The Lobster's Blog

How-To: Remove a deleted folder from Finder Sidebar on a Mac

djlaube — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:21:33 +0000

I had a very stubborn folder that I had on my Finder sidebar, under “Favorites”, because the actual folder on the my Mac was deleted. Because the folder was deleted, I could not remove the “Favorite” by the normal right-click and “Remove from Sidebar” option. It was driving me crazy but a search lead me to an actual simple resolution: just hold down the “Command” key while dragging the folder off the sidebar. This worked perfectly!

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3048198

Using StreamBaby Application to Stream MP4/M4V Files to Tivo 3 HD (with No Conversion)

djlaube — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:08:40 +0000

This how-to lesson describes how to view MP4/M4V (Quicktime/Apple formatted) movies on your Tivo 3 HD with no conversion needed and without the need to buy the Tivo Desktop Plus software.

Download “StreamBaby” Application

A great program that has been made is called "StreamBaby". This program allows you to stream MP4/M4V files to your Tivo 3 HD. You can get it at: http://code.google.com/p/streambaby/
Click on the "Downloads" tab in order to select the file to download. You’ll install this on the PC that you want to stream movies from.

Click on the zip file to download. Then extract this file somewhere that you can keep it.

Editing the Configuration File

Once the program has been extracted, doubleclick on the file "streambaby.ini". We’ll need to edit some settings in this configuration file before we start the program.

Adding Your Video Location

Type in the path where you want to share your videos from. In my example above, I keep my videos under: D:\Shares\Videos\My Tivo Recordings
Your path may be different than this, so be sure to enter it correctly.

Install Java

The StreamBaby application uses Java to run, so you’ll need to make sure that Java is installed on the PC that you are sharing your videos from. To install Java, open up Internet Explorer and go to: http://www.java.com
Click on the blue button that says "Free Java Download".
If you know you already have Java installed, then you can skip this step.

Next click on the "Free Java Download" button to start the actual Java installation program download. Go ahead and run this program to install Java.

Starting the StreamBaby Application

Now, doubleclick on the file called "streambaby.bat" to start the StreamBaby application.

The first time that it loads, you will see a screen similar to the one above. Once the StreamBaby application is started, you should see a message that it is "Ready and Listening" as shown in the screenshot (1). DON’T CLOSE THIS WINDOW as this exits the program. To keep StreamBaby running, you’ll need to Minimize the window (2).

Testing it Out

Now, let’s give it a test. I have a M4V file located in my directory that I specified in the configuration file. Now let’s go to the Tivo and see if we can watch it.

Onto the Tivo HD

Now, on your Tivo, go to Tivo Central and choose the "Music, Photos, & Showcases" option.

Scroll down a couple of pages and you should see "Stream, Baby, Stream" listing, which you should choose.

Accept Tivo’s Privacy policy by pressing the green Thumbs Up button 3 times and then press the Enter button (this is a one time step).

Browsing Videos

Now, you will see a top level folder that you can select. If you setup more than one folder in the configuration file, then you will see those here.

Selecting Movie File

There is our test M4V file, which is the movie "I Am Legend". Press the "Select" button to choose your movie.

A "Please Wait" screen will be shown briefly.

Playing the Video

Then, you can select the "Play" option to begin the movie streaming.

Here’s a screenshot of the beginning of the movie playing from the Tivo HD.

Preview Past Stream Buffer

A really cool feature with StreamBaby is that if you need to Fast Forward to a place that isn’t streamed yet, it will give you a static preview window (much like the Netflix integration on the Tivo) to help you find the location that you would like to go to. Then when you press the "Play" button, it will start streaming from that location.
Hope this has helped you! It works great so far in my experience!

Great Links for Working with and Making Cat 5e or 6 Network Cable

djlaube — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:40:18 +0000

I finished a little household project which was running Cat5e cable from my living room and master bedroom to the switch in my office. This was to connect two Tivo’s to the home network, so that everything is running Gig-E over the wire and so that I don’t have to mess around with connecting the Tivo’s wirelessly (and I’m hoping that the hard connection will make Netflix video streaming performance better than wifi). The project included making wall plates, drilling the holes, running the wire through my unfinished basement, etc.. Here are two very helpful sites that helped with the networking questions that came up.

Question 1: How do I connect the Cat 5e cable to a Wall Plate? The colors don’t match at all.
Answer: This site nailed it for me and worked great. And it’s easy to read and understand.
http://server-servers.com/ge-cat5-network-wall-plate-straight-through-cable-setup/

Network Wall Plate

Cat5 Ethernet Cable

1	Blue
2	Orange
3	Black
4	Red
5	Green
6	Yellow
7	Brown
8	White

White / Orange

Orange

White / Green

Blue

White / Blue

Green

White / Brown

Brown

Question 2: How do I make a “standard” Cat 5e network cable again? I forget the “official” color layout when connecting the ends..
Answer: This site has a great picture for the “official” wiring: 568-B method.
http://www.lanshack.com/make-cat5E.aspx

Pair #	Wire	Pin #
1-White/Blue	White/Blue	5
1-White/Blue	Blue/White	4
2-Wht./Orange	White/Orange	1
2-Wht./Orange	Orange White	2
3-White/Green	White/Green	3
3-White/Green	Green/White	6
4-White/Brown	White/Brown	7
4-White/Brown	Brown/White	8

Windows 7 – Another Area for Program Data that isn’t under Program Files

djlaube — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:34:31 +0000

I have a small program that keeps some of it’s files (which happen to be data files) where the program resides, typically under C:\Program Files\Name of Program\. I normally back these files up as they are important to me. However when I went over to Windows 7, I noticed that the program files are no longer under C:\Program Files\Name of Program\ and where nowhere to be found. After some exhaustive searching on Google and using Windows Search, I found the “new” location these files are kept:
C:\Users\Name\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Name of Program\. So I pick this new location in order to back up the files that I need. Hope this might help someone else wondering where their files went. I know it was quite weird for me at first..

Simple But Effective Backup For Your Data

djlaube — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:56:42 +0000

Backups! Most people don’t think about them until it’s too late. Well, here are my two favorite options for performing a backup of your data.

http://www3.crashplan.com/consumer/index.html = Crashplan is a free Program to automatically backup your data to another drive (e.g. an external drive) or another computer of yours, or even a friend that’s running Crashplan! They have an online backup option ($5/month for unlimited amount of data). Go buy an external drive, download and install this program and tell it to backup to your external drive. It’s that simple. I’d also recommend using their $5/month service so that you have a copy of your data outside of your house. That is very important as an external drive backup doesn’t protect your data in a fire, flood or other major disaster. $5/month is a small price to pay for the extra level of protection!

https://www.backblaze.com/ = Backblaze is another option which is a pure online backup solution with unlimited data for $5/month. They don’t have the “backup locally” option like Crashplan does above, but if you’d like to skip that part and just backup online, then checkout BackBlaze.

Hope it helps!!

Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.1 Released

djlaube — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:08:45 +0000

A number of bug fixes and tweaks have been released in OS X 10.6.1 update, now available.

A great write up on this update can be found here:
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/09/10/software-update-10-6-1-debuts/

Scanning and Getting Things from Your iTunes iPhone Backup (Mac)

djlaube — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:32:46 +0000

I was having some performance issues with my iPhone and I wanted to clear it out and did a “factory restore” from within iTunes and then just sync back my apps from iTunes. Well, that all went ok. I use Microsoft Exchange at work and I have my iPhone synced with my Exchange account, so it handles Contacts, Mail and Calendar. So I wasn’t worried about that data as I can always sync that information. (BTW, if you don’t have an Exchange account, use GMail’s free ability to do the same thing, which actually uses Exchange technology: http://www.google.com/mobile/products/sync.html#p=default).

But the thing that I forgot to make copies of or send them to myself in an email were my Notes on my iPhone. iTunes makes a backup of notes and the like, but I didn’t do a “restore” from within iTunes, I did a complete reset. I also didn’t want to do a restore in case whatever was slowing down my iPhone might return from the restore. So the question came up – How do I get my notes back from my iTunes backup without doing a restore?

Answer = MobileSyncBrowser! It’s a program I found that does exactly what I wanted and is totally awesome. It can also do pictures, media, call logs, contacts, calendar, SMS messages, etc! Info about it can be found here:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/33166

The maker’s website and download link is at: http://homepage.mac.com/vaughn/msync/beta/

It worked perfectly for me. I was able to open my notes and just re-enter them (as they were short) on my iPhone. Enjoy!

Here’s a screenshot taken during my session:

Start using Mint.com to manage your money today!

djlaube — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:46:39 +0000

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Making an ISO (Image) File from a CD/DVD on a Mac for Free

djlaube — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:23:44 +0000

There are several ways to make an ISO (or an image) file from a CD/DVD but here is a FREE and pretty simple way to do so on your Mac. Yes it means using the command line “Terminal” on your Mac, sometimes a little “unknown” for some people, but I assure you it is quite simple.

And for you that are familiar with VMware ESX/vSphere, the utility is actually the same as what you can use on that product. In case you need, here’s a simple How-To link to create an ISO on VMware on my work blog here:
http://lewanps.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/how-to-make-isos-from-the-esxvsphere-service-console/

How-To: Making an ISO on a Mac

1) First, open up Terminal which is found under Applications, Utilities.

2) Next we’ll need to get the drive number for your CD/DVD drive. You can do this by using the following command:
drutil status

The will product output like the following. Make a note of the Disk# that it shows. This is the disk # for your CD/DVD device:

Vendor Product Rev

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E ZA0E

Type: DVD-ROM Name: /dev/disk2 <– Look for the disk # here

Sessions: 1 Tracks: 1

Overwritable: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB

Space Free: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB

Space Used: 846:35:55 blocks: 3809680 / 7.80GB / 7.27GiB

Writability:

Book Type: DVD-ROM (v1)

3) Now you will need to umount the disk with the following command:
diskutil unmountDisk disk2 (replace the disk# with yours)

4) Now you can write the ISO file with the dd utility, which is a built-in utility for copying disks:
dd if=/dev/disk2 of=name-of-file.iso
(replace disk# with yours and change the name of the “of=” file, which is the “Output File” name)

5) When finished you can remount the disk so you can use it with this command:
diskutil mountDisk disk2

Or you can eject the disk with this command (no remount necessary):
diskutil eject disk2

ndor Product Rev

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E ZA0E

Type: DVD-ROM Name: /dev/disk2

Sessions: 1 Tracks: 1

Overwritable: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB

Space Free: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiB

Space Used: 846:35:55 blocks: 3809680 / 7.80GB / 7.27GiB

Writability:

Book Type: DVD-ROM (v1)

Merging Two AVI Files into One File on a Mac

djlaube — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:56:47 +0000

This is one successful way that I’ve found to merge 2 AVI files into 1 AVI file using a Mac.

Get D-Vision 3 Software (Free)

Download the D-Vision 3 software from this site:
http://www.objectifmac.com/english/downloads.php
Download the program and install. Then launch the program.

D-Vision 3 – Tools

Once the program launches, click on the "Tools" button on the right hand side of the window.

On the "Tools" screen, select "Join AVI Files".

First select the target name and location for the target AVI file (1). Then select the plus (+) sign to add the files in order that you want to join (2). Finally click on the "Create Task" button to make the task (3).

A new window called "Task Management" will appear. It is not doing anything yet and for the task to be started, you will have to click on the "Launch" button. Once you click on the Launch button, the merging of the files will begin. It is pretty quick, as the 2 AVI files that I had were both around 500-600MB in size took about 3-5 minutes to merge into a single file.

Once the task is finished, you are done and your newly created AVI file will be at the target location you specified.