Daily Twaddle

Ever wonder if your payment went through okay? I’m a little nervous that something might go wrong when all I see on the screen after I click “BUY” is:

Thank you for your order

Well, I just received the coolest online confirmation of payment! It looks just like a real receipt! This picture is a bit smaller than the original (for my blog-loading-speed purposes). I purchased Overflow for my Mac 0S X.5 (Leopard) because stacks takes too much time to customize.

It’s nerve-racking to give up my credit card information online (which is why I prefer PayPal). But this cute little receipt made me happy! I’m impressed with this website’s creativity - thoughtful all the way until the end!

I’m a bit of a simpleton.

I think this will work for the iPhone too, but I have the iPod Touch (lucky me, I know).

Quick Overview

1) Install “iPod Touch January Software Upgrade” from the iTunes store.
2) Use Safari on your iPod to navigate to apple.com/webapps
3) Touch “View Web App” on whichever app you like.
4) Touch the plus sign (+) in the middle of the browser.
5) Touch “Add to Home Screen”

The Nitty Gritty

This was quite frustrating to figure out. First of all… a “web app” is just a webpage sized for the tiny iPod screen. You’re not downloading a program onto your iPod that you can use offline. You’re just viewing a website. You need a wifi connection to use web apps.

Important: don’t do any of the crazy “jailbreak” or “install.app” stuff you might find on the internet. These “hacks” were necessary before apple allowed third party applications. Another tip: you must use the Safari browser on the iPod to get apps - not your computer/iTunes.

Lets Begin

You need to install the “iPod Touch January Software Upgrade” from apple. This is located in the iTunes Store. It costs $19.99 and you must have a store account (with credit card) to purchase the upgrade.

This upgrade will give you some new apps like maps and weather. But what it really does is let you create “bookmarks/favorites” on your home screen. These are your web apps.

After you’ve installed this upgrade, use Safari on your iPod Touch and go to apple.com/webapps to browse the different apps. Touch the button that says “View Web App.” Voila… you’re now playing with the web app.

If you like it, click the plus (+) button located at the middle-bottom of the Safari screen. Choose “Add to Home Screen.”

Now you have a new web app on your home screen! Whoop-whoop!

I’ll start out with the good news first.

Overflow

I found an awesome download for the dock called “Overflow.” It works like Leopard’s stacks, but it’s for Tiger. Overflow will display an icon on the dock that gives you quick access to applications and folders of your choice. It basically cleans up your dock by providing more space for your icons.

And now the bad news…

Blue Screen of Death

Oh my gosh. It’s true. Apple’s newest operating system crashes into the horrible blue screen of death. Last week, I helped a friend set up their new Mac Mini. They called me after spending hours on the phone with tech support wondering WTF is up with their screen. They first called HP (the maker of their monitor) because how could it possibly be a problem with the Mac? Macs don’t crash, they don’t get viruses… they just work. Hmmmm.

I did some research and I found out that Apple credits the crash to third party software installed on the computer. Oh crap - right? What the heck did I install on my friend’s computer? Nothing. That’s right, nothing. Apple provided this “third-party software” as part of the operating system!

So, I will not upgrade to Leopard just yet. Hopefully Apple will conduct proper testing before they release their next upgrade.

By the way, I used the instructions over at SilverMac.com to fix my friend’s problem. The instructions are similar to Apple’s official instructions except they included three more files to delete.

I started to change the default icon of all my folders on my computer’s hard drive. I want to be able to quickly find a folder. It takes longer to scan through words than it does to scan through images.

So, I found an awesome website with free icon downloads for your computer. They’re not freeware, shareware or demo. They’re for use on one, personal computer (so don’t print these icons, don’t email them, and for god-sakes… don’t use them on your website!)

My favorite is Chocolate Folders by Saho. I was really surprised by the quality of all the icons on this website (Macs and PCs). They’re quite sophisticated. Shoot! I just downloaded some more. I’m addicted. So beware of Interfacelift if you like to customize your computer!

You know, I’m looking for a specific icon. I want a folder with money hanging out of it. Or a dollar sign - something moneyish. I want to change my finances folder to look like a folder about finances. I came across an XP icon for MS Money. But I don’t know how to make my Mac use a .ico file as a Mac icon. I’ll have to research it a little bit.

Weirdest thing.

When I watch a video at YouTube’s website, I can hear the audio perfectly. If I look at that same video on someone else’s website (for example: video they’ve embedded into a blog post), I get no sound.

As it turns out, it’s a Mac problem. I searched the web for answers and found a great thread from macosxhints.com with many possible solutions.

The most suggested solution (on any website) was to go into your utilities folder and adjust the audio output on the Audio Midi Setup. Well, I get the unfortunate message “Output is not supported.” Which makes sense because I don’t have external speakers. But you might want to try this solution before you use any others (including mine) because it’s so simple. Mindsigh wrote a nice tutorial for you.

Here is the solution that worked for me:

1. Drag your preferences folder to the desktop (Finder > You > Library > Preferences)
2. Restart your computer
3. Yuck - ugly default settings, but you should be able to hear YouTube audio on websites now.
4. Change your settings back manually or drag a couple of the .plist files from the old Preferences folder to the new Preferences folder.

My gosh! I’m having too much fun on the computer lately. I stumbled across this totally awesome website that lets you build a South Park character.

My new gravatar has a princess leia hair-do, a martini and an umbrella. It was so fun to make. The only downside is that you have to take a screen shot to save the image. Which isn’t a problem for me since I planned on doing that anyway. Thank you Mac! (command + shift + 4)

Links to Avatar Builders

1. South Park Studio
2. Portrait Illustration Maker (thanks to Blimyk for the find)
3. Design Her Gals

Quite an extensive list, I know.

Holy Canoley.

I’m trying to set up iChat, but I have a feeling I’m doing somthing wrong. I sent “authorization” to a few of my friends to let me add them to my buddy list. I think that’s the last step, but I’m not sure.

I’m using Jabber as my “transport” for Yahoo and MSN. Most of my friends have AIM (which iChat already supports). But the rest of them have yahoo.

I find the “waiting for authorization” the most frustrating part of chat set-up process. I can’t tell if I’m waiting for a real person to authorize or if I just made some stupid mistake like using the wrong port number.

Anyway, if any of you chat with me, let me know if you received an authorization request.

I have 256 fonts installed on my computer. And the number keeps growing. Even if you’re not a designer and you want to print a flyer or bulletin for work, the right font will set the tone. You don’t want to use a comical font on a serious warning right?

But which font do you choose? Jeese louise. Go through each font one at a time and it might take you an hour to choose the best font! But what if there was a program that lets you type in your sentence then styles that sentence in each of the fonts in one window. Fantastic right?

Well check out FontDoc. It’s awesome (and free)! It requires Mac OSX (sorry Windows users, better luck next time).

Also, if you’re looking for cool free fonts, get them at Urban Fonts or Font Freak. They have lots of free (shareware) fonts. Some of them require an email to the creator if you commercially use the font. But they’re still free.

I started to miss the handy “windows task manager” while using my awesome iMac. You know what I’m talking about… when you press ctrl + alt + del and a little window pops up that tells you which programs are running.

I searched for the equivilant on the Mac, and I finally found it! You press command + option + esc! Voila! A cute little window pops up with a list of running programs.

Here is a picture of the window: