DVD Shrink runs fast in Parallels

DVD Shrink performs fast while running in Parallels.*

* MacBook Pro
2.2GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 128MB Geforce 8600 graphics card
* Using a Windows XP VM (virtual machine) with 512MB of RAM and up to 15GB allocated to the VM.

A backup of a DVD movie took only 10 minutes in Parallels (using a pre-ripped DVD Video folder). This is faster than any compression I've done on a PC. Usually it would take around 15 minutes to compress a DVD on my old Dell Latpop (1.86GHz centrino processor, 2GB of RAM). DVD Shrink is performing faster in a virtual machine than it was on my midrange laptop from 2005.

* Note: Copying the ISO file created by DVD Shrink into a Parallels shared folder took about five minutes, so this actually evens out the amount of time for the compression.

Bottom Line: If you're a PC user that misses DVD Shrink, definitely consider running it in Parallels, unless of course you are already running Bootcamp. Mac users: DVD Shrink is probably the best DVD Compression program available on PCs or Macs, and it's also free!!

Be aware that DVD Shrink has not been updated in the last three years, so it cannot remove the latest copy protections. Use MacTheRipper to rip the DVD Video files to your hard drive, and then compress them with DVD Shrink.

If you know of any DVD Shrink equivalent (free) programs for the mac, post a comment. DVD2OneX is the closest thing I've found for Mac, but it only allows the main movie to be extracted, and it costs around $40. I want to keep the menus and the chapters when backing up my DVDs.


Coming Soon:

Burn and Backup your DVD movies on a Mac

Tip: Take screenshots with keyboard shortcuts (Mac)

Mac OS X offers a quick and application-free way of taking screenshots of just about anything.

Here's a rundown of the keyboard shortcuts.

• Command-Shift-3:
  Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then select an area:
  Take a screenshot of an area and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window:
  Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop

• Command-Control-Shift-3:
  Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area:
  Take a screenshot of an area and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window:
  Take a screenshot of a window and save it to the clipboard
  

When a using the first set of shortcuts (with #4), the screenshot will be saved to the desktop as a PNG file.

If you need to do any extra cropping afterwards, simply open the images in Preview, crop, and re-save them.

Also check out the freeware application Backdrop for masking any desktop icons, desktop backgrond, or other clutter before taking the screenshot.

Download of the Week: Block out distractions with Backdrop

If you regularly watch movies on a Mac with dual monitor, backdrop may be perfect for you. Backdrop is a nice little freeware program for Mac that will block out the rest of the screen with a solid color of your choice. I use this on my laptop when watching movies on my 19" LCD monitor connected to my laptop so that the other screen is black while watching the movie.

Backdrop is also great for taking screenshots without the clutter of other application, desktop icons, or background images to inflate the image file size of your screenshot. You won't have to worry about taking the time to clear off all your desktop icons before taking the screenshot

If you're running Windows, check out Dropcloth featured on Lifehacker.

Backdrop website

Tip: Save time with Firefox Bookmark Shortcuts

A little know feature of Firefox bookmarks can save you even clicking on them. You can assign custom text as keyboard shortcuts for Firefox Bookmarks.

Here's how:

After creating a bookmark, edit the properties of the bookmark (PC users right click, Mac users go to the Bookmarks Manager). Enter whatever custom letters you'd like into the "keyword" field. See in the screen shot above an example for using "ym" as a shortcut to Yahoo Mail. Now I simply type ym into the address bar and I instantly go to the Yahoo Mail login page.

Website of the Week: Google Notebook

Google Notebook serves as a convenient way to keep all sorts of notes stored online. It's perfect for keeping bits of web research together, or managing small slices of information. The interface is organized into "notebooks" which you can then divide into "sections".

The interface is user friendly, intuitive, and there's a even a Firefox extension to help you add clips of information from any website instantly.

Store a lot of small notes in text files? Google Notebook can help you eliminate the file clutter and get these notes organized online and whenever you have web access.

Google Notebook

Logins are so 2007!

It's the new year and it's time to make your online life a little easier. There are several programs available to manage all of your online logins. You won't ever have to remember a password again (except for your master password, of course). Try out either one of these programs and I guarantee you'll be hooked!

• Roboform (Windows, free for up to 10 saved logins)
  Save all of your logins, forms, etc, even keep small encrypted notes with extra information. RoboForm integrates with both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Once you've entered your master password, any login you have saved can be automatically entered, without any typing. RoboForm will go to the login page, enter the information, and login!
  
  RoboForm
  

• 1Password (Mac, $30)
  Essentials functions the same way as RoboForm, except you will have to manually drag all of your saved logins to the bookmarks bar in your browser to get to automatic login fuction like RoboForm.
  
  1Password
  

Both applications encrypt your stored logins and information. They also offer strong password generators with custom settings. In addition they offer a "timeout" feature where the logins are locked if any login is not used in a specified amount of time. This offers a good extra level of security.

The Save Mantra

You're working in Microsoft Word typing a multi-page document and it freezes. Yes, Word does have an auto-recovery feature, but that only works in some circumstances.

Here's the solution. The "Save Mantra". Save when start, save every 10 minutes, and save when you're finished. I guarantee if you get into this habit, it will save you many hassles and even headaches down the road.

Saving is not inconvenient, it's your friend. It's only a keystroke away. Control + S on a PC or Command + S on a Mac.

Look at it this way, it takes only seconds to save, but every time you don't remember to save you run the risk of loosing everything up the present that has not been saved. Nobody likes having to retype an essay because they forgot to save at the beginning. Even if the program crashes or freezes, you'll have everything from your last save.

Connect your Mac to a TV

How to Connect a Mac to a TV

You can connect your Mac to a TV for under $25, with the Apple's DVI to Video Adapter. This cable connects to the DVI port on the Mac Pro, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro and outputs to either S-Video or Composite (yellow video cable). I bought one directly from Apple for $19 + $4 shipping. Excellent deal if you ask me! I would have bought it on Amazon but it's $20 plus $5.78 shipping--Yikes!

If you're using an Intel iMac, MacBook, or PowerBook g4, you can get Apple's Mini-DVI to Video Adapter for $19 + $4 shipping also.

Both of the these video cables will only cover the video portion. They do not send the audio to the TV. If you don't already have one, you can pick up an 1/8" inch to RCA cable for about $5-10 at your local RadioShack, Target, etc. This cable will go from the headphone jack of your computer to the red/white audio jacks of a TV or stereo system. You can also get this Belkin audio cable on Amazon.


Free those Office, Lost, and Heroes episodes from your Mac, and get them in your living room where they were meant to be watched!

Access your files quickly

Here's a quick rundown of things that both Windows and Mac users can do to access their files and applications quickly.

Windows users

• Use the Quicklaunch bar (Create folder shortcuts)
  The quicklaunch bar will appear directly to the right of the Start button if it's enabled. You can add both program shortcuts and shortcuts to folders to this menu. To add a folder shortcut, locate the folder, right click on it, and select "Create Shortcut" drag this shortcut just left of the double arrow in the quicklaunch bar to add it. If you don't see any icons immediately to the right of the start button, enable the Quicklaunch bar by right-clicking on the
  
• Use the Recent Documents in the Start Menu
• Keep files organized into folders
  Use the My Documents, My Music, and My Pictures Folders. Keeping your files organized into folders is an easy thing to overlook, but can be easily remedied. Create a new folder every time you have a project, or develop a personal hierarchy of folders that you know exactly where something is and you won't have to spend time looking for it.
  
• Clear the desktop
  Although it may seem convenient to save your files and folders on the desktop, it can also be just an problematic to store your folders here. With a multitude of files stored here it can take a while just to find a file that you need. I would only recommend keeping minimal shortcuts, including My Documents, the Recycle Bin, and maybe shortcuts to one or two folders that you use everyday. Instead, place shortcuts to folders in the Quicklaunch bar where they can be accessed without having to minimize every program to get to the desktop.
  
  Note: If you must use the desktop to store your files/folders, the "show desktop" shortcut in the Quicklaunch bar can save you a lot of clicks. Check it out.
  

Mac users

• Use the Finder Sidebar
  You can drag folders and even individual documents to the finder sidebar to access them quickly and keep your desktop clear from aliases. This should help keep your dock clear of any folders that you've added here
• Use Stacks (Leopard only)
  Your documents folder appears as a stack by default. Drag other folders to the stack area of the dock to create a stack.
• Use the search function in the Open/Save Dialogs
  The search toolbar is available in the open and save dialog boxes. It can find both files and folders and is probably the fastest way to save/open a file at a specific location.
  
• Create a New Smart Folder
  In the finder, go to File > New Smart Folder. You can add parameters for this new smart folder, such as "Last opened date" or "Late modified" date is today. This will enable you quick access to any files and documents that you've already worked on today. You could also change those options to encompass the entire week for files from recent projects. You can also add an extra parameter for only files that are Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, or any other file type. Add this folder to the dock or finder sidebar when you're finished, and now you have easy access to any recent files of your choice.
  
• Recent Items Menu
  Click on the Apple and you'll see the "Recent Items" option with an arrow. Hover your mouse over this option to see a list of documents and applications you've opened recently.
  

Useful Facebook Applications

I've already written about all of the junk Facebook applications clogging up user's profiles. On the other hand, there are some useful and worthwhile applications to check out.

List of useful Facebook Applications:

• Where I've been
  Shows a map you can customize for states and countries you've visited, live in, and want to visit. Remember all those places you've been.
• Books iRead
  Displays thumbnail images of books you've read, are currently reading, and books that you want to read.
• Flixter movies
  Keep a list Movies that you've seen and want to see. Write quick reviews and rate movies. See the ratings/reviews from your friends
  
• del.icio.us (bookmarks)
  See a feed of your most recent del.icio.us bookmarks
• Digg
  See a feed your most recent Diggs.
  
• Top Friends
  Keep a list of friends that you contact frequently. (I wouldn't normally use this except it can be useful)
• Free gifts
  This is a good alternative to paying for Facebook's gifts.
• iLike
  Display a list of songs you enjoy.
  

Games and other entertainment (good timewasters)

• Attack
  Risk clone that allows you to challenge your friends in world domination
• South Park Character Creator
  Create your south park characters. A good timewaster.
• Chess
  

Send me an email with any comments on Facebook applications you've found useful

Facebook Application Madness

Since Facebook added the feature to allow custom applications to be added, many Facebook users have gotten out of control with adding these annoying and mostly useless applications to their profiles. I don't mind a few apps here and there, but when you have to scroll down through ten pages of garbage just to post on a friend's wall, that's getting ridiculous.

Also see my list of Useful Facebook Applications.

If you have a friend who litters their Facebook profile with every application they can find, simply click on this little green icon below their profile picture to be taken directly to their wall. (See the image to the right)

If you absolutely must have all of these applications, do your friends a favor and simply drag them to the left hand column so we can get to your wall quickly!

Note to Facebook admins: end this madness before you succumb to mass, trashy feel of MySpace. I wouldn't go back to Myspace, but I'm beginning to get annoyed with the junk accumulating on Facebook. What happened to that clean, unadultered Facebook we all knew and loved?

Here's a short list of the culprit, junk Facebook applications:

• Vampires
• Zombies
• WereWolves
• Happy Hour
• Harry Potter Magic Spells
• Booze Mail
• I love Dogs
• Kind of Eyes
• Superwall
  (It's cool that you can post photos, but then people end up posting junk like they do on Myspace.)
  
• Funwall
• Youtube skins
• Fortune Cookie
• X-Me
• Astrology
• Horoscopes
• Games
• Knock Knock Jokes
• Superpoke (can be mildly entertaining and good timewaster)
• Causes
• Honesty Box
• Emote
• Tarot
• Numerology
• Compare People
• Pirates vs. Ninjas
• Superlatives
• No Mercy
• What's your stripper name
• Double Dare
• Food Fight
• Magic 8 Ball
• Social Profile
• Spark
• Beer!
• I wanna get Leid!
• Scrapbox
• Advanced wall
• Naughty gifts
• My Aquarium
• Jack-o-Lantern
• My Solar System
• Beer Pong
• Are you interested
• Circle of Friends
• Inner Circle
• What flower are you
• What kind of eyes do you have
  

This is just a sampling from one profile. The list could go on and on, there's junk and advertising laden applications being developed every day. Oh Joy!

A note the high school kids, you can show some maturity by NOT adding 100 useless and space-wasting applications to your profile.

Cheers and Happy Facebooking!

Mac Apps - Maybe Someday

There are a lot of great Mac apps out there, and many of them happen to be free to boot! Here's a rundown of the Macs I plan to install at some point in the future. Most, if not all of these applications have been featured on Lifehacker.

• Caffeine ("stay awake" Utility)
  When Caffeine is activated it prevents the computer from going into sleep turning on the screensaver, extremely useful when watching movies, slideshows, etc. After you're finished using it, simply turn if off to have normal sleep functions. I only let my Mac go to sleep once (in two weeks of use) My boss has told me that sometimes his mac is sluggish waking from sleep. I'm sure I'll end up using this to watch movies, and pass it along to friends who also watch lots of video content on their macs
• DiskInventoryX (Hard drive space usage)
  When my 120GB laptop hard drive has less than 40GB of free disk space, I'll probably install this one, or I might use it to analyze which folders on my large external hard drives are taking up the most space. Right now I don't need, but I'm sure I will come 6 months or a year from now. On my Windows computer I used JDiskReport, which is apparently also available for Mac.
• Quicksilver (Application launcher)
  Yes, I've read all about it's features on Lifehacker, but it's functionality for launching apps may not be neccessary with stacks of application aliases. Quicksilver's other features could prove to be useful, and I'm just the type of Geek that would love it for the sake of it's keyboard functionality.
• Handbrake (DVD video ripping)
  This handy application rips DVD to various video formats and has presets for iPods among other things. It's one of the simplest, free ways to get videos converted for your iPod. I've got the DMG saved, but I probably won't use this very often, because I prefer to "backup" DVD movie discs with DVD Shrink. I don't like the loss of quality when ripping below a 1GB video file and I'd rather have a disc that I can pop into any DVD player with the chapters and menus intact, not to mention a great quality boost!! If I run across some novelty movies, then I might install and it and fire it up.
• Backuplist+ 5.0 (Backup utility)
  It looks like a great free backup utility and it's the exact functionality I desire with backup, simply knowing that a few essential folders (pictures, music, documents, software) are backed-up on my external hard drive. I'll give this one a spin to backup the new photos on my laptop.
• Transmission (Torrent client)
  It was picked by Lifehacker in their "2007 Guide to Free Software and Webapps". It's open-source, and the only reason I don't currently have it is because I don't have high speed internet access. In a few weeks, I'll install this one to get some torrents up and running again.
• Google Earth
  I'll probably install this in a few weeks, but unless I'm bored or have some time kill, I would rarely use it all.
• Schoolhouse 2 (assignment/project organization)
  This would have been a great app to have in high school to keep track of all my assignments. I might use it before I finish my college degree, when I have lots of work to keep track of. Featured on Lifehacker here: Download of the Day: Schoolhouse 2 (Mac)

Other apps in the waiting list:

Writeroom (only text on the screen to help focus on writing, $25)
JDarkroom (free alternative to Writeroom, text only writing tool, Windows/Mac)
Celtx (Media pre-production and collaboration tool)
ImageWell (image viewer/editor)
Isolator (applcation focuser/isolator)
Celestia (free space simulation program Windows/Mac/Linux )
FreeDMG (make DMGs for free, and w/ more features than Disk Utility)
Renamer4Mac (free batch/bulk file renaming utility)
DVD2oneX (DVD video compression for burning)



I welcome any comments with applications you've tried, plan to try, or will get around to eventually. Send me a buzz by email.

Macs handle zip files out of the box

Mac can both unzip Zip files and create them, without any additional software!! It appears that this feature was made available with the release of Tiger.

To open a zip file, simply double clip on it and you'll see a new folder appear in the finder within a few seconds with the name of the zip file. Dead simple. No extractors or unzippers needed, unless you're dealing with .RAR files.

To create a zip file, simply select a file, folder, or group of files and right click on them. In Tiger choose Create Archive of . . . In Leopard choose Compress "your-filename" from the context menu. In a few seconds you'll have the zip file, which you can rename if neccessary.

See: Apple Pro Tip of the Week - Making ZIP Files (Compressed Files) in One Click

My essential Mac applications

Here's a list of my current essential Mac applications. Most of these applications I use on a daily basis, and some I couldn't live without!! I've seen lots of lists of "top Mac apps", but a good portions of those applications tend to be specialty items.

• Firefox
  Safari isn't bad, but for web design and a more customized surfing experience it's the only way to go. If you're on Windows this is a must to keep you secure from security holes in Internet Explorer.
  
• OmniFocus
  This GTD (Getting Things Done) based application is excellent for keeping track of every task and project you need to accomplish. Things can be organized by project, "context" or due date. I couldn't live without this at work, and it's helping me stay on track. A license will cost you $80, starting Janurary 8th, 2008.
  
• Thunderbird
  An excellent email client from Mozilla, the makers of Firefox. It's clean, simple, and a much appreciated alternative to Outlook and Outlook Express. If you're currently using Mail for Mac, it might not be worth the switch.
• Lock Desktop
  This automator application is the equivalent of locking the desktop on a Windows comptuer. It keeps all of the applications running, so you don't have to put the machine to sleep to protect it with your password. Stepping away from your desk for a few mintues? Lock Desktop is perfect for keeping your computer secure while you're away. It's compatible with Leopard!
• 1Password
  Have a hard time managing all your different passwords and logins. 1Password comes to the rescue, storing all your logins and encrypting them with one master password. You'll never have to try and guess what username and password combination you used. It integrates with Firefox and Safari among other web browsers. There's a strong password generator for times when you need a secure password on demand. Macworld is still offering a free license giveaway for 1password. It's normally a $30 license!
• Backdrop
  This application is essential for taking screenshots or even watching movies when using dual monitors. It covers your screen in the color of your choice. This will enable you to take screenshots that have smaller filesizes and eliminate distracting backgrounds. Watch movies on a laptop with second monitor? Use backdrop to cover the screen in black so you don't see anything on the screen.
• TextWrangler
  For a free code and text editor, Text Wrangler has some excellent features. Lifehacker has featured TextWrangler several times.
  Lifehacker's 2007 Guide to Free Software and Webapps
  Lifehacker: Rebuild your mac with 20 useful downloads

Coming soon:

Mac Apps - Maybe Someday
A list of great Mac apps that I'll haven't gotten around to trying yet.


Read more:

Lifehacker's Top 10 Free Mac Downloads
Lifehacker's Top 10 Mac utilities