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Tech tips & other words

Category: Technology (Page 7 of 10)

Mute system audio when increasing/decreasing volume

November 26, 2007 / / 2 Comments

Here’s a cool tip from The Distant Librarian on how to silence the audio feedback you get when using the keyboard to increase or decrease the volume in Mac OS X.

Hold down the shift key while depressing the volume keys will silence the auditory feedback while raising and lowering the volume, but still show the visual cue.

Other cool tricks:

Hold down option while clicking one of the sound keys to access the Sound system preferences.

Get more granular volume control by holding down shift-option while clicking one of the sound keys to increase/decrease volume in 1/4 the normal increments. Normal, the Mac provides 16 volume levels. Holding down shift-option gives you 64 increments.

Configure Apache Web Sharing for user accounts in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

November 8, 2007 /

Apple’s new Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) changes how web sharing is set up. Thankfully, they’ve moved us all to Apache 2 codebase (a good thingâ?¢). But in doing so, they’ve disabled the ability to serve web pages contained in your home Site directory.

If you turn on Web Sharing from the System Preferences panel, it works for the main computer (http://localhost) but not for user accounts (http://localhost/~username/). Most perplexing is that Apple’s graphical interface confirms that web sharing is turned on for your personal account, but it doesn’t work. This is *very* un-Apple.

Even if you turn on web sharing from the System Preferences panel, you’ll still receive the dreaded 403 Forbidden. You don't have permission to access /~username/ on this server.

Thankfully, it’s a simple oversight on Apple’s part. Your options are two-fold. You can either set it up to activate the Sites directory in all your user accounts, or just for individual ones. I’ll cover both. Continue reading

Apple bug breaks 3rd party USB web cams; no fix from Cupertino

September 23, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Since the release of Apple’s 10.4.10 update, users (including me) have been complaining to Apple that their third-party USB web cams have lost audio capabilities. Although a bug report was issued and acknowledged (ID #5285354) by Apple, no fix has been forthcoming. In fact, Apple has stranded a large number of users in a void where iChat AV no longer has audio and video chat functionality. Continue reading

Microsoft proposes professional IT body with power to censure IT workers

May 23, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Citing the high rate of failure in IT implementation projects, Microsoft’s National Technology Officer (UK) is suggesting the formation of a professional IT licensing body, which would have the power of censure and credential revocation for IT workers. Such an organization would be modelled after other professional licensing bodies such as the American Medical Association. 

The proposal raises real concerns for industry professionals around long enough to have comparative experience ouside the Microsoft bubble. Many see such a move as a thinly-veiled effort aimed at cementing Microsoft’s practices and protocols as the IT industry’s Hippocratic standard instead of a digital ‘Do No Harm’ sort of organization.

Continue reading

Macintosh Mail.app speedup and cleanup

April 18, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Apple’s Mail.app utilizes a SQLite database to manage the mail index. In my case, that’s approaching 10,000 email messages. Constant deleting and moving wreaks havoc over time on this database, resulting in slow-downs and hiccups (or, in the worst case, failure). You can force Mail.app to rebuild its index, resulting in much snappier performance, a reduction in glitches, and a substantial savings in space. Performing this action has caused my mail folder to shrink in size from 780 MB to 363.9 MB. Continue reading

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