Cowell Computer Consulting

I recently had a reader write in about a problem with their Mail program. Here's what they had to say:

Dear Luke Cowell,

I am a big fan of your blog, where you explain how to make beautiful christmas trees out of incomprehensible code that outputs a hilarious parody version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" that I don't really get.

Perhaps you can do a blog about why my Mac Mail program doesn't save my window size settings. When I close the program, and re-open it later, the window is small, and the "preview" pane, which I like to have hidden, takes up half the window.

Sincerely,

Murray Inkster
Vancouver, BC

Dear Murray,

Thank you for writing in. Apple mail stores most of its preferences in a file called com.apple.mail.plist. This is located in your home directory, under Library/Preferences. Make a backup of this file.

Quit Mail and open terminal and paste the following lines in: defaults delete com.apple.mail ActiveViewers defaults delete com.apple.mail ActiveSingleViewers

These will delete any information Mail.app has about window position and will hopefully allow you to put your windows in all sorts of compromising positions again.

If that doesn't work you could also try deleting the com.apple.mail.plist file I mentioned above. Be warned that you'll need to set up your mail rules and accounts all over again.

Hope this helps,

Luke Cowell
www.lukecowell.com

Posted by Luke Cowell on February 25, 2009 at 09:52 AM

The new beta of safari is out and its available for mac and PC.

http://www.apple.com/safari/

The new interface is almost identical to the 2.0 interface we became familiar with. There are a few interesting tweaks that aren't immediately obvious.

1. You can rearrange tabs.
2. You can drag a tab out to put it in its own window.
3. Searching now highlights your search results as Firefox has for the last couple of years.
4. Spellcheck ? I don't remember it having this functionality before.
5. You can resize text entry boxes.

and more...

Why make Safari for Windows ?

Apple does a great job of designing software and hardware that is easy to use. Those of us who use macs know this already, but many windows users don't and live with obtuse key combinations and UIs that are unnecessarily complicated. Releasing Safari for Windows is yet another avenue for a windows user to make the realization that: "Hey, I like what these apple guys are doing".

Apple's market-share is growing, I just hope that Apple doesn't become the next Microsoft.

Posted by Luke Cowell on June 11, 2007 at 12:59 PM

I been using quicksilver for a while and it's a great tool. One thing that disappointed me was that when building triggers I could figure out how to couple several commands together. I found this article which does a great explanation of it.

You need advanced features enabled etc. I won't re-explain what the previous author did a great job of explaining, but I will explain how to overcome one limitation they mentioned.

How do I order and add delays between commands ?

-Enable the Terminal Commands module

-For the sake of a simple illustration I'm going to use large type commands. Create and save 2 large type commands using the encapsulate [^+Enter] and save commands.

-Enter the following:

.sleep 5 [tab]

run command in shell [enter]

[^+Enter] (to encapsulate command)

Save command to file [enter]

Let's try it out. Use the comma trick to group your 3 commands together and then choose to run. Neet - delay.

Extending the concepts

-you can use the comma trick to build triggers with multiple commands coupled together.

-you can change the delay between commands by modifying the number after sleep.

-you can couple as many commands together as you want using this technique, adding delays when required.

Posted by Luke Cowell on May 10, 2007 at 07:50 AM

How many of you have a sticky note or a text file on your computer with sensitive information in it ? We sometimes forget that it would be possible to have our computers stolen. Often times the information on our computers is of more value that the computer itself.

Keep your information safe using keychain access (located under /Applications/Utilities).

Keychain will unlock the login keychain on your computer using your account password. If your passwords match then you want have to enter your keychain password on login. This is important to note because it means that anything that resides in the login keychain is not really protected if someone can gain access to your account.

1. Open Keychain Access.
2. Create a new keychain if you don't already have one. (File->New Keychain).
3. Create a new secure note in that keychain (File->New Secure Note Item).
4. Give your note a name and enter your secure information.

Don't forget to lock your keychain (Apple-L) before closing the app.

Posted by Luke Cowell on April 30, 2007 at 06:51 PM

I'm using a little something called simplelog for my site. I decided to use it based on the following criteria:

• Built on Ruby on Rails

  A Web development platform I'm very interested in.

• Simple to use

• Good built in theme

  I have no design ability.

• Can link directly to posts

  Many of my posts will be for the benefit of my clients and peers and I need to be able to link directly

• Tags

  I will be posting on a wide variety of subject, that in combination with my bad memory means that I might be making the same posts twice. The same posts twice.

I'm sure that there's other great blog tools out there. What are you using ? What are you staying away from ?

Posted by Luke Cowell on April 10, 2007 at 08:00 AM