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Paul Cook

Downloads: 242

Posts: 36

Smile Score: +14

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Labels & Addresses 1.6.3
(Shareware)

Videobox 3.9.2
(Shareware)

Flash Video Download... 2.1.3
(Free)

LAME 3.99.5
(Free)

iExtractMP3 0.4.2
(Free)

Command line Mp3 rec... 2.5
(Free)

NTFS-3G 2010.10.2
(Free)

MacFUSE 2.0
(Free)

Fugu 1.2
(Free)

TeamViewer 7.0.11067
(Free)

PDF Unlock 1.2.2
(Free)

RipIt 1.6.2
(Shareware)

Paul Cook's Posts

Average Rating from Paul:

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SMARTReporter

Paul Cook commented on 22 Apr 2012

I really like SMARTReporter and have used it for many years. It was always very easy to use. And the nice little green drive icon in the menu bar is reassuring.

I am grateful for all the years it has been free. And I hope the writer makes a ton of $$$ off of it as reward for his many years of hard work.

Yet, I've had SMART Utility find bad drives that SMARTReporter missed. When it was free, SMARTReporter was good enough, that most of my clients installed it.

However, it appears that SMARTReporter is now only available via the App Store at $5. However, at $100 for a business license, SMART Utility might actually be cheaper for some businesses. And you don't have to deal with the App Store. Which a number of my business customers would rather avoid.

[Version 3.0.0]

Secrets

Paul Cook commented on 01 Apr 2012

A great piece of software. Unfortunately, it seems not to be working lately. The problem appears to be that the Web site is now down. So, secrets can no longer get information.

The application gives an error message if "Update Error, Could not download latest data: The operation couldn't be completed. (HTTP Status error 500.)"

An attempt to visit the web site http:secrets.blacktree.com gives a Google error message of "303. That's an error. The requested URL / was not found on this server. That's all we know."

[Version 1.0.6]

2 Replies

+14

Paul Cook replied on 01 Apr 2012

If anyone knows how to contact the developer and let him/her know, that would be appreciated. This is a very useful piece of software. Hopefully, this is a minor issue that can be fixed.

+14

Paul Cook replied on 13 Apr 2012

It looks like it may now be fixed. Thanks to whoever contacted the developer.

DMG Canvas

Paul Cook commented on 08 Feb 2012

I'm looking for something to make "pretty" Lion installers.

The InstallESD.dmg file has a background image in it. But as supplied by Apple, it doesn't seem to work. And I'd like to hide some folders and change the size of some icons--basically make it look like a Snow Leopard installer.

Is there an easy way to do this with DMG Canvas or similar too? I tried converting the InstallESD.dmg file to Read/Write, but didn't see any way to use DMG Canvas to change an existing dmg. (Did I miss something.) I tried making a new DMG, using the files in InstallESD.dmg as the source. That looked real nice, but wouldn't install.

[Version 2.0.10]

SMART Utility

Paul Cook reviewed on 13 Nov 2011

Some have suggested that this program might be cheaper. And perhaps they are right.

However, after playing with the demo on a number of client machines and having it find issues that other utilities missed, I bought it. In fact I contacted the vendor about a special consulting license so that I could use it in my business.

I do like a number of other utilities out there. SMARTReporter, for example, is an outstanding free utility. However, I found SMART Utility to uniquely solve enough frustrating problems that I found it worth my hard earned $$$.

[Version 3.0.2]

Lion DiskMaker

Paul Cook commented on 12 Nov 2011

Lion DiskMaker v1.6.3 seems to work quite well.

However, I noted one thing that seemed odd. It repartitions the target drive (yes the entire drive, as some have warned) using the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition scheme and then puts a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume onto it. You can verify this by checking the resultant installer using Disk Utility.

Since MBR is primarily a Windows PC partition scheme, I thought the "GUID Partition Table" (GPT) might be a more natural choice for an Intel Mac. So following is how to modify Lion DiskMaker 1.6.3, so that it uses GPT instead of MBR.

Warning: The developer of DiskMaker is obviously a pretty bright guy. And the program seems to work as it is. It may be that he had some reason for using MBR instead of GPT. Most new memory sticks come formatted MBR. And I've noticed that sometimes you get an initial error from Disk Utility when reformatting them. But a second attempt typically succeeds. In any case, I have not thoroughly tested this, so use at your own risk.

These instructions assume that Lion DiskMaker version 1.6.3 has been installed in your /Applications folder. If you have installed it in a different location, or are using a different version, the instructions may have to be adjusted accordingly.

Assuming that you have installed Lion DiskMaker

Make a backup copy of Lion DiskMaker in case this doesn't work for you.

Using AppleScript Editor, open the file at /Applications/Lion DiskMaker 1.6.3 Modified/Lion DiskMaker.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/main.scpt

Note: This is a file inside of the Lion DiskMaker appliction.

Using AppleScript Editor's "Find" Command, replace "MBR" with "GPT". There should be two replacements. One is in a comment and one is in a shell script. Save the results.

This should now work as before, but will create a GPT partition scheme instead of MBR.

[Version 1.6.3]

Lion DiskMaker

Paul Cook reviewed on 18 Aug 2011

Lion DiskMaker is a great little program. What it does, isn't rocket science, but it is still quite handy.

A few minor enhancements that would be nice include:

Support burning to external optical drives.
If you use it on an older Core 2 Dual Mac with one of those "combo" drives, then you need to use an external drive to be able to burn DVDs. But my experience was that Lion DiskMaker errored out in this condition.

Making the resultant DVD Auto Open
Most Apple installers will automatically open to a window showing you the installer. This is definitely a bit of polish and not necessary for functionality.

Making the Window Background Work
Apple seems to have provided a background image for the window. But it doesn't seem to work. Again, this is definitely polish, not necessary for functionality.

Don't shoot the messenger, but AFP548 seems to be saying that these are machine specific. See the article titled "Downloading Hardware Specific Lion Installers" at the following URL:

http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=getting-lion-installers

If AFP548 is correct, then these really aren't general purpose installers. They are sort of replacements for the machine specific installers that used to come bundled with our Macs. So, just to be sure, you may need to make a separate one for each model of Mac that you have and label them accordingly.

Or is this just a scam to get us to all run out and buy Apple's "OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive" at $69 each? Maybe, hopefully, those will actually work for all models. (At least until the next new model ships ;-)

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD256Z/A

[Version 1.3]

PortraiMatic

Paul Cook commented on 28 Mar 2011

For U.S. Passports you may want to check out the following links for helpful U.S. Passport picture guidelines:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/photocomptemplate/photocomptemplate_5297.html

http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/photographerguide/photographerguide_5303.html

http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/pptphotoreq_5333.html

[Version 2.0.2]

1 Reply

+14

Paul Cook replied on 28 Mar 2011

The U.S. State Department, also has very basic flash based photo utility at http://travel.state.gov/_res/flash/cropper/FIG_cropper.html#

However, you may still find this product to be worth the small extra charge over the government's free one.

Passport Photo Studio

Paul Cook commented on 28 Mar 2011

For U.S. Passports you may want to check out the following links for U.S. Passport picture guidelines:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/photocomptemplate/photocomptemplate_5297.html

http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/photographerguide/photographerguide_5303.html

http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/pptphotoreq_5333.html

[Version 1.5.1]

Passport Photo Studio

Paul Cook commented on 28 Mar 2011

[Version 1.5.1]

Passport Photo Studio

Paul Cook commented on 28 Mar 2011

For U.S. Passports you may want to check out the following links for U.S. Passport picture guidelines.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/photocomptemplate/photocomptemplate_5297.html

http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/photographerguide/photographerguide_5303.html

http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/pptphotoreq_5333.html

[Version 1.5.1]

1 Reply

+14

Paul Cook replied on 28 Mar 2011

ClamXav

Paul Cook had trouble on 11 Apr 2012

Generally this is a great program worthy of lots of praise to the developer. However, there is one minor thing that has me confused.

I scanned a Mac and found some malware. It shows up in the ClamXav window. But, I can find no record of it in either of the log files.

Am I missing something here?

[Version 2.2.4]

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