Google Desktop Gets its Mac On

Today the Official Google Mac blog announced that they've released Google Desktop Search for the Mac. Like it's PC counterpart this service will index your Hard Drives and help you quickly search to find files.

INTEGRATED WITH MAC APLICATIONS

Google's Desktop Search for Mac can quickly index and help you find files that you create with your standard apple programs. This includes the ability to search iChat conversations, Apple Mail, Microsoft Entourage, your Address Book contacts, and music and video files.

FIND PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF YOUR FILES

In addition to helping you find your files, Google Desktop Search for the Mac also creates snapshot copies of files every time you use them that can be accessed in case you save over that important file with something not so important. It may not be as safe or useful as some of the future Leopard backup features but its a start.

Find out about additional Google Desktop for Mac Features or talk about it in the discussion group.

Apple TV Ships

While the Apple TV was announced a few months ago the company hadn't actually shipped any units until Today. You can pick them up at apple.com or at a local apple retailer.

The system is expected to "revolutionize" TV the way the iPod changed music. I'm interested in converting my DVD collection to an all digital format that would fit on an external hard drive. It would make accessing the movie you want to watch, quick and easy.. Too bad iTunes doesn't have a rip from DVD option.

Apple TV Compatibility

Before you purchase an Apple TV make sure you've got the other hardware to make full use of the system. The device only has HDMI and Component Video out so be sure to check that your TV has these types of inputs. The Apple website for Apple TV also explains that you'll need a widescreen TV and wired or wireless network.

UPDATE: You can read an initial review of the product at Macworld.

iTunes: Find The Name Of The Unknown Track

If you're like me and have a number of songs or mp3 files in your iTunes library that are missing the name, artist, and album and you're not sure who sings it you need to look no further.

ieatbrainz is an application for Mac OSX that uses the sounds from the song to help it determine what song it is and then updates the meta data information for the file.

To update your iTunes library, download ieatbrainz and then after launching the application, select the songs you want to update the information on and it will scan the files, compare them to the musicbrainz database and then display what it has determined to be the name of the song you're looking up.

Be sure to look at each songs because sometimes it will offer a number of options that are potential matches. After you accept the suggested changes from ieatbrainz it will update your iTunes Library with the additional information.

After you've added the missing information, be sure to have iTunes go out and get the related album artwork so that you can browse your library in Full Screen mode on the latest version of iTunes 7.1 .

Automatically Mount A Network Drive On Startup

As people start to purchase more and more computers, they often keep their old ones around the home and create home networks so that they can quickly access data or programs on their old systems. This is an approach for Mac OS X and the following is a quick way to use Automator to create a small application that mounts a network drive and then how to set it up so that it automatically runs each time you start your computer.

This article assumes that you know the location of the drive you'd like to mount on your network and and can find it by clicking on Finder and then Network.

CREATING THE MOUNTING APPLICATION IN AUTOMATOR

1. Open Automator for your applications and select Finder from your Library.
2. Select Get Specified Server and drag and drop it to the work area to the right.
3. Click the Plus Button under Get Specified Server
4. Under the "Show:" drop down menu select File Servers
5. Select the drive you'd like to mount
6. Click Connect - The Drive should now show up under Get Specified Servers
7. From the Action list drag and drop Connect to Servers to the work area to the right (This should be number 2 in the workflow)
8. Click Run to make sure everything is working correctly - The Drive should mount to your desktop.
9. Save the Automator script as an application in a location you can easily access it.
10. Go to System Preferences and click accounts - Select the Login Items Tab
11. Drag and drop the Automator application we've created to the area below "These items will open automatically when you login.
12. Restart your computer to make sure that everything is working correctly.

You can also use these steps to mount other types of servers on boot up.

Picasa Web Albums Upgrades - Includes Blogger Pictures

UPGRADES AND NEW ADDITIONS

Google announced today on their blog that they've upgraded the free storage for your photos from 250mb to 1gig. In addition to the additional storage space, Google also added the ability to share your pictures with the community. Here is a complete list of all the new features to Picasa Web Albums.

If you decided to share the pictures or keep them private you can always look around at other peoples shared albums by drop down arrow next to the search box and selecting community photos.

USING PICASA

Picasa is a great photo organization and quick editing application and the ability to quickly upload your albums to share with friends and family only make it better. I use this exclusively on my Windows XP systems.

If you're a mac user you can also take part in the Picasa Web Albums. Google has released a plugin for iPhoto that lets you export your photos from iPhoto simply by selecting the export option and then selecting the Picasa Web Albums tab.

Another option for Mac Users is the Picasa Web Albums Uploader. This stand alone application allows you to drag and drop photos you'd like to upload to your Picasa Web Albums.

BLOGGER PHOTOS INCLUDED

After loading up my Picasa Web Albums I quickly noticed a new album that I had not installed. The title for the Album was the title of my blog and I noticed that all the pictures I had uploaded to some of my posts were now included in one location as a new Album in Picasa Web Albums.

Clicking in the Album brought up all the pictures on my Blog and I noticed a "Link to this Album" option and a "View Blog" link to the left of the pictures. Creating Photo Blogs may have just gotten a little easier.

How to Use Your Wiimote as your Mac Mouse/Remote Control

This article can now be found at Maciverse.com:

http://www.maciverse.com/how-to-user-your-wiimote-as-your-mouse.html

VMware Fusion Beta 2 Can't Handle Counter-Strike: Source

The New Beta

Recently VMware released a new beta for their OSX based Virtual Machine Fusion. This beta offers something no one else has previously offered, 3D graphics. This release of Fusion includes an experimental software that includes support for DirectX 8.1. This allows users to play their windows based games while still running OSX. Download Fusion Beta 2 over at VMware's site (Registration Required).

As an Intel iMac user I was extremely excited at the thought of not having to boot into XP through bootcamp to run the various games I played including Counter-Strike: Source which I play often and I know runs at the directX 8.1 level. If VMware can deliver with 3D graphic support I would only load up Windows in a virtual machine when I wanted to play games.

Installing the Beta

After downloading the beta files I quickly installed the application, Windows XP, and started downloading Steam and then Counter-Strike: Source. This process was as if I was installing Windows onto any other machine and once installed it functioned well. Steam and Counter-Strike: Source also installed easily.

Turn on 3D Acceleration

VMware doesn't have 3D acceleration running by default. You have to turn this on by going to Settings, Display, and Checking the Enable 3d Acceleration box. NOTE: The virtual machine must not be running while you do this. The system will not allow you to check the box until the machine is stopped.

After turning on the acceleration I booted up the virtual machine and ran dxdiag to test the 3d acceleration. It passed the 8.1 test. I was excited and hopeful that this virtual machine would have what it takes to run CS:S.

Crash and Burn...

I setup Counter-Strike: Source to run in directX 8.1 mode by adjusting the launch options to include the command - dxlevel 81 and attempted to run the game. It gave me a warning that my graphics card wasn't supported, I clicked passed it and at first everything seemed to be going ok. The game started to load and I got a quick flash of the Counter-Strike: Source logo but then something terrible happened. A Blue Screen of Death ruined my excitement and I was left with a crashed Windows in VMWare.

It is true that VMware doesn't list CS:S as a supported game at this time, but I was still hopeful give the listed support for directx 8.1. Hopefully future releases of their software will include the support for all Windows games.

Macbook Performance: The Importance of RAM

This article can now be found at Maciverse.com:

Macbook The Importance of Ram