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Filed under: OS, Tips and tricks

Quick tip: fixing Safari's fumbles

Have you ever downloaded a file using Safari and ended up with an extension like .dmg.bz2, only to find that no amount of double clicking will actually get you to a mountable disk image? Here's the down and dirty:

Safari has a habit of guessing at what you're downloading and appending an extension for you, at least when the server doesn't explicitly declare it. In this case, it's looking at the compression method being used inside of the disk image, finding bzip2 and appending that extension. But the disk image isn't actually archived, so this throws everything off. When the OS sees the bz2 extension (or any extension after the .dmg), it assumes it's a compressed archive and unzips it. The resulting file is broken.

The answer? If you run into this problem, just click the file once to rename it and remove the trailing extension after .dmg. The disk image should mount on a double click. An aging post at Unsanity also divulges the server-side solution for preventing the problem entirely.

Filed under: Software, Productivity, Internet Tools

iPlace: Image download helper for Safari



Considering the graphical nature of the web, I'm surprised more features and plug-ins haven't appeared to solve the problem of downloading images from sites as well as iPlace does. Operating as a SIMBL plug-in for Safari (including the 3.0 beta), iPlace allows you to specify multiple locations on your Mac for downloading images, but that's not all. It then gives you a contextual menu item when right-clicking an image or a web page that will allow you to instantly download any image to one of your specified locations, or - and here's the kicker - bring up an image downloading window that shows you each image on the page, along with your download locations provided as drag and drop wells in a sidebar on the left. Opening this window on I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER, for example, brings up the long list of images you see above, all ripe for efficiently dragging and dropping wherever I want.

In a word: iPlace is awesome. There are of course enhancements I would like to see, such as the ability to scale these images up and down to make it easier to view more from the page at once, but for a spankin' new product straight out the gate, this is a really handy plug-in.

iPlace is provided as donationware from Tekuris.

Filed under: Software, Productivity, Internet Tools

Transmission 0.8 released with selective file downloads, UI changes and much more



You TUAW readers have spoken loud and clear: Transmission is your favorite BitTorrent client. If you're nodding your head right now, you'll be happy to know that v0.8 of the cross-platform app has gone official, ushering in a boatload of new features and fixes for all OSes it works on, as well as some great Mac-only goodies. Before we get to the new stuff, however, I have to echo a warning on the main Transmission page: if you're in the middle of any downloads right now, finish them before upgrading; you could lose data if you jump the gun.

That said, let's talk about the shiny new changes. First up, here are the new feature highlights that everyone can enjoy:
  • Ability to selectively download and prioritize files
  • Torrent file creation
  • Speed and CPU load improvements
  • Better rechecking of torrents that have many files
And here are the new goodies just for Mac OS X users:
  • Overlay when dragging torrent files, URLs, and data files onto window
  • Ability to set an amount of time to consider a transfer stalled
  • More progress bar colors
  • Various smaller interface improvements
  • Italian, Korean, and Russian translations
More details and screenshots are available at the Transmission site, and be sure to swing by the Transmission donation page to show the development crew some love.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Filed under: Multimedia, Video, Cool tools, Internet Tools, iPhone

Running a bittorrent client from the iPhone


A few days ago, TorrentFreak speculated about how someone might create a bittorrent client for the iPhone. While it seems technically possible (except for that nagging "no SDK" problem, which makes it hard to get code running on there), you might question why it needs to be done - since there are plenty of good legal torrents out there, it just seems easier to get them on your Mac first, and then sync them to your iPhone. Still, I'm sure there are quite a few people out there who want to do torrenting on the fly, so maybe it'll be done eventually.

In the meantime, the P2P blog has a neat tip that lets you almost get bittorrent on your iPhone. Almost every bittorrent client (including Azureus, which is what I use on my Mac) can establish a remote connection via a browser, which the iPhone has. Using a plugin for Azureus (here's one that P2P recommends, and here's another that they say might work better with the iPhone), you can start and stop downloads, and even queue up local torrents.

At this point, the plugin's search function doesn't work (so you must have the torrent sitting on your local box in the first place), but in the future, you'll be able to find and queue a torrent on your iPhone, and then have it ready to go when you get home.

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools

Transmission 0.7 beta reviewed by Torrentfreak


The market for Mac torrent clients has been expanding quite a bit recently, and Torrentfreak has a nice review of a new beta version of Transmission, a long-standing favorite of many a Mac torrenter. While the review rounds up many of the nice new features, I'll give you the cliff notes for the slackers in the crowd: "Transmission 0.7 Beta is by far the fastest, most light-weight and one of the most appealing BitTorrent clients for the Mac."

Diving further in, some of Transmission's new features seem to be inspired by Xtorrent, a new beta client from Dave Watanabe (of NewsFire fame). Of these new features, notables include time-of-day based speed limits (i.e. - slow down my torrent downloads while I'm at my desk at work from 9-5), as well as a Watch Folder with automatic cleanup of your torrent files (again, very Xtorrent inspired). The idea is: most Mac browsers by default download all files to the desktop, but that might not be where torrent users want to keep their downloads as well. This Watch Folder allows Transmission to automatically snag any torrent files you download to the desktop, move them to a user-specified folder and begin the torrent download. Ah, software automation - it's a beautiful thing.

Check out the rest of Torrentfreak's review, as plenty more is packed under the hood of this new beta.

[via digg]

Filed under: Audio, Humor, Internet

Weird Al: "Don't Download This Song"

Love or hate him, Weird Al has unquestionably cranked out some of the most notable humor and satire of the late 20th - and now 21st - centuries. The Digital Music Weblog (a sister site) has discovered Mr. Weird is at it again with "Don't Download This Song," a tongue-in-cheek anthem about the dark road of lying, cheating and stealing that file sharing can lead down.

Weird Al is using a small marketing site to pimp the song, complete with a music video and a download link (yes, of course it's free), as well as the upcoming album the song is featured on.

Grant at TDMW cites a favorite line of Christopher Springman at Public Knowledge: "Cause you start out stealing songs/then you're robbing liquor stores/and selling crack/and running over schoolkids with your car." Personally, I don't think the record labels care where you're getting your cash, just as long as you use it to pay their outlandish monopoly prices.

Feel free to grab the song, as the RIAA can't nail you for downloading this one. At least, I think.

Filed under: Hacks, iTunes, Podcasting

Download BitTorrent podcasts in iTunes with iTorrent

A lot of people are clamoring for Apple to build support for BitTorrent into iTunes. Setting aside the greater implications and the major industry bridges Apple would burn if they were to do this, a man by the name of Michael Hobbs has developed a solution that might suffice for some of you who just gotta have your podcast torrents subscribed in iTunes.

While it might not be pretty, iTorrent (is anyone else getting sick of the 'i' prefix?) is essentially a set of Python scripts for Windows or Mac OS X that will allow you to add those BitTorrent podcasts into iTunes and update them with the rest of your podcasts. Unfortunately, it isn't a simple drag, drop and double-click, so check out Michael's site for installation and running instructions for both Windows and Mac OS X.

[via digg]

Tip of the Day

Use Spotlight as a reference tool. Type any word in the Spotlight box and one of the top entries will be a definition. Click on it, and it will bring up the dictionary application to check the word in either the dictionary, thesaurus, Apple database, or Wikipedia.


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