Does this thing still exist?

test

Posted by js at 2:49am UTC on September 12th, 2007 in general
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Quicksilver

Best program ever. But if you’re already a MacLifeHacker type, you know this. If you don’t, go get it. We’ll wait.

With a simple control-space character, or whatever character grouping you want to use. Try it right now. Type control-space and then type “saf” and see what pops up.

Way more on Quicksilver, the darling of the Mac community, soon.

Posted by js at 3:47am UTC on April 3rd, 2007 in software
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Letterbox - make better use of your pixels with this widescreen plugin for Mail on OSX

Ok, for my first proper post (sorry for the delay, but my head’s been blocked solid with frozen phlegm for the last couple of weeks. ‘Snot been pretty, o-ho ho ho) I’d like to draw your attention to Letterbox, which is a simple but extremely groovy plugin for Apple’s Mail software.

The default setup for Mail is that you have a thin column on the left listing your mailboxes and folders, with the rest of the screen split horizontally, giving you a list of emails on top and a preview pane for a single email underneath that. I don’t know about you, but I always found that this gave me the worst of both worlds: too few messages visible in the list, and too little of the email body visible in the lower panel.

Letterbox instead splits the right-hand part of the screen into two columns: message list on the left, preview pane on the right. If you have a decent-sized screen (by which I mean at least 1280 pixels wide) then the three-column layout is a real improvement, with more messages visible in the list pane, and more of your selected email visible in the preview pane. It’s worked well for me on both a PowerBook 15″ screen (1280 pixels wide) and a MacBook Pro 15″ (1440 pixels), on OS X 10.4.8 and Mail 2.0/2.1.

Letterbox is the work of Aaron Harnley who, judging by the photo on his site, has got to be one of the youngest PhD students Columbia University have ever had. Now if only someone would invent a plugin that actually replies to my email without my needing even to read it, that would be just super.

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Posted by cj at 1:57am UTC on December 11th, 2006 in software, osx, email
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Dirty Macbook Monitor

First Real Post!

I had a dirty MacBook glossy monitor - thumbprints, smudges, and spatters from treating it pretty rough.

I used a Microfibre cloth that I’d purchased for cleaning glassware on it and the smudges are all gone.

Mind you, it’s still got what appears to be de-lamination where liquid got on it, and I have minor pitting as well. I am trying to sort all of those things out and will report here if I can get any of them sorted. Suffice it to say that this screen looks MUCH better now.

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Posted by js at 11:57pm UTC on November 28th, 2006 in hardware
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Hello World!

Welcome to maclifehacks.com, as Chris said.

A little about me. I’ve been a Mac devotee since I first arrived at college and bought a Centris 610 for my dorm room and a Powerbook 145b for class. I envied the cool kids who had the Duo. Many years later, I’m now on a Macbook which I take everywhere, and a Mac Mini upon which I store all the TV shows I’ve downloaded from iTunes. Yes, I’m a little bit addicted. But I’m happy.

Chris (that’s him) is right, I’m a New Yorker. New York is a town with not one but TWO apple stores, and one of them is open 24 hours a day. Our Apple store has DJs on Saturday nights. Every subway is crammed full of people with the telltale white earphone cables, telling me that they, too, are part of the cult.

F12 is my favorite keystroke, followed closely by command- ` and command-tab. Since about six months ago, I’ve been quite fond of control-space and lately I’ve been fond of command-space, too. I like long walks on the beach and my fireplace screen saver. Contrary to what Chris wrote about us in the about page, I have spoken to women in bars about my Mac addiction. I’m not sure whether it says more about me or about women in New York that the conversations generally lasted more than 30 minutes, and by about the fifth minute, each woman was gushing about the cool thing she did with her playlist in iTunes or how she just discovered Automator. I’m betting that it’s neither me nor them, rather, it’s just the Mac.

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Posted by js at 11:56pm UTC on November 28th, 2006 in general
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Welcome to maclifehacks.com

Hello and welcome to maclifehacks.com, a blog dedicated to helping you get the most out of your Mac. We aim to show you tons of tips and tricks to speed up, smoothen out and generally improve your Mac experience - whether you’re a complete novice, a Windows-to-Mac switcher, or an uber-experienced Mac power user.

This blog is the work of two Mac addicts, Chris (that would be me) and Jon (who’ll also be along in a minute to say ‘hi’). I’m in London, Jon’s in New York; we may not share time zones, but we do share a love of Mac-tweaking antics. We get a kick out of sharing the little cheats, shortcuts and apps that we’ve picked up over the years, and we live for that “Ohhhh, cool” moment when we show a friend a new keyboard shortcut, or how to use Exposé, or how to have their iTunes pause automatically when their Bluetooth phone rings.

So, be sure to drop by from time to time, or just subscribe to our RSS feed to be automagically notified every time we update.

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Posted by cj at 10:59pm UTC on November 28th, 2006 in general
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