Since I switched over from Windows XP to Mac OS X Leopard this past November one of the more puzzling things has been how to add desktop shortcuts.  This was real easy in Windows’ Internet Explorer.  Just Right-click your desktop and select “Create Shortcut”.  On a Mac (FireFox or Safari) this is not an option.

I finally found the answer, and like most things on the Mac, it’s easier than the PC.

You may have noticed while surfing around that when clicking text on a page it sometimes turns into a box, one that you can drag.  I know I did, and I always wondered what I could do with it.  Now I know.

You can drag any text link from a page onto your desktop to create a shortcut.  Also, if you want to make a desktop shortcut of the current web page, just drag the icon that appears to the left of the URL in the address bar.  This is by default a globe icon, but a site can customize it so it may look like some other 16×16 image.  Either way, just drag it to your desktop and it will create a .webloc file.  Just click it to open it up in your default browser!

Works great in both FireFox and Safari.

Just click and drag the icon to your desktop when it turns to a hand icon.

If you are a TiVo user and have a Mac, you are probably using Roxio Toast 8 Titanium. This is probably because there are no other solutions out there to transfer programs from your networked TiVo boxes to your Mac. It’s great software, but upon upgrading to the latest version of Toast 8.0.3, I encountered a problem. The “TiVo Transfer” option was still on the Extras menu, but it no longer worked. After searching the ‘net for answers, I didn’t find anything. So I did some troubleshooting on my own and found the answer. Hopefully this will help others.

Read the Rest of ‘Roxio Toast 8 and TiVo Transfer problems’

Apple’s home page today features a different kind of Mac vs. PC commercial… featuring ol’ St. Nick in classic stop animation like the old classic Christmas shows we’ve come to know and love from Rankin-Bass.

To view the high resolution version, visit the Apple Get a Mac page.

This is one of the reasons I’ve switched from Windows to Mac:

As a web developer, it’s essential to be able to test a fresh page in as many browsers and environments as possible.

Read the Rest of ‘5 Browsers, 1 OS’

Apple puts their tiny “iSight” webcam into the monitor of every computer they make, except for those of us who have purchased a Mac Mini or a Mac Pro and have opted for a non-Apple monitor solution. Personally, I’m rocking a 27″ DELL Widescreen that does not have a built in camera. It has everything, but that! After much research and futzing around with the latest webcams, I found a few that work with Leopard.

Read the Rest of ‘Webcams that work with Mac OS X Leopard 10.5′

Last week I thought I was set to make this week Mac Week for me. Problem is I didn’t get caught up over the weekend and October is quickly turning into a super busy month as usual, mainly due to my automotive interests.

For starters, this weekend I’ll be doing the vehicle graphics for our Truckblog project truck that is going to the SEMA Show at the end of the month. The owner is Brian Olhausen, who is taking his Ford F-250 Super Duty diesel truck to the show again with a lot of changes from last year. The vehicle graphics I’m doing this year for his truck are the most I’ve ever done for any project, so it should be interesting. You can see my design here in this mockup which is mainly used for sizing and layout estimates.

Then, later this month I’m going to Dearborn, MI with Frozone for a Ford Motor Company media event, highlighting the new Ford Super Duty truck. That will eat up two days. The following week I’ll be in Las Vegas all week long for the SEMA Show, which is my annual trip to the desert to cover the show with the Truckblog Crew.

So needless to say, Mac Week has been post-poned, mainly because I can’t factor in any loss of productivity in my schedule. I may take a day here or there to mess with it some more, but for the immediate future there is no Mac Week!

After reading last week about how Microsoft is extending the life of Windows XP due to the slow adoption rate of Windows Vista, it dawned on me that the mad excitement over the initial launch of Vista was nowhere close to what it was for Windows 95, 98, and XP. Has Microsoft lost its OS innovation or has it simply reached a point where it is as good as it gets? Outside of the great new graphical interface, I personally have no need to upgrade to Vista. Actually, I am running a product called WindowBlinds 6 that has a XP theme that is spot-on! There are no killer apps that are egging me on to hop on the Vista train, and I know that many of the USB peripherals and software that I current use on XP will not function under Vista.

So what about Apple? Outside of having an iPod and the iPhone, I have never been a huge fan of the Apple Mac OS X operating system. That is most likely because I’ve always been a PC guy and all of my skills revolve around Windows and PC hardware. In recent years the Mac has adopted PC hardware, such as Intel chips, and many USB devices work with both Mac and PC. Earlier this year I bought a Mac Mini purely for doing native Safari browser testing and Yahoo! Widget development. This was my first Apple computer since my Apple ][+ days. My initial thought was that the UI was cool as hell and very easy to use. I got the low-end Mac Mini (512MB RAM) and hooked it up with the Apple wireless mouse and keyboard, using the VGA mode on my DELL monitor to view it.

This all led me to think… why not give the Apple Mac a run for its money? I can use the same keyboard/mouse monitor and most of the apps I use work on both platforms.

So next week is Mac Week for me. I’m giving the Apple Mac a week-long test to see if it can do everything I do on a daily basis with my PC.

Hardware: this week, in preparation for Mac Week, I upgraded my Mac Mini from 512MB RAM to 2GB. What a huge difference that has made. And you already know about my keyboard so I won’t get into that again. The good thing there is that I’m now used to the Apple keyboard on XP so switching over to the Mac won’t be an issue from the input device side of things.

Software: I’ve got the essentials already installed (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Firefox, and Skype). I thought I was going to be screwed with Remote Desktop, which I use constantly to access Windows servers for work. Much to my surprise, Microsoft actually has a Mac Remote Desktop client and you know what? It works better than the Windows version! Go figure! While I’d like to try out the native Mac email client, I will probably stick with Thunderbird so I can just copy my mail files over and not be interrupted.

I’ll document my week in a separate article, updating it as I go along.