Murphy Mac

If you didn’t participate in Macheist you missed out on a great application called 1Password. With 1Password you can store your login credentials from multiple websites and log in with a couple clicks.

Do you have multiple Gmail accounts? 1Password makes it a snap to switch between them. (there are other applications for this purpose) Actually, if you have multiple usernames on ANY website 1Password will help you keep them straight. Watch the screencast to see how Murphy sets up sites for 1Password.

It seems like Murphy is creating new usernames and passwords all the time. Keeping them sorted can be taxing on the brain. The last thing you want to do is use the same password on multiple sites. Better still, 1Password can help you generate strong, unique passwords since you won’t have to remember them. (more…)

Murphy has been using SuperDuper for backups for a while now. Its flexibility and ease of use have helped it build up quite a following. Usually, Murphy sends his SuperDuper backups to a sparse image file. The sparse image file is a container that grows as you add more content. But what if content is removed from the sparse image file? That’s a good question.

The answer is that the sparse image file needs a little help to shrink. For example, let’s say you backed up your drive on Wednesday to a sparse image file. Then you deleted some big video files on Thursday and did another backup with SuperDuper on Friday. Your video files aren’t in the sparse image file anymore, but the backup is still taking up space on disk as if they were. The solution is simple. Use a simple command in the Terminal to reclaim the wasted space in your sparse image file. Just type everything in the line below, replacing the path and file name with the path and file name of your sparse image. (more…)

The folders in Leopard definitely have a certain look and feel. Just open your home folder in Cover Flow or Icon view and the style jumps out at you. We’re going to show you how to make a folder with the same look, based on your own image.

Murphy downloaded a template posted by guifa on the Mac Rumors forums. You can download the template when you’re ready to get started.

The template includes two layers that look like a Finder folder. The top folder layer is masked by the layer below it. When you add content to the mask that content is etched into the top folder layer. If you’re good with Photoshop you’ll probably do better than Murphy did. You can even add a subdued bit of color if that’s what you’re after.

Guifa knows his way around Photoshop. He used an unsharp mask because hard edges work best in the mask layer. He also applied some blur effects to kill artifacts in the image. If you’re not a Photoshop wizard you can still probably come up with something decent. Your image will end up small on your folders, so you won’t notice every imperfection you spot while editing in Photoshop.

In the tutorial Murphy shows how the mask layer and a folder layer are combined in Photoshop, clipping the contents of the folder layer. Then he takes a VMware Fusion logo and selects it. (Murphy wants a custom folder for storing his virtual machines) With that selection active he clicks on the mask layer and starts painting - black with the brush tool. The mask layer has shadow effects applied to it, as well as lowered opacity. The end result is a custom image that matches up well with the folders that ship in Leopard.

When your image is ready check out this post and apply it to a file or folder.

Note: This isn’t Murphy’s normal screencast layout. We’re trying something new. We suggest you right-click and download the Quicktime file rather than playing it in your web browser. The navigation doesn’t seem to work quite right in a browser.

At some point, you might want to convert your Boot Camp volume to a true VMware virtual machine using the VMware Converter.

Murphy’s first experiment with VMware Fusion was to access his Boot Camp install of XP while running Leopard. Fusion made it easy. After installing Fusion it was a simple task to add Boot Camp to the list of Virtual Machines on Murphy’s Macbook Pro.

VMware suggests getting away from Boot Camp unless you have a compelling reason to boot into Windows at startup, suggesting that Fusion performs better with non-Boot Camp virtual machines. There are other reasons to do this as well.

First, you don’t get all the features of Fusion with your Boot Camp partition. You can’t suspend the virtual machine and resume it later. In other words, if you’ve quit Fusion you need to go through a Windows reboot next time you use it. With a regular virtual machine Windows opens up right where you suspended it after your last session, saving lots of time. Adding this functionality would have caused a conflict between the VMware session and the state of Boot Camp when it was selected at startup.

Second, a regular virtual machine adds flexibility to your system. You can offload the virtual machine to another drive or a different computer when you need to free up disk space. Moving a Boot Camp partition isn’t so simple, nor is it a supported feature.

Murphy’s going to play around with Fusion a little more. Then he’s going to reclaim the space Boot Camp has been taking up by deleting the partition.

The screencast shows how to covert a Boot Camp partition into a regular Fusion virtual machine. Here are the basic steps Murphy followed:

1. Enable Windows sharing on your Mac hosting the Boot Camp partition.
2. Run your Boot Camp install under Fusion.
3. Install the VMware Converter utility under Windows.
4. Use the Converter utility to create the new virtual machine in a folder on your Mac, writing it via Windows sharing.

You’ll probably want to make sure everything you do in Windows works well before you delete your Boot Camp volume.

Related links:

Get a trial version of VMware Fusion.

Download the VMware Converter.

Buy Fusion from Amazon - $41.99 at the time of this post after a $20 rebate.

Stacks have gotten their share of bad press. Many users aren’t happy with the dynamic icon that changes on the stack as its contents change. One solution is to sort the stack by modification date and post-date the icon file you always want to see on the face of your stack in the dock.

Murphy is using a set of icons found through a post on TUAW. These particular icons come post-dated to 2010, which makes it a safe bet your selection will be the most recently modified file in your stack.  Watch the screencast to see how Murphy made his stack.

If you have a different file you want to use the touch command can be employed to update the modification date. All of this information can be found at the same place Murphy found the icons. Here’s an example of how you would use the touch command:

touch -mt 202001010101.01 " name of icon file "

The above command assumes you’re in the directory the file resides in. Note the string of numbers is actually a time and date.

Murphy uses a stack to launch applications he uses frequently, but not frequently enough to reside on the Dock. Sometimes he launches from Terminal too. And the Leopard changes to Spotlight make it a more convenient app launcher too.

So - what do you think? Is there any hope for Stacks?