OS X

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Candied Apples

This is just a list of random tips I find useful — both as a reference for myself and for public consumption.  If you have any other recommendations, leave a comment and I’ll try to add it to the list.

Display as Folder/Stack

Closely related to this previous item is the introduction of displaying the icon of your folder as a “Folder” or a “Stack.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I think the second folder icon there is very uninformative.  What is that folder?  Ah, its my Utilities folder.  But, aren’t the other three more informative?  Well, as of 10.5.2 you have a choice: right click on the folder and select “Display as” and “Folder” or “Stack.”

Highlighting Stack’s Selection

OS X 10.5 introduced the new “Stacks” feature when clicking on folders in the dock.  While in the “fan” mode, it is sometimes difficult to see what you are actually selecting.  Well, you can turn on a hidden setting to highlight the moused-over file:

To do this, open your Terminal program and type the following:

% defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean yes
% killall Dock

Spotlight Math

What is (4000 + 197 – 200) * 1.7?  Hang on, let me open my Calculator program and type all this and… WAIT.  If you have 10.5, Spotlight can do it!  :)

Birthday Reminders

Ok, if you are like me, you don’t remember birthdays all that well.  Now, if you are using the Address Book you can add a person’s birthday to the list.  But, wait, that doesn’t remind me!  Well, did you check the setting in iCal’s preferences to have a Birthday calendar?

Syncing iCal with Google Calendar

Another nice item is the fact that you can sync iCal with Google Calendar.  Why would you do that?  Well, if you are like me, you can synchronize your schedule with other people a whole lot easier that way.

Safari Web Inspector

From Safari 3.1 forward, web developers can enable a “Develop” menu in the Preferences under Advanced.  This will allow you to right click on items on a given web page and select “Inspect Element”, giving you the HTML, CSS, and all other details for that element:

You also get extra tools in the “Develop” menu, including a quick “Snippet Editor,” watching the network traffic of a given web page, etc.  In earlier versions of Safari, there was something similar (but not as snazzy) by opening the Terminal and typing:

% defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

before restarting Safari.

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I have been working on my Chinese literacy skills and the engineer in me has been increasingly frustrated with the lack of good software to aid these endeavors.  So, today, I introduce Pingguo Chinese-English Dictionary, for the Mac OS X, of course. ;)

Pingguo Chinese-English Dictionary

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Pingguo Dictionary

Made for use with OS X’s Dictionary program, Pingguo leverages the public domain Chinese-English dictionary files of CC-CEDICT.

Pingguo Dictionary 1.0.0.1 (Pinyin Edition) Pingguo Dictionary 1.0.0.1 (Zhuyin Edition)

Requirements

  • Mac OS X 10.5+

Version History

1.0.0.1 – June 3, 2009

  • No functional changes.
  • Based on the 2009-06-03 05:51:07 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.

1.0 – November 10, 2008

  • Split into two dictionary files — one for Pinyin and the other for Zhuyin.
  • Gives pronunciation in contextual menu dictionary panel.
  • Using different fonts for traditional and simplified characters.
  • Based on the 2008-11-08 21:00:48 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.

0.6 – July 7, 2008

  • Added support for Zhuyin fuhao (bopomofo).  The display of the phonetic system can be configured in the dictionary application’s Preferences.
  • Based on the 2008-05-25 11:49:13 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.

0.5 – June 18, 2008

  • First public release.
  • Includes searches based on Chinese characters (traditional and simplified), pinyin (with or within tone marks) and English.
  • Based on the 2008-05-25 11:49:13 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.

Copyright © 2008-2009 Alexander Chow. Dictionary contents are distributed as CC-CEDICT by MDBG under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.

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