Replacing Spotlight -- EasyFind

DEVONtechnologies : Freeware : Applications

Thus far, 10.4 has been mostly annoying. I'm glad I left 10.3.9 on my iBook!

EasyFind is an alternative to or supplement of Sherlock and finds files, folders or contents in any file without the need for indexing -- and therefore immediately. This is especially useful if you are tired of slow or impossible indexing, outdated or corrupted indices or if you are just looking for missing features like case sensitive or insensitive search, Boolean operators, wildcards or searching for phrases.

macosxhints - 10.4: Recover a dead hard drive using GNU ddrescue

macosxhints - 10.4: Recover a dead hard drive using GNU ddrescue

If all else fails, an esoteric approach to disk drive recovery.

Workaround for a Spotlight - Retrospect 6 conflict

macosxhints - 10.4: Workaround for a Spotlight - Retrospect 6 conflict

The article and discussions list a few approaches. Dantz is not a very functional company.

A free 'light' QuickTime Pro Player

macosxhints - Create a free 'light' QuickTime Pro Player:

To get two free QuickTime apps with several functions missing from the standard OS X player, including copy, cut, paste, trim, export, etc., first visit the QTKitImport page on Apple's Developer site. Download and mount the file QTKitImport.dmg. You will then find a program called QTKitPlayer.app in the build folder.

Sleep and logout setting conflict issues

macosxhints - A possible solution to a wake from sleep problem

I may have run into some other odd issues with fast user switching and conflicting sleep and logout settings. I need to look for this ...

"Along with many other users, I have been experiencing problems with my PowerBook not waking properly from sleep. This only occurred when the PowerBook went to sleep automatically after the specified idle time. It worked just fine when forced to sleep.

After much looking, I finally found the solution. I had specified an automatic logout interval of 60 minutes in the Security preferences panel. This automatic logout seems to conflict with the automatic sleep. When I disabled the automatic logout, all of my problems have gone away.

After sitting idle, the PowerBook can start the screen saver (set in the Desktop & Screen Saver preferences), turn off the display (set in the Energy Saver preferences), put the computer to sleep (set in the Energy Saver preferences), and/or log out the user (set in the Security preferences). There seems to be a conflict between the sleep and log out functions."

Run an OS X app as another user

macosxhints - 10.4: Use multiple simulataneous GUI accounts

An old tip, but I forget this. Running an app as another user in OS X:

"su bob -c /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal"

OS X Preview converts postscript to PDF

macosxhints - Convert Visio 2003 (PC) documents to PDFs

Preview is amazing:

Another way would be to install the Apple Color Laserwriter 600 printer in Windows as a file printer.

Then print your visio drawing to a postscript file, move that to your Mac and open it with Preview. Preview converts the postscript to PDF. You can then save the converted doc and delete the original postscript.

The advantage to this method is that you will retain the vector nature of the visio drawing.

This method works for any Windows program that allows printing.

There are some other good tips on pdf creation on this page.