MacOsXHints
Latest
iPhoto 6 can handle non-.Mac photocasts
While Apple might have coined the term "photocast" (at least I never heard it until Macworld this year), an RSS feed containing images is certainly nothing new. Fortunately, iPhoto 6 knows this, and you can easily subscribe to non-.Mac photocasts simply by using File > Subscribe to Photocast and entering the URL of your favorite photocast. Try our TUAW Flickr feed on for size.The MacOSXHints post where I found this mentioned they had errors the first time they tried a couple feeds, but they wound up behaving on a second try. For the record though, our Flickr feed behaved just fine for me in iPhoto 6 on my PowerBook.
Install OS X from a hard drive
MacOSXHints has a short and sweet how-to for creating a hard drive-based installer for OS X. Using a CD/DVD is fine and dandy, but if you're in a hurry or you're working with a machine who's optical drive is less than cooperative, the sheer speed and convenience of a hard drive install can't be beat.The how-to basically has two steps. The first uses NetRestore Helper to create a Master Image of your Mac OS X install disc for the second step, which is using said image in Disk Utility to apply your install disc to an actual hard drive or partition. A few good considerations are listed at the end of the how-to, and I'd suggest reading the whole thing over if you're going to create a handy tool like this.
Fix non-iTMS video labels
Another gem from MacOSXHints covers a method, albeit not exactly pretty, for labeling TV video files you bring into iTunes as TV shows. This helps with organizing videos and I believe using the new Search Bar in iTunes 6 (Edit > Show Search Bar).The MacOSXHints post offers a command line tool by the name of AtomicParsley for doing the editing and applying the correct label, while a commenter on the post created a GUI wrapper for it. Make sure you follow the instructions when using a tool like this, because it's playing around with some real low-level stuff in your video files.While these are some handy tools, I'm much more of a fan of simply editing all the files in iTunes using Get Info and applying a Grouping label. A Smart Playlist can then organize everything for me - no fuss, no muss.
