Sound a little strange? It is. Does it work? Watch the video.

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: How To, iPod

It can take some frustration to get the iPod Touch hack working, particularly if you’ve upgraded iTunes to 7.5 and have already got your iPod Touch at firmware version 1.1.2. This link to Crunch Gear goes through the high-level steps but I thought some might want a little more guidance. If you do, read on…

Note: I can only confirm this works on Intel Macs. PPC Macs are still not fully supported. If you needed another reason to buy a new Mac, you now have one! Also, this is done at your own risk so don’t come crying to me if your iPod is bricked (this is very unlikely to happen though)

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written by Mike Bradbrook \\ tags: Hacks, iPod Touch, Mods

Here’s a nifty little shortcut I stumbled upon today. My apologies if you’ve already tried this one, but I thought it was pretty cool!

If you go into your System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse… Click on the Mouse tab at the top.

Down at the very bottom of this window you’ll see ‘Zoom using scroll ball while holding…’ and then a drop down menu of key selections. Leave the CTRL button selected (or choose another key, it’s really your personal preference).

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written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: How To

Here’s a little tip I stumbled upon today. Want to see your application windows and stacks animate in slow-mo speed? ‘Sure!’ I can hear you all say! Well the good news is it’s easy, and here’s how you do it…

For applications:

1. Open any application.
2. Hold down the ‘Shift’ key
3. Click the yellow ‘Minimize’ button
4. Watch the magic

Same goes for ’stacks’ in your dock. Just hold down the shift key and click your stack. I’ve read this trick works with exposé as well, but so far I haven’t been able to make that work.

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: OS X Leopard

Here’s a keyboard shortcut that is sure to boost your productivity. It allows you to jump right over to the dock to open or close applications.

1. To jump to the dock use ‘ctrl+F3′.
2. Now with the dock selected, use the right/left arrows to navigate between apps.
3. Hit ‘Enter’ to open an app.
4. Hit the ‘Up’ arrow when a previously opened app is selected. This will give you a submenu of choices including ‘quit’.
5. To exit the dock, simply hit ‘ctrl+F3′ or the escape key.

Try it for yourself and let me know what you think!

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: Dock, OS X

Stumbled across this one by accident today. I knew about the ’slideshow’ screen saver (a classic), but had no idea there was a ‘collage’ and ‘mosaic’ screen saver in Leopard! They’re all pretty darn cool, and I figured you would like to read more about it, so here we go!

Here’s a quick ‘How to’ use the Leopard Slideshow, Collage and Mosaic Screen Savers:

1. These screen savers are options you can turn on in your System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver. Click the ‘Screen Saver’ button at the top to get your screen saver options.

2. Now, here comes the important part. In the screen savers list, you’ll see all of the installed screen savers listed… Scroll down a bit until you see the ‘Pictures Folder, Choose Folder, Library’, etc…

These 3 screen savers work by pulling images input from your system… i.e. from iPhoto, or just images saved to your hard drive. So, in this example, these screen savers will be available from the following folders: Pictures Folder, Choose Folder, Library, Last Roll, and Last 12 Months. Select the one you want to use.

3. After making your selection, you should notice 3 new buttons popped up beneath the preview…

These buttons control the display style (the 3 different types of screen savers).

Slideshow
The first one is for ’slideshow’. This will turn your screensaver into a basic slideshow with pictures fading in and out.

Collage
The second option is ‘collage’. Basically what this option does it pull images from your computer, spin them onto the screen and then place them on the desktop. Kind of like adding photos to your refrigerator… Try it out and you’ll see what I mean.

Mosaic
Finally, the third and last button is the ‘mosaic’ option. This is one cool screen saver. Click it and watch the preview. It’s magic!

Try all 3 of these to see what you like best. They’re all great, especially if you have a lot of pictures on your hard drive.

Fool around with these and I guarantee you’ll have lots of fun!

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: OS X Leopard, Screensaver

Are you tired of the look of your Leopard dock? Want a change? I’m surprised at how many people want to change this… and the good news is that if you do want to change up your dock, it’s very easy to do. With some basic photoshop skills you can even create your own.

To Replace Your Leopard Dock Graphics:

1. Go to Macintosh HD > System/Library/Core Services
2. Right click on ‘Dock’ and select ‘Show Package Contents’
3. Go to > Contents/Resources
4. Backup the files you are about to replace
5. Move the original files to your trash
6. Move the new dock files into the folder
7. Open Terminal and type ‘killall Dock’
8. Your new dock will be installed

Make sure you make a backup of the original dock files.

For all kinds of pre-made docks (to drag and drop using the steps above) and for more info on installation and how to create your own… check out this great site.

written by Mr. Mayor

This little ditty is an ammendment to a post I recently made: Coverflow Makes for Great Font Browsing.

You can use ‘Quick Look’ to take an even better look at the fonts in your fonts folder. In cover flow mode in Finder, select the font you wish to preview. Notice the preview in the cover flow window. Cool.

Now, all you have to do is hit the spacebar. ‘Quick Look’ will jump in and give you a preview of the full file!

Not enough? Now try hitting the two arrows near the bottom of the quick look window. This will give you a fullscreen preview of the file. When you’re done previewing simply click the X to close, or the 2 arrows to go back to the main quick look mode.

This doesn’t apply to font files alone. Try this out on any file in any location on your mac! It’s a very handy little shortcut that lets you take a closer look at your files without having to open up any applications!

Thanks to our good friend Dan on this one.

written by Mr. Mayor

If you’re like me, and you design a lot of things on your mac (websites, posters… you name it)… You should appreciate this one.

I was fooling around with the coverflow option in finder the other day when I somehow stumbled into the fonts folder. I wondered to myself, ‘geez, will Leopard give me a preview of the fonts in coverflow?’ I had to check it out to see.

What do you know, coverflow DOES show you a preview of your fonts… And it’s very handy to flip through your fonts if you’re looking for something in particular.

If you’re like me, and the font dropdown in Photoshop just isn’t enough (small, small previews of the fonts) then this is a good option. Add a shortcut to your fonts on your desktop or dock, and large font previews are always one-click away!

written by Mr. Mayor

Thankfully, on our end here at Mactropolis the Leopard upgrade went without a hitch. However, that hasn’t been the case for everyone. There have been some nasty installation problems, one of note right here.

To sidestep these issues and put you on the path to ‘Leopard Bliss’ I’ve put together this brief guide to (hopefully) around any potential problems that might arise.

Again, my experience with the upgrade has been flawless, but after some reading and research here are the things you’ll need to keep in mind and do to make sure your data is safe.

Getting Started

Did you backup your data? This isn’t 100% necessary, but how would you feel if you lost all of your important files? Pretty bad huh? If your life would end and crumble should you lose your files, BACKUP your data. End of story.

You can use the Disk Utility, or any other backup software.

Things to Check Before You Start 

• Once you’ve created the backup, check it and double check it again to make sure it is in place.
• Will your current software work with Leopard? Check vendor websites to ensure all of your software will work after the OS upgrade.

Installation

Installing OS X Leopard is actually a walk in the park. Follow the instructions given to you by the installer. It will walk you through the process. In 1.5 to 2 hours your OS X should be shiny and new and have leopard spots all over it (ok, maybe there won’t be any leopard spots, but you know what I mean).

Step 1: Select a Destination: Choose the drive where you want to install Leopard, and click ‘Options’. From here you can choose the install method (upgrade, archive and install, or erase and install).

Step 2: Select What NOT to Install. You may want to leave some items out of the install to save on hard drive space. Some items you may want to leave out of the installation:

• Fonts can be a huge space hog. If you don’t need the fonts listed simply deselect them.
• Language Translations. If you’re going to run OS X in english-only, you can deselect this item. Or open it up to deselect individual languages.
• Printer Drivers. Open this up and deselect all but the brand of printer you own.

When Installation is Complete

With a little luck, once installation is done you should be good to go. The first thing I did was check to make sure my programs were functioning properly. Thankfully they all were and I was ‘good to go’. Again, if a program isn’t working properly check with the vendor to see what the issue might be, and how to resolve it. You will also want to make sure that all of your data transferred properly. If you used ‘archive and install’ go to the /previous systems/previous system 1 folder and look through the subfolders to check that everything was transferred.

Getting Back to Business

Hopefully the process was a smooth and easy one for you. If so, just pick up where you left off! If you’re still having issues feel free to contact me (mayor AT mactropolis.com) for support. There are also numerous other guides and forums out there to help with issues. So if you’re stuck there are more than a few resources out there to tap into!

written by Mr. Mayor