Steam brought a bad habit from Windows to Mac OS X — placing program related files into user’s documents folder. The folder is called “Steam Content” and it appeared in “Documents” right after I installed Steam onto my Mac yesterday.
However, you can easily hide or move it. Continue reading
Recently I installed Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 onto my Windows 7 x64, and it replaced the built-in Windows firewall (there was an option to do so while installing, and I deliberately chose it). Everything was fine except the next day I wasn’t able to launch Steam, which complained with an error “Steam is temporarily unavailable” while trying to update.
None of the solutions suggested by the Google search worked for me (including repairing and reinstalling Steam, just deleting some .blob files, etc), so having considered the installation of Kaspersky as the only possible influence factor, I checked Windows firewall configuration in the Control Panel, deleted Steam outta there and re-added it as a safe application.
This solved the problem. (It wasn’t too obvious: all other programs were working fine, Windows did not complain and Steam was a “trusted” program in built-in firewall settings).
(This article is as well available in Russian).
I found a new way to bind input language (input source) switch to the Caps Lock button in Mac OS X. Unlike Kirgudu, the Russian application which is also able to do that, my method works without a lag, so language changes instantly after pressing the Caps Lock button. This is especially important if you’re a fast typer: with Kirgudu, when you start typing right after pressing the Caps Lock, the first letters of a new word might appear in a previously selected language. (I.e. if you used English and Russian layouts, instead of www.google.com, you’d type ццw.google.com).
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(This article is as well available in English).
Я нашел новый способ «повесить» на клавишу caps lock переключение языка (раскладки) в Mac OS X. В отличие от программы Kirgudu, которая тоже умеет это делать, мой способ работает без задержек, то есть язык переключается практически моментально после нажатия. Это важно, если вы набираете быстро: в случае с Kirgudu, при быстром наборе после нажатия caps lock первые несколько букв могут напечататься на предыдущем языке. (То есть, например, вместо www.google.ru получится ццw.google.ru)
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If you’re using a USB sound card with a headset, the solution is simple as it can be: reconnect your USB sound card.
QuickTime movie (.mov) turned out to be an absolutely great format for cross-platform presentations, designed in Apple Keynote (“PowerPoint” of iWork office suite). It works hassle-free on both Mac and Windows, all controls and effects work just like they’re supposed to. Back in my Windows days I remember being afraid of running a PowerPoint 2007 presentation (e.g. designed at home) on PowerPoint 2003 (installed on a computer in the University), now there’s a much bigger difference between Keynote yet no hassle at all.
The only possible downside is that QuickTime may not be installed on the other computer, but installing it on the University computer wasn’t a problem for me.
After installing Bootcamp 3.0 on a PC running Windows Vista (I was experimenting with Apple Aluminium Keyboard drivers), the system started BSOD’ing on startup with an error related to AppleMnt.sys.
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On my Mac Pro I have two internal hard drives I rarely use. Some times they “sleep” and while doing so, every file opening dialog, search in Spotlight or search in Dictionary might wake them up and that takes some time. I could, of course, disable sleeping in power settings, but then the drives would be unreasonably wasting power all the time, so I decided to write an AppleScript to mount or unmount a drive depending on it’s state.
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I was getting a permission error (code -54) when trying to set an id3 tag of a track using AppleScript. The solution was to add a delay between each operation: delay 1
Note that the track will remain “locked” until you restart iTunes.
