Fix “Soft” Keys on your Apple Aluminium Keyboard
Are you a 99.9% happy Apple Keyboard user? Chances are, the thing lost that other .1% because sometimes the keys just aren’t as responsive as you’d like them to be. Well, there’s an easy fix. Just grab your toolbox and follow me!
First, you’ll need to grab a few things. The first is a guitar pick. You can get them at a music store for about 75 cents, a medium gauge will be best for this job. If you don’t have a guitar pick, a credit card or a thin nail file will work as well.
Be especially careful with the spacebar key, don’t jerk right in the middle, you’ll snap it. Remeber to check which way the scissors under the key are going before prying away!
Once you get under the offending key, this is what you should see:
Now for the fix. What you’re going to need, is a regular sheet of paper, some scissors and some tape. For the tape, I’ve found that the clear “Scotch Tape” as our American Friends would call it works best. Take your scissors, and cut a narrow strip out of the paper - about 7 millimetres wide and the length of your thumb. Take it and fold it like you did in kindergarten. Back and forth until you have a small square shape. Now get your tape, and cut a 1 Centimetre by 1 Centimetre piece of tape. Attach it to your bit of paper, with even amounts of excess on all sides.
This is what my finished key looked like:
Watch the video for more in depth information!
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View YouTube Videos the way they were meant to be viewed!
Ever wished you could view YouTube videos in the way that the creator saw them when he/she completed them?
Well, there’s an easy way!
Just download This Javascript, (which comes in a .txt file because it’s so long) and make a new bookmark in a browser like Firefox or Safari. (This trick doesn’t work with some browsers) Call your bookmark YouTube HD or something like that, just to remind you what it actually does. In the URL or location field, open up that .txt file you just downloaded and select all the text, then copy and paste it to the location field. Save the new bookmark and go to any YouTube video. Watch the video, then click the bookmark and watch the video again. The script basically shows you the original video, as it was uploaded. The video you normally see on YouTube is re-endoded flash video, which is very low quality.
This trick only works with some browsers, and it consumes more bandwidth than the normal videos. Still, don’t you think it’s worth it if you can actually read the text on screencasts or see someone’s face?
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Attention Blood Thirsty Gamers!!! Turok for pc will quench your bloodlust!!!
Based on Epics Unreal 3 Engine, this next-gen title definately delivers
You play the games main character Turok, the typical soldier with a troubled past fighting his way through impossible odds with an an arsenal of lethal weapons:
The Bow, Knife, SMG, Shotgun, Chaingun, Pulse rifle, Flamethrower, Sticky, Bomb Pistol, pistol, & Grenades
Their are minor details in the enviornments that could use a few tweaks, but the level enviornments are well done with tight graphics and framerates
The story line is typical yet still keeps one intersted in the overall gaming experience and the action people, is freakin’ BRUTAL.
So brutal, the game becomes somewhat tedious and overwhelming at points yet it does it in a way that drives the player to the brink of actually
loving the abuse and has them begging for more.
From small seamingly harmless dinosaurs to the mighty T-Rex and to what seams at times like hordes of well armed enemy soldiers, this game throws everything at you along with the faucet from the kitchen sink tied to a grenade.
Aside from the very minor almost nit picky graphics issues, Terminator as my witness, Turok will not disappoint
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Get an Applications Dock Icon to Go Away!
Ok, there are some applications that you just wish didn’t have a dock icon. One of those apps for me has always been Awaken by Embraceware. The things dock icon really doesn’t do anything to benefit me. So why have it there? I found a way to get just about any applications dock icon to run along like a good little icon. Just bear with me:
So this is the thing that I had sitting there, the Awaken Dock icon.
It was not adding any functionality to the program, so why was it there?
I decided to put a stop to it.
So, what you’re going to need to do is this:
1. Open the app that you want to modify in the finder. You can do so easily by right clicking it in the dock and choosing the “Show in Finder” option.
2. Right click the application and choose “Show Package Contents”.
3. Double-click Contents and then right click “info.plist”. Choose “Open With” and then select “Other”.
Then, what you’re going to do is search for textedit and open up the “info.plist” file.
4. Now’s the time when things get a little trickier. Which is why I recommend copying and pasting the application in it’s folder to create a backup.
5. Now press Command+F and search for “NSPrincipalClass”
6. You should find an exact match in between “[key]”. Straight after that, on the next line, paste the following:
[key]NSUIElement[/key]
[string]1[/string]
7. Now, align all the text, make sure that nothing else is out of hand, and it should end up looking like this:
8. Press Command+S to save the plist and then open up the application. Voila! No dock icon.
This should work with any application, but there are some applications like system preferences. You can fix those up with a terminal command, if you want to know how, you can email me: helpmetechshow@gmail.com but I think this should settle most people for now.
*Note* I substituted the regular triangular brackets:
with the square ones for the purpose of the post, because obviously websites think they’re for html.
Watch the video for a step by step tutorial!
-Zane
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Make a Recent Applications Stack in Mac OS X!
OK, if you’re like me, you’re all over the place on your computer. One second you’re in Aperture, then it’s over to iMovie, then you hop over to iTunes to change the song. Sometimes, you accidentally close a window that you actually wanted. Sometimes, it’s an application that you weren’t paying attention to and therefore forgot the name of. Now you have to dig through your application folder and find the thing. Have fun!
Or, you could take the easy solution. Get yourself a recent applications stack like this one:
To get one, all you have to do is this:
1. Open up a Terminal Window.
2. Type the following: defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’
3. Then type KillAll Dock in that same terminal window and you’ll have your soon-to-be-beloved recent applications stack.
Now, not only can you have a recent applications stack, but there are a few other options:
I hope you like this one as much as I do!
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Speed Up Firefox With Two Tiny Tricks!
Ever wished your browser could be faster? Or just appear faster? Well, with this quick trick it can!
All you have to do is type about:config in your browser bar. Once you’re in filter for “network.http”. Then find “network.http.pipelining” and double click the value to change it to true. Then find “network.http.proxy.pipelining” and change it’s value to true. Now, find “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and change the value to eight or more. The reason it’s eight is because that’s the most http requests that Firefox can send. Setting it higher won’t break it, but it won’t do anything either! Now, lastly what you’re going to do is right click somewhere and choose new>integer.
After that, you should get a message asking you to name your new integer, call it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay”. After that, restart firefox and you should be browsing at a tidbit closer to light speed.
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Quick Tip: Use Adium as Your Skype Client
Ever wished you could get rid of one application from your screen? Well, If you’re running on Mac OS X then you can with this little Adium plugin. It is basically a remote for Skype that allows you to make calls, answer calls and chat from Adium. Just install the plugin and restart Adium with skype running and then add the account. That should save you a few pixels! Then you just hit Cmd+H and Skype disappears while you Skype away with Adium.