Apple System Services

When was the last time you looked at the System Services you have installed?

Some applications provide helper services so that you can interact with applications. You can access the services from any application menu.

Some of the service's functionality will only show up when you have something selected - text, image, file or folder.

There are four main categories for Services:

• Pictures
• Messaging
• Development
• File and Folders
• Searching
• Text
• Internet
• General

Services is a good way to be more productive with applications you use every day.

Check Out the Installed Services

It's worth checking out what services are available on your computer.

You can check out all the computer services available by looking in the System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Services

If there are some Services that look interesting, you can always assign a keyboard shortcut to make it easy to access the shortcut. Items that don't have a checkmark are not enabled. If there are applications that you don't use, you can always disable the Services by unchecking the services. (In my case, I don't use the Bear App, so I'll disable that.)

Service Example - Text to Speech

Did you know that you can easily convert a webpage text to spoken text to play on your iPhone? Yes, there's a built-in service called, "Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track."

There are four good speeches to select from Samantha, Victoria, Alex, Fred. These voices offers you the best realistic speech quality. (Whisper is also a good quality sound.)

For some reason, Chrome doesn't have the reading mode enabled by default, see How To Turn On Secret Reading Mode In Chrome Desktop Browser to get it working.

Sample Task:

1. Open up a webpage ( Example: Tea Doors )
2. Click on the Reader Icon in the Chrome or Firefox location bar (From now on I am assuming that your using Chrome)
3. Select all the Text
4. Select the Chrome menu and Services
5. Then Select "Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track."
6. From the System Voice, pick Samantha, Victoria, Alex or Fred.
7. Give it a good name, "Tea Doors" is a good choice.
8. Keep the "Music" as the option, as that will make sure the clip appears in iTunes.
9. Click Continue
10. iTunes will open.
11. Play your Clip!
12. If you like it, add it to your iPhone.

How Cool is That

Now you can make your own "Books on Tapes" and listen to articles on your commute.

It's also a good way to proofread your blog or important emails.

BBEdit Stye Text

There is a popular online utility called GeSHi - Generic Syntax Highlighter which makes it easy to display Code in the same Syntax format in popular editors. You use this when you want to display code on a website.

If you have BBEdit, you don't need it because there's a built in tool called "Copy as Styled" which will copy the selected text using the BBedit color scheme that you have selected.

Sample Output from BBEdit

    public void setHints(int hints) {
    super.setHints(hints & (~ImageConsumer.COMPLETESCANLINES));
    }

Copy as Styled Text

The other "Copy as" functionality is the "Copy as Styled Text" which copies the selected text as rich text. This is handy when you may want to paste the syntax code in a Microsoft Word document or Evernote note.

Cool trick with OmniGraffle

If you have OmniGraffle you can create a cool info-box using your code:

• Copy your Code in BBEdit as "Copy as Styled Text"
• Paste the content in your Clipboard into OmniGraffle
• Change the Fill to be whatever the background is (If Needed)
• Change the look and feel, and then export the image.

A few simple steps in OmniGraffle and you could make this:

It appears that this is easily done in OmniGraffle. I tried in Apple Page, Microsoft Word, and Affinity Designer and they all require some additional touch ups. For example, you may want to create a box object first and then paste the content from BBEdit.

Macintosh Spring Cleaning

There's an old saying in the de-clutter world, "If you haven't used it in Six Month, throw it away." The same rule should apply to Macintosh Applications. If you haven't use the application in the past six months, you should consider removing it from your computer.

Use Spotlight to Find Applications that Your Really Not Using

Did you know that Apple's Spotlight can tell you when you haven't used an application for a while? Simple use the following search criteria to display icons that your not using anymore:

Just some of the Apps on my computer that I should remove.

Unused Fonts Cleanup

Did you know that having a lot of fonts install on your computer can actually slow down your computer?

Why not just removed unused and one-time use fonts and only have the fonts that you'll actually use. Not only will it help speed up your computer, even ever-so-slightly, you'll have a much better font list to navigate with.

One way to clean up the folder is to removed duplicated fonts. In Apple's Font Book there's a built-in tool that will look for duplicates.

• Open up Font Book
• Type in Command-L
• Go through with Duplicate Font Wizard.

Note: If you type in Command-L and nothing happens, it means you don't have any duplicate fonts. (Lucky You!)

Also in FontBook, you can disable Fonts that you don't need to have. This is a good way to manually manage fonts because you can't disable System Fonts - so there's no way to disable the default system font. You don't risk your computer acting weird.

For this to work you'll need to walk through all your installed fonts and make a judgment call on which ones are important. Don't worry, you can always enable the fonts for later. Unfortunately, you can't create a Smart Group of disabled fonts.

Itunes Cleanup

In iTunes, you can see what songs you're listening to the most. Each time you listen to an entire song, iTunes increments the play count. It's a good way to know what songs you really like, and what songs your not interested in listening to.

If you're not listening to it, why keep it on your computer?

One way to help sort out the non-played music, is to create a smart playlist of zero count plays. Here's an example of one I created:

To Remove the Song, simply right click on the track and then select, "Remove from this Computer"

Got any Tips?

Please share any other tips on cleaning out unused files on your computer in the comments.

iMac 2011

If you have an iMac 2011, this is your final chance to get any repairs done to the computer. Apple has announced that they will be allowing repairs of the 2011 iMac computer through August of this year.

After August 2018, the iMac computer will be considered a vintage system. Apple is doing this extension since they sold a lot of the iMac 2011 computer, as it was available on the market for a long time. Typically they stop supporting a system 5-years after the last sold date.

What this means to iMac 2011 Users

If your encountering an issue with the iMac this is a good time to get it fixed. Some examples:

• Dead pixel on the screen
• Crack screen
• Display hinge issues
• Stuck disk in the DVD drive
• Computer just doesn't seem to work well

This is the time to bring it in to get it fixed.

After August your chances of getting it fixed could be very limited and be more costly.

Why Bother Repairs?

The iMac 2011 is still a good computer. If you plan on still using it when you get a new computer, you should get the fix done now.

In addition, if you plan to give the computer to your son/daughter it would be good doing in fine working order.

Five Reason to Upgrade

As good as the iMac 2011 was there are five strong reasons to upgrade to the latest iMac:

1. The computer has technology inside the box is eight years old. To put it in perspective, Apple iPhone 1.0 was also introduced in the same year. Would you still use the original iPhone today?
2. The computer has older USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 ports. Most devices are USB 3.0 powered. All external Hard Drives and Thumb drives are optimized to work in USB 3.0
3. Newer iMac has better Bluetooth technology support. You can't connect your iPhone to the computer using the existing Bluetooth technology on the iMac 2011.
4. The iMacs today are much faster. They run faster using a faster logic board and now use solid-state memory for storage.
5. Thunderbolt 3 - At 40 Gb/s, it's the fastest port available on a computer today.

Creating Sequential Directories

There’s an easy way to create a number sequence directories. This is useful when your creating directories for days of a month. I did this for a while organizing blog postings.

To create ten directories starting with the number 21:

If you need to create a directory with a leading zero:

To do a directory in this format: MM-DD Simple use this:

Hope this gives people ideas on different ways to create directories.

Pixel Fonts

Designers use pixel fonts when they need a good font that looks good when the text is really small. Usually this for text on photos or for navigation buttons.

There are two-pixel font families that are in just about every Macintosh font library - Mini7 and Tenacity. These aren't there by default, you'll have to download them.

Pixel fonts work best in bitmap programs such as Photoshop, Pixelmator. Turn off any anti-alias.

Mini 7

Mini 7 looks great at 7 points, making it one of the smallest font types available. Mini 7 is only available as an uppercase font style. You can't get any fancy character types too. Sorry names with accents but it won't work with Mini 7.

Despite the limitations, Mini7 is one of the most popular pixel base fonts on the Internet.

Mini 7 is available in Condensed, Condensed-Bold, Extended, Extended-Bold, Tight, Extras and Bold

Tenacity

Tenacity is a more developed font and looks good at 10 or 20 points.

Tenacity also comes with additional styles such as Caps, Condensed, Condensed-Bold, Extended, Extended-Bold, Extras and Bold.

Which is the Better Font?

A few years ago, I did a quick page (before blogs was a thing) on the best caption font. Here's a reprint of my findings.

Using Fonts in Photo Captions

The following are examples of several Macintosh font types being used as captions.

Recomended Fonts

• Alegreya Sans SC
• Geneva
• Tenacity
• Mini 7
• Helvetica
• VT100
• Verdana

I believe that Verdana 10 Point and Tenacity Condensed 10 Point are the best choices for using as caption fonts.

Download a larger high quality compairson: Full Caption Stack (675k)

Which font do you think is the best Pixel based font?

Panoramic Photo Challenge

Taking Panorama photos is a good way to get a landscape view of any environment.

iPhone Camera Panoramic

Apple includes a Pano mode in the camera app, but it takes some skill to hold the camera right. Also, the lighting doesn't mix well.

In my tests, the pictures that I take in Panoramic mode tends to have weird lighting and be very flat. That is, you can't raise the camera up if you want to include a full view of a tree or Building.

Software Stitching

Stitching a bunch of photos post-production is a good way to create a more effective panoramic photo. You can then crop the photo to your needs.

Using the stiching method, I was able to create this cool focus effect. Notice how the picture is focus in a couple areas. You can’t do this in Apple’s Pano.

I have been using Affinity Photo for my stitching, and it has been working well. I recently heard about DoubleTtake and thought it would be interesting to see which app gives you more control.

The Challenge

I took seven pictures of the Back Bay T Station in Boston, Massachusetts. I then ran it through DoubleTake, and Affinity Photo's Panoramic functionality. The only modification that was made was to crop out the excess picture.

Here is the result of the Challenge:

Click on image for a larger version.

DoubleTake

DoubleTake does a fairly good job of setting up the Panoramic shot. You do have to move pictures around to fix the alignment. There are lots of adjustment capabilities within the software. You can move handles to fix to make the photo transitions smooth.

DoubleTake focuses more on getting the largest possible view. In my test, the final crop image was 6718 x 2549.

Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo does a great job of putting the picture together. Basically, I accepted the Panoramic shot, and then crop to opaque. There was no adjustment needed.

Affinity Photo seems to focus more on getting the best picture. In my test, the image was 6187 x 2051.

Granted I have used Affinity Photo for a while, but it was so much easier to use.

Smart Converter

Shedworx's Smart Converter 2 tool is a great way to convert a media file from one format to another. It's a great quick media converter that just works well.

There are two Smart Converter versions, here's the key difference between the free version and the paid version:

In the Smart Converter Pro 2 version:

• Search Meta-Data files
• Automatically adds meta-data for searching
• Subtitle support
• Supports Multiple audio tracks
• Define a different output location (You can avoid iTunes!)
• Disable the ability to add media files to iTunes
• Surround Sound support
• Folder Monitoring (Have Smart Converter run everytime a file is placed in a folder.)

Product Description

Quick and Easy

I like Smart Converter because It can easily convert classic media files - such as Real Media files to MP4. It's a quick way to once again access old media files. (Without Smart Converter I would have to wait for Quicktime to convert old Sorxxx codec videos)

I also use Smart Converter to extract audio from MOV files. Useful when I just want the soundtrack and not have to watch the movie.

Haven't upgrade to the Pro version because I don't have the need for all the features of going pro. If you have a lot of files that need converting, then going pro is the way to go.

My Tips and Tricks

Some video screen capture files done in Snagit will not convert well. Apparently, there's a lot of masking between shots This means that you'll see some strange views in your final output.. (Not Smart Converter problem as Quicktime will have this same issue.) I have found ElMedia Player as a good converter in these cases.

Keep in mind that the final conversation is only as good as the source. Smart Converter can't make a video compress with Sorenson Codec look better in MP4.

Some mp4 files will not convert to audio-only. Haven't figured out why this is the case. ) I use Fission to extract the audio.

If you're not able to find your audio clip in iTunes it's because iTunes thinks it's a movie file.

Supports Converting 177 Media Types!

Here are all the file formats extensions supported by either version of Smart Converter:

avi, mp4, mkv, mts, m2ts, m4v, mp3, m4a, mov, flv, mpa, wmv, wma, wav, 3gp, 3g2, 3gp, 4xm, IFF, ISS, MTV, RoQ, aac, ac3, adts, aea, aiff, alaw, amr, anm, apc, ape, asf, asf_stream, ass, au, avi, avm2, avs, bethsoftvid, bfi, bink, c93, caf, cavsvideo, cdg, crc, daud, dirac, dnxhd, dsicin, dts, dv, dvd, dxa, ea, ea_cdata, eac3, f32be, f32le, f64be, f64le, ffm, film_cpk, filmstrip, flac, flic, flv, framecrc, gif, gsm, gxf, h261, h263, h264, idcin, image2, image2pipe, ingenient, ipmovie, ipod, iv8, lmlm4, m4v, mkv, matroska, mjpeg, mlp, mm, mmf, mov, mov, mp4, m4a, 3gp, 3g2, mj2, mp2, mp3, mp4, mpc, mpc8, mpeg, mpeg1video, mpeg2video, mpegts, mpegtsraw, mpegvideo, mpjpeg, msnwctcp, mulaw, mvi, mxf, mxf_d10, nc, nsv, null, nut, nuv, ogg, oma, psp, psxstr, pva, qcp, r3d, rawvideo, rcv, rl2, rm, rpl, rtp, rtsp, s16be, s16le, s24be, s24le, s32be, s32le, s8, sdp, shn, siff, smk, sol, sox, spdif, svcd, swf, thp, tiertexseq, tmv, truehd, tta, txd, u16be, u16le, u24be, u24le, u32be, u32le, u8, vc1, vc1test, vcd, vmd, voc, vqf, w64, wav, wc3movie, webm, wsaud, wsvqa, wv, xa, yop,

Getting Smart Converter

You can get the free version on the Apple Store or from ShedWorx Website.

ParticleShop

ParticleShop is a unique brush effect tool, it makes the brush come alive and adds all sorts of special effects. Basically, the brush comes alive as you apply it to the image. Based on the color/size and brush you get all sorts of unique special effects.

This is not your standard brush tool. It's a way to paint effect to your photos, such as fire, smoke and bubbles.

I originally purchased ParticleShop as part of the "Create Your 12 App MEGA Mac Bundle" from Bundle Hunt. I saw the description and thought it would be worth trying out. (It was priced at $49.99) I got the 12-App bundle for $19.99.

Description from the 'About ParticleShop' menu

Demo of ParticleShop

Not a great artist, but I added a couple of effects to an image.

Cool Tool

ParticleShop is a cool tool, it comes with 11 brushes in the Core Pack. However, once you start playing around with it you quickly feel that 11 brushes aren't enough and you could do so much more with more brushes. In order to get new ones you have to purchase them on Painter's online store.

The prices for extra packs range from $29 to $79 - you can get the entire collection for $95. I think it's pretty expensive for my budget, but I guess if you're into brush touch up then it would be a reasonable amount of the creative brush effects that you get.

At the End of the Day

I don't think I'll be using ParticleShop too much, it's a cool tool for people that spend a lot of time touching up photos and graphics files. Looks like having a pressure sensitive Wacom tablet would be practical to get the most out of the tool.

ParticleShop is a Photoshop Plug-in and does not work with Affinity Photo. Since I don't use Photoshop Elements 13 that much, I don't think that I'll be using ParticleShop.

Quadro Sync

Quadro Sync is a cool way to control your computer from your Smart Phone. You have the ability to assign specific functions so that when you open up the application your smartphone screen changes to display buttons of tasks to perform.

You can customize the button assignments and button designs. Giving you full control over how Quadro Sync works.

Quadro is an excellent application to help with common tasks that you encounter every day. If you been thinking about getting an external controller pad, consider trying Quadro first.

This is a two-bit application; there's the desktop app that is always listening! and interacting with iOS! and there's an iOS app that has to be running. After a few minutes of inactivity, the iOS app will go to sleep -saving your screen and device power.

If you're just going to charge your phone at your desk, why not put it to great use?

Description from Quadro Website

Here's a description from Quadro.me website:

BBEdit Screen Example

I spent a lot of time in BBEdit for PHP development and text cleanup. I spent some time thinking about what tools would make sense to make a Quadro action:

• Zap Gremlins - Clean up the selected text.
• Paragraph - Create HTML Paragraph from selection
• Backup to Evernote - Quick way to backup my document to Evernote.
• Process Lines Containing - Quick Filter
• Find - Open up the Find/Replace dialog box
• Remove Line Breaks - Clean up the selected text.
• Add Hyperlink - Open the Hyperlink dialog to add a link to the selected text.

Obviously all of these commands can be performed by keyboard shortcuts. Making them as action buttons in Quadro makes it quicker to apply these actions.

For example, I am opting to backup my documents to Evernote more often because the big green button is there to remind me.

Which Devices can You Install Quadro Sync?

If you have any old devices that are just sitting in storage, you may want to dust it off and make it your new Quadro pad.

The Quadro iOS App will work on any devices that can run iOS 8.0 or newer, according to Apple these are the devices that will run on iOS 8:

The iPhone 4S The iPhone 5 The iPhone 5C The iPhone 5S The iPod Touch fifth generation	The iPad 2 The iPad with Retina Display The iPad Air The iPad Mini The iPad Mini with Retina Display

Getting the Application

To get started, visit the Quadro website and download the application.

PhotoBulk

PhotoBulk is a neat little application where you can apply four different tasks to an unlimited set of images.

This past summer, I got the application as part of the The Next Web software package deal. In September, they came out with an update - my purchase wasn't eligible for the free upgrade. However, they will offer a 50% discount on previous purchases, which is very good.

The screen difference between the old view and the new view.

Watermark

There are four different watermarks that you can apply to each image:

• Text - Simple text, (i.e. Copyright Info) with the ability to select different font sizes and color. You can also change the opacity. You can change the angle or location of the text.
• Image - Place any image logo in simi
• Script - Repeat a text watermark on your image.
• Datestamp - Add a timestamp to your image. You have the same capabilities as the text

Resize

This is useful if you want to transform a bunch of images to a similar size. You can change By Width, By Height, Percentage, By Max file size, Free Size.

Optimize

You can reduce the size of images (JPG and PNG) files. The only bad part is that you can’t tell if the compression will cause a serious quality problem with the images.

In my test, it actually did a pretty good job optimizing. I used the mid-point, called ‘opt’ and checked the files and they looked fine, I couldn’t tell any visual difference.

Note: There is no preview functionality in the September update

Rename

Rename a the drop images. This is useful when you want to rename a bunch of common photos. Such as vacation photos.

Performing Action

When you start the action, the tasks will always create a new folder and put the new images in the folder. You don't have to worry about the original file.

Overall View

There are some useful functionality however, I think your better off using functiionality in GraphicConverter or PhotoScape X. These applications offer a lot more features. At the end of the day, you get more bang for your buck.

The watermark feature in PhotoBulk is nice, but not something that I would be using frequently.

PhotoScape X December Update

On December 20th, 2017, Photoscape X was updated with nine new features an unspecified number of bug fixes. The application is shaping up to be a very useful tool, and I certainly would recommend it as a compliment to Affinity Photo or Pixelmator.

Here's a breakdown of the new Features released in the December update:

Menus Options of the new features

Draw Brushes

There are now 11 new Draw Brushes. These brushes are useful to add additional effects to the images. There's a lot more capabilities in Affinity Photo and Pixelmator, including the ability to create your own brush.

I played around with this and can see this would be a good way to quickly enhance images, especially using the Blend Mode.

Scatter Brushes

Nice to see scatter brushes back! This is a favorite paint feature that I am glad to see back on the Mac! I first encountered scattered brush in SuperPaint. Scatter brush is a way to display some brush strokes randomly. Usually done with a special shape brush such as Heart, Confetti, Snowflakes, Dog Prints and more.

Photoscape X includes 11 brushes in this release. I am sure they will release some new ones in future updates. Very cool feature to use to add effects to images, such as snowflakes or adding Bokeh effects.

Paint Bucket Tool

The Paint Bucket tool will change a specific pixel to any color that you wish. I can see this would be useful if you have a solid color background and wanted to change it to some other color.

I played around with this feature for a bit and don't see it very useful for photos. I think it will be good to touch up graphics files.

Magic Color Filter

The Magic Color filter is a quick way to brighten up your images. Now you don't have to play around with various Clarity and Brighten settings. Simply click on the "Magic Color" checkbox and instantly see the image improve.

You can adjust the setting to better improve the image.

I tested this feature with several images and it works very well. The images are nice and bright! A quick way to touch up an image if you don't have time to do it! This is a great tool to have and I certainly see this being used all the time.

Touch-up Compairson

In the above example, I ran the same photo through each application and selected the Auto Color Adjustment once. I didn't make any special changes to the image. I think Photoscape did a great job with bringing out the blue in the snow.

Best Macintosh Blog Posting of 2017

This year I found some great Macintosh software - Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and Keyboard Maestro. They all played into helping make 2017 a very productive year.

Many of this year's post were around those applications. Next year might see a shift to more developer and video applications.

Top Seven Macintosh Post of 2017

In no particular order..

• imageSnap - Creative way to take camera snapshots.
• EUASOO Mouse Mice Z-7900 on MacOS - Great practical mouse! It feels comfortable using it all day.
• Launchbar Clipboard History - I had no idea how useful this would be.
• Using Microsoft Shapes and Smart Art in Affinity Designer - Great knowing there's a lot of Infographic type shapes at my disposal. Kudos to Microsoft for making these smart art available.
• Save-As Dialog Boxes - Great tip on navigating everyday dialog boxes.
• PhotoScape X - Great graphic application that packed with a lot of tools. Highly recommend playing around with it to understand the capabilities.
• Keynote Slides for iMovie - Expand the text capabilities of iMovie with this Keynote tip.

You can find all the Macintosh post over on the Macintosh Blog Listing page.

Lots of exciting Macintosh post are planned for 2018. If you have any tips/tricks that you would like to share, please let me know.

GraphSketcher

Have you ever needed to make a simple line chart in Affinity Designer? Wish there was a simple way to create a vector base graph?

Thankfully there is an app for that and it's free!

GraphSketcher is a simple, elegant tool for quickly sketching graphs and plotting data -- but you don't even need data to get started. It's perfect for reports, presentations, and problem sets where you need to produce sharp-looking graphs on the fly.

It's really easy to create charts for whatever data point that you want. Anytime you want a quick line graph, GraphSketcher is perfect.

Integrates Smoothly with Affinity Designer

What's nice about GraphSketcher is that you can copy the Graph in GraphSketcher and then paste it in Affinity Designer. All the objects are put in their own layers and in their respective types. So you can still change the text and points on the chart!

This is really cool when you want to put together a quick chart and use the power of Affinity Designer to touch it up.

GraphSketcher History

The application was created by Robin Stewart in 2007 and refined by the folks at Omni Group. In 2014, the application was retired from the product line and the code was put into open-source.

There's only been one update since the code was put into open-source. That was to fix a bug with comma separated values.

Getting GraphSketcher

Download the Binary file from GitHub and place the file into the Application folder. Double click to open and start creating charts.

Check out all the Inspector settings and see the capabilities of the application.

Once your done, click on the 'Copy as Image' and then paste it into your Affinity Designer document. Now you can do additional modifications to make the chart look better. (Try putting the chart on a chalkboard for a unique look!)

Pro-Tip

After you paste in the chart, I would recommend grouping the objects together (Command-G). That will make it easier to manage all the objects. So after you, Command-C, do a Command-G.

Dealing with the Grayed out song Listing in iTunes

Do you manually move music to your iPhone or iPod? Have you ever encountered an issue where a song didn't get copied and you end up with something like this:

This has happened to me a lot and after playing around with the iTunes and the phone, I figured out why it's been happening.

Here's the possibilities:

iCloud song already there

Apple doesn't want you to copy a song that you already have available in the iCloud. So the grayed out song means that the song already exists in the Cloud or you downloaded to the phone. You don't see it on iTunes because iTunes is only showing downloaded music.

You Copied a Set of Song/Playlist and a Song Existed

When you copy a playlist and a song exists in the cloud it will stop all the other songs that were to be copied over. You may see the grayed out song in the Playlist and not in the regular Song grid.

Quick Solution

I usually encounter this when I copy a playlist to my iPhone and not all the songs got copied over.

The solution that I found to work: delete the grayed out song and try copying the other songs. For example, I would select the next four songs that didn't work or at least one at a time.

If the grayed out song is something that I downloaded from someplace else, I found that renaming it also worked.