Author: vansmith

Reviews

Transit is Here: Mac-Forums Offers Some Observations on the New Apple Maps

by vansmith

I’ll be blunt from the start – I’ve got an odd love/hate relationships for Apple Maps. It’s tightly integrated with

Digital Lifestyle

The Summer Server Project – Part 3: It lives…and serves.

by vansmith

….it lives. After some time hacking away at the code and ultimately learning a few things about Python, I’ve got

Digital Lifestyle

The Summer Server Project – Part Two: VM Setup

by vansmith

Recap and Introduction In the last article, I introduced what I plan to be a summer long project – writing

Networking

The Summer Server Project – Part One: Introduction

by vansmith

Introduction Let me start this article with a not so profound claim: I know nothing about networking. Well, nothing might

Opinion

Experiencing the App Store: A Developer’s Perspective and Rant

by vansmith

Custom excerpt

Mac OS X

These Permissions Are Not The Repairs You’re Looking For – A Critical Look at Permissions in OS X

by vansmith

So, your Mac is acting up. Indeed, a Mac is no more impervious to Murphy’s Law than a non-Mac PC

Uncategorized

Mac-Forums Looks at the Other…Other Mobile Platform

by vansmith

Introduction There’s no secret when it comes to my tendency to try the esoteric operating platforms. Why? The simple answer

Uncategorized

Advanced – Scripting a Daily Wallpaper

by vansmith

If you’re anything like me, you get bored of your desktop wallpaper easily. Sure, you could have your wallpaper rotate

Uncategorized

A Look at Word Processing for the iPad: Pages and Word

by vansmith

I write…a lot. As a graduate student, it is my “trade,” that activity that occupies the majority of my time

Mac-Forums

Weekly Roundup: April 1 – 7

by vansmith

Here’s the weekly roundup of the more popular discussions around Mac-Forums for the week of April 1st. Blog Posts Clamshell

Mac Hardware

Clamshell Mode Performance Issues: A Myth?

by vansmith

Background A while back, I remember hearing a theory floating around that running a Mac in clamshell mode forced OS

Opinion

iOS and The State of Innovation

by vansmith

Quite a few people have been commenting on an ostensible lack of innovation on the part of Apple when it

Software

The Mysterious File:/// Bug

by vansmith

Recently, there has been a rather silent but important story floating around about an odd bug built into Cocoa (OS

Software

Flash v. JavaScript: Is One Really Better Than The Other?

by vansmith

Introduction A quick search of the forums will reveal a particular unabashed bias towards technologies that leverage anything but Adobe’s

Accessories

Review: CoolerMaster Gear

by vansmith

Jas Pro – Stretch Using a laptop flat on your desk isn’t the best for your posture, unless you have

Uncategorized

IMAP Email and Notifications: How-To

by vansmith

Introduction In this article we’ll look at how you can use Mountain Lion’s notification system to notify you of unread

Uncategorized

OS X Mountain Lion: The Mac-Forums Guide

by vansmith

Contents Preamble Upgrading through the Up-to-Date Program Prepping for the Upgrade How to Create Your Own OS X Mountain Lion

Uncategorized

While the MF ML Guide is Under Construction…

by vansmith

As we continue our work on the official Mac-Forums Mountain Lion guide, we provide the following set of links to

Uncategorized

Putting Your Apps on a Diet

by vansmith

Given that hard drive size is rarely a concern anymore, developers seem to make an assumption that space is no

Mac OS X

Learning the Command Line Part Two: Navigating and Manipulating Files

by vansmith

To view the first part, take a look here. Recap In the last article, we learned how to set up

Uncategorized

Simple Print Server using Automator and Dropbox

by vansmith

By the end of this article, you will have set up a folder action for a Dropbox folder such that anything added to it will be printed. With this set up, you’ll be able to print documents from anywhere in the world and/or print content from mobile devices that are supported by Dropbox.

Mac Apps

Playing YouTube Videos in VLC

by vansmith

For this week’s quick tip, we’ll explore one of VLC’s more “hidden” features. More specifically, you’ll learn how to play YouTube videos in said media player. This is quite simple and involves only a few steps.

How tos

Learning the Command Line (Part One)

by vansmith

You may have stumbled across the Terminal application, having little knowledge of what it was for, you ignored it. I don’t blame you – for 98% of Mac users, it is of little value. Or is it?