Ask TUAW: Screen locking, POS, installing a wiki, sucking a site and more

sorry for the delayed response...

my cousin wrote an AppleScript that locks the screen. you just have to have the lock icon in your menubar, then set a keyboard shortcut via quicksilver.

-Addison James

activate application "SystemUIServer"
tell application "System Events"
tell process "SystemUIServer"
repeat with i from 1 to number of menu bar items of menu bar 1
tell menu bar item i of menu bar 1
click
try
if name of menu item 1 of front menu is "Lock Screen" then
click menu item "Lock Screen" of front menu
exit repeat
end if
end try
end tell
end repeat
end tell
end tell

BTW, I'm running OS X 10.5.2

I have the latest version Macbook and I was wandering if there's a way you can use an external webcam with Photo Booth.

I have a Macbook at home running 10.5, and an account with short username 'emil.' I have a Mac Mini at work running 10.4 containing an account with the same short username. I'd like to use the migration assistant to move my files and installed applications over to the Macbook. How can I move this account over without running into problems caused by their names being the same?

Hi TUAW, I have two questions:

First of all, I'd like to ask about Leopard and Growl. Ever since updating from Tiger, Growl notifications take a while to show up. As an example, I receive a message on Adium, and, in Tiger, it used to pop just with the message arrival. On Leopard, a message arrives and it takes 5 to 10 seconds for the notification to pop up. The same happens with HardwareGrowler, for instance. Does anyone else have this issue?

Lastly, I've mentioned this issue before but I've had no feedback. I have a 250GB USB hard drive which has two partitions on it: a FAT one and an NTFS one. After upgrading to Leopard (or actually it was after one of the last Tiger upgrades), I'm not being able to use any partition. As a matter of fact, HardwareGrowler tells me that an IDE-USB device has been plugged, but it doesn't show up in Disk Utility nor in the desktop. I know the drive works (it works perfectly in XP) and I've tested the USB ports with a plethora of hardware (including another USB hard drive, which is not partitioned or anything) and they work just fine. Any ideas on what it can be?

Thanks in advance =)

Hey guys!

I just bought a WD 500GB external HDD for Time Machine. The WD is really cool, because after about 10 minutes of not being used, it automatically spins down until it is accessed again. The problem is that everytime you click on spotlight, it thinks you want to search it, and fires up again. Is there anyway to prevent the HDD from waking up? I have tried adding the HDD to the privacy settings in spotlight, but it still wakes up! Any ideas?

I have a Mac Mini at home working as a HTPC and a file server for my LAN. I just picked up a new Macbook Air and would like for it to "see" the iTunes folder from the Mini as if it were a folder on the Air's hard drive. In other words, I want my (60GB+) iTunes library folder on my Air without it actually taking up all the space. And I want to access it from anywhere.

I think I'm on the right path looking into VPN, but I'm not finding anyway to "automount" folders from my Mini. I don't want to just stream music, I want to be able to sync my iPod from either machine.

I would love to automatically add my OS X Tiger's Address Book contact data to a standard MS Word 2004 document. Is there a way to select one contact and copy his or her address and phone number into predefined fields?

Ummmmm. Just came back to my Mac to be greeted by a Time Machine dialog that says: "Time Machine Error. This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 539.3 MB but only 4.4 GB are available." And so on. Huh?!? And no that's not a typo on my part. Are the numbers transposed maybe?

In August 2005, I bought a 12-inch 1.33 Ghz G4 iBook, the last refresh the iBooks were ever given.

By getting a G4 so late in the game, I have been pretty much shafted out of a lot of cool things since Intel was adopted soon after (No Joost, Windows, Photobooth backdrops, etc). Since Late 2006, Apple has been using the Intel Core 2 Duo processor. I am considering getting a new Macbook this spring, but since Intel Core 2 Duo Macbooks have been out for so long now, I am scared of being shafted again by being one of the last people to buy one before it gets placed. Is this something I should be concerned about? I don't know much about processors.