DIY RSS Bit Torrent!!!
Let’s learn how to combine these two concepts into a cool little mash-up! First you’ll need to download two applications: NetNewsWire and Transmission (both free!
).
Now that you have the two essential components needed to create the
best ‘automatic’ RSS downloader let’s start the
configuration!
Step One:
Open up Transmission and go to the Preferences window and the
‘Transfers’ tab.
Now copy my settings into your prefs window and make sure to check
the ‘Auto Add’ box at the bottom and select a folder
where you want Transmission to always watch for new torrent
files.
Step Two:
Navigate on over to
tvrss.net
and find an rss feed that fits your liking and copy the url.
(example,
here’s an rss feed for one of my favorite shows: right-click
on
Dexter
and copy link)
Step
Three:
Open up NetNewsWire and click into the pref pane. /
‘Downloading’ tab / ‘Downloads Folder’
tab
Now, choose the folder you made before to download your files
to.
Step
Four:
Now just hit the subscribe button on the top left and paste in the
RSS url! Then select an episode and hit the download button at the
bottom left of the window and it will download the torrent file to
the folder Transmission is watching which will cause Transmission
to start downloading the episode to your desktop.
Ta-daaaa!
IMAP Gmail Settings
The other great thing about IMAP is you can see and edit all your
online folders that Gmail provides from your desktop and your
mobile device. The downside is these folders really clutter up your
inbox... also I don;t want to see my spam email, that’s why I
have the spam filter in the first place... so the solution comes
with
Google Labs!
Scroll halfway down and look for “Advanced IMAP
Controls” and click enable. Then go to your settings and the
labels tab (or just click
here).
Now you have complete control over what folders are visible when
you access your IMAP email!
Now your iPhone can be much less cluttered, and when you delete emails on the road you won’t have a full inbox when you get home!
Top Draw Viewer
iTunes 8
Along with being really cool it can be controlled with some pretty
basic key commands that make it even more fun!
Check it out:
- • + and -: Increase or decrease the intensity (brightness) of the particles; multiple presses further increase or decrease the intensity.
- A and S: Add or Subtract particles to the visualizer. You can make the visualizer as complex (or sparse) as you wish.
- R: Reset the intensity and particle count to their default values.
- E: When in nebula mode (press N), this greatly accentuates the nebula clouds, making them very easy to see. (If you’ve used the M key to change modes, you may find that the nebula clouds aren’t visible; it seems they’re only used in certain modes.)
And my one annoyance is that now iTunes has the arrows to the iTunes store on always... not cool. Well throw this line into your terminal and goodbye annoying little arrows!
defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool FALSE
Until next time, enjoy!
Hi-Res LED Screen Color Profile
These screen often show deep blacks as dark grey. I’ve posted my screen calibration profile though, that seems to be quite accurate and true at presenting colors in a realistic light. Just downlod the zip file, unzip it, and place the calibration .icc file in the path included, then choose it from the display color settings in the system preferences.
Commands-N Concept...
MacBook Pro Penryn Update
The 17" now comes with an LED backlight screen option. Both 15" and
17" models support gesture tracking, and sport the new NVIDIA 8600M
GT 512MB graphics card. I can't wait to get my hands on this newly
updated 6MB cache 800MHz frontside bus over my 5 year old 167MHz
FSB 2MB cache 1GHz PPC with 1 GB ram... 
soon he will have a
new home.
New iPhone and iPod Touch Sizes
We'll just have to wait around a little longer for a 3G version
though I guess .
Replacing a Notebook Hard Drive
Well, I decided to check with my good friends over at iFixit and they had a great step-by-step guide with pictures on how to get to the hard drive. The short of it... a new 160GB Seagate drive and 24+ screws in little Sobe caps later and I'm inside my laptop, scared I might break something.
Well, that looks daunting huh? Well, it wasn't too bad... just a
lot of steadyness and being static-free.
After
I replaced the hard drive (bottom left in the picture), I restarted
onto the Leopard disc and chose the restore from backup option.
This lets you restore a system from a backup, such as time
machine.
It actually lets you choose any saved state to restore from. I chose the most recent backup version. Nevertheless it took around 4 hours to transfer the 70 GB from my backup drive. Now everything is EXACTLY the way it was before my drive stopped working!
Leopard
Check out some of the recent screenshots taken right from the most recent developer build that showcase some awesome new features and a great new look.
New iPods... again...
There are two new iPods added to the arsenal: (from left to right)
iPod nano(4 or 8GB), iPod classic(80 and 160GB, and the new iPod
touch(8 or 16GB.
The iPod nano sports a shorter body and wider screen that can play
video, the iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone or camera, and
the iPod classic is a slightly redesigned version of the 5th gen
ipod. No more glossy finish for the iPods!
As for prices...
4 nano $149
8 nano $199
80 classic $249
160 classic $349
8 touch $299
16 touch $399
Also, there is only an 8GB model of the iPhone now. The prices were
dropped by 200 dollars! Now it's only $399!
Missed an article? Try looking on the Archive page!
Free iMovie HD 6
iMacs, Keyboards, iLife '08, iWork' 08!
Anyways, the new keyboards are flippin' awesome...
The new iMac design is awesome...
The new iLife and iWork '08 suites are awesome
too...
Missed an article? Try looking on the Archive page!
Fix That Mighty Mouse Scroll Problem!
The Mighty Mouse, for those of you that don't know, has a small
grey ball instead of a scroll wheel. It's awesome because it lets
you scroll in any direction and the scroll resolution is MUCH
higher than that of your standard scroll wheel. The only problem
with this amazing mouse is that the scrolling sometimes actually
stops working in one direction. This happened to me last year and I
got Apple to replace my mouse, but that's only because it was under
warranty, now my new one is way beyond that, and it was having the
exact same problem.
I once again scoured the internet for a solution and nothing I
tried seemed to work... except for one tip I came across that
explains how to clean the ball with 97% isopropyl alcohol and
Q-tips. If you want to learn how to do it check out my
Helpful
Hacks
page.
MacBooks get upgrade
Personally I'm waiting for the LED screens and hybrid hard drive based MacBook Pro's to get released this summer, but any upgrades are good upgrades!
