O'Reilly: Exporting QuickTime Movies with Simple Video Out X

O'Reilly: Exporting QuickTime Movies with Simple Video Out X

Apple has a developer tool that allows QuickTime to be output as a FireWire stream to anything that accepts FireWire digital video input -- typically a high end DVD recorder or a video camera.

Digital Imaging Software Review: Vuescan 8.1

Digital Imaging Software Review: Vuescan 8.1

This comprehensive review doubles as a user's guide for VueScan film scanning. It's extraordinary.

Mousing firefox with the Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse

Firefox Help: Keyboard Shortcuts

Microsoft's software is pretty hit or miss (I could live without them), but I like their hardware. I paid $16 or so for a surplus wireless intellimouse 2.0. Version 5.2 of their software lets me map one of the many buttons to kestrokes. This page lets me know what Firefox mappings are available.

Now I use the small side button to send FF a Ctrl-PageDown, and thus to hop around tabs. Works great, but I may try another button.

Intellimouse s/w allows mappings to be application specific too ...

Slashdot Submissions: Sensor to detect furnace malfunction and send email

Slashdot Submissions

We returned from holiday to find that our furnace had died. Miraculously neither pipes nor radiators were frozen.

The repair service recommends a device that will turn on a light in the window when the temperature dropes below a critical level. The theory is that our neighbor will see this and call us.

That's fine, but I'd rather a sub-50F temperature event trigger email from my server. Then I can route it to my cell phone, etc.

Seems like either a commercial product must exist, or someone must have adopted this sensor/light device to trigger an email message. Of course I'd like something that worked with OS X, but I have a Wintel server as well.

This would be a great Steve Ciarcia article in the BYTE days, but I'm looking for something less ambitious than his recent work.

Belkin KVM switch recommended by a persuasive slashdot poster

OmniView SOHO KVM

Belkin gives you control over four computers--either PS/2 or USB models, or both--from a single PS/2 console. Our audio feature lets you switch between computers sharing speakers and a microphone, without having to unplug and re-plug them. Using the SOHO Series on Sun and Macintosh USB platforms gives you easy, cross-platform control. With its advanced features, such as audio and microphone switching support, the Belkin SOHO Series makes controlling multiple computers easier than ever.

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Of particular interest if Apple's headless $500 iMac comes to market.

The OS X Keyboard viewer -- yet another obscure utility that displays special characters and fonts

CreativeBits: OS X: Typing special characters

I wonder about the Mac developers who get stuck doing these utilities. Here's another clever one that's utterly buried in a completely obscure location and probably known to only a dozen people -- yet if you search it out it's a great way to see the effect of using modifier keys and to examine various fonts. The one downside is that it uses yet more space on the menubar, but it's good enough to warrant taking something else (the MacClassic icon?) from the menubar (command-click then drag off menubar* -- but restoring icons to a menubar is application dependent).

One of the most interesting tips I've seen in a while.

* This is one of the more obscure user interface behaviors in OS X. A Ctrl-Click should show a "remove" item on the context menu.

Daring Fireball: An expert's advice on applying OS X system updates and bug fixes

Daring Fireball: Software Update Tips and Voodoo