Carl Hutzler’s Blog

Mac OS X comes with a built in ability to mac an “alias” to a file or folder which is different than a true symbolic link. By simply holding down the OPTION and APPLE/COMMAND keys at the same time and clicking on the file or folder, you can drag and create one.

Once you have this “alias” you can locate it anywhere you like. It is basically a pointer to the original file and for the most part acts as though it is the original file or folder. If you double click the alias, the original file or folder opens up just like you clicked the real item.

OK, none of this is earth shattering. But the alias capability does not work with some things. For example, EyeTV is a video recording and playback application usually called a PVR. It records shows to a default location inside your home folder. But what if you would rather have these HUGE video files recorded to another location, say on an external drive or a NAS drive. Well EyeTV does not give you an option to change the location it stores files.

But you can trick it…. Read more

OK, maybe this is not earth shattering news by itself, but it gets a little better.

• The music is $0.10 less per song than iTunes and the albums seem to be about $1 less than iTunes.
• The music is DRM free. No more pain in the ass restrictions on what I can do with my music
• The MP3 files are encoded at 256 kbps which should translate into very high quality listening
• Files work on just about any device that can play music as it is just a regular MP3 file.

I do not buy much of anything on iTunes mostly because I can usually find the CD for the same price at BestBuy or Target and I hate the DRM crud. No, I don’t steel or provide illegal music, but the DRM stuff is just annoying and inconvenient especially on iTunes video files. With Amazon providing high quality, DRM free, MP3 (as opposed to Apples AC3) format, for LESS money, the choice is clear for me.

The only downside I can see is that Amazon only has two major labels right now - EMI and Universal among many other smaller labels.

Note: There is a small “downloader” application which Amazon recommends installing. They have a Mac and Windows version. I don’t think you need this but it does sound convenient as it will auto add the music into iTunes for you.

A bit off topic, if you are looking for one of the best pure “rock ‘n’ roll” albums out there, spend $9 on this one and you will not be disappointed. Its one of my favorite all time albums.

Ryan Adams: Gold $8.99

First let me say that I am not a network engineer. I understand a lot about networks and how to string stuff together. But my experience is mostly on the end user side of things without knowledge of Cisco routers, IP Tables, Firewalls, etc. So if I get something technically wrong, you have my disclaimer :-)

That said, I have been experimenting with those small routers you buy at Circuit City for $50 or so made by Linksys, Buffalo Technologies, etc. What you do is buy one of these gizmos (make sure you get one that is compatible) and then “upgrade” the firmware in the router to an open source firmware called DD-WRT. To be fair, DD-WRT is not the only game in town. Open WRT, Tomato, and others do exist and may even be better in some ways. But I have found that DD-WRT has very good documentation and wide-spread use and support. I like to use what other people are using as they help me by figuring stuff out and publishing the “how to’s”.

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Ever wonder what the best glue might be for a specific repair or project? This site seems fairly good. Although it still does not always help with all the different types of plastics out there. But at least they give you some options to try. http://www.thistothat.com/

My brother, Paul, is currently driving from his home in Seattle, Washington to Skagway, Alaska with one of his friends. While this may seem like a wonderful summer vacation and a chance to see the great Northwest, trust me, its not what it seems. Read more

For the last year or so, I have been inspired to learn how to light things…people, things, scenes, anything. By light, I mean the purposeful introduction of light into a photograph to get a desired effect or a look.

I have concluded that learning how to light is hard!

Without backlights (left) With backlights(right)

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Ever copy an address from some website which looks like this:

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC, 20500

and then try and paste it into a single input field typically offered at mapping websites like google maps, etc?

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I recently switched from Cingular to Sprint. I had been a Cingular customer for over two years but recently had become unhappy with the quality of calls, disconnects, and coverage.

I went to Sprint because they have:

a) Roaming on VZW and VZW has always had amazing coverage in the strangest places

b) Sprint had nights/weekends starting at 7pm included

c) Sprint offered an add on to let me use my EVDO/Bluetooth phone as a modem to connect to the Internet which is very useful for my businesses for $40 for unlimited.

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Windows Vista is out in the wild and some of my clients are starting to see Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents which the older versions of MSFT Office can not open. These documents have extensions which are similar to the current extensions but have a trailing X. For example, Word used to have a .DOC extension. The new extension is .DOCX. Powerpoint and Excel have similar changes to their extensions.

There is a patch available for Windows MSFT Office users here:

It works with these versions of MSFT Office applications:

Microsoft Word 2000 with Service Pack 3, Microsoft Excel 2000 with Service Pack 3, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 with Service Pack 3
Microsoft Word 2002 with Service Pack 3, Microsoft Excel 2002 with Service Pack 3, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 with Service Pack 3
Microsoft Office Word 2003 with at least Service Pack 1, Microsoft Office Excel 2003 with at least Service Pack 1, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 with at least Service Pack 1
Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003
Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003
Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer 2003

There is no patch available for Mac OS X versions of MSFT Office.
- The best bet is to use a patched version of MSFT Office on Windows via Parallels or Bootcamp until the new Mac OS X version of Office arrives in the second half of 2007 (if it doesn’t slip). Or you can have the person who sent you the file try and SAVE AS an older version that your version of Office can open.

Don’t you hate the fact that the Mac defaults to grabbing screen shots to PNG format? I know I do as I want to drop them into emails more often than not and I can’t rely on the recipient (on Windoze) being able to see them. I used to use a little utility called Drop JPEG which would quickly convert the PNG into JPG for me. But I found a better way.

Evidently the screen grab utility in Mac OS X can grab screenshots in just about any format including TIFF and PDF and others. But to change the default, you have to change a parameter in the PRAM (I think). A nice little program, which can do this (and many other things as well!) is called ONYX.

Just download it and fire it up. Enter your admin password. Then hit cancel on the SMART drive scanning stuff (unless you want to do that). Click on the PARAMETERS icon and under GENERAL you should see “Format Screen Capture”. Pick JPEG and viola!