JT's Blog » Helpful How To

Move iTunes 10 Close, Minimize and Maximize Buttons Back

JT Ray — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:44:43 +0000

I was out on twitter the other day commenting on how I did not care for the way the new iTunes Close, Minimize and Maximize buttons were laid out. It was point out that I could run a little script in Terminal to fix the issue. Below is the script to run in terminal.

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -boolean YES

Credit goes to GadgetDNA.com for the helpful hint. Now enjoy iTunes 10, the way it was meant to be.

How to Create a MobileMe Alias

JT Ray — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:03:41 +0000

Do you regret giving out your email address for an online purchase, for an online account or sent an email to a friend or family member who ultimately messes up and gives that address to some marketer? Do you regret it more knowing you paid $99.00 a year for the email address? If you have, worry no longer. With MobileMe account you can create up to five aliases following these easy steps:

Log into me.com
Click the gear icon in Mail
Choose Preferences
Click the Addresses Option
Click then Add button (note below) to Create a New Alias
Choose your new Alias, enter the name and click done

Now keep in mind that this address will still forward email to your main account, but you can set up a rule to block incoming mail from alias email address.

How to Deactivate Google Voice Voicemail and Return to iPhone Visual Voice Mail

JT Ray — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 05:08:21 +0000

Have you ever set up Google Voice with your iPhone? Well if you ever want to stop Google Voice from being your iPhone’s default voicemail then follow these simple steps:

To deactivate forwarding and return to regular visual voicemail enter ##61# and hit call.
If you are on AT&T in the United States and you not only want to deactivate regular voicemail but your busy voicemail as well, enter ##004# and hit call.

In case you are asking why?, well lets just say Google Voice is not all that it is cracked up to be.

Subler: An iTunes Metadata Editing Utility

JT Ray — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 03:17:03 +0000

The Apple TV is more than just a hobby to me. When I purchased the device earlier this year I began converting my DVD library for use on the Apple TV.

As I began to import movies I found myself searching Google for poster artwork, as well manually selecting the movie genre. Unlike imported music, iTunes has a hard time importing movie art. Additionally, I wanted to include each movie’s description, but there wasn’t an easy way to find this information.

In the July 10th issue of MacLife I came across the Google utility Subler. Once downloaded simply drag the converted file onto the Subler icon. Alternatively, add Subler to the Application folder on OS X and open files from the menu bar. Next click the search button and search for the movie. After deciding on the description and artwork click save.

The results of each search may vary depending on the movie. Once completed import the movie into iTunes and the saved information will appear once synced with your Apple TV, iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch device.

Darken Your Mac Screen Instantly

JT Ray — Thu, 13 May 2010 03:58:18 +0000

This has been around for a while, but I love to find new things. If you wanted to intantly darken your Mac Screen, by pressing the ctrl-shift-eject buttons To bring the screen back, simply move the mouse or hit the all important any key.

Posted via web from jtray’s posterous

iChat with Facebook Friends

JT Ray — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:18:57 +0000

I am not very fond of using browser based applications to chat with friends and family over the web. In chatting with my Facebook family and friends, which most of whom are not OS X users, I found the Facebook user interface to be poor.

An alternative presented itself in the form of OS X’s iChat program. As of February 2010 iChat users gained access to create a generic Jabber account to chat with Facebook users as a result of Facebook’s chat being powered by Jabber/XMPP.

To set up iChat to interface with Facebook follow these steps.

Open iChat
Click on Preferences and go to the Account Tab
Click on the plus sign and add a new account
Select a Jabber account from the Drop Down Menu
Enter the following yourusername@chat.facebook.com. (Your user name can be found via Facebook’s Account settings page.)
Enter your password
Finally in the server box type “chat.facebook.com,” then configure the port to 5222 and make sure to un-check the box for “Use SSL.”

From there sign-in and start chatting away with your Facebook friends. Please note several third party applications on both Mac and PC support this feature as well.

No iPad Discounts

JT Ray — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:36:49 +0000

I attempted to be strong and not visit the Apple online store due to the pre sale of the iPad. However a family member who knows about my Apple Employee Purchase Program (EPP) asked what kind of discount I could get on the iPad. Well, after looking it appears there is no discount for the iPad under the EPP and I also discovered there is no education discount either. The EPP I can accept, but not allowing for an education discount. I main after all it makes more sense to get the iPad into as many students hands.

Posted via email from jtray’s posterous

Offload Your iTunes Library to an External Drive

JT Ray — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:34:53 +0000

If your like me and your music collection continues to grow, you may find that your iTunes library is starting to take up a large amount of space on your internal hard drive. There is an easy and simple way to free up that space by directing your iTunes folder to a external hard drive. Donald Bell from CNET breaks down the steps to accomplish this task, both on OS X and on Windows. Follow the step by step instructions found in this PDF. Like always, make sure to backup your iTunes folder before making any changes.