I recently had a hard drive failure and had to resort to a backup of iTunes. However, iTunes couldn’t find many tracks, as it was still looking for them on the old drive. Despite manually editing the library files, I couldn’t get iTunes to look on my new drive for the several hundred files it had mistakenly misplaced. The only way was to play each one, wait for it to not find the drive and then use the ‘Locate’ button... 

There are a lot of people who don’t care for the new iTunes 10 icon. Several replacement icons have already been created. There was a previous hint about how to change the icon. Another option is to use the freeware DockArt plug-in for iTunes is another option. It will replace the iTunes dock icon with the currently playing album cover. This plug-in has been around for a long time, but it still works perfectly with iTunes 10. The download... 

In iTunes 10, if you select multiple speakers with the new AirPlay feature iTunes will allow you to fine tune the output volume of each speaker. Previously, sharing to an Airport Express resulted in both outputs being tied directly to the current volume that iTunes was set to use. Set the output to 100% and all speakers would be set to 100%. Move it to 50% and all the speakers will move to 50%. The new controller has a ‘master volume’... 

If you are struggling with the new low-contrast icons in iTunes 10, here is a hint to change the appearance. In the terminal enter: defaults write com.apple.iTunes high-contrast-mode-enable -bool TRUE This will give a high-contrast side bar and listing pane. To undo this repeat the command but change the TRUE to FALSE. I haven’t managed to get the color icons back yet though. The preference AppleAquaColorVariant is next in the list after... 

If you’re a frequent user of Spaces, you’ll often find yourself moving windows between spaces, however, if you like to have your large windows properly centered (e.g. in Safari or other browsers) you’ll find it difficult to properly center the window when moving between spaces, leaving part of the window off-screen, and needing to be adjusted. The solution is simple, all you have to do is enter Exposé from the spaces overview,... 

As has been already reported in Macworld, Automator actions that talk to iTunes all broke upon the release of iTunes 10.0. This is because each action specifies in a text string in its Info.plist file that it requires iTunes version 4.6 or higher, and alphabetically, ‘10.0′ is smaller than ‘4.6.’ I frequently use ‘Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track’ (activated in System Preferences  Read More →

iTunes 10 includes a QuickTime X-like controller available right from the album art! I was playing around with iTunes 10 today and happened to click on the album art in the Now Playing section (lower left corner) and the album art window popped up full-size like normal. I noticed that there wasn’t a title bar and alas, there was a controller, just like the one on QuickTime X videos, that you can use to play/pause, skip, scrub, fast forward,... 

In iTunes 10, Apple has removed the filter/search field from the Sync Apps window for an attached device. The text field allowed you to search for a string and filter your list of apps like in Spotlight. It’s not really missing; it has just been replaced. Just like in any iTunes window — whether browsing the App Store, Music Store, etc. — the universal Search field in the upper right can now be used to filter/search through... 

A lot of people find the new iTunes 10 icon unattractive and out of place. This hint goes well together with other hints about restoring what was preferred about iTunes 9. This simple trick will restore your old iTunes icon (or you can replace it with another of your choice), and will work for any other app as well. Right-click on iTunes.app and select ‘Show Package Contents’, browse to Contents/Resources and copy the file iTunes.icns... 

The iTunes Classic Visualizer is great. For starters, it keeps you interested, and it seems uncannily good at matching the mood of the visuals to the style of music. The new Visualizer style just doesn’t make sense to me — pulsating orbs? Anyway, the problem with the Classic Visualizer is that it would always force a low resolution on you when using full screen mode. I’m happy to point out that the Classic Visualizer in iTunes... 

iTunes 10 provides a different layout for the Close, Minimize and Maximize buttons. Instead of being ordered horizontally, in iTunes 10 they’re arranged vertically, like a traffic light. Reverting the buttons to a horizontal layout can easily be done. With iTunes not running, open Terminal and enter the following code: defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1 To restore the vertical layout, simply use this command: defaults write... 

Since iTunes does not give you a lot of information via print or export of your apps, I wrote a little shell script to retrieve information from the app files themselves. The script creates and opens a .csv file. To correctly display the columns, choose ’semicolons’ as the column delimiter in your csv viewer (e.g. OpenOffice Calc). You can choose what information to retrieve by commenting/uncommenting them in the Attributes definition... 

Whenever I go to a website that asks for my location I wonder what exactly I am giving out. I found a neat Safari 5 extension from Upper Atmosphere called FindMe . FindMe displays your location in a tool bar. Your location is just a button press away. You can also click on the result to display it on a map. Interestingly, Mac OS X Location Services are only available if you have a wireless connection enabled. I would’ve expected Apple to... 

This hint is an update to this rather old hint which explains how to record HDTV signals from a FireWire capable box. For the most part, everything is the same as in the original guide, however there are a few differences. First, with the rise of FireWire 800, you should note that cable boxes supplied by your provider will have FireWire 400, so if you only…  Read More →

Apple made it quite easy and intuitive to quit out of apps in iOS 4; however I have not seen this method mentioned anywhere. Double tap the Home button to bring up the multitasking applications view, then tap and hold on an app (as if you were arranging your home screen). A small red circle will appear on each app; tap one to close that app. And, of course, you can still swipe through the list to see more. [ crarko adds: I can’t test this...