Most of you know that I’m a big Mac guy. If I could have it my way and afford it, I’d have every mac product I could and as many as I could, but we all know that’s not possible. Especially with the way mac products are priced. You get what you pay for with mac products in my opinion however.

Onto what this post is about. I’ve been working with ways to automate my mac more and more, so that I can become more productive. The end result is simply to get more done, in less time and with greater efficiency and less error.

This introduction post is simply a starter post to explain what I will go into more detail about in later posts. Simply a taste of what I’m doing and what I’ll show you how to do as well.

The Tools

Having the right tools, or in this case, applications is a must. Being an organized person, or wanting to be is also a must.

1. Speech

The most important aspect to my automation system is the voice commands built into every mac. Basically I’ve customized mine to do what I ask, not just the basic commands that come standard. Which aren’t actually that bad, check them out, you’ll thank me later.

System Preferences – > Speech – > Speech Recognition

Turn this on and select the microphone you’ll be using to speak to your computer.

It is a good idea to calibrate your mic in the environment you’ll be in most frequently using your voice commands.

2. Dropbox

There are many different variations of Dropbox, such as Sugarsync, but personally I prefer Dropbox as I’ve used it the longest and it simply works. Once it’s setup, start dumping files into the Dropbox folder. Setup aliases to access your folders on your desktop or in Finder and you’re good to go.

I pay for an upgraded version of Dropbox so I can get more space.

The most important aspect here is to only place what you want synced and/or backed up within Dropbox.

I use mine for all my project files, graphics, images and programming files. Anything that I would need access to on the go, goes in my Dropbox. All of my documents also go into Dropbox, this insures that I always have access to them anytime I need them.

3. Hazel

The next tool I utilize is very important as well and helps me to be lazy, yet organized. When I save a file to my Dropbox, or where ever I need to. So long as I name the file properly, the rules I have setup in Hazel will place the file where it needs to go. I have one Inbox within Dropbox that I save EVERYTHING into. Naming it properly in the process and let Hazel move, tag and color code it as needed.

I also setup rules to color code them based on their age and/or importance. All my files also get a date when they are saved, this insures I know the first time it was saved/created. The operating system keeps up with this information as well, but this helps when sending to other people on different platforms, that may not have their finder or explorer windows setup to show that information.

4. Automator

Automator is a great application if you learn to use it properly. There is so much that it can do and it’s so simple to setup. Basically everything is drag and drop, so you simply drag what you want done and in what order. You can test your automation app before you build it and then when you’re ready, simply save it and go.

These apps can later be used via voice command to open or run, which saves you time in the long run.

5. Quicksilver

Quicksilver is another app I use for my automation purposes, but more so to save time than to automat tasks. However, if setup correctly, Quicksilver can automate some tasks with certain plugins. I personally don’t use it, mainly because I haven’t taken the time to look through what it can do and then set it up.

The main thing I use Quicksilver for however is simply to acces applications very quickly. I hit a hotkey on my keyboard, start typing the application and then enter. I have an application found and opened within fractions of a second, compared to minutes trying to find it through finder.

Conclusion

In my next few posts I’ll give a more detailed rundown of the above applications and tools, how I have them setup and how they integrate into my use of the computer. I’ll also explain some of my workflows and organization techniques. These work for me, so they may not work for everyone.

When I initially decided to write an article on how I’ve organized my life, it started out simple and straightforward. Touching on the basics of organizing personal, freelance and work life. From this I’ve branched out into multiple articles and in the end decided it would be best to write a series on the entire process I’ve gone through and frankly still going through.

I’m going to start off with the most important aspect in my opinion and that’s synchronization and backups. I’m adding backups into the mix simply because it goes hand and hand with syncing files. I’ve tried to explain as much as possibly and in detail how everything is setup, while not getting to long winded. Simply because I will be going into more detail about each application and/or service that I’ll touch on below.

I will also be working on a full diagram that will be included sometime through the series. This diagram will be a much better representation of what I’ve setup, how it syncs back and forth and how all the backups work. It will also include all the hardware I utilize and where it is used.

Synchronization & Backups

So let us begin this series with the synchronization and backup applications that I’m using. I’ll try to include as much detail about each particular application and/or service and why I’m using it. I’m starting with these two types of applications and/or services for a good reason, this should be number one on everyones list to get in place and keep it working!

I have lost very important files in the past because I didn’t believe that hardware failure or data loss could happen to me. Guess what? It did and it can. Since then I have put barriers up to keep it from happening again and I’m happy to report that I haven’t lost anything in a very long time.

Windows Live Sync

Windows Live Sync (FolderShare) is a free application developed by Microsoft that allows for folder synchronization. This is your first line of defense against data loss, granted you need multiple computers for this. Currently I have a workstation at home (Mac Pro) and a mobile computer (MacBook) that I use while at work. Windows Live Sync is integral to my setup and a must have for daily operation.

A few things to note about this application/service.

• You can only synchronize 20 folders total.
• Each folder cannot contain more than 20,000 files.
• File size limit of 4GB
• Sync does not work with mapped network drives.

Currently Windows Live Sync supports:

• Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 or later
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or later
• Windows Vista
• Mac OS X 10.5
• Mac OS X 10.6

With the above limitations it would appear that this might become a problem. Truthfully, I’ve been using it for over a year now and I haven’t had any problems with the limitations listed above. Microsoft simply put these in place to keep from killing the servers that Windows Live Sync run on, most will not need to exceed the above.

Back when it was FolderShare it had far more limitations than it does now, it would appear now that any file type can synchronize. When it was FolderShare I had many problems syncing PSD’s and other “uncommon” filetypes as Microsoft put it. I will go into more detail on Windows Live Sync later in this series, I’ll also go into what folders I sync, why and the benefits of doing so.

Dropbox

Dropbox has probably been one of the most useful application that I’ve started using. It’s a really simple concept and it only makes sense to utilize it. Now I know most of you are probably thinking, why use Dropbox if you’re using Windows Live Sync?

It’s simple, you’re not using up your 20 folders, you’re not tapping the 20,000 file limit, you’re creating a backup point and you’re also able to access the files anywhere. Windows Live Sync is more of a “configuration & database” synchronization solution. I don’t use Windows Live Sync to sync “work” files, such as documents and images.

Reasons why I’m Using Dropbox

• Works on the major operating systems; Mac, Linux & Windows. (No particular order here…)
• You can run it on all of the major operating systems and it will sync between them.
• Paid and free accounts.
• Automatically syncs, no starting or stopping. Run a small app all the time and it handles the rest.
• Backup point.
• Accessible online, anywhere with web access.
• Each referral grants 250MB more space.

*** Please use the link above if you plan on signing up for Dropbox. It helps to grow my free account so I won’t have to pay for an account, doesn’t cost you anything and helps me keep rolling. Thanks in advance. ***

Mozy (Free)

Mozy is a great backup solution. I’m mentioning this because I currently use Mozy for backups for work files. I do not prefer Mozy, or didn’t I should say. The application was clunky and didn’t seem to handle large backups (100GB+). I am using the free version which is limited to 2GB and it seems to be working just fine now, I haven’t needed to restore any files so I can’t attest to that just yet.

Basically I only backup my Dropbox with Mozy. The only items that go into Dropbox are related to my current full-time job. Which do not come close to hitting the 2GB limit. Mozy is similar to Dropbox with their referral program as well, for each person that you refer to Mozy you’ll get an extra 250MB’s of space added to your free account.

*** Again use of the referral link is very much appreciated. ***

Carbonite

Carbonite is my backup everything solution. They charge yearly, but so far have been well worth it. If you have multiple computers you want to backup with them, register for one first and they may give you a half off for another. When I first signed up, they did that for the two computers that I paid for. With Carbonite I simply backup everything on my Mac Pro and my wife’s iMac (Family photos & videos).

Carbonite is one of those backup solutions that you install, setup and forget. The $54.95 that they charge a year is for an unlimited amount of backups. Currently my Mac Pro has 280GB backed up with 150GB in queue. My wife’s computer currently has 100GB backed up, so that’s a total of almost 400GB backed up with Carbonite, with no problems thus far. I have more computers than my workstation and my wife’s iMac, so to get around having to pay for multiple accounts I use Crashplan on all my other computers and I have an extra 500GB hard drive installed on my Mac Pro specifically for my other computers. Which brings me to my next backup solution.

Crashplan

Crashplan is one of those setup and forget backup/sync solutions. I’m mentioning it because I currently use Crashplan as a backup point for my other computers that do not have direct to web backup accounts, such as Carbonite or Mozy. With Crashplan I can setup a “host” computer and then each computer that runs the Crashplan software can connect to the host and backup there needed files.

Crashplan allows for multiple backup points with as many computers as you’d like, these backups are all encrypted. So if there were three computers using Crashplan, all three could be a backup point for each other. Computer one would have two sets of backups on the other two computers in the configuration and vise versa. So in my case, my MacBook and my servers backup critical files to my Mac Pro. Those backups are then backed up yet again on Carbonite.

Crashplan also allows you to backup with your friends and/or family. So if your buddy that lives in another state installs the application, he can send you a friend code and you can backup to his computer. I do this with a buddy of mine that lives near me, this way I have another remote backup point.

Time Machine

Of course no backup system would be complete without a Time Machine setup. Currently I utilize two Time Machine systems at home. One is specifically setup for my Mac Pro and the other is attached to an Airport Extreme Base Station which services all the wireless macs in the house. My Mac Pro has an internal 1.5TB hard drive that is used to backup the dual 250GB RAIDED drives that the OS and applications run on as well as my 500GB repository drive where I store all my work files and downloads.

The drive that is hooked to the Airport is a 500GB My Book. The My Books are outstanding external backup drives, I actually own three of them; two 250GB and one 500GB. The 500GB that is hooked to the Airport services my wife’s iMac and my MacBook.

Xmarks

Xmarks is kind of a life savor in my opinion and probably one of the coolest applications I’ve used thus far. The reason that I’m mentioning this one is simple, I use bookmarks for everything. I also utilize multiple browsers, mainly for testing websites and how they look in each, but also for speed reasons as well; Safari being faster on my MacBook than FireFox.

With Xmarks you simply install a FireFox plugin, or download a small app for Safari and setup an account. Currently Xmarks supports the following browsers:

• FireFox
• Safari
• Chrome
• IE

As far as Chrome and IE are concerned, I’m not sure what is needed to sync those. I would assume it would be a standalone application such as Safari, but since I don’t normally use them I wouldn’t know. I would highly suggest visiting their website and going over their feature list. Xmarks is MUCH more than a bookmark sync application. This is the main feature I use of Xmarks but there are MANY MANY more things it can do, most of which you may find very useful.

Conclusion

In the next bits to this series I will be outlining in more detail how I utilize each of the applications/services above. I’ll also be going into more detail the small bits of my synchronization and backup system. This is the first of many articles to come on my entire setup.

I’ve been doing web graphics for quite awhile now and throughout my years as a graphic designer I’ve always had a problem with how Safari handles web graphics. Safari is the only browser on the market today that honors ICC profiles within graphics, which seems a bit odd to me but I can understand how it has its place depending on the graphic you’re wanting to view and/or load.

One of my major grips is with the graphic editing applications out today. Not a single one, that I know of at least, will allow you to save images without an ICC profile. They all put some sort of default profile in once the image is saved. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but since Safari honors those profiles the colors within those graphics are never the same. This causes a few different problems, namely a problem when you have a background image that doesn’t repeat and you fill the remaining space with a solid color. The RGB color that you use as your background will never match up with the ICC profile and how Safari renders those images out that contain them.

So the simplest fix to how Safari displays graphics on a web site is to remove the ICC profiles. But how do you do that if none of the graphics programs will allow you to save them without an ICC profile? There are a few different applications that can be used to do this. The most popular being PngCrush.

However, normally a web site that we build can have quite a few graphics with it and doing them one by one, which you must do with the command line tool PngCrush, begins to get tiresome and tends to be a big waste of time. So I did some digging and found a really cool application called ImageOptim that does the trick. Not only that it includes a few more command line tools that it uses to optimize any graphic you drop into its window. I mainly work with PNG files so I drag an image folder over to it and using PngCrush it removed all the ICC profiles and optimizes the graphics for me, saving them back over the top of the old files. Then I can simply SVN them into the proper client account and I’m done and problem solved.

Give ImageOptim a look, I’m sure it will come in handy for any graphic designer or web site builder. Mac only from what I can tell.

Recently I went to write an entry for my blog and was a little peeved when I realized that my WYSIWYG Editor was missing in WordPress. I didn’t think anything of it and figured it might have something to do with Flock as I had been having problems with it recently. So I decided to sleep on it and wait till tomorrow to resolve the issue.

When I got back on this morning and decided to try for the same entry, I had the exact same problem. The WYSIWYG Editor would load just fine, then when the page finished loading it would vanish. So I went through some plugins in Flock and in WordPress that I had installed between the time that it had worked and didn’t. That didn’t resolve the issue.

So I then decided to clean out Flock’s cache and saved history, figuring that it might have had some files downloaded that we’re loading and causing the issue. That didn’t work either. It then dawned on me that I had turned on the Google Gears Turbo feature in WordPress and that it might be causing the problem.

So after disabling the plugin within Flock and reloading my blog. BOOM it worked.

So….. if you’re having problems with the WYSIWYG Editor not showing up in WordPress, disable the Turbo option, which is located under Tools/Tools and see if that resolves your issue.

So here lately I’ve been having problems with one of my Windows XP VM’s. When I resume the VM from a suspend, the network doesn’t seem to want to work. I’ve tinkered, edited and patched all I could but with no avail. After dealing with it for a few weeks I finally have come up with a way to resolve the issue. It’s really simple and I’ve done in multiple times and it seems to work each and every time.

Get Windows XP VM Network Back After Resume

1. Resume your VM
2. Go to your Network settings
   • Start
   • Settings
   • Network Connections
3. Find your Local Area Connection
4. Right click and Disable
5. Wait for it to finish
6. Right click Enable
7. Wait for it to finish
8. Right click Repair

Once it finishes repairing the connection, simply hit close and then close the network connections window. This should make your bridged network connection start functioning again between the VM and OS X. Hope this helps, took me a little while to find the right combination, but this works for me every time.

If anyone has a fix or another way to resolve this issue, please by all means let me know. I’d love to find a resolution to this issue so I don’t have to bother with it anymore or maybe another way to fix it when it does happen. Doesn’t hurt to have multiple ways.