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kameraflage enables your digicam to see more than you
While we've already seen what tricks cameras can play right before our very eyes, kameraflage is a slightly different flavor of optical illusion. The patent-pending technology exploits the fact that cameras can see a broader spectrum of colors than our meager eyes, and as the creator puts it, "by rendering content in these invisible colors we are able to create displays that are invisible to the naked eye, yet can be seen when imaged with a digital camera." Currently, it's being applied to garments in able to for cameraphone addicts to find surprises all over while pointing their sensors at unsuspecting humans, and the tech will even be on display at the upcoming 2007 ACM SIGGRAPH Unravel fashion show in San Diego. Best of all, custom orders will be fielded as early as September, and if we've got any interested VCs in the crowd, give this man a holler.[Via c0nn0r]
Quicksilver Trigger, Strip Clipboard Formatting
Sometimes even the best intentions of developers can't account for user preference, and after speaking with many other Mac users, this certainly seems to be the case with OS X's habitual tendency to preserve the formatting of text copied to the clipboard. For example:I copy text from OmniWeb:Pasted text before running the trigger:Pasted text after running the trigger:Quicksilver maven Dan Dickinson has figured out a sneaky way to strip out this formatting, and has turned the method into a handy Trigger. The trick works by pasting the contents of the clipboard into a terminal shell (where it loses all formatting), and then re-copying the text to the clipboard. For the trigger to work, you must have the Terminal Plugin installed. A full how-to is available on Dan's website.
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.
Time Magazine 'Person of the Year' cover redux, courtesy of that iSight trick
As you may know, Time Magazine recently declared you as the person of the year. While this is a mighty nice gesture on their part, Dan Wood has created a redux of the cover for iSight-enabled Mac users that truly resembles you as Time's award-winning person of the year. He's using that slick iSight trick that can turn on your iSight camera and place its feed on a web page, but remember: it isn't a security flaw, it's an actual feature. The trick doesn't send any video from your iSight over the web, it simply plays that video back through your web browser locally.As a side note: do any Mac users out there have a non-iSight webcam they can try this trick with? It would be interesting to see if it works only with Apple's camera or if everyone else can play along. That way, users with some kind of webcam have an easier way of adding themselves to Flickr's personoftheyear tag.[via Ranchero's blog]
TUAW Tip: type a letter to find a menu item
This isn't quite a mind-blowing feature, but it might come in handy to those who frequently need to track down a specific menu item or command. In the menus of any apps (including even menubar utilities), you can simply type the first letter of an item you're trying to find in the currently selected menu. This unfortunately doesn't seem to work across all menus, i.e. - you can't type a command to find it in any menu in the current app, but it should at least help with those "oh I *know* it's in this menu somewhere" moments. This also appears to work across all apps, Carbon (Finder, Firefox) included.Oh a broader scale, this trick works in many apps in various ways. iTunes is perhaps the best example: you can type the first few letters of an item you're looking for in your media list (or in the Sources list on the left), and iTunes will take you to that particular section, based on which column you're currently sorting items by, or which Browse column you have selected.
TUAW Podcast #12: Quicksilver and iCal
There wasn't much podcast-worthy news to chat about last week, so we thought it was the perfect time to do something different and bring you the first TUAW screencast evar! In this podcast (netcast!), I demonstrate that trick we covered last month of how to add iCal events and todos from Quicksilver, and I've ironed out a few details for a much more usable process. I figured this would be a great way to demonstrate some of Quicksilver's unique power with purty moving pictures, instead of the typical non-moving pictures. This screencast clocks in at 7:32, and it's 21MB of H.264 goodness.Speaking of goodness, we're soliciting feedback on this screencast (as if you need to be asked). This is my first screencast, so it's a little rough around the edges. I sound a lot better podcasting-wise, though I'm still working on picking up a Samson USB mic that reader Jules Stoop recommended, especially since I've seen it written up as *the* killer podcasting mic (I'm trying to find a good deal, since $80 is a little steep right now). But let us know what you think: too fast? Too slow? Do I sound like a muppet? I have a lot to learn about moving video between the big suites, as I have some good After Effects skills I could've used to spice this up, but I couldn't find a decent codec to preserve the quality when exporting the edited video out of Final Cut Pro (I especially am accepting workflow feedback on this topic). Rest assured, this is at the top my todos (pun intended!) for the next screencast, so I'll be able to add all sorts of flying text and 3D space aliens.But that's enough chatter for now: here's a direct link to TUAW Podcast #12, another link to our iTS podcast feed, and of course: our good ol' fashioned raw RSS feed.Update: Our iTS feed had a little bug that prevented this video from making the list, but it has since been fixed. Podcast #12 is ready to roll from the iTS Podcast Directory, so head over and grab a copy!
Video Sandwich: September 29, 2006
This is, like totally the most EXTREME version of the Video Sandwich, dude! In our first video, you see a skateboarder pulling off a trick with his PSP while boarding. You don't ever see Tony Hawk doing that these days. Pretty cool, huh?The bottom video features yet another one of the hilarious "Let Tekken Decide" advertisements. After seeing it, you'll be one of the few on this planet that can confidentally say you've seen an Asian pimp send someone to an alligator pit-of-doom. And that's an accomplishment, right?See also:Don't get mad! Get even with Tekken
Who needs a Mighty Mouse? Hold shift for horizontal scrolling
John Gruber linked the blog of Mike Rohde, a visual designer who discovered a slick scrolling trick built into Mac OS X: with a standard scrolling mouse, you can hold the shift key in most apps to scroll horizontally. Mike cites his day job apps like Photoshop and Illustrator, but this seems to work in NetNewsWire, Firefox and iTunes as well. I'm not sure if this is a 10.4 Tiger-only thing (anyone care to share?), but it's a handy little trick for those who aren't exactly enamored with the Mighty Mouse.
How To: keep your iTunes library on an external hard drive
For more helpful how-to guides, check out the TUAW Tips, iPhone 101 and Mac 101 topics. After discussing how my iTunes library is set up with a few readers in the comments on my First Impressions/2G iPod nano post, I figured this might be a handy tip for readers who find themselves running out of room to store an expanding iTunes library. My only machine is a MacBook Pro with a 120GB hard drive, but after installing ~ 40GB of the entire Final Cut Studio suite and other various software and projects, I don't have room for my ~ 35GB iTunes library. I decided to do some experimenting a couple weeks back with moving and keeping my library on an external hard drive. There are obvious initial disadvantages to this, but after some tinkering and getting comfortable with iTunes' baked-in library management genius, this can be a pretty useful setup for those who, like me, are cramped for space but aren't willing to trash those albums you're too embarrassed use in a Party Shuffle playlist. This setup also has the inherent, and obvious, advantage of keeping your library on an external hard drive, so it's more or less already backed up - though I, with my paranoid data habits, keep a backup of my library on a second hard drive, and I now also use Scott's iTunes 7 backup tip (instead of a previous Smart Playlist system) to burn my library to DVDs (the lesson from someone who knows: your data can never be too backed up - ever). Getting back on topic: read on for a walkthrough (from a very mobile notebook user) of how to move your iTunes library to an external hard drive. I'll include some tips on how iTunes is already one step ahead of this setup, as well as a few habits you might need to adopt when living la vida external-iTunes-library.
Sunday Survey: iPod FM transmitters - yea or nay?
I recently came upon owning a car again (a '99 Chevy Astro baby!), so what do you think is the first thing I needed to do? Why, figure out how to play my iPod through it, of course! It has a cassette deck, but my wife's new Toyota Matrix doesn't, so I moseyed (yes, moseyed) on over to my local Apple Store to see how the recent crop of FM transmitter accessories match up. In the name of saving money, I decided to try the Griffin iTrip (it was the cheapest).In the words of that old dude from the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: I chose "poorly". It's a cute little transmitter, but - at least in my van - my radio couldn't pick up a clear signal unless I manually held the iTrip up against the face of my radio (and yes, before you ask: I tried nearly every frequency up and down the dial before giving the iTrip the i-boot). I decided that maybe I needed to spend a little more money and exchanged the iTrip for Belkin's TuneBase. Since it has an adjustable arm and base, I figured I could position it exactly where it needed to be for a more reliable signal.The TuneBase proved to be a better choice mainly for that radio proximity factor, but using an FM transmitter in general proved to have too many quirks for me. For one, neither of these units pumped out a strong enough signal, so I always had to crank the volume on my stereo to reach a proper jamming audio experience. But if I switch to the radio, or simply skip a track on the iPod without manually adjusting the volume, blaring static pours through the speakers until the FM transmission kicks back in with a new song from the iPod. Ultimately: it just felt like too quirky of a device and too much of a compromise to pay $50 (iTrip) or $80 (TuneBase), so I settled for a good ol' fashioned $15 (non-iPod branded) cassette tape adapter from Best Buy for now.But what about you, music-loving TUAW readers? Are you happy with your iPod FM transmitters? Which one are you using, and did you need to get creative with any workarounds? I wish I could find a solution for both the Astro and the Matrix (especially since the Matrix's gas mileage is killer), but so far my efforts have failed. Share your thoughts and teach me (and hopefully others) your ways!
macDazzle: magic tricks for your Mac
I'll cop to being a magic trick geek. I'm no good at performing them, but I love the mechanisms, and used to try to create new tricks and presentations as a kid (and, OK, later in life as well). I'm surprised it's taken this long for there to be a software-based trick for the Mac, or at least, one that really was worth using. But macDazzle is offering one trick now, and another that looks even more promising later.iPick, available now, is a classic card reading trick. A spectator picks from three distinct cards and you guess their pick. What's neat about this is that the spectator can download the app on their machine, and you can do the trick via iChat (or Adium, but the presentation isn't nearly as cool).iMath, available "soon," looks just like the calculator widget from Apple, but it again allows you to divine the numbers provided by a spectator. To further enhance the trick, the spectator can perform calculations with the calculator, and you'll still be able to read the number, without ever touching their machine.
Use the Nike + iPod Sport Kit on any shoe with help from a Nike accessory
Now don't think we're just trying to pimp Nike's stuff here because we're getting hookups or something (we have to run out and buy our own kits like anyone else), but TUAW reader Mr. Gaskell recommended a tip that could allow you to use the new iPod Sport Kit with any shoes, without the need for awkward lace tying or unsightly duct tape: Nike makes a small wallet accessory (pictured) called 'Nike Run Shoe Wallet S05' for $10 that attaches to the top of any shoe. It's designed to hold small personal items for a run, such as change, but (as I remember) it's too small even for something like a driver's license, but it should be a perfect fit for the shoe sensor. I'd link to it, but I can't find it anywhere at the Niketown site; I've only seen it in a brick and mortar Niketown store. I'm sure they're also available elsewhere on the web, such as eBay or in similar forms from competitors. I have no idea if the kit is still accurate when attaching it with an accessory like this, but we're receiving reports that people are having success with jury-rigging the sensor to their shoes with the aforementioned unique lace tying and duct taping techniques; using something like this wallet doesn't sound like your results should be any different. Any readers out there try this yet?
macosxhints gets redesigned
The invaluable macosxhints has received a redesign and feature boost. The site's theme has received a stylistic bump, and legibility has improved site-wide. New functionality and features include more topic categories and a better search (while Rob won't use the term 'better', I will). Registered and logged in users will likely welcome simplified account management tools and more control over what information you include and display for others.Head over and take a look at macosxhints' new look and add your $0.02 to their announcement post.
TUAW Tip: quickly adjust viewable hours in iCal
Today's tip is a quick one about iCal, and it hails from the ever-useful archives of MacOSXHints. iCal's preferences allow you to choose how many hours you see in a day or week, but you can easily and quickly change this setting with a simple shortcut key. If you have a scrollwheel mouse or a two finger scrolling trackpad, simply hold the option key and scroll up and down in iCal to increase and decrease the amount of hours you can view.
Quicksilver's "Comma Trick"
Today I fall even more deeply in love with Quicksilver, as I have discovered yet another incredibly useful and productive trick from a 43 Folders tutorial. This easy tip, loosely called "the comma trick," allows you first to find more than one item with Quicksilver, then apply an action to all of those items. If you're wondering why or how this could be useful, consider a couple scenarios: You can find multiple bookmarks (as many as you want, as far as I can tell) and open them all in tabs (as long as your browser does the tabs thing). You could find a file, chose Quicksilver's "send immediately" action and then find multiple people from your address book to send that same file to - all without ever touching an actual email compose window. This trick's usefulness boggles my mind, and all you really have to do is hit the comma key in order to chose multiple items. Check out the 43 Folders tutorial for the full deets on how this trick works, then feel free to take a break from being amazed.
Safari trick: Email url's via the address bar
Here's a cool trick I was unaware of until today. Mac OS X Hints describes how to email a URL from within Safari's address bar. When you're at the website you'd like to share (like, say, this one), replace the address with "mail-link:" (minus the quotes) and hit return. A new message will be created in your default email client, with the site's title as the subject and URL in the body (as if you had selected "Mail Link to This Page" from the File menu). Cool. I've made "mail-link:" into a Safari bookmark, so now it's just a click away.Anyone else know of some cool Safari tricks?[Via MacIT.org]
