Youtube Video Link Power

When embedding or linking to a Youtube video, you have lots of parameters you can put in the URL. Those are influencing the player’s behavior and view. This is very useful, especially on embedding directly into your website or blog.

Playback with a seek

One of the most unknown and rarely used parameters is the playback with a seek. Let’s say, you want to show a video and the important moment your want to point to is at 1 minute and 28 seconds. Did you know, than you can directly jump into that position? Simply add #t=1m27s behind the video URL like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a92JSlFZHH0#t=1m28s

Video starts playing at 1 min and 28 secs.

This is very cool when sharing videos via twitter or instant messengers and you do not want your participant to watch the whole story.

Other options

There are a lot of other values like setting borders, enable related video recommendations, HD playback and some more which you will find on Googles API page. Have a look at it and I am sure, there is something useful for you.

Stop the iPhone from opening iPhoto

I love iPhoto. I use it for most of my photo editing. The thing I don't like about iPhoto is how it opens each and every time I connect my iPhone to my Mac. What strikes my as plain silly is that, since the introduction of the iPhone two and a half years ago, Apple has not built in an option in the iTunes iPhone status window to disable the automatic iPhoto launch every time you plug in your iPhone.

If you want to take control of this behavior, and you'd prefer to stick with Apple's built-in tools (rather than take advantage of the free and easy Cameras prefpane) there is good news: there's a simple way to disable this 'feature' and it doesn't involve command line stuff. Even better, it isn't an "all or nothing" solution – eg: you can still have iPhoto automatically open when you connect your camera, but not have it open when you connect your iPhone.

It should be noted that this solution only works on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. If you are running 10.5 or earlier, you'll have to use one of the solutions noted above; we recommend the free Cameras preference pane as a quick fix.

You'll see the image above is of iPhoto's preferences. You may think the option of disabling iPhone auto-open is in there, but it's not. To stop the iPhone from opening iPhoto you actually need to launch the Image Capture application.

Step 1: Launch Image Capture (Applications>Image Capture). If your iPhone isn't plugged in already, plug it in to the USB port on your Mac. It should then show up in the devices source list.

Step 2: Make sure you have the iPhone selected in the source list. When you do, you should see any photos you have on the iPhone appear in the right-hand column of the Image Capture application.

Step 3: At the bottom of the source list, you'll see your iPhone's name then, below that, you'll see the words "Connecting this iPhone opens:" and a drop-down menu. Select "No application". Now close the Image Capture app and you're done. No more iPhone opening up iPhoto, but your other cameras will still auto-launch iPhoto when they are connected!

Chrome Browser for Mac

I love the Safaribrowser. It is fast, reliable, powerful and easy to use. I wish Firefox would use its engine, but there are lot of discussions in the Mozilla forums, that it will remain using the Gecko engine.

From a technical perspective, Gecko is now very solid and no longer lags behind WebKit.

Alternatives

The only alternative I know what uses Webkit is the Google’s Chrome. Unfortunately, they say, a Mac version is not available, yet. But there is! You can download the developer edition, which is a completely compiled and ready-to-use application. Install it by just dragging the icon to the Application folder like any other program.

After the first start it asks for importing bookmarks. So I did, and it works very well. The passwords are taken from OS X’s Keychain Access and you do not need to enter all your identifications, again.

At the first look, compared to Safari

• it looks a bit more stylish,
• the preferences are easier to use,
• performance feels better on loading pages, working on sites containing Flash objects,
• the developer menu can be found at View, instead of a own menu column,
• no need for an extra search bar, just type into the address field.

Unfortunately I am missing two features, but I can shortly live without:

• Syncing the bookmarks with MobileMe or back to Safari,
• the option to merge all windows together

What Safari does not have is

• the function “New incognito window”.

Pages you view in this window won’t appear in your browser history or search history, and they won’t leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window.

• opening every tab or window as a own thread
  • if one crashes, not all of the browser activity is lost,
  • if one gets unresponsive, you can work with all the others.
• jumping through search results initiated with CMD+F.

Conclusion

I am using it now for a several time. It works very stable and fast. The workflow is great, everything works fine so far.

 Mac Keyboard Shortcuts

I always tried to get the keyboard shortcuts even when I use Windows PC, finally I got some for  MAC Keyboard

MENU COMMANDS

Shift+Apple+Q - Log out

Shift+Option Apple+Q - Log out immediately

Shift+Apple+Delete - Empty Trash

Apple+H - Hide Active Application Doesn't Work With Adobe Applications

Option+Apple+H - Hide All But The Active Application

Control+Eject - Shut Down, Sleep, or Restart Options

Apple+Control+Eject - Quit all applications and Restart

Apple+ . (period) - Stop a process

Apple+ , (comma) - Open Preferences for Active Application

Option+Apple+D - Show/Hide Dock

Control+Up Arrow - Move up one page

Control+Down Arrow - Move down one page

Option+Apple+Esc - Force Quit

FILE MANAGEMENT

Apple+N - New Finder window or New Blank Page in Some Applications

Shift+Apple+N - New Folder Must Be In Finder Window For It to Work

Apple+O - Open Another Existing Document

Apple+S - Save

Shift+Apple+S - Save as

Apple+P - Print

Apple+W - Close Window

Apple+Option+W - Close all Windows

Apple+I - Get Info

Option+Apple+I - Show Attributes Inspector Limited use – varies by application.

Apple+D - Duplicate

Apple+Q - Close Application

Apple+L - Make Alias

Apple+R - Show Original

Apple+T - Add to Favorites Deprecated

Apple+Delete - Move Highlighted Items to Trash

Apple+E - Eject

Apple+F - Find

EDITING

Apple+Z - Undo

Apple+X - Cut

Apple+C - Copy

Apple+V - Paste

Apple+A - Select All

Apple+ { - Align Left Only Works in Some Applications

Apple+ } - Align Right Only Works in Some Applications

Apple+ | (pipe) - Align Center Only Works in Some Applications

Apple+ ; (semicolon) - Check Spelling Only Works in Some Applications

Shift+Apple+C - Show Colors palette in application Only Works in Some Applications

Apple+T - Show Font palette in application Only Works in Some Applications

VIEW MENU

Apple+1 - View as Icons

Apple+2 - View as List

Apple+3 - View as Columns

Option+Apple+T - Hide Toolbar

Apple+J - Show View Options

MOVING AROUND

Apple+ [ - Back Must be in Finder Window

Apple+ ] - Forward Must be in Finder Window

Shift+Apple+A - Applications Must be in Finder Window

Shift+Apple+F - Favorites Must be in Finder Window

Shift+Apple+G - Goto Folder Must be in Finder Window

Apple+K - Connect to Server Must be in Finder Window

Apple+Tab - Switch to next Application Hold Apple key to enter App. switcher mode

CONTROLLING WINDOWS

Apple+N - New Window

Apple+T - New Tab If the Application supports Tabs

Apple+M - Minimize Window

Option+Apple+M - Minimize All Windows

GETTING HELP

Apple+ ? - Open Mac Help

UNIVERSAL ACCESS

Option+Apple+ * (asterisk) - Turn on Zoom

Option+Apple+ = - Zoom in

Option+Apple+ - - Zoom out

Control+Option+Apple+ * - Switch to White on Black

COMBINE KEYBOARD WITH MOUSE

Option+Drag - Copy to new location

Option+Apple+Drag - Make alias in new location

Apple+Drag - Move to new location without copying

SCREEN SHOTS

Apple+Shift+3 - Take a picture of the screen will leave a .png file on desktop

Apple+Shift+4 - Take a picture of the selection will leave a .png file on desktop

Apple+Shift+4, Control - Take a picture of the selection, place in clipboard

Apple+Shift+4, Spacebar - Take a picture of the selected window will leave a .png file on desktop

Team Viewer

I came across this pack while reading blog on the comments session. Really cool and free app.

Visit www.teamviewer.com install and enjoy with friends and family by sharing your Mac or PC

TeamViewer GmbH was founded in 2005 in Uhingen, Germany. According to the company's press releases, TeamViewer has over 15 million users operating in 50 countries worldwide.

On phone or chat it mostly is too complicated to explain complex things in simple words, especially if the other does not have any glue of it, at all.

In that cases I am using remote control software and I absolutely prefer Team Viewer . But sometimes, you do not have a profile on their machine for several reasons, mostly a fresh re-install.

You both should have Team Viewer installed on Mac or PC. Teamviewer should be running on both the system. The showing PC generates a code which needs to be entered by the viewing PC and then the connection is established encryptedly.

And best, it works thru any firewall. It seems to be based on VNC technology and for the Mac a Java version is included, so that you can remote a PC or a Mac.

Show my PC / Mac

ShowMyPc.com

As this blog should show, it poses me beeing something like a geek in computers. Most people and friends knowing me, are often asking me for help with their computer problems.

If you know what I mean, then you will know that there are a lot of noobs and wannabe profis. But, when the problem is unsolvable for them, they will come to you asking for aid.

On phone or chat it mostly is too complicated to explain complex things in simple words, especially if the other does not have any glue of it, at all.

In that cases I am using remote control software and I absolutely prefer LogMeIn. But sometimes, you do not have a profile on their machine for several reasons, mostly a fresh re-install.

If no LogMeIn is available, I use ShowMyPc.com. It is a website presenting a one-click-remote control:

You both open that site. The remote computer selects “Show My PC” and you use“View other PC”. The showing PC generates a code which needs to be entered by the viewing PC and then the connection is established encryptedly.

And best, it works thru any firewall. It seems to be based on VNC technology and for the Mac a Java version is included, so that you can remote a PC or a Mac.

 Keep it clean, iTunes

The iTunes library is one thing I am using day by day. iTunes is even great for converting audio material. In case of that it may happen, that there are tracks inside the library who are not on the harddisk anymore. I hate inconsistent data, so I searched for a way to get rid of those data zombies. They are displayed with an exclamation mark in front of the title name.

Super Remove Dead Tracks

On a Mac almost everything is scriptable, and so is iTunes. One of those free cleaners is Super Remove Dead Tracks. Install it as described, then restart iTunes. From the scripts menu bar select the Super Remove Dead Tracks and just wait for completion. At the end, a logfile is placed on the desktop, so that you can see what was removed. If something went wrong, you can restore the files from the trashcan.