User "Drdul" Profile
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About Richard
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Real Name:Richard Drdul
Posts:40
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Last Login:1 Jul 2008 21:51
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User Reviews
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Type: Review
Date: 4 Jul 2008 22:07
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I purchased the first verison of this, because I figured at $5 it was worth it. IIRC, that was when Leopard was at version 10.5.2. Every new version of Leopard requires a new version of iQuarantineX, which makes sense to me. The upgrade to version 10.5.3 of iQuarantineX was free, but with version 10.5.4 the developer wants another $5. At the time I purchased iQuarantineX there was no indication that my $5 would only last a couple of versions of OS X. If I was to pay another $5 for version 10.5.4, there's no mention of when I'd have to fork over another $5 for a future upgrade (but I'm guessing it wouldn't be long). So I'm not going to purchase the new version, and I'll learn to live with Leopard's occasional reminder that I downloaded an app from the Internet. In terms of functionality, iQuarantineX does what it says it will do, and it is dead simple to use. In terms of value, it's not worth it. A good app ruined by a bad pricing strategy. |
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Type: Comments
Date: 27 May 2008 12:54
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To follow up on my earlier post, I contacted the developer who couldn't provide any more insight. After fiddling with it for a while, it appears that "tracking speed" determines how fast/much the cursor moves across the screen, while "sensitivity" determines how much the cursor moves in relation to the movement of the mouse. I have set my tracking speed to the higher end of the range (1.5), and my sensitivity to the lower end (600). The result is that I can move the cursor from one side of my large monitor to the other without much mouse movement (higher tracking speed), yet I can still use the mouse accurately when doing detail work in Photoshop (lower sensitivity). |
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Type: Comments
Date: 28 Apr 2008 14:23
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I've started using SteerMouse because the Intellipoint software for my MS mouse is too buggy to tolerate any more. SteerMouse does the job nicely, but one thing is confusing me as I tweak the settings -- the difference between "tracking speed" and "sensitivity." Unfortunately, there's no useful explanation of these within the app or on the developer's web site. I'm trying to find a balance between precision for small movements of the mouse and fast speed for when I need to move the cursor a long distance. If anyone could provide some insight as to how these settings work, it would be appreciated! |
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Type: Comments
Date: 19 Apr 2008 00:59
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Front Row in Leopard will play VIDEO_TS files. See http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071029182617245 for details. |
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Type: Troubleshooting
Date: 20 Mar 2008 13:10
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The one thing that's been driving me nuts with EyeTV 3.0.1 is the constant prompts to authenticate as an administrator (I run EyeTV from a standard account, as I do with all apps). I tried changing permissions on the com.elgato.* prefs files, and on a few other files I found in the Application Support folder, but with no luck. I contacted Elgato's tech support, and received the following answer: Thank you for contacting Elgato Systems. We are aware of a problem with non-admin accounts and EyeTV 3.0.1. There is a problem with saving a setting to our global preference when quitting out of EyeTV. Hopefully our Engineers will fix the problem soon. Some of my customers have been able to click Cancel and bypass the admin password entry. Another changed permissions for ~/Library/Preferences so the non-admin accounts had Read/Write permissions. |
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Type: Review
Date: 13 Mar 2008 02:01
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I rarely use Dashboard, and when I do, I want to quit it when I'm done. I don't want to leave it running in the background (the default behaviour), as I've found that Dashboard sometimes goes berserk and starts burning up my CPU. Kill Dashboard makes it easy to, well, kill Dashboard. It's a handy app (it comes in both flavours — an app and an Automator workflow) that does exactly what it says it will do. One click and you're done. What's not to like? |
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Type: Comments
Date: 11 Mar 2008 22:32
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Yes. It crashes and dies under 10.5.2 when "Preferences" is selected from the menu, which means that there's no way to change the prefs on a fresh install. But interestingly, if it was installed previously, it displays correctly, but still no way to change the prefs (I copied the com.charcoaldesign.magical.plist file from another computer). |
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Type: Comments
Date: 2 Mar 2008 01:24
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Can confirm that version 1.0.2 does not work with OS X 10.5.2. Cannot see source DVD/CD, nor can it see the destination volume. Bummer. |
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Type: Review
Date: 28 Feb 2008 20:52
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I just purchased a Macally IceKey keyboard (I wanted a black keyboard with white letters for better contrast in low light). I was dismayed to find that the keyboard driver (needed to enable the volume and eject keys) conflicted with a clipboard app that i use all the time. So I uninstalled the driver, and all is well. Of course, that meant I couldn't use the volume or eject keys, which would have been a big problem if not for Spark. I assigned the volume down/up/mute functions to F13/F14/F15, and reassigned the eject function to F12 (I never use Dashboard, so that's no great loss). Spark saved the day! |
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Type: Review
Date: 28 Feb 2008 02:25
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Wow! Just what I've been looking for. FinderPop makes it so much easier to move and copy files, access frequently-used folders, and drop files on selected apps. I knocked it down a star on ease of use because it takes a bit of reading through the help to figure out how to set it up and use it (the author admits it's not terribly easy to use), but it's worth the investment in time. I also knocked it down a star on stability because I initially checked the box that added FinderPop's menu to every app, but found that was slowing things down a bit and causing some apps to crash. Seeing as i really only want FinderPop's menu to appear in the Finder (and on the desktop and menubar), turning off this feature is not a deal-breaker for me. |
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Type: Comments
Date: 21 Dec 2007 22:15
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A follow-up to my earlier post... I heard back from the developer, who explained that the file type drawer is only used for searches of file contents (the fourth option under "Search for"). For the other three types of searches, it has no effect. The way to restrict the other searches to specific file types is to include the file extension in the search. For example, to find a Word a document with "foo" in the name, enter "foo doc" in the search box. To find a PDF with "foo" in the name, enter "foo pdf." The downside of this approach is that you can only search for one file type at a time — it doesn't work to enter "foo doc pdf" in an effort to search for Word files and PDFs. |
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Type: Comments
Date: 16 Dec 2007 21:35
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I want to like EasyFind, but one thing is driving me nuts. I can't figure out how to limit the search to specific file types. I pop open the drawer on the left side and uncheck "Scan all files." I then check the box next to the first line, where I've typed several file extensions: "txt, rtf, rtfd, text" for example. The idea is to limit the search to text files. When I click the Find button, however, EasyFind finds files of all types, not just the types I specified. Without the ability to limit the search to specific file types, this promising app isn't that useful to me. There's no built-in help, so maybe I'm missing something obvious. |
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Type: Comments
Date: 2 Nov 2007 01:09
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FYI: Doesn't work on Leopard (big bummer). Developer says that *if* he upgrades to Leopard he may develop a leopard-compatible version. |
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Type: Review
Date: 1 Nov 2007 14:43
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Great app! Even though it says it's experimental, FastIcns can create Leopard-compatible 512x512 pixel icons (they look great in Cover Flow!). I knocked one star off the "ease of use" rating because the rotating cube is kinda strange (there's an option to turn off the cube). |
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Type: Review
Date: 30 Oct 2007 21:20
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Handy little app! I just upgraded to Leopard, and was having trouble with the "Shared" section disappearing from my Finder sidebar. No matter what I did (including Go > Connect to Server), I couldn't connect to my MacBook Pro from my Mac Pro. I noticed the new release of FinderClean, downloaded it, ran the "Force Relaunch Finder" utility, and voilà! The "Shared" section is back without the hassles of having to restart my computer or log out. FinderClean includes some other nice utilities. I like the "Kill Dashboard" one, as I rarely use Dashboard, and the few times I do I'd like to empty the widgets out of memory afterwards. I have no idea what "optimize" Spotlight does, and there's no built-in help or detailed information on the developer's web site, but I ran it anyway. |
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Type: Review
Date: 11 Oct 2007 23:10
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HandBrake 0.9.1 crashes at the start of a rip on two different Intel machines (Mac Pro, MacBook Pro). I tried every combination of settings, but every time I pressed "Start" or "Start Queue," it crashed. So I downloaded MacTheRipper 2.6.6, and it ripped the DVD flawlessly. Although MTR 2.6.6 is a PPC app, it ran problem-free on my Mac Pro. Highly recommended! |
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Type: Comments
Date: 11 Oct 2007 23:08
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HandBrake 0.9.1 crashes at the start of a rip on two different Intel machines (Mac Pro, MacBook Pro). I tried every combination of settings, but every time I pressed "Start" or "Start Queue," it crashed. So I downloaded MacTheRipper 2.6.6, and it ripped the DVD flawlessly. MTR 2.6.6 is a PPC app, but it ran problem-free on my Mac Pro. Highly recommended! |
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Type: Comments
Date: 20 Aug 2007 20:52
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Damn! The code that's needed for the Info.plist file got mangled in my previous post. In the following text, replace all square brackets [ ] with angled brackets (the ones above the comma and period on the keyboard — you'll see the correct brackets in other lines in the Info.plist file). Because they're used in HTML, they're getting mangled in my post. [key]LSUIElement[/key] [string]1[/string] |
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Type: Hint/Tip
Date: 20 Aug 2007 20:47
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The dock icon was a show-stopper for me, too. I e-mailed the developer, who pointed me towards this tip, which removes the dock icon very nicely: • Open Info.plist in the application package (i.e. HoudaSpot.app/Contents/Info.plist). • Add the following after first in file: LSUIElement 1 • Save Info.plist • Move the application temporarilty to another location and open it (this clears the cache of the previous plist information) • Close the application and move it back to the original location If you're reluctant to mess with the innards of the application package, the other option is to use Dock Dodger, which does the same thing. Either way, you'll have to repeat this every time there's an update of HoudahSpot. |
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Type: Review
Date: 27 Jul 2007 20:41
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Great application for anyone with multiple monitors. I've set up the DejaMenu hotkey combination to be Cmd-Opt-Z, as it is easy to press these three keys with my left hand. Better yet, I've set a button on my Microsoft mouse to the same hotkey combination, so now I can use the mouse to pop up the DejaMenu menu. The only things I'd like to see improved/added would be to make the name of the application appear in bold (as on the menu bar), and add the Apple menu to the top of the pop-up menu. |
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Type: Review
Date: 18 Jul 2007 22:04
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My wife loves this app! All she wants is a simple Klondike solitaire app. She doesn't need 100 different games or fancy animations. Solitaire XL fits the bill. It looks great, it can be scaled up to a huge size, and it works flawlessly. The only thing that would be nice to have added to Solitaire XL would be a semi-opaque background, similar to some widgets. As it is, you can choose a solid brushed metal background (gak!), or no background at all. A semi-opaque background would be a nice third choice that would enable you to see apps in the background, but would "mute" their appearance so that it would be easier to see the playing cards (which can sometimes get lost in the background clutter). |
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Type: Review
Date: 18 Jul 2007 21:32
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What a great app! My initial enthusiasm for Dashboard wore off pretty quickly, and it's been weeks since I last activated Dashboard. My main complaint about Dashboard is it's a different environment form my desktop, and it's not easy to move back and forth between regular apps and Dashboard widgets. There are a few widgets that I really like, however, so when I discovered Amnesty Singles, I had to try it out. I bought it within 10 minutes, after converting three widgets to run as applications. Cut-and-paste between regular apps and widgets converted with Amnesty works without problems, which means I can easily use a couple of my favourite widgets — Case Converter and SnatchIt. Highly recommended! |
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