davidgagne.net » Software

My Contacts

dvg — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:33:18 +0000

For over a year now I’ve had a problem with my contacts on my iPhone. It’s a very strange bug. I get a phone call and if I save the contact to my address book, it appears in my phone correctly under the “recent calls” list, but not in the Contacts app. And it never synchs with iCloud or with my Address Book app on my Mac.

Every now and then I will search a few forums to see if I can find anyone else with the same problem and I can’t.

I went into the Apple store in the Century City Mall a few months ago and gave a demonstration of the problem to the guys at the Genius Bar. (I had a guy call me from his personal cell phone, walked through the whole thing, etc.) They had no solution and said they’d never seen anything like it. They suggested I wipe my phone completely.

Right now I am trying to get in touch with some of the professionals — doctors, mostly — that I met in the last couple of weeks while I was in Florida dealing with the death of my mother and the fact that the contacts aren’t synchronizing properly is really problematic.

I am very, very frustrated. It is so unlike Apple to have a bug like this and I am about three seconds away from smashing my iPhone on my desk and throwing my laptop on the floor and stomping it to pieces and maybe throwing my monitor out my 5th story window.

I’m pretty sure this is called “displacement”. I’m not a psychologist, though. I could be wrong.

iTunes + Twitter

dvg — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:50:33 +0000

It seems to me that it would be a no-brainer for Apple to update iTunes so that I could easily post a song to my Twitter account. The app could automatically insert a link to purchase the track in the iTunes store (or not, if it’s a song that doesn’t exist there).

Just One More Game …

dvg — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:32:03 +0000

There’s a really good article in this week’s New York Times Magazine on the hyperaddictive, time-sucking, relationship-busting, mind-crushing power and allure of silly digital games. (hat tip to @sprokolopolis)

© David Vincent Gagne, 2012. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: addiction, game theory, games, puzzles, video games

f.lux

dvg — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:38:19 +0000

I can’t say enough good things about f.lux. It’s a small and free little app that automatically changes the intensity of your laptop’s screen based on the time of day. If you frequently find yourself using the computer long after you should be asleep, you need this app.

MacBook Air Fan Noise Issue

dvg — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 04:26:31 +0000

Have you noticed your MacBook Air fan has suddenly started running continuously, and loudly? You may need an SMC reset.
See also: Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

Favs App

dvg — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:37:11 +0000

The new Mac app Favs looks pretty nifty (hat tip to Shawn Blanc), but I don’t see why I’d use it instead of Stellar.io. Stellar is free, handles all the services I use, and works beautifully on my iPhone 4S.
I have an extra invite to Stellar available right now. Tweet me if you want it.

© David Vincent Gagne, 2012. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: apps, favorites, iPhone, social web, Software, twitter

How to Convert a Concert DVD to iTunes

dvg — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:14:33 +0000

A few years ago my buddy Bob gave me the fantastic Peter Bogdanovich documentary Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream It’s pretty awesome and I highly recommend it, even if you’re not a die-hard Petty fan.

The four hour documentary, which spans two DVDs, comes with a bonus CD and a bonus DVD. The CD is the nine-track soundtrack to the documentary, comprised almost entirely of live in-studio radio performances, tracks from Heartbreakers appearances on Saturday Night Live, and stuff like that. The other DVD, though, is a complete recording — almost 30 songs! — of their epic 30th Anniversary Concert from the O-Dome in Gainesville, Florida.

Naturally I wanted to rip the concert DVD so I could listen to the tracks in iTunes without having to store them as videos. Doing that was a bit tricky, so I thought I’d explain the process for anyone interested in doing something similar with other concert DVDs.

Continue reading How to Convert a Concert DVD to iTunes ...

© David Vincent Gagne, 2011. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: concerts, DVD, hacking, iTunes, media, music, SNL, Software, Tom Petty

Opening New Firefox Tabs

dvg — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:26:17 +0000

If you’ve upgraded your copy of Firefox recently you might have noticed that suddenly new tabs open right next to the page you’re viewing. In previous versions of Firefox new tabs opened at the end of the list.

My good buddy Damien found a way to make Firefox behave the way it did before the upgrade.

Continue reading Opening New Firefox Tabs ...

Nobody Really Likes Farmville

dvg — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:02:43 +0000

I think I will stab myself in the stomach with a fork if one more person sends me a stray chicken or cat or whatever it is that people keep sending me; but it’s worth reading this seriously fascinating psychological analysis of why people play that annoying game.

Absurd Directory Structures

dvg — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:28:52 +0000

As soon as I saw the story about giant jellyfish sinking a Japanese trawler posted on MetaFilter, I sent the link to my friend Ryan via instant messenger. (Ryan, I know, is fascinated by tales from the Japanese fishing industry.) He said, “[the] story would’ve been perfect if the jellyfish had actually eaten the crew,” which I thought was sort of insensitive. But whatever. I said that I, for one, welcome our new jellyfish overlords.

And that’s when Ryan really surprised me. His response was,

I’ll start to worry when they crawl up off the beach to eat me. until then, I’ll file them under ‘minor threat as long as you don’t end up on a jellyfish fishing trawler’.

So I have to assume that Ryan’s computer looks like this:

I mean, really? That’s just absurd, isn’t it? Who keeps their files organized with that much specificity? How would you ever find anything if your directories looked like his? The dude is simply nuts.

© David Vincent Gagne, 2009. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: directories, files, fish, fishing, Friends, Japan, Ryan Tober, Tober

iTunes Tuesday: Simple Tutorials

dvg — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:50:28 +0000

If you’re just getting started with iTunes, the hands-down best place to learn how it all works is the Apple website. The “Find Out How” section offers dozens of video and text tutorials which will get you up and running quickly. You can learn how to import music from your CD collection, edit your music details, and much, much more. And it’s not just for newbies: there are plenty of tips for power users, too. Take a look!

© David Vincent Gagne, 2009. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, iTunes, itunestuesday, music, Software, tutorials

iTunes Tuesday: How to Organize Playlists

dvg — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:57:36 +0000

If you’ve been creating new playlists left and right, eventually you are going to have a long and cluttered list of them running down the left side of your iTunes window. You do know you can group them into folders, right? Just click File and then New Playlist Folder. Now you can drag and drop your playlists into folders to make things easier to find.

Continue reading iTunes Tuesday: How to Organize Playlists ...

iTunes Tuesday: Create Playlists Quickly

dvg — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:57:17 +0000

In the previous episode of iTunes Tuesday I explained the difference between Smart Playlists and user-created playlists. Basically the key difference is that Smart Playlists are ones that iTunes creates for you based on criteria you define and user-created playlists are ones you make by picking and choosing songs. Today I’ll show you a couple of quick ways to create your own playlists.

Continue reading iTunes Tuesday: Create Playlists Quickly ...

How to Delete a Recurring iCal Event

dvg — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:12:06 +0000

I have finally resolved an issue with my Mac OS X 10.5.7 iCal calendar that has been annoying me since I converted from PC to Mac almost exactly one year ago. For some reason I could not delete my birthday! Because I’m now using Address Book birthdays — instead of having unique iCal “events” for everyone’s birthday — I went into iCal and deleted all the “events” that were imported from Outlook when I imported my calendar. This worked fine for everyone’s birthday … except mine.

No matter what I did I could not stop my birthday!

My birthday was a recurring event. (This is actually true. It happens every year on June 26th.) The problem was that because my birthday is set in the Address Book “card” that is tagged as “My Card”, it was displaying twice: once for the recurring event imported from Outlook and once for the Address Book birthday. I would delete the event and it would reappear as soon as I changed anything. I would right-click it and “Stop Recurrence” and delete it, and it would reappear. I’d go to the Day view and delete five or six copies of it until it was gone, switch to Month view, and it would reappear. I would delete it from my iPhone and synchronize and it would reappear.

Continue reading How to Delete a Recurring iCal Event ...

iTunes Tuesday: Show Minibrowser

dvg — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:30:53 +0000

You know that cool minibrowser that you see at the top of your Music library? You can use it to see all the genres, artists, and albums in the current group of tracks. It’s a pretty handy way to “drill down” into your collection. By default it does not display when you’re viewing one of your own playlists. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Just click View and then Show Browser (or Apple+B for Mac users) and there you go.

Continue reading iTunes Tuesday: Show Minibrowser ...

How to Magnify PDFs in Mac OS X

dvg — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:25:50 +0000

One of the cool features in Mac OS X is the ability to “quick view” a file without actually opening it. If you have an item selected (highlighted) in a Finder window or on your desktop — or even a file embedded in an email message — just hit the spacebar and you’ll get a preview of the file.

If the file is a PDF document, though, it can often be formatted so that it’s too tiny to read anything. To magnify the document, click the Apple key — the command key with the curly symbol, next to the spacebar — and the plus symbol (+). That was easy, eh?

Friday Five: Mac Software

dvg — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:15:30 +0000

The software programs I use most frequently on my Apple MacBook Pro:

What Have You Tried?

dvg — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:54:42 +0000

Over at mattgemmell.com I just found an excellent article about software development and a must-read for any programmer, at any level:

If you’re a developer and you’re about to ask another developer a technical question (on a forum, via email, on a chat channel, or in person), you’d better be ready to answer the question “What have you tried?”

GarageBand + iTunes = Free iPhone Ringtones

dvg — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:44:04 +0000

Whoa! I had no idea that you could use GarageBand and iTunes to create custom iPhone ringtones from any song in your iTunes library. That is bitchin’!

Friday Five: iPhone Apps

dvg — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:00:29 +0000

It’s time for me to revive the Friday Five here. We’ll start with a list of my five favorite iPhone apps:

iTunes Arrow Hack

dvg — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:51:18 +0000

I just found a super cool iTunes trick at the Unofficial Apple Weblog: If you hold the option key while you click on the little arrows next to artists and albums, it will take you to your library’s collection for that item instead of to the iTunes store.

How to Handle a Ducking iPhone

dvg — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:16:43 +0000

For some reason that makes little sense, Apple decided to not include one of the words I use most frequently in the iPhone’s internal dictionary. So if I ever send you a text message saying that something is, “ducking awesome,” or that you need to, “get the duck out,” that is why. A certified Apple Genius™ sent me this ducking brilliant solution: Ducking an iPhone Annoyance

How to change icons in Mac OS X

dvg — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:34:22 +0000

Want to change your Dock icons in Mac OS X? It’s pretty simple, if not obvious. Here’s how:

Find the icon you want to use and copy it (Cmd+C).
Find the application for which you want to use this new icon in Finder’s “Application” folder.
Right-click the application and choose “Get Info”.
Select the existing application icon in the top left corner of the “Get Info” pop-up window by single-clicking it.
Paste your new icon (Cmd+V) over it.

If the application you chose is in your Dock, you might have to restart the Dock to get your new icon to appear. To do that, open Terminal and type: “killall -KILL Dock” (without the quotes). Your Dock should immediately restart. Click the application and your new icon will appear.

Continue reading How to change icons in Mac OS X ...

Not Quite Genius

dvg — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:24:20 +0000

So Apple released a new version of iTunes today. Version 8 includes a new feature called “Genius”.

Play a song, click the Genius button, and iTunes creates a playlist of other songs from your library that go great together.

This sounds like a cool idea, although I consider myself already pretty handy at creating smart playlists.
What really intrigued me was the new Genius Sidebar:

As you select songs in your library, the Genius sidebar displays songs from the iTunes Store that go great with it.

Lots of other people are, of course, getting paranoid about sharing their listening data with the Apple mothership, but I’m not. I’m thrilled if iTunes is going to start watching what I’m playing in order to recommend other stuff. Finding new music is one of my favorite things to do.

Unfortunately for me, it is a complete FAIL.

Continue reading Not Quite Genius ...

© David Vincent Gagne, 2008. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, iTunes, itunestuesday, music, Paul Simon, playlists, Software

Screen Capture on a Mac

dvg — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:24:09 +0000

Jim just showed me a bitchin’ cool Mac trick:

If you press Shift, the Apple (“command”) key, and the 4 key at the same time, it will change your mouse cursor into a targeting device. Then hit the space bar and your cursor will turn into a camera icon. Use the mouse to move the camera over any window and left-click. Bam! That will create a screen capture as a .png file on your desktop.

© David Vincent Gagne, 2008. | Permalink | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, images, Mac, screen capture, Software, tips