There is one free application available for renaming files (NameChanger) and there are several tutorials about using AppleScript and/or Automator.app. The DIY script and Automator options are okay for certain types of people, but the people that really need help will struggle to understand how to use these tools. What are all of the non-geek OSX users supposed to do?

Well, here’s another one of my small contributions to society. A free Automator.app-created workflow that will add the option ‘Rename Multiple Files’ to the contextual menu in Finder.app. Just select multiple files, right-click and select ‘Rename Multiple Files’ and away you go!

Here’s how to install this Rename Multiple Files tool:

1. In the Finder navigate to /Users/yourname/Library/Services/
   [if "Services" doesn't exist, create a new folder and name it likewise]
2. Download the RenameMultipleFiles.zip, extract the contents onto your desktop (double-click in OSX)  and copy the file “Rename Multiple Files.workflow” to the previously mentioned “Services” folder.
3. Open a Finder window with multiple files. Select all of the files. Right-click on the selected files. At the bottom of the contextual menu you will find an option titled “Rename Multiple Files”. (It may take a minute or two for this new option to become available on your contextual menu.)

Shortly after you click on “Rename Multiple Files” you will be presented with a small window and several options. To save a verbose explanation I have included screenshots of the options below.

This workflow was created on a Mac running OSX 10.6. It is dependent on Automator.app. It definitely works with other 10.6 machines, but if you are running some other version of OSX it may or may not work.

Please give me feedback about whether or not this is useful or if it doesn’t work at all. Thanks.

MenuMeters

I know this is a post about enhancing Apple trackpads, but first a quick note about MenuMeters. If you’re familiar with Linux you’re probably used to having a nifty system resources ‘gauge’ that provides live information about processor activity, RAM use, network activity and more. OSX comes with an application called ‘Activity Monitor’ but it’s a resource hog and doesn’t provide a simple interface that can be visible at all times.

MenuMeters adds this feature to OSX by making this data available in the main menu bar next to your wireless network status and volume control. It takes very little resources. I don’t know exactly how little, but if you can run it on a PowerBook G3 running OSX 10.3 while being able to do OTHER things, it apparently isn’t using very many resources. It’s so excellent that it should come with OSX pre-installed. The good news? Raging Menace offers MenuMeters as a free download.

SideTrack

This little bit of software is just as valuable and unassuming. SideTrack opens up that simple, one-purpose Apple trackpad and turns it into a powerful, multi-purpose device. Suddenly your trackpad is endowed with vertical scroll, horizontal scroll, the ability to set each corner of the trackpad to evoke a custom key command and more.

SideTrack isn’t free, but you can try it out for free and, if you find it useful, purchase a license for $15. Totally worth every penny. It’s definitely easiest to understand its many features by just downloading and installing it. However, these screenshots of the preference panes will tell you a lot.

Check out these excellent pieces of software at ragingmenace.com. You won’t regret it.

Once we get to that point I ask a them a few questions about how they use their personal computer. This recent situation called for compact disc booklet templates and a greeting card making application. In order to avoid complexity I rarely tell non-designers/tech geeks to give Inkscape, Scribus or the GIMP a try. What this means is finding some specialized application that makes the desired task super simple. If that isn’t available I turn to OpenOffice.

OpenOffice is surprisingly versatile and effective at the same time. There are also hidden benefits to using it, like dynamically generating letters for a small company with the power of OO’s mail merge tools or using embedded spreadsheets to create tables of data within a layout. Cool stuff that the professional-focused graphics tools leave to more specialized programs.

The end result, anyway, is that I decided to create some templates for OpenOffice. The related templates that the usual search engines pointed me to were not very good, so I thought providing these as free downloads might be helpful to some folks out there. What I have is a CD Booklet and Tray template and a Greeting Card template for OpenOffice Draw. Enjoy.

1. Compact Disc Booklet + Tray template
2. Greeting Card template

http://ghosts.nin.com

I gladly downloaded the free sample tracks to check it out. I’m not quite sure if I’ll purchase more or not. The true test is how entertaining the songs are while I’m sitting still on the interstate trying to get home from work in downtown Nashville.

It’s no secret that Mr. Reznor works on a Mac. I think in one of the boxed sets he’s even distributing the album songs in the GarageBand.app format to make it easy to create remixes. No offense, but I’d be more impressed if he offered them in Audacity format. Him distributing gBand files like that… well he might as well be on Apple’s payroll.

But let’s not be ungrateful bastards. He’s certainly one of the few popular artists today that understands how giving some of his source files away under a Creative Commons License is an excellent way to promote his cult of personality. Hats off.

With that said, finding a folder named ‘_MACOSX’ in the free download ZIP archive is still amusing. I wonder, does the Finder window look really cool when you open this free MP3 folder? Or is this just the side effect of how carefully they prep a ZIP archive for mass distribution? “Oh hey, let’s get that on the site tonight”.

[ right-click/Create Archive]

First of all, I don’t understand why the Control key is where it is on keyboards for OS’s that use it as the primary modifier key. It is probably the least ergonomic key to use (unless you have the good fortune of using a Thinkpad, since they don’t include the Windows key). Apple, for all its missteps, gets it right by making the primary modifier key easy to press in combination with other keys. Command, Control, Apple, whatever you call it, put it in a comfortable spot! That one detail almost prevented me from switching to something other than OSX. Seriously.

With that said, it’s no surprise that Apple puts the rarely-used-in-OSX Control key off to the far corners of the keyboard. As to why Apple doesn’t include an option to switch the Control/Command keys in the X11 preferences, I can only imagine.

Second, making this change isn’t for *NIX purists that like it the way it is. Don’t get pissed at me. I’m just trying to help Mac people enjoy the fruits of the Open Source community because I’m frustrated with Microsoft and Adobe (and even Apple). Their customers take a back seat to their interest in making money.

Third, let’s get started!

This is simple and if anything goes wrong, it’s easy to get back to where you started. Here’s the meat and potatoes:

1. Start the X11 application
2. In X11 go to X11/Preferences and to the Input tab. Uncheck the following settings:
   • Follow system keyboard layout
   • Enable key equivalents under X11
3. In X11 go to Applications/Terminal to open up a Terminal window
4. Type the following in the Terminal window:
   vi ~/.Xmodmap and press Enter. This will open a file named ‘.Xmodmap’ located in your home folder ‘~/’ with the text editor program called Vi. Don’t be frightened.
5. Vi is run from within the Terminal, so it won’t look much different. Press ‘a’ to switch to Vi’s Insert Mode (I think the ‘a’ stands for Append) and then type in the following text:
   ! ~/.Xmodmap
clear Mod2
clear control
keycode 63 = Control_L
keycode 67 = Control_L
add control = Control_L
6. Now press ‘esc’ or the Escape key to exit the Insert Mode and return to the Command Mode. Now type :wq and press Enter. This command tells Vi to Write (think ‘Save’) the changes you made to the file and Quit Vi itself.
7. Type xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap and press Enter to complete this process.
8. Open something in Gimpshop, Gimp, OpenOffice, Inkscape or any X11 application that you use to test if you have successfully switched to the Apple/Command key.

If you suddenly cannot get any of your X11 applications to start, you can delete the .Xmodmap text file from your home directory. To do this, open a Terminal in either the X11/terminal or the OSX Terminal.app: rm ~/.Xmodmap and press Enter. The command rm stands for ‘Remove’. Be careful with this command. There is no ‘undo’ in the command line.

This post uses information found at //extrabright blog and The University of Illinois at Chicago’s Unix 101 pages on Vi. This is my attempt to write a more concise how-to.

Recently they have developed a version for OSX on Intel machines.

http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/news/49

You have to install Darwine and X11 on OSX to use it, but after that it seems pretty easy. I am not so fortunate as to own an Intel-based Mac, so I can’t test it for you.

Wine info
http://wiki.winehq.org

Darwine info
http://darwine.sourceforge.net/download.php

Wine on OSX info
http://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX

And here’s how to use it:

jasonG5:~ jason$ nslookup www.bohemianalps.com

after pressing ‘enter’ you will get feedback like this:

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.bohemianalps.com
Address: 12.34.56.78


Photoshop made some great improvements to the Layers Palette

1. You can finally temporarily select multiple layers with the ease of shift or command+click
2. Creating a New Group with several selected layers is Command+G
3. The Move tool can be sensitive to groups if you wish it so. Nice to be able to shift things around without constantly referring to the Layers Palette

I don’t use InDesign or Illustrator enough to say, but the most obvious feature across the CS3 club is that they are even bigger apps than before and they take even longer to startup than before. Oh, and they’re sluggish too. Why is editing slices such a laborious task? CS handled easily.

Then tonight I was setting up my Creative Director’s new 17″ MacBook Pro (I’m a Linux guy and all, but this is still sweet) and discovered that these apps performed much better on the new MacIntel. So maybe it’s more about being on an old Dual Proc 2GHz PowerPC with 2GB of RAM DINOSAUR that’s causing most of my disgust.

On the left is the line-ending definition preference for Notepad2 on Windows and on the right is the line-ending preference for my favorite OSX text editor: Smultron. Pretty funny little detail I have overlooked ’til now. Enjoy.

If you are looking for a great text editor for OSX, check out SMULTRON. It is mostly developed for OSX 10.4, but there are older versions available for 10.3. It has recently been updated and is only getting better and better.