Posts in tutorials

How To Sync Your Entire iTunes Library With Dropbox

Those who follow me on Twitter have probably read that I’ve been struggling in trying to make iTunes play nice with Dropbox. As I wrote many times here on MacStories in the past, I moved all the files and app databases I access on a daily basis into Dropbox, but iTunes was missing. I read in many forums and blog posts that making iTunes work fine with Dropbox sync across multiple computers was quite a mess, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to take the effort and spend hours messing with 80GB of music (and hours of uploads for my connection) and all those apps I have in my library. Fortunately, I don’t store movies in iTunes.

So as I wrote, I was having doubts about going Dropbox all the way with iTunes. The advantages of this method are obvious: you can sync your devices on multiple computers as long as Dropbox is updated to the latest version, you can check for app updates on any of your computers – you can add music to your library no matter the computer you’re using. With Dropbox, iTunes simply thinks it’s running on a single machine, while in fact you’re using it on multiple machines. I have a MacBook Pro and an iMac, but I’m sure the same method works on 2 or more computers.

There are some tricks you must know, however, and some steps you have to follow in order to make it work and avoid errors. iTunes is not exactly the most stable app for the Mac or the easiest to tweak: by default, it stores its database in a directory other than /Library (where most apps usually reside), it relies on a .xml library file that can easily be corrupted and if you go ahead and store app betas in your iTunes Library, you’ll have to deal with additional folders. In my experience, iTunes has turned out to be the hardest application to sync with Dropbox, but I think I’ve nailed it. Here’s how. Read more

How To: Add Tasks To OmniFocus or Things Using Dropbox and PlainText

OmniFocus and Things come with beautiful and useful mobile applications for iPhone and iPad, but sometimes you just want to have more control over how tasks are added to their databases. Or maybe you can’t afford paying for multiple mobile versions of the same app and you just use the desktop application.

But you’re a great Dropbox fan, and we’ve shown you many creative uses of Dropbox in the past. You can use the service to sync bookmarks and passwords across devices and computers, store music libraries, even control your Mac using Applescript and Folder Actions. Today, thanks to the efforts of our good friend Gianni Rondini (@giannivt), we’re featuring an interesting way to add tasks (with optional notes) to Things and OmniFocus for Mac using Dropbox and HogBay Software’s PlainText, inspired by Elastic Thread’s method to control your Mac using Dropbox.

Check out the instructions and download links after the break. Read more

Watch Videos While Surfing on Your iPad

Who said you can’t ‘multitask’ on an iPad (without installing the iOS developer beta)? Geeky Gadgets has a tutorial for a DIY HUD adapter/dock that holds your iPhone on top of your iPad. View media on your iPhone and surf the web on your iPad at the same time. Read more

Jailbreak iPhone on iOS 4.1, Install Your First Cydia Apps [with Compatibility List]

Geohot’s limera1n jailbreak came out two days ago with a huge drama over Twitter: the guy announced his “retirement” months ago, he didn’t tell anyone about his exploit and jailbreak tool, he released it a day earlier than expected leaving the Chronic Dev Team and iPhone Dev Team wondering what they should do with GreenPo1son, their own (and much anticipated) jailbreak tool based on the SHAtter exploit.

The Dev Team decided to save SHAtter for a future release of iOS, a not-so-popular but smart move looking forward. In this post we’ll show you how you can easily jailbreak your iPhone (or iPod Touch) running iOS 4.1 using limera1n and install your first Cydia apps on it. We’ll also take a look at the apps that are already working on 4.1, and which ones need an update. So wait no more, jump after the break! Read more

How To: Display WebP Images On Your Mac Browser

WebP is a new image format announced by Google last week which aims at making the web faster by providing the tools to use high-quality, yet lightweight, images. While preserving quality and resolution, Google’s engineers figured out a way to compress images so to make them even smaller than usual .JPEG files. About the technical details:

WebP uses predictive coding to encode an image, the same methodology used by the VP8 video codec to compress keyframes in videos. Predictive coding uses the values in neighboring blocks of pixels to predict the values in a block, and then encodes only the difference (residual) between the actual values and the prediction. The residuals typically contain many zero values, which can be compressed much more effectively. The residuals are then transformed, quantized and entropy-coded as usual. WebP also uses variable block sizes.

Being a new file format, it’s not officially supported in browsers yet. Maybe it’ll be very soon, but right now it’s just a cool developer preview that shows what it’s possible to do with Google’s technology. Here’s how you can enable WebP in your Mac browser right now. Read more

How To Easily Send Files From Your Mac to Gmail

As you may know, I moved my primary work mail to Gmail using the Google Apps engine. I’ve always been a huge fan of Gmail’s web UI, but when Google announced Priority Inbox and the new accounts for Google Apps users (they’re basically just like personal accounts now, but they run on Apps) I thought it was the right time to switch. I haven’t looked back: Gmail is powerful and the Priority Inbox makes navigating through hundreds of messages a day a better experience.

Gmail comes with free online storage space. You can basically store as many emails as you want and forget about deleting attachments because the email provider requires so. So I thought: wouldn’t be great to be able to store files on Gmail and easily retrieve them from any device? It’s still normal email, with my files in it. Follow the instructions below to see how you can upload files from your Mac’s Finder to Gmail with just one click. Read more

iPod Nano + Dreamcast VMU = Nostalgia

This is for all you old school Sega Dreamcast users - a hardware mod to use your old Virtual Memory Unit (VMU) as a handy-dandy sixth generation iPod Nano case. Just open the VMU unit, place the Nano inside the case, fit the headphone wire (with some work) and put it back together. Not only does this destroy Apple’s minimal design principles but it gives your Nano a protective beige case - but isn’t it cool? Pictures and video goodness below. Read more