A list of all the Blog Posts in this category.

How to Scan to Evernote on a Mac

If you do a search around the internet for instructions on scanning documents directly to Evernote on a Macintosh, you'll find that many are out of date. You may think it's no longer possible. Well it still is...and it's very easy to set up.

Here's my simple instructions on how to capture scan images and put them directly into Evernote using Image Capture version 6.7 (OS X El Capitan)

• Open Image Capture
• Click on the "Show Details" button on the bottom right window
• On the pull down menu next to the "Scan To: text, Select "Other..."
• Select the 'Applications' Folder and then find 'Evernote'
• Click 'Open'
• You'll see the EverNote now appears in the pull down menu

Scan file items will appear as individual notes in Evernote. Immediately after the scan, you will have an opportunity to make some notes. This is a good time to comment on why you scan the item.

Evernote recommends to use Color as the "Kind:" and to scan at 72 dpi resolution. (See the example screenshot)

If you have Evernote Premium, the text in the scan items will be searchable. This includes photos. This means if you have a photo with an inspirational quote, you can search for it.

Note: This is backward compatible, which means that if you upgrade to Premium today, anything that you already have in Evernote account will be searchable. Make sure to give Evernote some time to scan and index all your document and photos after you upgrade.

QuickDraw picture

There is a weird display when viewing screen captures in older versions of OS X. For some odd reason, some of the images have alignment issues. Here are a couple of examples with the fix. (More on that later)

The image on the right is what it looks like when I open the original file, the image on the left is the fixed up version.

Click on image for a larger version.

All is Not Lost

The good news is that data isn't lost and you can easily see the screen shot as it was taken, with a little bit of work.

The solution to viewing this file correctly is to open up the file in Mac OX 10.3 "Panther" or earlier. Yes you will need your old computer, you saved it right?

Once you have the file open in Preview, save the file as a JPG or PNG file format. Once the file is in a standard format it can be correctly viewed in non-legacy system.

Any filename that starts with "Pictures" followed by a number and dated earlier than 2000 will most likely encounter this problem.

If you're a long-time Macintosh user, with lots of old Picture files, you can do a file search for images that are using the PICT format in the Finder.

Why is this happening?

It turns out that Apple's original screen capture tool was using Apple QuickDraw.

Wikipedia says, "With the change to OS X and discontinuation of QuickDraw, PICT was dropped in favor of Portable Document Format (PDF) as the native metafile format, though PICT support is retained by many applications as it was so widely supported on Classic Mac OS."

In other words, it is because the screen capture was done with an old version of QuickDraw. Apple no longer supported QuickDraw after 10.3. This was an indirect result of Apple eliminating support for the "Classic environment" with 10.4 Tiger.

Did you know that QuickDraw was part of the core graphic concept of the original Macintosh Plus.

GIF Annimation Resize

Last week I was trying to figure out a way to reduce the size of some animated GIFs that were generated from Google Photos. I wanted to put together a collection of them on my website.

I thought I would share how easily this can be done in Apple's Preview application. Don't use Preview that much? I did hear someone say that Apple Preview is a very powerful app and they were going to write a book about it. I believe they didn't for some other productivity book.

This is useful if you have a GIF that is 850x638 and wants to make it 425x319. This won't do any advanced compression, it will simply resize the image while maintaining the quality.

Simple Steps

• Make a duplicate of the image if you want to keep the original size.
• Double click on the GIF to open the image in Preview,.
• You should see a drawer with the thumbnails on the left.
• Select all the images by doing a Command-A
• Under the Tools menu, select 'Adjust Size...'
• Make a change to the size, make sure that Scale proportionally is selected.
• Save the image. (Technical you don't have to do, since Apple will save it when you quit the application)

Check out the Animation page of a few animated GIFs that I put together of the MBTA commuter rail. Some of them at the Framingham Station and a couple on the train itself.

Old Macintosh TCP Applications

I was going through an old CD this past weekend that I found in a CD spindle that I had on my desk. The CD was labeled on the top with "Zip Drive Archives" with the date range of "December 10, 1996 - August 11, 1998." It's one of my oldest CDs that I have in my collection - the data is 19 years, 1 month and 25 days old.

Zip Drive CD Collection

I archive some of my Zip collection to the CD because back in 1998 it was a novelty to back things up to Zip disks, but after a while, it became a pain to have to find things on various disks. When CD burning became more mainstream, I decided to combine some of my more popular disk to a CD so that I only had to go to one place to get my data.

Looking at the CD got me thinking. What data did I value enough to back up almost 20 years ago? Back then CDs were pretty expensive and it took a long time to back up the data. I can remember that it would take 45 minutes to burn a data CD. This doesn't include the time it takes to organize the data on the disk before burning it.

Getting the Data

My first challenge was reading the disk. So, It turns out that the backside of the disk wasn't exactly clean. I had to use a dry microfiber cloth to clean the disk. My lesson learned: Use proper disk storage to extend the life of optical media.

The data was more accessible on my older PowerMac G4 than my iMac. I am thinking that the older CD drives weren't as sensitive to some of the scratches that were on the disk. Yet another reason to have the older computers available.

I found a few surprises on the disk, but most of the things that I put on the Zip Drive really have very little value to me today. I found some applications, but they were all pre-MacOSX apps and couldn't use today. There were some old sound data files for some old audio apps, I can see if Audacity or Handbreak will be able to convert them.

Classic TCP Applications

One of the things I wanted to do on my website feature some Internet applications. So back in 1998, I created a 'Macintosh TCP' folder and put in all the popular Macintosh Internet Apps. Here're a couple of screen shots that I found of that folder. This is kind of a good time capsule of Macintosh Internet users in 1998.

Do you remember these classic Macintosh TCP Programs:

WabbitDA, Anarchie, Batch FTP, Blue_Skies, Chat 2.1, Comet 3.1.1, Config PPP, Control PPP, CU-SeeMe, Cyber Link, Cyberfinder, Daemon Killer, DropURL68k, Easy Transfer, Eco PPP, Eudora 1.4.3, Fetch 2.1.2, Finger, FTPd, Homer 0.94, httpdMac-v13b.68k, ImageMap2AS, Internet Black Book 2.0, Internet Config, Internet Logger v 1.0.1, InternetMemory, InterNews, MacHTTP, MacSOUP, MacTCP Monitor, MacTCP Switcher, MacWAIS, MacWeather 2.0.4

Here's a screenshot that I took of a page one of my "TCP Programs" folder:

The "second page" had these classic files:

NCSA Mosaic 2.0, NCSA Telnet, NET/Mac, NetFind/Mac, NetPhone, Netscape 2.0b1, NetSnagger, NewsWatcher, Nuntius, PPP, PPPop, PPPremier Timer, PPPReport, RealAudio Player, School Connection, Script Daemon, ServerStat Lite, SMAP, SOCKS, TCP/IP Switcher, TFTPd, TheNews, Traceroute, TurboGopher, Uploader, Web ShortCuts, Webphone.cgi, WWW-Freund (FAT) and YA NewWatcher.

As you can imagine there were a lot of data on the CD, I'll post some other things that I found. It was fun going through the disk and taking a brief step back in time. Just think, Twenty years from now people will be amazed at the various applications that we use to access the internet.

One of the lessons learned during this project that I learn was to use old CD/DVD hardware to read data off the CDs. I copied the files from the disk and then moved them to a USB drive. The plan is to only backup important data, I don't think there is a need to back up old applications that I can't use anymore.

Screen Capture with Retina Display

Did you know that there is a difference when you do a screen capture on a MacBook Pro with Retina display than if you use an Apple Thunderbolt Display? Screen captures on the Retina displays are in Hi_Res and are significantly larger than the exact same capture size on a Thunderbolt display. I accidently discovered this when I notice that some of my screen captures were a lot bigger in size than what I normally capture.

So I did an experiment and decided to use the OS X El Capitan built in screen capture and capture the finder's "About" dialog box on the built-in display and the Thunderbolt display. I then checked out the Info on the two captures and found that the screen capture on the Retina display was significantly higher.

When you do a screen capture with a Retina display the image resolution is 144 pixels versus the 72 pixels when you capture using a non-retina display.

This capture can be a problem when you are sharing the image with others that don't have Retina display as the image will be considerably bigger on their monitors. In addition, the image size is much bigger. In my test, the Thunderbolt display capture was 49 KB, whereas the Retina display was 107 KB.

One solution that I found is to use MonoSnap to do your captures. After you capture an image, there is an option to "Shrink Retina Snaps." This will make the image the "normal" size to share.

Hope this helps someone else that encounters large screen capture issues on Retina displays.

Apple Dock

You can learn a lot about a Macintosh user by checkout what applications they have in the Dock. So here are the applications that I use all the time, my work MacBook Pro looks just about the same.

A little more details about the icons in the doc. Simply click on the row to visit the website of that particular application.

Dock Technical Tips

The dock works much better when you have spacers. That is blank space in the dock, so that you can group similar icons together and the dock doesn't look bloated. Here's and example of a spacer in my dock:

To get spacer in your Doc, simply open up Terminal or iTerm and type the following in:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'; killall Dock

In your Dock you will see an empty space, simply move that to where ever you want. Run the above command to add more dock spacer.

So what's in your Dock?

Outlook in Apple Mail

Apple Mail has a serious flaw with Outlook scheduling. In the example screenshot below I got an email notification of a schedule change. However, there's no way for me to tell what the date of the change is:

Click on image for a larger version.

For this post, I blurred out the names. How am I supposed to know what the new time of the meeting is? I tried clicking on the Calendar icon thinking that it would take me to the day in my Calendar. Nope, doesn't do anything.

At least Microsoft Outlook Mac App displays the information correctly:

Click on image for a larger version.

Remove Drop Shadow from Screenshot

Skitch is a really cool screen capture program that I use as part of my QA toolbox. Screen capture helps put a visual in the bug/feature that I am reporting.

However, every now and then I'll need to use Apple's built in screen capture utility to capture a window. It's really easy to do just type in Command-Shift-4. Move the cursor over the window or menu that I want to capture and then click on the space bar.

A downsides of using this for a screenshot is Apple adds a drop shadow to the image. This can be a problem if you are combining images together. (Plus the image is slightly bigger.)

Fortunately there is a quick hack to remove the screenshot drop shadow.

Open up Terminal Application and Type in:

Hit return, and then type in:

Now you can quit out of Terminal and all the window and menu bar screen shots will not have a drop shadow. If you want to re-enable the drop shadow, simply type in:

Hit return, and then type in:

Skitch and Evernote

If your looking for a productive Macintosh screen capture tool, I highly recommend checking at Skitch by Evernote. This is a free tool that works very well with your existing Evernote account. You don't need Evernote to use Skitch, but they work so well together, why wouldn't you?

About Skitch

Use an existing image or capture a new one, then add shapes, write on it, draw on it, annotate it any way you like, and save it to your Evernote account so that it is available everywhere Evernote is.

About Evernote

Evernote is a notes application designed to help you stay organized that goes far beyond what you'd typically think of as a notebook. You can add text, images, audio, scanned documents, files, and more to your notebook, synchronize everything across all of your devices in Evernote's beautiful, free apps, and then quickly find anything with powerful search that can even recognize text inside your files and images.

Your Screen Capture on Steroids

The key thing to remember is you can "quickly find anything with powerful search." This means that when you use Skitch and save the screenshot in your Evernote account, you can search for text that is in your screen shot.

That's the power of Evernote and Skitch.

Skitch has all the image annotation that you come to expect from a screen capture tool. You can add arrows, Text, Shapes, Highlights, predefine stamps, Pixelate, and crop images. You can easily export the image out of Skitch so that you can add it to a Jira issue.

Click on image for a larger version.

The good thing about Skitch is that it will create a notebook to store all the images, so the screenshots won't clutter up your default Evernote notebook. In addition, you can manage the notebook how you want, so if you don't want the files, simply delete them. You can tag the notes so that you can find them even easier.

I have plenty of space in my Upload Allowance.

Feature Requests

I would like to have the ability to record video as I can do with other applications, such as MonoSnap and Snap Z Pro X. Sometimes it's a lot easier to describe a bug when you see it in action.

Image/Shape Library - This would be a personal library of shapes and images that users could add to the screenshot. Knowing the image was issue happen in Firefox or Chrome could add a lot of value to the screen shot.

AirDrop with iMac Mid 2011

If you have an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) you will be sad to know that you have an older version of Bluetooth. You cant download software to upgrade. The only way to get to Bluetooth 4.0 is to upgrade your hardware - basically get a new iMac. (For those technical reader the LMP Version is 0x4 when it should be 0x6.)

So what are you missing out by not having the latest and greatest version of Bluetooth? You cant use AirDrop functionality between an iMac and an iPhone.

So if your wondering why when you go to the AirDrop section of the Finder on your iMac and you dont see the iPhone, but can see the Phone using other MacBooks, its because your iMac is too old. This is the same reason why you cant see your computer on your iPhone on the screen that says Tap to share with AirDrop.'

The reason Apple with with Bluetooth 4.0 is because it contains high speed technology, a bit about that from the BlueTooth specs:

Bluetooth high speed technology (the Version 3.0 + HS enhancement to the Bluetooth Core Specification) uses a data-substitution method that offers faster throughput via momentary use of a secondary radio that is already present in consumer devices. By enabling the use of new radios without full system integration, Bluetooth high speed technology reduces costs while expanding future build opportunities.

Bluetooth high speed technology is ideal for synchronizing music libraries between devices, downloading photos in bulk, or sending video files from one device to another. Consumers enjoy powerful, wireless connection using the Bluetooth protocols, profiles, security and pairing features theyre already familiar with.- See more at: