Improving spelling in TextEdit (and other Cocoa apps)

After years of ignoring TextEdit's insistence that I was spelling words incorrectly, I set off on a Google search to find out how to replace the default American English dictionary with a British English one. However I soon discovered that it was my omission all along - all I needed to do was choose the Edit:Spelling:Spelling menu item and I could change the dictionary to a British English one! However my time was not completely wasted, I discovered a very slick (and free) improved spell checker for OS X named cocoAspell, an OS X implementation of the open source Aspell. Aspell has a wide selection of additional European language dictionaries available for download.

And before anyone asks, the answer is no, I don't know why the Croatian dictionary is ten times the size of the others...

One self-employed analyst, idiotic statement of the year

"The expectation on the iPod is that HP's version will probably outsell Apple's version relatively quickly ... due to HP's broad distribution at electronics retailers", said Rob Enderle. Mr Enderle runs an outfit with the grandiose-title of The Enderle Group. Some kind of umbrella company controlling a multitude of lesser corporations? Nah, it's him, his wife, and two buddies.

This guy is either smoking crack :) or is operating on the principle that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I can honestly say I don't remember the last time I even saw an HP product other than a printer at an "electronics retailer", but I usually see a prominent iPod display of some sort.

Secondly, I've lost count of the number of times I've been to shops that do not sell any Apple products of any sort, except for the iPod. Let me emphasize this - shops that sell only Wintel-based PCs and wouldn't touch an Apple Macintosh with a bargepole will have iPods on display. So much for his theory that HP's "broad distribution" will make a difference.

Finally there is the 'cool factor'. Go and grab an average young person (for simplicity's sake let's say someone between 15 and 29) and ask them who is cooler, Apple or Hewlett Packard. Dollars to doughnuts the answer won't be HP.

iStablize 1.1 released

iStablize 1.1 has been released. The website says "iStabilize is a software video stabilizer for MacOS. It stabilizes movies by removing unwanted shaky motion and smoothing the image path".

eBooks and DRM

Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing discusses a C|Net report on the current state of eBook publishing and whether or not Digital Rights Management (DRM) makes a difference.

Slow 12x/16x DVD burning on G3/G4 Macs

The Accelerate Your Macintosh site explains why 12x and faster DVD-R burners will burn at slower than expect rates on G3s and G4s. G5 owners don't need to worry (All the more reason to get one!)

One Mouse, Many Macs

The folks over at Forwarding Address: OS X today mentioned an app named teleport, an amazing-sounding preference pane that lets you move your mouse from the monitor of one Mac to another Mac just by moving past the edge of the screen. If you've ever used two Macs you'll know how cool this is! I no longer have two side-by-side Macs, but I'm looking forward to trying this out. Be warned, some of the comments at both the Forwarding Address page and the MacUpdate page mention bugs, but by and large the comments are extremely positive.

Archos' video iPod

Having had the chance to play with a relative's Archos Video Recorder early last year, I've kept an eye out for Archos news. The Video Recorder I played with was impressive despite the large size - the current 40GB model appears to be slightly smaller but still weighs in at 350g (12.5oz).

However, Archos' new product is in a different league. The €400 Gmini 400 weighs in at a mere 160g (5.6oz) and features a 20GB hard disk and 2.2" 220x176 pixel 262,000 colour screen. Interfaces include USB2.0 and a CompactFlash slot and it can play MP3, WMA and WAV audio and Mpeg4, Xvid and Divx video. It can also play Mophun games, either on the onboard screen or on a TV.

RealVideo to SmartMovie

I missed this story on MacOSXHints while I was away on holiday, but I just noticed it tonight. Converting RealVideo to anything else on the Mac has always been hard, but this guy is reporting success converting RealVideo internet streams to SmartMovie AVIs using the command line encoder Mencoder.

On-screen bezels with LanOSD

Another gem from the codepoetry page - anyone who has ever used Applescript will absolutely love LanOSD. Essentially you can pass it information to display in an on-screen bezel (like the OS X volume bezel) along with a choice of icons.

In-depth Analysis: The Colour Palette

A MacOSXHints report today points to a great exposé of the OS X colour palette. The same author has also done a similar examination of Panther's fonts window.

Overclocking eMacs

This is old news, but it was only today I followed a link to page by a guy named Leo Bodnar. Among other things he has posted an eMac Upgrade Guide. My favorite bit was the amazing photo of the resistors the author removed to uncripple his eMac's processor and ramp the speed up from 800MHz to 1.33GHz! After a bit of googling I also found a SpyMac discussion and a MacNN discussion about the upgrades.

Brand spanking new DVD2OneX

Big news! DVD2OneX 1.4 has been released! It apparently features the new selective ratio engine from the (PC only) DVD2One 1.5, as well as some speed improvements.

Be Ready, the US Govt is coming

I received this via email. I wouldn't normally post this sort of thing, but the captions really did make me laugh!

The US government has a new website, titled Be Ready. The thing is that the pictures from the site are so ambiguous they could mean anything! Here are a few interpretations.

If you have set yourself on fire, do not run.

If you spot terrorism, blow your anti-terrorism whistle. If you are Vin Diesel, yell really loud.

If you spot a terrorist arrow, pin it against the wall with your shoulder.

If you are sprayed with an unknown substance, stand and think about a cool design for a new tattoo.

Use your flashlight to lift the walls right off of you!.

The proper way to eliminate smallpox is to wash with soap, water and at least one(1) armless hand.

Michael Jackson is a terrorist. If you spot this smooth criminal with dead, dead eyes, run the hell away.

Hurricanes, animal corpses and your potential new tattoo have a lot in common. Think about it.

Be on the lookout for terrorists with pinkeye and leprosy. Also, they tend to rub their hands together manically.

If a door is closed, karate chop it open.

Try to absorb as much of the radiation as possible with your groin region. After 5 minutes and 12 seconds, however, you may become sterile.

After exposure to radiation it is important to consider that you may have mutated to gigantic dimensions: watch your head.

If you've become a radiation mutant with a deformed hand, remember to close the window. No one wants to see that shit.

If you hear the Backstreet Boys, Michael Bolton or Yanni on the radio, cower in the corner or run like hell.

If your lungs and stomach start talking, stand with your arms akimbo until they stop.

If you are trapped under falling debris, conserve oxygen by not farting.

If you lose a contact lens during a chemical attack, do not stop to look for it.

Do not drive a station wagon if a power pole is protruding from the hood.

A one-inch thick piece of plywood should be sufficient protection against radiation.

Always remember to carry food with you during a terrorist attack. At least you'll be able to enjoy a nice coke and apple before you die.

Lens your P800

There is a great looking gadget on MobileWhack today! Some outfit called Brando Workshop (based in Hong Kong no less!) are selling a Camera Lens Kit for cellphones. The lenses, including a weak telephoto and a macro, just stick over your phone's camera lens.

Converting audio tape to CD

As mentioned on a couple of occasions recently, I've had to do this a few times now, both for unique live music tapes and family archive interviews. The following method has given me good results and is very easy, albeit somewhat time-consuming.

First off, get yourself a copy of Rogue Amoeba's US$16 utility Audio Hijack (Ambrosia's free WireTap might also work, but it crashed when I tried it). Plug the output from your tape deck into your Mac's line-in port.

Next you'll need an app called LineIn, which is included with the US$32 Audio Hijack Pro. Download the trial version of Audio Hijack Pro and install it. Find the Audio Hijack Pro application icon and control-click it. Choose Show Package Contents. Browse through Contents/Resources and find the LineIn app. Copy it to your Applications folder. You can delete Audio Hijack Pro now if you like.

Fire up LineIn and press play on your tape deck. You should now hear the tape through your Mac speakers. Launch Audio Hijack, select LineIn as the application to be hijacked and click Hijack. Click Record and start playing the tape at the same time. Audio Hijack will now be recording an AIFF file onto your desktop. This is a realtime process, so if your tape is 45 minutes long, recoridng it onto your Mac will take 45 minutes.

Optional: Once you have finished recording what you want, use QuickTime Player to cut the AIFF into tracks (QT Pro required). Save each one as a dependent file.

Optional: Use Bias' excellent SoundSoap to remove all the tape hiss from the AIFF file(s). This application is expensive (US$99), but the difference it makes to non-musical recordings is astounding. Note: to save yourself a lot of sitting around and clicking, you may prefer to run the entire AIFF track through SoundSoap before cutting it up into tracks.

Drop the AIFF(s) into iTunes. Arrange as a playlist. If necessary, open up the iTunes preferences and assign a value of 0 seconds as the gap between songs. Burn.

Edit: Don't forget to delete the AIFFs from iTunes' library afterwards. A 90 minute tape converted to AIFF will fill up around a gigabyte.

MacTheRipper 2.0.1

I just received an email announcing MacTheRipper 2.0.1 with a download link. The homepage hasn't been updated yet though...

Edit: a thread has been posted on DVDRHelp.com about the new release.

Audio Hijack Pro & 10.3.5

I was at the in-laws' house today attempting to record a family history audio tape (via line-in) onto my laptop for later conversion to a CD. I have done this for them before, but after much frustration I came to the conclusion that Audio Hijack Pro no longer works properly. Everything appears to be fine, but the recording doesn't actually start.

At the time I assumed the problem was a conflict between APE and the new OS X 10.3.5 upgrade I installed yesterday. The console log shows a permissions error involving Unsanity's Application Enhancer (APE) which doesn't seem to be able to execute superuser commands. A quick online search didn't turn up any answers but lack of broadband at the in-laws' place prevented any real thoroughness. In an attempt to work around the problem I downloaded Ambrosia's free utility WireTap to record the tape, but my whole laptop froze and started repeating a ringing noise when the recording got to about 95MB (about 30 minutes into it). By this point I had run out of time and had to postpone the whole exercise.

Some further research once I got home into the Audio Hijack problem showed that Unsanity are on the case, and have released a free upgrade to Audio Hijack Pro 1.3.2 to address 10.3.5 compatibility. I'll be trying again in a few day :)

Edit: Tried again on 17/8/04 - and it works :)

New OS X, New iSync

The new OS X 10.3.5 update is out. I was hoping that this, in combination with the new iSync 1.5, would fix my P800 sync problems. Alas not...

ffmpegX 0.0.9n

Due to my recent absence this is a week late, but worth noting nonetheless - ffmpeg 0.0.9n has been released. The main updates are MOV xvid/mpeg4 and MOV/3GP AAC encoding using the faster ffmpeg engine.