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TUAW's Daily Mac App: unDock
When you're using a MacBook in the vicinity of a desk, you're likely to have a lot of things plugged into it. Be it hard drives, flash drives, memory cards or any other type of storage, we all know how bitterly OS X complains when you just pull them out. When you're in a hurry to get out the door, the last thing you want to do is eject 15 different drives. Luckily, as with many Mac-related issues, there's a simple solution to the problem, and that's unDock. UnDock does one-click ejection, or undocking, of every mass storage drive you've got connected to your Mac. Any networked drives or optical media can be ejected as well, and for anything else, you've got the option to fire off an AppleScript at the same time. It can be triggered from a customizable shortcut key or a menu bar utility, while Growl takes care of the notifications. Once the operation is complete, which is nearly instantaneous for anything that doesn't need to spin-up before being ejected, the menu bar icon stops flashing and you're good to go. While you can achieve the same task for free with an AppleScript, if you have a portable Mac with more than one USB drive plugged in at any one time and aren't comfortable messing with AppleScripts, then this US$0.99 app could be a real time saver.
11.6-inch MacBook Air detailed
So, we've just been discussing the rumored, and long overdue, MacBook Air refresh with a trusted source. This person recently had a working model in their possession for a few minutes and managed to glean quite a bit of detail that would seemingly confirm Apple's plan to announce an 11-inch MacBook Air at the "Back to the Mac" event later today. Here's what we've been told to expect: Smaller 11.6-inch display. 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (with a 2.33GHz option possible). 2GB of memory in the base configuration. No optical drive, naturally. Mini DisplayPort, USB, and SD card reader along the left-hand side and USB and power on the right (that's 2x USB). The trackpad has been updated to match that of the new MacBook Pros. Although smaller due to the 11.6-inch display, it's still about the same thickness as the current MacBook Air. A black power key now sits immediately to the right of a smaller eject key on the MBA's keyboard -- the round aluminum power button is gone. A design decision that might support the MBA's rumored instant-on capabilities though our source didn't see this functionality exhibited (possibly because it was running OS X 10.6.4). Unfortunately, our source couldn't identify the graphics or the storage related to the rumored "SSD Card." So where does that leave us? Well, it looks like a smaller (and presumably, cheaper) MacBook Air originally rumored by AppleInsider is in the bag for a Steve Jobs announcement later today as is a refresh to the 13.3-inch model we broke last week (pictured nekkid above). So check back in a few hours and watch the reveal live, won't you? Update: Reader Lucas F. submitted a mockup of the new power and eject keys which you can see after the break. [Thanks, Anonymous]
Mac 101: Eject a stuck disc
Now that the holidays are approaching, you'll probably be asked to service your relatives' computers. "You like computers, right? Will you take a look at this for me?" Prepare yourself, it's coming. Some fixes are easy, including the stuck disc. It can happen for a variety of reasons that we won't go into here. After all, when the Titanic is sinking, you don't stop to yell at the iceberg. So let's just eject the disc. The fix is simple. After trying the obvious (hit the eject key, drag the disc into the trash), restart the machine and as it starts up, hold down the mouse button (or trackpad button if the offending Mac is a laptop). The disc should now eject as the Mac continues to start up. If not, you may have optical drive issues to worry about. But chances are you'll get mom's extended edition Murder, She Wrote DVD ejected safe and sound.
Terminal Tip: Burning a disc
Are you a Terminal geek (or wannabe, but not the pop star type)? If so, did you know that you can burn discs right from the Terminal window with a simple command and a drag/drop? Just enter the following command followed by the path to a folder or disk image: drutil burn filehere Don't type the "filehere" -- that's where you put the path to the file/folder that you wish to burn. You can either type the location manually or drag and drop the file onto the Terminal window. But that's not all you can do with drutil; you can also eject media from the optical drive by typing "drutil eject." To see all of the available drutil options, just type in drutil for a quick list or man drutil for a full description.
"Final" iPod update fixes eject issues in Windows Vista
While iTunes 7.1 claimed to play nicer with Windows Vista, there was still reason for avid iPod users to hold back on upgrading, and now it looks like those final issues have been ironed out. Starting today, Vista users can download a software update that purportedly solves the problems some users were having as their iPod became corrupted when "ejecting them using Windows Explorer or the Safely Remove Hardware function in the system tray." Of course, those of you who got burned by this aren't as apt to become guinea pigs in finding out just how well (or not) the patch actually works, but for those mettlesome folks out there, feel free to hit the read link and commence downloading.[Via WindowsVistaBlog]
TUAW Tip: temporarily prevent your iPod from syncing
Out of the box, the iPod is designed to work seamlessly with iTunes, so the system automatically syncs (by default) when you connect your iPod. This is typically fine for most users, but what about those times when you don't want this tag team to kick into gear for one reason or another? Perhaps you just had a library goof-up, and you need to use iPodRip to recover some playlists or media files before iTunes syncs and blows either away, or perhaps you're just in a hurry and don't have time to sync down that new 1.5GB movie you just bought, though you you still need to dump some files over for work or class. Whatever the scenario, there are a couple of simple ways to arbitrarily prevent iTunes from working its magic on a case-by-case basis. The first method, I feel, is the least intrusive and most useful: assuming iTunes is running, all you need to do is hold down cmd+opt (possibly ctrl+alt on Windows, though I don't have a machine to test that on) when connecting your iPod to make iTunes look the other way and not begin a sync. The iPod should mount on your desktop and even appear in iTunes, but it simply won't sync. You're free to go about your business and eject the iPod as quickly as it mounted, with no argument from iTunes.The second method assumes that you have enabled hard drive use for your iPod, and you don't have iTunes set to automatically start when you plug the 'pod in. In this case, simply quitting iTunes when plugging in your iPod will solve your problem altogether. Simply do your business and eject to get on your way quickly.
Wii gently ejects discs
In this rather short video, Miyamoto demonstrates just how the Wii will push your disc out like it was its first time, treating it with the gentle ease only a world-class lover could provide. I watched could watch this a million times.
