Last week’s mac tip was Handy screen locking tips for Mac. Unlike Windows or Linux, which have keyboard shortcuts to quickly lock the screen when you get up to grab a coffee or go to the bathroom, the Mac doesn’t. It has the same functionality, but you need to mouse over in order to do it (which, for people like myself, is a waste of a good keyboard). This tip tells you how to emulate the same (basic!) functionality in OS X.
My favorite Firefox extensions for Linux
Last week’s techmail was My favorite Firefox extensions for Linux which talks about a few of my favourite extensions for Firefox. Read the comments on the tip… I’ve already found another couple that I didn’t know about before that I’m going to have to try out. The one thing that keeps me using Firefox are the extensions for it. I might feel a little slow and clunky sometimes, but some of those extensions sure make up for it.
Take advantage of full-featured Komodo IDE to boost productivity
Last week’s techmail was Take advantage of full-featured Komodo IDE to boost productivity which looks at some of the cool features of Komodo that can help you get more out of the IDE. I’ve been using Komodo for years, and even though it is pay-to-play, it’s still my favourite IDE. In particular, I really like the fact that it has support for so many languages… I used to be a pretty big fan of Zend Studio, until they moved it over to Eclipse. Then I went back to Komodo. Of course, now that I’m doing more in python than PHP, I would have been using Komodo more anyways.
The tip looks at things like customizing the toolbox to get more snippets and commands in there (i.e. running pylint on the currently open file), looks at debugging support, changing the keybindings (need my vim keybindings!), and some of the add-ons you can install (since Komodo is based on Mozilla code, it is capable of using addons, just like Firefox or Thunderbird).
Safari 5 underwhelming, iPhoto speed-up tips
Falling a little bit behind here… the mac techmail from two weeks ago was Safari 5 boasts speed gains but real improvement is extensions which discusses the new Safari 5. My initial reaction to Safari 5 was “meh…”. Using it now for a few weeks, it’s ok. It’ll be more interesting when there are more extensions to use. Maybe my machine is too powerful to notice the JavaScript improvements. I’m sad there is no sandboxing feature for tabs. Safari 5 has me a bit underwhelmed.
Last week’s mac techmail was Clean up iPhoto to make it faster which looks at a few tips to make iPhoto run a little faster, particularly for people that have a lot of pictures.
Increase download speed with Aria2 utility
Last week’s techmail was Increase download speed with Aria2 utility which looks at an incredibly useful and cool file download client. Aria2 is unique because it can grab the same file from multiple sources: http, ftp, bittorrent. It can do it at the same time and then munge the resulting file back together. Makes downloading big files wicked fast. Multi-platform, so not just Linux.
Cool parking system
This is perhaps one of the coolest things I have ever seen: http://www.woehr.de/en/projekte/budapest_m730/index.htm. I wish I could embed it but I can’t (sadly, you need flash to watch it). It’s the parking system in Budapest.
I can see this solving all kinds of parking issues. And the geek factor is way too cool. I would totally love to stick my car in one of these things. =) Awesome stuff. I wonder what OS this thing runs?
