Hey
Burning disk images is either really simple (for the people in the know) or really quite difficult for people who are new to Mac or haven't burnt an image before. This is understandable since earlier today I didn't really know how to do it. Its no one of those things that is shown very frequently. Like most functions on a Mac its very simple.
The first thing you need is a disk image and a blank disk. I am going to work with a CD, but the principle the same with a DVD, its just larger. There are a couple of ways to go about this technique, but I am going to mention what I think is the simplest and the most fool proof way of getting it right. Like people say, make it fool proof, and people will find a better fool.
Once as you have inserted your disk a small pop up dialog box will appear. From the list select Disk Utility. Disk utility will be the application that will burn our image.
Once is is open click Burn from the tool bar. It will open a message box asking you to pick a file. You can then pick the file you want. I have used Ubuntu server addition, as I am going to play around with it later. You can also go from File > Open Disk Image to pick your file. I don't no what happens if you open up two disk images, it may burn both to the same disk. I don't no.
Once as the file is opened you will see something similar to the image below. To get more options click the down arrow. Check you burn options, such as speed and verification (recommended). Then click burn. It will set up you disk and burn the image.
Burning may take a while depending on the size. A CD size took about 20 minutes proximately. DVD's will take a lot longer. The speed at which you are burning will also make a difference.
Once as a burn is complete, it will then mount the disk if you have chosen that option from earlier on. You can then use it, or save it for later.
Very simple to do, although it is quite hidden away. I didn't know how to do it until earlier today. You can, of course, use something like Toast, but this application works perfectly well. There is probably simpler and different ways to achieve the same effect, if you know a cool way leave one in the comments.
Hey
I like screen savers. They are a way to make your Mac look cool when you are away from your desk and you want to show the awesome processing power of your computer. Of course if want to save power (especially on a laptop) these probably aren't for you. Since they do soak up a lot of juice if you set the settings to maximum (which I did bye bye battery).
The first lot come from the well named site Really Slick Screensavers. There are three that I want to draw your attention to. Hyperspace, Helois and Euphoria. As you can see in the image below, they do look high speed, lots of movement, sprites, particles flying about the place. Great fun.
If you head to the downloads page you can find the download links to the screensavers.
The final screensaver which I would like to draw your attention to is the electricsheep screensaver. This site turned quite popular quite a while ago and is a really fun way to use your spare computing power. By using the screensaver you download a sheep and it will play as your screensaver. You then vote if you like the screensaver, if it become popular it mutates and lasts longer, similar to evolution in a way. Its cool and does produce some very good animations and screensavers.
Well thats all folks, from my short escapade for finding new screensavers. If you guys have any good ones to share that aren't from the usual installed apple version, please share them below.
Hey
I meant to post this video yesterday but forgot. Anyway, if you watch the you tube video below its a catchy song with the music video based on the Mac Desktop. It has loads of little clips of different applications all in time with the music. It s a bit hard to explain, but its cool when you see it. RSS readers may need to click through to see the video.
If you are a bit of a geek like me, you can probably name loads of the applications that were used. I think, it was probably filmed with an application like iShowU, although the YouTube info page doesn't say. You can get it on iTunes (I've tried the UK site). But I have the song stuck in my head so I don't need to.
Hey
Every so often an application will misbehave and crash, most of the time the program will recover and you will be on your way. Every so often an application a program will crash and it wont recover, and will be in the eternal state of Not Responding. As a result you may want to force quit a program and open the program up again.
The usual route to Force Quit an application would be to open up Activity Monitor, go to the CPU processes, find the application, click Quit Process and then Force Quit. This is a long process, and if you need to quit an application in a hurry, this takes time. Another option is to right click on the application in the dock, but most of the time this doesn't work because the application has locked the dock icon.
The quickest way by far I have found it to press Command + Option + Escape. This will bring up the force quit dialog box. This simple command will open this box nearly all of the time. You can also access it from Apple Menu > Force Quit Applications.
A couple of clicks and the program is closed. Very useful if you have a time critical application that is running and you need it closed. For example if you have a program using 200% of the CPU when you are on battery, you need that application closed as soon as possible.
