I was reminded yesterday of a little gem of an app, Nocturne, from QuickSilver creator, Alcor of Blacktree Software. I don’t know that I had ever used this one in the past seeing as it seemed a bit of a duplication of what was possible already in the Universal Access pref pane (white text on black). There is a difference, however, as I learned yesterday after downloading and installing it.

While the Universal Access route will just flip the colors into a perfect negative to what’s on screen, Nocuturne allows you to tweak a few of the colors and even offers some basic hue correction. This is important to me since I am fairly used to my syntax colors in TextMate and by using the hue correction in Nocturne I was able to maintain some familiarity with the code as I was used to seeing it.

I have since become reliant on Nucturne and have spent most of today working in night time mode.

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Now everything we want to write about web design/development, Mac, app review, RapidWeaver development, productivity tips, IE hacking… it’s all here now, in one place, not two. Sounds good to me.

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What I like best about The Daily Slurp is that designers have little say in what gets listed there. You can submit a site for review (which I’ve never done) but from all accounts it does little good. The Daily Slurp just happens to sites for whatever reason. The good ones just get found.

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A few points that have me excited are the hinting of a more robust api that could possible allow plugin developers greater access to the OS and other apps. This is, of course, just me reading between the lines. Greater plugin freedom ovens up a whole lot of possibilities for RapidWeaver.

Something else that has me excited is the news ticker which should make it a lot easier to keep users updated with theme patches and updates.

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I hope this solves all the issues I had with 10.5.1. By this list, it looks promising.

Originally posted on http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307109

What’s included?

This update delivers several improvements for both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs (as well as improvements provided in the Mac OS X 10.5.1 [update][31].)

Active Directory

• Addresses issues which could hinder or prevent binding Mac OS X 10.5.x clients to Active Directory domains.

AirPort

• Improves connection reliability and stability
• Includes 802.1X improvements.
• Resolves certain kernel panics.

Back to my Mac

• Adds support for more third-party routers, as detailed in [this article][32].

Dashboard

• Improves performance of certain Apple Dashboard widgets (such as Dictionary).
• Addresses an issue in which Dashboard widgets may no longer be accessible after switching to or from an account that has Parental Controls enabled.

Dock

• Updates Stacks with a List view option, a Folder view option, and an updated background for Grid view.

Desktop

• Addresses legibility issues with the menu bar with an option to turn off transparency in Desktop & Screen Saver preferences.
• Adjusts menus to be slightly-less translucent overall.

iCal

• Improves iCal so that it accurately reflects responses to recurring meetings.
• Addresses an issue in which a meeting may remain on the calendar after being cancelled.
• Addresses stability issues related to .Mac syncing of iCal calendars.
• Resolves an intermittent issue in which editing an event with attendees would cause the event to shrink and not register that the event was updated.

iChat

• Addresses an issue with simultaneously-logged in accounts in which iChat sounds generated from one account might be heard in another account.
• Fixes an issue in which iChat idle time is affected by Time Machine backups.
• Improves connectivity when running iChat behind a router that doesn’t preserve ports.
• Enables logged chats from previous versions of iChat to open faster and more reliably.
• Addresses an issue with text chats in which users may be unable to receive messages from the sender.
• Addresses an issue that may prevent rejoining an AIM chat room without reopening iChat.
• Addresses video chat compatibility issues with AIM 6 and third-party routers.
• Fixes an issue with case-sensitivity of AIM handles.

iSync

• Adds support for Samsung D600E and D900i phones.

Finder

• Addresses an issue in which Finder could unexpectedly quit when displaying folder contents in Column view.
• Addresses an issue in which Finder could unexpectedly quit when accessing Users and Groups in a Get Info pane.
• Resolves an issue that prevented setting permissions on a folder alias.
• Resolves an issue in which the Eject command could write to a disc in the optical drive.
• Fixes an issue in which the scroll bar might disappear when deleting a file within a folder that includes files that are out of view.
• Fixes an issue in the Sharing & Permissions section of Get Info windows, in which the gear icon appears to be gray/disabled after authentication.
• Addresses an issue in which the Show Icon Preview preference might not be not saved when turning it off.
• Fixes an issue that could occur when trying to print an image from the Finder.

Mail

• Addresses an issue with Message menu’s Mark > As Read choice.
• Fixes an issue in which duplicate On My Mac folders may appear in the sidebar after upgrading to Leopard.
• Improves the accuracy of the Data Detectors feature.
• Resolves an issue with scrolling through a Note that is displayed using the split view in the message window.
• Fixes an issue with deleting messages located in the Drafts folder.
• Fixes an issue in which dragging the icon in the Safari URL field into a Mail message creates an attachment instead of a link.
• Addresses an issue found when opening a item in the Notes folder that is not a Note.
• Fixes an issue that may prevent RSS feeds from being delivered in Mail.
• Resolves an issue in which a selected message could “flash” from blue to gray when in Organize by Thread mode.
• Fixes an issue with scrolling between multiple To Dos in an email message.
• Fixes an issue in which the body of email messages with certain MIME structures may not be displayed.
• Improves performance with America Online (AOL) account-based messages in Mail.
• Addresses issues with some ISPs during automatic set-up in Mail.
• Addresses an issue in which Mail might not send mail on some networks to some SMTP servers.
• Mail now automatically disables the (unsupported) third-party plugin GrowlMail version 1.1.2 or earlier to avoid issues.
• Adds an option to view large icons in the Mailbox list.

Networking

• Addresses a hanging issue that may occur when connecting to an AFP network volume.

Parental Controls

• Improves stability when opening the Parental Controls System Preferences pane.
• Fixes an issue that may prevent changes to the email address for permission requests.
• Addresses an issue with printer administration for a guest account enabled with Parental Controls.
• Addresses an issue with setting printer administration privileges from another Mac on the local network.
• Fixes an issue that could prevent certain applications from being allowed.
• Addresses accuracy issues with the web content filter.

Preview

• Improves stability when scrolling through a PDF document.
• Fixes an issue that prevents tabbing within a PDF document after clicking on the PDF.
• Improves the Mail Document feature so that email attachments are more reliably created from Print Preview.

Printing

• Addresses an issue in which remote printers may be deleted when the computer is put to sleep.
• Improves printing performance when using some Microsoft Office applications.
• Resolves an issue with some printing options, such as landscape orientation, number of copies, two-sided printing, and so forth that may not have functioned with some printers shared by Microsoft Windows.
• Adds support for certain printers connected to the USB port of an AirPort Extreme or AirPort Express base station.
• Resolves a stalling issue that could occur when installing certain Canon printing software from a disc.

RAW Image

• Adds RAW image support for several cameras, as detailed in [this article][33].

Safari

• Addresses issues with Safari reliably resolving certain domains.

Login and Setup Assistant

• Addresses an issue in which Setup Assistant could unexpectedly appear each time Mac OS X 10.5 starts up.
• Improves stability and performance during log in.

System

• Improves the accuracy of the grammar checker.
• The computer will now shut down if an automatic disk repair does not succeed during startup.

Time Machine

• Adds a menu bar option for accessing Time Machine features (the menu extra can be enabled in Time Machine preferences).
• Improves backup reliability when computer name contains slash or non-ASCII characters.
• Fixes an issue in which the backup disk displayed in the Finder may be out of sync with the disk chosen for Time Machine.
• Addresses issues in which some external drives are not recognized by Time Machine.
• The status menu now appears by default.

Other

• Improves general stability when running third-party applications.
• Addresses an issue in which the incorrect search results may be displayed for certain Automator Find/Filter actions.
• Addresses an issue with the Latvian and Russian keyboard layouts.
• Addresses an issue in which the backlight could turn off before Energy Saver’s backlight setting.

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One aspect of my job in web design and theme design is having to look up web sites and online resources constantly. So here are a three tricks I’ve dug up, which was not easy since Quicksilver documentation is few and far between.

1. Select, Grab and Search

• For this one you need to set a few obscure and not so well documented features.
  • First of you’ll need to activate the “Services Menu Module” in Quicksilver > Plug-ins > All Plug-ins > System. This allows for the “Search With Google – A service of Safari.app” action,
  • Next you need to add some extra function to Quicksilver by “Enabling advanced features”,
  • Another useful setting will be “Pull selection from front application instead of Finder” from Quicksilver > Preferences > Extras,
  • For Path Finder users, you’ll also need to enable the Path Finder module (Quicksilver > Plug-ins > All Plug-ins > Applications) and then make Path Finder you default file browser (Quicksilver > Preferences > Handlers > File System Browser > Path Finder).
  • relaunch Quicksilver.
• Once you’ve managed this much, you only need to:
  • select any text from anywhere text is selectable,
  • invoke Quicksilver (^space for most),
  • press “⌘g”,
  • tab to the action panel,
  • type “sw” (which should result in “Search With Google” or will after one or two uses) and hit return.
• You’re selected text now turns up as a google query in Safari.

2. Select and search

• To take the above idea one step farther (and this comes courtesy of one commenter on my last Quicksilver post), we can make a trigger that invokes Quicksilver, grabs the selection in the command window and tabs over to the action window all in one hot-key:
  • first you need to enable the “Command With Selection” trigger in Quicksilver > Triggers > Quicksilver,
  • select the trigger and tap the “i” button and the bottom of the window
  • edit the hot key and enter “⌘esc” (or a hot-key of your choice)
• Now you can selecting anything selectable, tap “⌘esc” and immediately type “sw” to bring up “Search With Google” and press return and… well you know what happens.
• Incidentally, this hot-key can be used to grab a selection to be modified in any manner; select an image, “⌘esc”, type “ow” (Open With), tab, type “pr” (Preview.app). Or select a URL, “⌘esc”, hit return to open that URL, and so on… here are some other examples.

3. Type and search

• What if you could just type from anywhere and have Google look it up for you? Well here is a cool trigger for doing just that. If you haven’t done so already:
  • activate the Web Search Module (Quicksilver > Plug-ins > All Plug-ins > Web)
  • activate the “Web Searches (from docs.blacktree.com)” catalog (Quicksilver > Catalog > Modules)
  • Hit the refresh button at the bottom of that window
• Create a web search trigger:
  • invoke Quicksilver and type “ws”, it should yield “Web Search” (if not, arrow over and down until you see it). The default service is “http://www.google.com/search?q=***” and this is the one you want,
  • tab to the action panel, it should default to “Search For…” but if not type “sf”,
  • tab to the target or 3rd panel and enter some text,
  • now tap “⌘’” to bring up Quicksilver > Triggers
  • click the “+” button at the bottom of the window
  • your command, action and target should already be propagated but there will be text in the target panel. Get rid of that text by selecting it and typing “⌘x”
  • click “save”
  • then select the “i” button near the bottom and edit the hot-key by entering “⌘2″ (my personal preference because of the relationship to the @ symbol).
• To use this trigger, simply tap “⌘2″ from anywhere, in any app and Quicksilver will prompt you with a text field. Type your query in and press return. Safari will pop up and serve the google results for the term you just typed into Quicksilver.

I hope this little how-to was useful to you. Bookmark it, Digg it or do whatever it takes to keep track of this permalink because you never know when you’ll need it.

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There is often a problem with that. Double clicking or command+O on a file opens it in it’s default app. Right+clicking or control+clicking the file to open the contextual menu then “open with” can be a pain (and slow) depending on the number of apps you run on your system. Opening the app and then browsing through the “Open file” function is too much like work. And finally, dragging the app onto a desktop icon is open useful if you keep everything you ever use in you dock at all times (which I don’t).

So in my ever lasting pursuit of the fastest way around these little hold-ups, I have come to rely on QuickSilver to, once again, saves the day. I use quicksilver to quickly and painlessly open any file with any app I choose and it all takes a few keystrokes and a few seconds:

1. Find the file you want to open, like an image (which, for me, opens with Photoshop by default),
2. Invoke QuickSilver (command+space in most cases, command+esc for me),
3. Start typing the name of the app you want to open your file with, like Preview.app for instance,
4. Once you app pops up in the first panel (with 2 or 3 keystrokes), simply drag your file onto the pane (like you would onto a dock icon),
5. POOF! The file opens in the app you want and not the files default app.

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1. Go to the main menu bar in RapidWeaver
2. Select Site then Show Site Setup
3. From the resulting panel that pops up, select the “Home” icon (the tool-tip will read “Site Setup”)
4. Half way down the panel you will see the “Logo” with a check-box beside it, select that box
5. Now select the “Choose…” button and navigate through your files to select the logo you wish to use, appropriately sized of course (png, jpg and gif are supported)
6. Select the preview button on the main RapidWeaver window and voila, you have a logo on every page.

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If you have a site made with RapidWeaver then head over to RapidWeaved.com and submit your site today.

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