Reports of an odd bug affecting downloaded files in Snow Leopard have been circulating Apple's discussion boards recently. As reported by TidBITS, the issue appears to be affecting all computers running Snow Leopard.

While different users have reported varying symptoms and differing circumstances, it essentially boils down to this: if you download a group of files, and then attempt to open the entire group of files at once (rather than opening each file individually), chances are either some or all of the selected files will not open.

My initial response to this was that it could possibly be one of those "it's not a bug, it's a feature" ordeals. We have already seen some indications that Apple is working on enhanced security and virus protection in Snow Leopard, so it stands to reason that the operating system may be simply trying to prevent what it thinks is malicious activity by imposing restrictions on what you can and can't do with a newly downloaded file.

Of course, that's just my theory, but I'm apparently not the only one who has explored that possibility -- a reader on the Mac OS X Hints forum discovered some hard evidence supporting that theory. In OS X, newly downloaded files are flagged with a "quarantine" attribute, which remains until the file is opened. If this attribute is set when the file is launched, and the file is an application, you would receive the typical "This application was downloaded from the Internet" confirmation before the application is allowed to continue launching. This is nothing new in Snow Leopard, but it would seem that the additional protections and scanning that were added to Snow Leopard most likely prevent opening multiple files so that each file can be individually checked before it is launched.

Whether or not this is a serious bug or a minor inconvenience depends entirely on your workflow. Personally, I find that I don't often open multiple files from Finder, as most of the applications I use have the ability to select multiple files from their Open dialog. I can easily see where this might pose significant problems, however. For example, if you do a lot of work with graphics, you might download a several photos from a client, highlight them and open them with a custom tool that automatically resizes and processes for you. With this bug in play, that task would become much more difficult if you had to open each file individually.

So what about you? Is this bug bugging you, or is it a non-issue? If you are affected, feel free to chime in with your experiences on the discussion boards, and be sure to let us know in the comments!

It's not often that I get to write such a delightfully alliterative title to a post. Philipp Mayerhofer, C.O.O. of Dare to be Creative, sent along a note this morning mentioning that his company's file renaming powerhouse had not only been renamed, but that it has a whole slew of new features.

The application formerly known as Renamer4Mac is now simply called Renamer (US$29.00), and there's a new website at renamer.com to showcase the app. What does it do? (Hint: the name should tell you a lot) Well, Renamer is a bulk file renamer. When would you use a bulk file renamer? Here's an example -- often, I bring over a pile of photos from my iPhone 3GS using Image Capture, and I save them to a folder on my desktop. They all have really exciting names like IMG_0771.jpg, IMG_0772.jpg, ad infinitum. Read on for more information about Renamer.

Together (formerly KIT) remains one of my personal favorites in the area of file and note organization. I mentioned it last when the 2.1 release brought an array of oft-requested features. The latest update, version 2.2, adds some welcome additional features and fixes some existing issues. Highlights for the release include:

• Intelligent automatic tagging:

  This one is probably the most intriguing new feature, at least for me. It generates a certain number of tags (defined in preferences) based on tags you used on similar content in the past. It doesn't seem to read tags on items that existed prior to the upgrade or enabling automatic tagging, but it learns as it goes once you start using it. It's a little touch-and-go for me so far, but it's apparent that it's picking up on my habits as I continue to add new items. (See the update from the developer at the end of the article).

• Any or All boolean searches in the tag browser:

  This one was killing me in previous releases, which always treated multiple tag selections as "any," which (for me) defeated the purpose of multiple selections in a tag browser. Problem solved, the choice can be made in the view options of the tag browser.

• Groups and Smart Groups can be nested in folders:

  Depending on your organization method, grouping these items could prove to be a benefit. The previous version added the ability to automatically tag items added to a group or folder with tags set for that folder. With the option to perform that tagging on subfolders, the new group nesting feature allows for a hierarchical tagging system on groups, too.

• You can wrap selected items in a new group
• Tabs can be arranged by dragging
• Tabs can be activated by dragging to them

• Minimum dimensions can be set when importing web pages as PDFs:

  I love the PDF import feature of Together, which lets you save a web page as a PDF, keeping all of the text editable but in a more portable format than a web archive. It had a tendency to squish pages with certain CSS layouts, though. Another problem solved.

• Numerous fixes and features not mentioned in this abbreviated list

See the full release notes for Together 2.2 for a more in-depth list of the new features. Together remains $39USD, and is available at Reinvented Software.

Update: Together developer Steve Harris adds the following information regarding auto-tagging...

"When first enabled, Together builds up a map of the existing documents in your library and their corresponding tags. When documents are imported or saved, Together will analyse their content and tag them based on the tags for similar items.

To do this, Together is using a technology called Latent Semantic Mapping, which is built into Mac OS X, and is used by Mail.app to check for junk mail. As with Mail, it's possible the matches won't always be right, so if you change the tags on a document, Together will learn from that and in future, auto-tagging should be more accurate"

With Automator, you can easily streamline common tasks. If you work with many files (i.e. pictures), then you know how easy it is to lose track because of incorrectly named files. With this Automator workflow, you'll never lose your place (or a file) again.

Building the Workflow
To create this workflow, simply add the following Automator actions (in the same order):

• Get Specified Finder Items
• Rename Finder Items

When you add the "Rename Finder Items" action to your workflow, Automator will ask if you want to copy the files so you don't mess with the originals. Choose "Don't Add."

Configuring the Workflow
In the "Rename Finder Items" action, you have almost unlimited choices for renaming schemes. To get started, select a scheme from the first drop-down box. You can choose from: Add Date or time, Add Text, Change Case, Make Sequential, Replace Text, Name Single Item.

Once you select your renaming scheme, choose the options you want based on the scheme. For instance, if you wanted the "Make Sequential" scheme, you could choose to use existing naming, or create a new name. You can also select options for where to place the numbers, which number to start counting from, and how to separate the number from the rest of the text.

Running the Workflow
Once you have your naming scheme figured out, it's time to run the workflow, and have Automator do the heavy-lifting. Drag and drop the files you want renamed onto the "Get Specified Finder Items" workflow. They will be added to the list of files to be renamed. You can then click the "Run" button in the top-right corner of the window. Your original files will be renamed, leaving you with perfectly renamed files. You can now save your workflow.

Want more Mac Automation or AppleScript tutorials? Visit TUAW's Mac Automation and AppleScript sections.

If you work like I do, then you have a hierarchy of folders contained in a single folder that allows you to manage project files, notes, etc. Well, when it comes time to chunk those old files, normally you have to manually go through and remove them; this task can become daunting if you have multiple project folders. I am going to show you an easier way. In this how-to, we'll cover how to create an AppleScript that will allow you to remove folders that are older than 30 days.

Continue reading to learn how to create this AppleScript.

Earlier, I posted about how you can revert those new lights in Leopard's Dock back to Tiger's old triangles (and I can't say I was too surprised to find out that most of you didn't want to revert anything-- do what feels right, man), and I said that the next thing to go would be Leopard's shiny Dock-top.

And now, here we go-- Something Awful's echobucket has apparently found the files that need to be changed to edit the look of the dock. As with the triangles, the Dock elements have a few sizes to them, so replace the "scruve-x.png" files (where x is "l," "m," "sm," or "xl") in the Dock package's /Contents/Resources folder (make sure to back up the original files just in case, too), and then type "killall Dock" in the Terminal to restart it, and bingo, a slightly less bright dock.

In fact, just by changing the color of those pictures, you can change the color of the Dock itself (here's an orange dock on a black background for Halloween, via Digg commenter HacKing). It can't be too long before some enterprising programmer figures out how to put all of this inside an easy-to-use app, but here's the real question: if it's all this easy, why didn't Apple offer us this kind of customization ourselves? Sure, when you hand the paintbrushes to the people, things can get ugly, but they can also get much more beautiful, too.

[via Digg]

You know that "Enable disk use" checkbox? The one that appears in iTunes for most modern iPods? That checkbox isn't there for the iPod touch. The touch provides no built-in disk access utilities but if you have an Intel Mac, and aren't afraid of the command line, you can use these Media Folder utilities to copy files to and from your touch.

The utilities, which are based around a modified version of iPhuc, work with the iPhone as well as the touch and copy files to and from the Media/Documents folder.

Update: PPC Mac users download this copy of iPhuc, rename it to util and stick it into the media utilities folder. It doesn't run as cleanly as the version I converted--lots more extraneous text--but it works on PPC.

Hazel is one of those truly clever, useful apps that I think could make the Mac computing world a better place if everyone bought a license (and used it, of course). If you haven't seen our previous coverage, Hazel is - in a nutshell - your "personal housecleaner," allowing you to specify rules for moving and organizing your files just like you would with Mail messages. For a basic example, you could create a rule that watches your Desktop for downloaded files types like .ZIP, .DMG, .SIT, etc., and automatically move them to a Software folder once they're a day old. Hazel's abilities don't stop there, however; not by a long shot. Hazel can automatically import image files into iPhoto, music into iTunes, add Spotlight comments, organize files into folders and even subfolders, add Finder color labels to files, run AppleScripts and so much more. Hazel can even manage your Trash for you by setting a specific time frame after which older (but not all) files should be deleted, or even a size limit that the Trash should be kept under (say, 2 GB). All this is done completely and transparently in the background, allowing you to get things done while Hazel works its magic.

Have I piqued your interest? Good, because Paul Kim at Noodlesoft has just released a much-anticipated Hazel 2.0 update in beta with some significant new features. At the top of my personal list is full-blown support for uninstalling an application and the ability to preview rule matches so you can polish your criteria before flipping the switch. Read on for details on these killer new features and more.

We talk up the file launcher and manipulator Quicksilver quite a bit here at TUAW, but there is a solid batch of similar productivity-enhancing utilities that offer different things for different users. Whether you're looking for a simple utility that lets you launch your applications faster than Spotlight can find them, or you're prepared to step up to vast amounts of power and flexibility with what you find and how you use it, chances are I covered an app in this screencast that will fit the bill for you. From the power of Butler to the simplicity of Namely, I wanted to give you at least some of the basics and a visual on how 5 different launchers work, as well as their pros and cons and how they differ from each other. However, since I am a Quicksilver lover at heart, it is very likely that I missed a key feature or two in these apps, so feel free to highlight your favorite features and what you think new users can truly benefit from in the comments. Also, for anyone interested in what I'm using to create these screencasts, I include a very short blurb at the beginning which highlights a few of the tools I use to record the screencast and create some of the effects I use.

This time around I've decided to try something different, and I've created two versions of the screencast. In our podcast feed is an iPod-friendly version of the podcast that's 640 x 400, 17 minute and 40 MB - that's the one you can get by subscribing to our iTunes Store podcast feed or our direct TUAW podcast feed. I've also created an HD version for those who want something with a little more detail (sorry, we don't have an RSS feed for HD podcasts yet; this is a new thing so we'll see how it goes). That one will look better on larger displays and should play mighty fine on the Apple TV.

To make sure we're all on the same page and that you can run out and grab demos of these launchers, here is a list of links to all the apps I mention in the screencast, including the ones I use to create and record it:

Launchers

• Quicksilver - donationware
  
• LaunchBar - commercial: $19.95
  
• Butler - donationware
  
• Overflow - commercial: $14.95
  
• Namely - donationware
  

Screencast recording

• Desktopple Pro - hiding the desktop icons, custom wallpaper and more (which we've mentioned before)
• Mouseposé - spotlight effects, keystroke overlays (which I didn't use in this specific screencast) and other presentation highlighting tools (mentioned here)
• iShowU - excellent and customizable app for recording screencasts (mentioned a couple times here)

I hope you enjoy the screencast, and please feel free to leave feedback to let me know how I'm doing with producing these. If you prefer HD podcasts that look better on screen and can play on an Apple TV (instead of 640 px wide podcasts which are the max an iPod can handle), definitely let me know that too.

Geeze, those MacZOT guys either have strangely coincidental timing, or I need to consider changing the locks on my house. This is either the second or third time that I discovered and thoroughly enjoyed an app, only to find it go on sale at MacZOT the next day (i.e. - I'm buying a license as I type this). The app in question is yFlicks, which we wrote about back in January (and I probably missed because of all the Macworld craziness). yFlicks is more or less a really cool 'iPhoto for your movies,' allowing you to organize and rate your movie files, as well as update the metadata associated with them. This is a great thing if, like me, you're switching from iPhoto to Aperture, because one drawback of the latter is that it doesn't import or organize movies shot with a digital camera.

But yFlicks does some great stuff I've never seen in a full-on movie organizer before: it offers live video previews when you mouse over the thumbnail (so you don't have to open each movie just to get a look at it), complete support for the Apple Remote, a bookmarklet for downloading movies from popular communities like YouTube, Daily Motion and College Humor, and even a great temporary folder system that doesn't simply copy every movie into your movies folder when playing it, allowing you to pick and chose which movies you actually keep and catalog.

The great thing about yFlicks is that the cleverness doesn't stop there; its developer, Peter Maurer - who Mat Lu pointed out in January has developed a ton of other great Mac apps, has sprinkled all sorts of handy magic throughout yFlicks, from a simple rotate button for movies that were shot with the camera rotated to Smart Folders for organizing your flicks and even one-click access to viewing your movie file in its location in the Finder. In fact, I'm so happy with yFlicks, I'm still buying it straight from Mr. Maurer. If you want to save some cash though, yFlicks is on a 40% sale today at MacZOT: its U.S. price is typically $20, but today-only it's just $11.95. That's a killer deal on one of the best darn movie organizing apps I've ever seen.

Of course, before you decide, you can grab a demo from Many Tricks, Peter Maurer's software company, and take it for a spin before throwing down your cash.

[Update 2: The direct download link is working fine now, and I pinged the iTunes Store to check our podcast feed again, so it'll take a little time for them The iTunes Store feed has updated so we're good to go. I hope you enjoy the podcast - and of course Journler if you give it a whirl - and please leave feedback as I hope to make a lot more of these in the future (with podcast releases going far more smoothly, of course). Thanks again for your patience.]

This week's podcast is a screencast of an app that I finally 'get' and have subsequently gone nutty for: Philip Dow's Journler. It's an app very much like Yojimbo, Mori and SOHO Notes in that it's a journal/digital junk drawer for your work and life. For roughly fifteen minutes I cover some of the coolest features in Journler that both grabbed my personal attention and caused me to chose Mr. Dow's excellent app as my new blogging tool of choice for penning most of my TUAW and Download Squad posts.

As usual you can pick up a copy of our latest podcast (weighing in at 36MB and 13 minutes on the dot) from our iTunes Store Podcast directory, this direct link or our own podcast rss feed. I'm also please to announce that I finally did some research into why my previous video screencasts weren't iPod-friendly and have fixed the issue. Even though this particular screencast might look a little tiny on a 5G iPod (I captured the entirety of my 1440 x 900 MacBook Pro display, then re-sized to 640 x 398 for this one), you should nevertheless be able to take it with you on that commute you're packing up for. Enjoy!

[Update: We are indeed having trouble serving the podcast at the moment. Hang in there, we'll get this fixed as soon as possible and I'll update this post once we stamp out the issue. Sorry for the trouble.]

Most Mac OS X users appreciate the simplicity of Mac application installation; it usually involves nothing more than a drag and drop out of a disk image, or simply unzipping a download. Still, some apps, plug-ins and other digital goodies require an installer, which means you're entering your password and granting permission for a program to place files anywhere on your machine.

If you've ever been curious (or concerned) about this operation, Apple's default Installer app (found in /Applications/Utilities/ and used by most independent software vendors - but not all - use to distribute their products) can display a log of every file a piece of software installed on your machine, accessible under File > Show Files after the Installer finishes its work (but before you quit/close it, of course). As you can see, the log is even searchable, making it easy to sift through those big install operations.

If you want to grab a copy of this log you can of course select all the text and copy/paste to your own file, but most installers (including those not from Apple) should place a copy of the install log in ~/Library/Logs, in which case you can use the Console app (also in the Utilities folder) to browse through those logs and easily mail a copy (with help from this tip) to a friend or developer. Some installers, however, place the log directly on your Desktop or on the root of your hard drive, and in my experience, most of those don't put a copy in the default logs location at all. Tsk, Tsk, guys.

These tools should make a handy addition to your tool belt if you're beginning to keep a more watchful eye on what gets put where by these installers, or of course if you're simply interested in learning more about how Mac OS X is built and where files go to get the job done.

In a couple of recent posts, I showed you how to how to hide drives using Finder preferences and selectively show some of them using aliases. I received a number of emails looking for more elegant solutions i.e. avoiding the look of aliases and their won't-sort-properly-like-a-real-drive behavior. A few readers also asked how to hide their iDisks, which didn't respond to the preferences the same way that hard drives did.

First let me note that iDisks aren't seen by Finder as normal hard drive volumes or, as you might expect, as connected servers. Instead, iDisks are controlled by the CDs, DVDs, and iPods preference--the same preference that shows and hides attached thumb drives and memory card readers.

As for the more elegant volume-by-volume solution, that lies in the realm of Terminal and the command-line developer tool SetFile. You can join the Apple Developer Connection and gain access to the developer tools with a Free ADC Online Membership. After installing the dev tools, you'll find SetFile in the /Developer/Tools folder.

To hide a volume, use the -a V flag with SetFile and then restart Finder. This will hide the iDisk, even in Sync mode

% /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /Volumes/iDisk/
% killall "Finder"
%

To bring the volume back, use -a v instead. (Notice the lower case "v".)

% /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a v /Volumes/iDisk/
% killall "Finder"
%

Well shiver me mousies - it's a good thing I haven't quite convinced my wife why I need yet another piece of software, because Desktopple, the powerful desktop hiding and management app from FoggyNoggin Software that I just mentioned, is on sale at MacUpdate for a mere $9.95. That's 41% off its regular price of $17.00, and a great deal on what is probably the most powerful and easy to use app in its class for podcasters and desktop clutterbugs alike (oh yea, just like the car commercials - I went there). Check out my previous post for a refresher on what Desktopple is capable of, or snag a demo and take it for a whirl yourself, but don't forget that MacUpdate's sale is a one-day-only deal.