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Find Suggested Words in OS X With CMD+.

By on May 21, 2012 in Quick Tips

It’s always nice to stumble across a new trick, which is what I just did a few moments ago. I was posting a tweet in Wren, and was typing a period then CMD+Enter to send the tweet. Somehow instead, I hit CMD+. and got a small popover showing suggested words that started with the word I’d already typed. Turns out, that’s a standard OS X keyboard shortcut that works in most apps (though, interestingly, not in most browsers since they use CMD+. to stop loading a page).

So, if you’re trying to type a word and only know the first part of the word, this little trick just might come to your rescue. Start typing the word, then tap CMD+. and see if the word you were looking for is in that list. You can browse through the suggested words using your arrows, and enter the word selected by hitting Tab, all without leaving your keyboard.

Yet another reason to love the OS X built in Dictionary and spelling/grammar check!

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Upgrading Adobe Creative Suite the Cleanest Way

By on May 8, 2012 in Quick Tips

If you’re a creative professional and use any Adobe tools in your work, chances are you’ll end up purchasing an upgrade to Creative Suite or an individual Adobe app. Adobe updates Creative Suite on a nearly annual basis, and while upgrades can be expensive, they’re far cheaper than purchasing a full copy of any Adobe product. And even if you decide to upgrade to Adobe’s Creative Cloud this year, you’ll still likely have old copies of Creative Suite or individual Adobe apps hanging around.

Adobe’s typically good at making upgrades smooth, but installing an upgrade version of Creative Suite will leave the old version on your computer as before. Unless you want two versions of Photoshop and everything else, you’ll likely want to go ahead and uninstall them first. Here’s how I just went about this.

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Opening any folder in OS X, the easy way

By on April 11, 2012 in Quick Tips

If you try to dig deep into your Mac at all, you’ll end up needing to access files that are normally hidden by default in OS X. Sure, you could make the hidden files visible via a quick Terminal command, but then you’ll either have to hide them again or deal with a more cluttered Finder. And that’s never a very good solution.

For the most part, though, you really don’t need to make your hidden files visible. All you really need is to get to a specific folder, such as your user Library or Preferences folders. You know the folder you need, it’s just not visible in Finder by default.

All you need to do is right-click or control-click the Finder icon in your dock, and select “Go to Folder…” as in the picture above. Alternately, just open a Finder window or click your Mac background picture, and tap CMD+shift+G on your keyboard. Now, enter the folder path, and volià, you’ve got the folder you needed open. And your Finder isn’t any more cluttered with visible supposed-to-be-hidden files than before!

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Fixing 1Password Database Connection Issues

By on April 10, 2012 in Quick Tips

I’ve used 1Password ever since it came out for Windows, and it was one of those apps that always tempted me to switch to a Mac back in my PC days. Consequently, it was also one of the first Mac Apps I purchased when I did switch, and was able to snag it in a bundle along with other must-have Mac apps. Later last year, I also upgraded to 1Password 3.9 from the Mac App Store as soon as it was available. It’s been great.

Well, all except for one thing. Ever since I’ve upgraded to 1Password 3.9 from the Mac App Store, I’ve had problems off-and-on with 1Password’s Chrome and Safari extensions saying they had trouble communicating with the database. For the most part, it hadn’t impacted my workflow, and I never had any data lost. The most annoying part was the red dot on the extension icon, reminding me something was wrong.

Today it turned into a problem that had to be resolved, though, when 1Password on Chrome wouldn’t let me login and see any of my passwords. Without passwords, I can’t work. So I started digging deeper. It seems the problem was that 1Password 3.8, the pre-App Store version, didn’t get fully removed when I’d installed the App Store version. Thus, I had two copies of the 1Password helper trying to run, or something in that direction.

Here’s how I fixed it today. I uninstalled all of the 1Password extensions, then uninstalled 1Password from Launchpad. Then, I went through and manually removed all 1Password files other than my password database, using this guide from 1Password. I restarted my Mac, checked to make sure no 1Password processes were running, then opened the App Store, reinstalled 1Password, and installed my browser extensions. Voilá. It’s all working perfectly now.

Hopefully that’s helpful to someone else besides me. I know I’m sure glad to have the connection error solved, and bet I’m not the only one seeing it.

By the way, if you’re not using 1Password, go get it for your Mac or PC now. It’s the only way I stay sane managing over 200 passwords for work and personal use. Plus, it’s the only way I remember all my debit card PIN numbers. Seriously.

Update: The 1Password team today reached out on Twitter, letting me know a terminal command that would fix the problem if it was due to an old 1Password helper running:

Unfortunately, that still didn’t clear up the issue. A bit more digging, and they replied again to tell me:

Oh. So, instead of switching to a beta 1Password, I just switched back to Chrome stable. And guess what: it’s working. Hopefully that’ll be the end of this saga.

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Win a Kindle from Web.AppStorm and Quote Roller

By on March 31, 2012 in Quick Tips

Web.AppStorm, where I work as an editor, is giving away a Kindle this week, sponsored by the Quote Roller team. There’s also 5 Quote Roller subscriptions up for grabs, as well. Now, I’ve never owned an actual Kindle device, but I’ve seen them in action, and for plain text, their E Ink screens are beautiful. I do use the Kindle apps on my iOS devices all the time, though, and purchase most eBooks from Kindle simply because their ecosystem and apps are great and work everywhere.

So hey, here’s you’re chance to possibly get your own Kindle for free!

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Code Anything You Want in WordPress with Script Manager

By on March 30, 2012 in Quick Tips

WordPress is rather powerful on its own, but what if you want to drastically change how it works? Perhaps you want to display SQL data directly in a blog post, or add custom code to your dashboard without having to hack your WordPress core files. My Dad recently wrote a new WordPress plugin, Script Manager, that lets you add any code you want to any part of WordPress you want, and is publishing tutorials on unique ways you could put it to use: adding tabs to WooCommerce, putting a map inside your WordPress dashboard, and more. It’s not for everyone, but if you like to tinker with your site and take WordPress beyond its default features, it might be the plugin you need. For $15, it’s easily worth giving a shot!

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Why You Should Write in Plain Text

By on March 12, 2012 in Opinion, Quick Tips

The word processor is a stupid and grossly inefficient tool for preparing text for communication with others. That is the claim I shall defend below. It will probably strike you as bizarre at first sight. If I am against word processors, what do I propose: that we write in longhand, or use a mechanical typewriter? No. While there are things to be said in favor of these modes of text preparation I take it for granted that most readers of this essay will do most of their writing using a computer, as I do. My claim is that there are much better ways of preparing text, using a computer, than the word processor.

The wording of my claim is intended to be provocative, but let me be clear: when I say word processors are stupid I am not saying that you, if you are a user of a word processor, are stupid. I am castigating a technology, but one that is assiduously promoted by the major software vendors, and that has become a de facto standard of sorts. Unless you happen to have been in the right place at the right time, you are likely unaware of the existence of alternatives.

For the past several years, I’ve increasingly avoided word processing apps. Sure, I have iWork Pages and Microsoft Word 2011 on my Mac. Pages is a beautiful app for laying out formatted documents, and Word, well, is a necessary evil, especially when you’re in college. But I hardly ever type directly into either. Instead, almost everything I write is written in plain text, in iA Writer or Typerighter, then saved to Simplenote or just as a plain text file in Dropbox or iCloud.

If it’s getting published online, then I’ll put it in WordPress and add the HTML it needs. If it’s getting submitted to college or someone else as a Word document, then I can format the text there. But the most import thing is, my text is always just plain text. It’s searchable, will always work on any computer, and never needs converted into another newer format. It’s just text, and it always works.

Plus, it’s so much less distracting to write in plain text, and not have to mess with formatting. Just get a minimilist plain text writing app, and write away.

Amazing this essay was written over a decade ago, and yet only recently are most people starting to see that they actually don’t have to have a word processor to write.

Link: “Word Processors: Stupid and Inefficient” by Allin Cottrell, on 29 Jun 1999. Via @ia

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Using Transparent Images with WooThemes Canvas

By on March 8, 2012 in Quick Tips

I love WooThemes’ Canvas Theme. It’s so versitle and simple to use, which is why I decided to use it for Techinch’s redesign last year. Since then, I’ve tweaked it in a number of ways, mainly using just Canvas’ internal settings. No code, no mess, just simple settings and a quick Save and you’re done.

I was pretty content with the way everything was looking, except for images. Canvas puts images in a white box with a light grey border, which looks nice enough for standard photos but looks rather awful with full window screenshots that include shadows with transparency. But try as I might, there’s not an option to turn off (or tweak) the image background in Canvas.

WooThemes forums to the rescue. A quick search later, and I found the tiny line of code I needed to add. So, if you want to remove the Canvas image box background and border from your site, just add this line of code to Canvas’ custom CSS box in its settings:

.entry img, img.thumbnail { background:none; border: 0px;}

And that’s it. Full image transparency support in Canvas, so your site with a non-white background color or texture doesn’t look so odd anymore. And if you happen to still want a background and border behind some images, just add a caption, and you’ll still get the original styling. Works great so far for me.

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DropDAV 2.0: Making Dropbox Integrate with iWork and More on the iPad, Better

By on June 3, 2011 in Quick Tips

There are two major things in technology that have changed the way many of us approach computing in the past few years: Dropbox and iOS. Dropbox enables us to keep all of our files synced seamlessly, so you never have to worry if that important file will be there when you need it. And iOS has freed many of us from the constraints of desktop computing, making it easier to be productive (and entertained…) on the go than ever before.

There’s only one problem: iOS and Dropbox don’t work perfectly together. iOS doesn’t include a full file system, so you can’t just sync Dropbox like you would on a Mac or PC. Then, the iWork apps, Omni apps such as OmniFocus and OmniOutliner, and more don’t include native Dropbox integration. Continue Reading →

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Superpower Your Photoshop with Script Arsenal

By on April 7, 2011 in Quick Tips

Several months back, I was excited to discover Elements+, a great addon for Adobe Photoshop Elements that brings many missing features to the otherwise excellent photo editing app. It’s become part of my standard PSE workflow, letting me unlock layers in folders and get more power out of Elements.

The developer behind Elements+ is back with a new tool: Script Arsenal. This new set of scripts is designed for standard Photoshop, and runs on Photoshop CS3+ for Windows and OS X. Script Arsenal contains over 100 scripts that can speed up your Photoshop workflow and give you easy access to features that make editing images a snap. I haven’t been able to try out Script Arsenal, since I do not have a copy of full Photoshop, but was impressed at the detailed descriptions of all of included functions. You can use it to quickly close all other photos, add torn edges or a page curl to your images, open photos from a folder based on a set of rules, and more. Continue Reading →

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