[silkstone]

I'll use Bibble 5 when it comes out - eventually! They'd promised it for the end of December, but now that's put back to sometime in January. There's the option of using a database with tags etc, or a simple browser mode from the filesystem.

If it's half as good as the pre-release info and videos suggest, it could be a Lightroom beater. But the jury hasn't yet seen the real thing.

P.S. Where's the flippin' delete key on a Mac? And how do I make VLC the default application for opening all music files?

[ROBIN]

Originally Posted by silkstone

P.S. Where's the flippin' delete key on a Mac? :

Top right, just under the disk eject button and above the return (enter) button.

Button has a big LEFT arrow on it.

Robin...

[silkstone]

That's the Backspace key - deletes to the left. There's no Delete (to right) key. I've even looked underneath and couldn't see one. You have to use Fn-Backspace.

Still working on the VLC issue...

[Charlotte]

Congrats on your new toy Silky, have fun with it

[clafra]

Right click on the file, then choose open-with.

Click on the application after you checked at the bottom that you want always open the file with this program.

Should work...

[silkstone]

I can right-click and open with VLC, which it does immediately and starts playing. But - sorry for being stupid! - I don't follow the second part to make the association persistent. I can't see anything at the bottom to check!

[silkstone]

Still can't work out how to associate an application with a file type. There must be a way - it's easy in XP and Linux.

The keyboard is great. The trackpad is even greater - it's the first time I've been able to use a trackpad without wanting to plug in a mouse.

The OSX interface is sort-of good but you end up with the 'Dock' at the bottom even if windows are maximised, so it doesn't make full use of the height. Safari has also underlined (in red) 'maximised' - so it thinks I'm American. It uses google.com as the default search engine but I've found a way to switch that to google.co.uk.

I've managed to crash it once so far - or at least it wouldn't shut down, and I had to do a hard reset. Apart from that it's been OK but I'm still a novice.

The Mac version of the GIMP doesn't play well at all. In the end I deleted it. Is there another image editor for Mac or I'm I going to have to sell myself to the Adobe devil?

I can't get used to the idea that if you close an application it doesn't actually close - it just hides. That's something people have been complaining about with Bibble tools for years! So you have to Cmd-Q to actually quit.

Is this really useful? I'm not saying it isn't, but at the moment it seems odd.

[silkstone]

Aaaarrrgh!

Is there an equivalent of Adblock for Safari? If not, Firefox will rule again!

[silkstone]

Talking to myself ...

Firefox rules again ... and it's so much better than Safari (IMO of course!).

[PeteT]

Originally Posted by silkstone

The OSX interface is sort-of good but you end up with the 'Dock' at the bottom even if windows are maximised, so it doesn't make full use of the height.

Click Apple Logo, System Preferences, Dock and make sure the option "Automatically hide and show the Dock" is ticked - problem solved.

[clafra]

Sorry for the confusion, I translated from German. Now I have the system in english, so I try again.

1.) Right click on the application
2.) Choose in the menu Open With --> Other
3.) check the check-box "always with" at the bottom of the just opened "open-menu"
4.) choose the application

Should work then.... just tried it again... almost the same as Windows

I also use Firefox on my Mac, only if I open the Apple website I use Firefox because it has sometimes problems to open the movies.

I know it's strange at the beginning that applications don't close when you "windows close" them. But you know what, the good thing is that you don't need to fully close them. What a "WOW" when you get used to that....

[silkstone]

Thanks guys.

clafra - that works but only for the files you select. It doesn't actually change the default player for all other files of that type.

I have a mixture of WMA and MP3 files, and would like them all to open in VLC by default. At present the WMA files open in VLC and the MP3 in iTunes (which can't handle WMA).

[silkstone]

Yay!

Click on a file of the type you want to change. Then File > Get Info and go to the Open With section. You can change the default application here and choose to apply it to all files of this type. Job done.

[Chris H]

Simple answer to all your problems

Sell the MAC and buy a PC.......................................


Oh I forgot you already have a pc or two...........


Can't wait to start asking daft Linux questions when my ASUS eeepc 901 in cool iced white turns up

[silkstone]

I think you'll like the 901 once you get rid of Xandros.

I'm getting to grips with this fruity thing and it is pretty fast. There is a learning curve and I'm only at the foot of the slope right now.

[VinnyP]

Apple are great laptops possibly the best, they have a great keyboard and track pad (Although Intel PC trackpads have multi touch now) and fast start time (Compared to windows) but the fastest out there is definitely not an apple and the most reliable are Inovo thinkpads but closely followed by Macs.

[silkstone]

The keyboard feel is great but the layout takes some getting used to - no Del, Home or End keys and some of the symbols are in different places, but it's just different not wrong. Overall OS X seems much closer to Ubuntu than to Windows in the way most things work.

It's a pity that the GIMP didn't want to play well, but I've found something called Pixelmator which is quite similar but with a better interface. Not free, though, and I'm using a 30-day trial version at the moment. I'm not keen on Adobe Elements and don't want to pay megabucks for CS4 when I won't use most of it. You can do some things in iPhoto but if there is an easy way to resize an image I couldn't find it.

[ROBIN]

use preview program.

select tools, then adjust size.

go from there

robin..

[clafra]

I'm also looking forward for Bibble 5. What I saw in the preview looked really impressive.

[silkstone]

Robin - cheers - didn't realise you could do it from that.

Bibble 5 looks really good but they haven't done themselves any favours with the constantly delayed release date. Many people have jumped ship, especially those with newer cameras that are no longer supported by B4. I can understand them wanting to focus on B5, and that would have been OK if it had been available when promised. When they knew that it wasn't going to happen, they should have updated B4 with new camera support to keep their customers happy.

Of course that's easy for me to say. I'm not a small software company in Texas trying to compete with the likes of Adobe but with a fraction of the resources. They can't do everything and they're now focusing on B5 exclusively.

BTW I'm getting to like the Macbook quite a lot. It even managed to do a firmware update earlier without complaining. This post, however, comes from an eee PC 901 with Ubuntu, 'cos I've put the Mac to bed.

[clafra]

You mentioned earlier that the Macbook can be handled without a mouse easy.

It's amazing but I have not "worked" on my MacBook with a mouse since I bought it. I think that an real achievement from Apple to really make the mouse obsolete on their Laptops.

[JAG]

For an image editor give Chocoflop a try. It's a non destructive image editor and is still in "development" and is currently free. I have used it and it was stable.

[silkstone]

Thanks JAG - I'll try it.