Apple news blog

North Carolina based Apparent Corporation today announces Barcode Producer 5.8, a minor update to its barcode generation software for Mac and PC. Built for graphic designers, Barcode Producer is Apparent’s award-winning, industry standard barcode creation suite for Mac OS X and Windows. Barcode Producer now offers support for ITF-14 barcodes as well as Light Margin Indicators for I2of5 barcodes.

There are plenty of hints here involving Safari’s excellent Activity window, like this one.

I managed, however, to find one more way to use it. I was downloading mp3′s from my friends’ alternative band music site. The player is in Flash, so I went to the Activity window and copied the first download file, which was at this URL: http://www.nonitz.ic.cz/mp3s/mp3-0.mp3. When I went to copy the next one, I noticed that the only difference was the sequential number at the end (i.e. .mp3-1.mp3, .mp3-2.mp3, etc.)

So I created a text file and copy and pasted multiple lines, edited the numbers, selected all, copied, and then pasted into Safari’s Activity window. No surprise here — it just worked!

Today I needed to use Workgroup Manager to add a Login Item that Mounts an afp Volume. Apple provides no instructions for doing this while logged in directly on the server; instead this task is done using Workgroup Manager on a client (see this Apple support document). I didn’t have my MacBook with me at the time, nor did I want to install the Server Admin Tools on another machine just for this one task.

The solution is:

1. Open Safari and enter the URL in the form of afp://IP-address-OR-Server-name/Share Point
2. Drag the favicon (next to the URL) onto the Desktop.
3. Drag the favicon into the System Preferences » Login » Items section of Workgroup Manager.
4. Click Apply Now.

Note that you do not need to add %20 to any white space when typing the URL in Safari; this will automatically be added when you drag the Favicon to the Desktop. Also, the colon and for…

I use Liquifile from time to time to identify those places in the file system that have grown a little bloated over time, and to see if I can thin things out anywhere. It gives a unique visual interface into your entire directory structure, allowing you to easily see where all the space is being used, and how long it’s been used for.

I used it yesterday in just such an exercise and discovered a hitherto unknown feature of another piece of software I’ve been using, namely OSXPlanet. OSXPlanet creates almost ‘live’ views of planet Earth on your desktop, including such things as clouds, satellites and volcano eruptions.

What I didn’t know, however, was that it seems to keep a cache of every desktop picture it has generated, which, if you have the refresh rate set particularly high, can result in numerous redundant images being created.

I can see where some people may find this us…

Zevrix Solutions today announces File Courier 1.1.2, an update to its automatic digital delivery solution with emphasis on needs of graphics industry professionals. File Courier delivers files and folders to FTP and local destinations and sends automatic e-mail delivery notifications. The software can also create a lo-res version of PDF file, compress items and protect deliveries with password. The new update addresses some issues related to SMTP authentication.

I had never thought of using my Mac in this way, but thought it was a good use of a computer in an unusual way.

Yesterday I had gone to talk to a co-worker who was getting ready to head out the door for lunch. Rather than take out a compact, or find a mirror with which to check her hair, she just fired up PhotoBooth and used it as a mirror.

[robg adds: I've had this on sitting in the queue for a while, just waiting for a quiet hints day on which to run it...and that day is today. It will be interesting to see how many have done something similar -- personally, I never would have thought about doing this, mainly because I avoid mirrors whenever possible .]

Patently Apple points to another interesting patent application from Apple filed in August 2008 and published this morning detailing means of controlling an iPhone or other handheld device by swiping one’s finger across the camera lens. Most…

ActyMac today announces ActyMac DutyWatch Remote 1.0 for Mac OS X, a distant computer monitoring application that can be used on iPhone/iPod touch. The program allows to monitor a specific computer or a group of computers within local network. A DutyWatch Remote user is able to check each employee’s activity and control their productivity at any time during the day, week or month even being far away from the office.

UK based The Escapers today announce Flux 2, an update to their flagship web design application for Mac OS X. Flux is an incredibly advanced WYSIWYG web design application, which uses drag and drop to create amazing websites, that aren’t just restricted to pre-set templates. The latest release of Flux 2 includes dedicated support for jQuery and MooTools. The Escapers have also produced a tutorial screencast on creating an animated menu using jQuery.

Opetopic has just reduced the price and released a huge update for IsoWords 1.1, a word search game on a three dimensional cube. Gameplay is based on connecting adjacent letters to form words, similar to Boggle, although with Isowords the twist is that the letters are placed on a 3D cube similar to a Rubik’s Cube. With additions like global leaderboards, 3 local multiplayer modes, and daily challenges, Opetopic is celebrating the update by lowering the price of IsoWords for a limited time.