorite Firefox/Thunderbird extentions in a future Kibbles.) Don’t worry about ditching Outlook; Thunderbird can handle all of the same types of email accounts (POP, IMAP, etc.) that it can, so you won’t miss a thing. (Just be sure to have someone guide you through the process if you’re unsure of some of your email settings.)

3) Fix that UI: Face it, the user interface of a Mac looks good. If you’re still using Windows XP, it’s especially apparent that it doesn’t look as great. Try StarDock’s WindowBlinds, a utility designed to make XP or Vista look amazingly Mac-like. It’s a non-permanent option that’s safe for work computers (as long as you have access) because it just gives your PC the smooth, aqua ‘skin’ of OS X.

4) Create PDFs: Miss how easy it is to make a PDF in OS X? Grab PDFCreator. Create a PDF from anything you’d be printing instead—no rebooting necessary!

5) Get Command back: Use SharpKeys! This tool allows you to switch your Alt and Ctrl keys, emulating the Command key on an Apple keyboard.

Have some tips of your own? Let us know. Next week, I’ll feature some feedback from both of these articles!

Image credit: Instructables.com

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  • Share an Internet Connection via Built-in AirPort (3/06/2009)

    It’s sad but true: there are still many conference centers, hotels, and office buildings that lack Wi-Fi. However, many of these do offer hardwired internet access via Ethernet or (egads) a dial-up connection. If you’re solo, this is only a minor inconvenience. However, if you’re traveling or working with other people, a single wired connection can be a major productivity block.

    Fortunately, Mac OS X makes it easy to share a single wired internet connection over a Mac’s built-in AirPort wireless card, to other computers that also have wireless capabilities. Except for the Mac Pro, every Mac released since early 2006 has featured a built-in AirPort card (which is what Apple calls its brand of wireless card).

    This tip works best from a wired Ethernet internet connection, but I’ve read that it will also work with a cellular internet connection, such as those provided by Verizon, Sprint, etc.

    To share an internet connection via a Mac’s Wi-Fi, first connect the Ethernet cable to the Mac that will be serving as the base station.

    Next, navigate to that Mac’s System Preferences panel (found under the Apple in the upper left corner of the screen) and select *Sharing*. When the Sharing panel opens, select *Internet Sharing* (note that you won’t be able to check the Internet Sharing box until other options are configured). Next, make sure *”Share your connection from: Ethernet”* is selected in the drop-down list.

    Since we want to share our Mac’s connection wirelessly, click *AirPort* in the “To Computers using:” box. Finally, click the *AirPort Options* button to give your new network a name and password. When you have everything the way you like it, turn Internet sharing on.

    The Mac serving as base station will still be able to surf the web while others piggyback on its internet connection. Any device with Wi-Fi (including the iPhone and iPod touch) will be able to share this connection.

  • Thank you for your support in 2009! All of us here at Small Dog Electronics realize that ultimately it is you, our loyal customers, that pay our wages and we pledge to continue in 2010 to provide the very best in customer satisfaction.

    We believe in making customers for life and want to hear from you with comments, suggestions, complaints, praise or just a friendly hello!

    Happy New Year from Small Dog Electronics!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
    _Don, Kali and Ed_

  • _Dear Friends,_

    It is going to be a rare blue moon on New Year’s Eve tonight. I heard on Vermont Public Radio on the way into work this morning that happens only once every 19 years. If I can stay up, I’ll probably head down to our neighbors for the traditional Prickly Mountain New Year’s Eve with lots of friends, champaign and dancing. I saw that our pond was shoveled off, so there will also be ice skating tonight (I’m definitely skipping that, though!).

    I’ll be heading west next week for the Consumer Electronics Show where I will be looking for new products and will be helping to man the Chill Pill Audio booth as we exhibit at this huge show for the first time.

    All of us here at Small Dog send our best wishes to you and your family for a healthy, happy and prosperous 2010! I am a half-full kinda guy and am really pumped about heading into a new year. We are expecting snow for the next several days as we really enter the winter season with the turn of the year.

    Enjoy our look back at some of the best articles of 2009 and our look forward!

  • Compress Those Pages File Sizes! (8/10/2009)

    Recently, I created a Pages document that grew to be unusually large in file size due to the images that I was using. The Pages file was roughly 140MB, so even exported to a PDF, it only shrunk to about 50MB–still too big for an email.

    Rather than resize the images that I put in the document itself, there’s an easier way.

    In Pages, select *File > Reduce File Size.* This will resize the images according to how large they actually appear in the document itself.

    *140MB > 1.2MB?* Success!

  • 2010 Prognostications

    Here’s my annual set of predictions for the new year.

    bq.Thank a hen in 2010
    Do it again in 2010
    Have a friend in 2010
    Begin again in 2010

    *Sports*

    I was 0-4 last year as the Cubs and Bears really sucked and the Blackhawks and Celtics did not advance. Maybe I should stick to local sports.

    * MLB Baseball: Yes, I am a fanatical Cubs fan. My mother used to use Wrigley Field as a daycare center and drop my brother and I off for games as we lived near the friendly confines. I have a Cubs tattoo on my shoulder and yes, I will once again predict that with new ownership will come a new found team spirit and finally a World Series Championship.

    * NBA Basketball: The Celtics are banged up right now, but if they can get healthy, I think they are the team to beat! Celtics over the Lakers in 7.

    * NFL Football: The Bears are out of it, so I’m going with the New Orleans Saints for the Superbowl.

    * NHL Hockey: I am going back to my standard–who cares?

    WNBA – I see the Phoenix Mercury led by Diana Taurasi (WNBA Player of the Decade) repeating as WNBA Champs!

    *Weather*

    It will be another warm winter in Vermont with only one day where the temperatures stay below 0° F all day. This year we will have one huge snowfall over 36 inches that will slow things down for a few hours.

    It will, however, be an early spring with early April motorcycling.

    This coming summer in Vermont will be one of the best with little rain after June 15th and warm temperatures cooled by mountain breezes.

    The western states will see a very hot and unusually dry summer.

    *Politics*

    Health Care reform will pass and both the left and right will howl. States will have some freedom to experiment with other more comprehensive health care reform. Vermont will lead the way with a public option and true universal coverage.

    Afghanistan is not going to work. The new policy of increasing troop levels will need revision in the light of an expanded non-geographically limited war.

    Iran will test a nuclear weapon, triggering ineffective sanctions.

    Relations with Cuba will continue to thaw.

    There will be renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians after Israel signs a peace treaty with Syria and halts settlement construction.

    Global Warming will continue to be talked about but no significant action taken. Cap and trade and carbon trading will get embroiled in partisan politics without any meaningful solution.

    Vermont will elect a Democrat as governor.

    *Economy*

    Economic recovery will continue slowly, however, unemployment will significantly lag. More job creation incentives will be created.

    Consumer Electric vehicles will hit the market with higher efficiency hybrids also becoming available, however, gasoline prices will remain below $4/gallon and that will make electric cars a niche market.

    New incentives for renewable energy sources will be the fastest growing job creation sector.

    Unemployment will reach 12% nationally before it starts to decline.

    Chrysler will close its doors.

    *Apple*

    Apple stock will hit $300/share.

    Apple will introduce a “game changing” tablet computer.

    Apple will post record revenues and profits.

    Steve Jobs will retire from Apple, Tim Cook will be named CEO while Steve becomes Chairman of the Board.

    Apple will introduce an iPhone nano, basically adding cell phone functions to the iPod nano.

    Apple will make remarkable gains in overall market-share for computers.

    *Small Dog Electronics*

    Small Dog Electronics will finally open its next store!

    Small Dog Electronics eWaste event will again collect over 150 tons of eWaste.

    Small Dog Electronics will add several products to the Chill Pill Audio and Hammerhead product lines.

    Small Dog will finally be authorized to sell the iPhone.

    *Miscellaneous*

    There will be scientifically confirmed evidence of extra-terrestrial life.

    There will be a bunch of new stunning 3D movies, 3D Television will be the next home entertainment product.

    Cell phones and other portable devices will become mobile payment devices.

  • Top 10 Favorite FREE Mac Apps (5/29/2009)

    As promised, here is my list of favorite FREE applications for Mac. While these are my own personal favorite apps, many of them are also great for new Mac users and recent switchers.

    These are all legitimate applications, and not pirated or black market titles. I use these apps weekly and even daily, and don’t hesitate to recommend them.

    Note that I didn’t include any web-based applications and services in this list, though I was tempted to do so. We’ll cover our favorite web apps in a future Kibbles & Bytes.

    *1* “OnyX”:http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html This is a multifunction maintenance, optimization, and personalization utility for Mac OS X. It’s available for Panther, Tiger, and Leopard. I use it about once a month or so to keep all my Macs running smoothly.

    OnyX allows you to verify your Mac’s Startup Disk and the structure of its System files, run miscellaneous tasks of system maintenance, configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Exposé, Safari, Login window and some of Apple’s own applications, it deletes caches, removes a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome and more.

    “Click here to learn more and download OnyX!”:http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html

    *2* “VLC”:http://www.videolan.org/ VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, more) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

    In other words, VLC will play back many file formats that the QuickTime Player, Windows Media Player, etc can’t handle. Best of all, VLC doesn’t need any external codecs or programs to work.

    “Click here to learn more and download VLC.”:http://www.videolan.org/

    *3* “Bean”:http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html Bean is a small, easy-to-use word processor (or more precisely, a rich text editor), designed to make writing convenient and efficient. Bean is Open Source, fully Cocoa, and is available free of charge! MS Word, OpenOffice, etc. try to be all things to all people, and indeed offer many more writing tools, templates, and output options. But sometimes you simply need to write, and that is Bean’s niche.

    Bean includes many writing essentials including a live word count, a Get Info panel for in-depth statistics, a zoom-slider to easily change the view scale,
    an Inspector panel with lots of sliders, date-stamped backups, auto-saving, page layout mode, an alternate colors option (e.g., white text on blue), selection of text by text style, paragraph style, color, etc, a floating windows option (like Stickies has). find panel allows regular expressions (pattern matching), and all of Cocoa’s good stuff (dictionary, word completion, etc.).

    I combine Bean with “Think”:http://www.freeverse.com/apps/app/?id=7013 for efficient, clutter-free writing.

    “Click here to learn more and download Bean for Mac.”:http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html

    *4* “NetNewsWire”:http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/ This is an easy-to-use RSS and Atom reader for your Mac. It allows you to browse, subscribe, read, and save hundreds of thousands of website feeds. It is a true desktop Mac application, with integration with Spotlight, Address Book, iCal, iPhoto, Growl, Twitterific and more. Best of all, it effortlessly syncs with NetNewsWire’s web-based RSS reader for free, allowing you to manage all your RSS feeds from any Internet-connected computer (Mac or PC).

    “Click here to download NetNewsWire!”:http://www.newsgator.com/

    *5* “HandBrake”:http://handbrake.fr/ HandBrake is an open-source, multithreaded video transcoder, available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. It will convert just about any video file you can play on your Mac into a variety of other, easier to play, more portable video formats. Most people use HandBrake to back up their DVDs, or convert a DVD into a file that can be played back on their iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PS3, etc. Use it as you will. HandBrake has been updated substantially over the past several years since its initial release

    “Click here to learn more and download HandBrake.”:http://handbrake.fr

    *6* “Carbon Copy Cloner 3.”:http://www.bombich.com/software/index.html I admit, since Time Machine debuted with Leopard, I don’t use this app as much as I used to. However, for simple, successful backups, Carbon Copy Cloner can’t be beat. You can also use CCC3 for backing up across network, backup to disk images, and backup of selected files only. CCC 3 features an interface designed to make the cloning and backup procedure very intuitive. In addition to general backup, CCC can also clone one hard drive to another, copying every single block or file to create an exact replica of your source hard drive.

    “Click here to learn more and download Carbon Copy Cloner!”:http://www.bombich.com/software/index.html

    *7* “The Unarchiver”:http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html Forget the other commercial unarchiving apps (like the free version of StuffIt)–the Unarchiver is all you need. Uncompress RAR, 7zip, tar, and bz2 files on your Mac. The developer notes “Many new Mac users will be puzzled the first time they download a RAR file. Do them a favor and download UnRarX for them!”

    “Click here to download the Unarchiver and learn more.”:http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html

    *8* “Google SketchUp”:http://sketchup.google.com/ Google SketchUp is used to create, modify and share 3D models of anything you like. I know a few people who used SketchUp extensively to plan and pre-visualize house renovations. I’ve used it to create a virtual set for planning camera placement. There are dozens of video tutorials, an extensive Help Center and a worldwide user community for SketchUp, making it relatively easy to learn.

    It’s amazing that SketchUp is free! “Download SketchUp by clicking here.”:http://sketchup.google.com/product/gsu.html

    *9* “Tweetie for Mac.”:http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/ Tweetie is my desktop Twitter app of choice. I like that I can easily mange multiple Twitter accounts, view entire tweet “conversations” iChat-style, and compose Tweets in a seperate draft window (with built-in URL compression). The free version is ad-supported, which so far I don’t mind. I mean, it is free after all.

    “Click here to learn more and download Tweetie for Mac.”:http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

    *10* “AppCleaner”:http://www.freemacsoft.net/AppCleaner/ Want to remove some of the apps you’ve downloaded here, or downloaded in the past? Try AppCleaner. It’s a small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps. Installing an application distributes many files throughout your System using space of your Hard Drive unnecessarily. AppCleaner finds all these small files and safely deletes them.

    “Click here to learn more and download AppCleaner for Mac.”:http://www.freemacsoft.net/AppCleaner/

    Honorable Mention: Quicksilver. I know I’d get lynched if I didn’t include this app, which is #1 on many lists of essential Mac software. I simply don’t use it anymore, or ever since I upgraded to Leopard. It’s an awesome app though. “Click here to learn about and download Quicksilver”:http://www.blacktree.com/?quicksilver

    Runners Up: “Audacity”:http://audacity.sourceforge.net, “Adium”:http://adium.im/, “NeoOffice”:http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php, “CyberDuck”:http://cyberduck.ch/s, “Firefox”:http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/firefox.html, “Camino”:http://caminobrowser.org, “Carbon Copy Cloner”:http://www.bombich.com/software/index.html, “xPad”:http://www.getxpad.com, “Windows Media Components for QuickTime, by Flip4Mac”:http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx, “iStat Pro”:http://islayer.com/apps/istatpro, “Think”:http://www.freeverse.com/apps/app, “SuperDuper”:http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html, “Burn “:http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html “Chicken Of The VNC”:http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc, “Skype”:http://www.skype.com, “Anxiety”:http://www.anxietyapp.com/