The MacTrack – iPhone, iPod, iPod Touch and Mac News

If, like me, you have some smart playlists lovingly created within iTunes.

Whilst simple to create these smart playlists can be extremely powerful and can dynamically select music tracks (or other content) depending on their pre-set criteria.  By carefully selecting the criteria you can develop playlists that always have relevant and ever changing content, automatically.

Now, suppose you want to create a new Smart Playlist based on an already pre-existing smart list and then make some minor changes to it?  Apart from recreating the entire playlist from scratch again is there a way to help automate this somewhat?

Yes, there is!  Simply:

STEP 1

Select the playlist you want to base your new one on

Go-to the File Menu
Choose Library…
Select Export Playlist…

In the Format drop-down list choose XML
Save the file to your desktop

STEP 2

Next, import the playlist:

Go-to the File Menu
Choose Library…
Select Import Playlist…

Choose the file you exported in step 1.

iTunes will import the playlist’s selection criteria, not the actual tracks, and you can then edit it to make your minor changes and then rename it appropriately.

Note:  If your import result in a standard, plain track listing and not a smart playlist, ensure that in step 1 you have remembered to choose XML in the Format drop-down.  Without this important step it won’t export the selection criteria.

Below are a couple of example Smart Playlists that I use to demonstrate their power, and why you may want to copy one rather than recreating it from scratch:

Easily copy passwords in Keychain Access

by Rob Griffiths, Macworld.com

As you’re probably aware, many OS X applications and features use the system’s built-in keychain to securely store your usernames and passwords—programs like Safari and Mail, and login information for other Macs on your network are but a few examples. You can see and work with this stored information using the Keychain Access program, in the Applications -> Utilities folder. If you’ve ever forgotten a password, for instance, you can look it up in Keychain Access.

Until just recently, I would look up forgotten passwords by double-clicking the appropriate account in Keychain Access, clicking the Show Password box in the new dialog that opened, entering my admin password in the authorization dialog that appeared, then selecting and copying the now-visible password. Ugh. I was sure there must be an easier way, but nothing in the program’s menus seemed to do the trick.

Then a friend pointed me to a much simpler—and for some of you, probably amazingly obvious—method of doing the same thing. In the long list of accounts in Keychain Access, control-click (or right-click) on the account’s name, and select Copy Password to Clipoard from the contextual menu. Enter your admin password in the authorization box and press Return, and you’re done—the password is now on your clipboard.

This feature has existed at least since OS X 10.4, but I only learned of it just recently—yet another reason why I dislike features that only exist in contextual menus!

via Easily copy passwords in Keychain Access | Mac OS X Hints | Macworld.

BBC releases iPlayer for Mac and Linux
by Mark Hattersley, Macworld UK

Note: The following article is reprinted from Macworld UK. Visit Macworld U.K.’s blog page for the latest Mac news from across the Atlantic.

The BBC has announced that a version of its iPlayer application for Mac and Linux operating systems is now available for download by Mac users in the U.K.

The BBC has worked with Adobe to develop a cross-platform version of its BBC iPlayer Desktop application; the new version of iPlayer uses Adobe Air technology to enable cross-platform support. iPlayer is the BBC’s online media player that enables viewers to watch television programmes online up to seven days after they have been broadcast.

While Mac users have been able to watch iPlayer content via the BBC iPlayer Web site, the new application enables them to download shows and store them locally on their computer.

Users looking to download the new iPlayer Desktop application can get a trial version from the Labs section of the iPlayer site. The BBC news site claims that a finished version is likely to be released in February 2009.

When iPlayer was fist launched, the BBC was heavily criticised by both the Mac and Linux communities for creating a program that only worked with Microsoft Windows XP. The Windows version of iPlayer uses Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) to ensure that television programmes can not be watched after seven days.

Speaking to the BBC news Web site, the BBC’s head of digital media Anthony Rose defended the BBC’s adoption of DRM technology saying: “The BBC Trust said we could make content available for seven or 30 days after broadcast,” he said. “The ability to take things away after some time requires DRM.”

BBC iPlayer now uses three DRM technologies: Windows Media Player, Adobe Air and OMA for mobile devices. The BBC also enables media to be streamed (but not downloaded) to the iPhone in using Apple’s H.264 codec. Because Apple does not share its FairPlay DRM with other companies the BBC has had to use Adobe Air to enable DRM content to be downloaded to the Mac. Because the iPhone does not support Adobe Flash, a version of BBC iPlayer for iPhone would seem to be still some way away.

“We may embrace other DRMs as needed,” said Mr. Rose. The BBC news site also noted that putting the iPlayer on phones, game consoles and more computers was helping to drive the success of the application.

The BBC iPlayer service is only available to users with a IP address located within the United Kingdom.

via BBC releases iPlayer for Mac and Linux | Macworld.

Emulate Firefox’s type-ahead search in Safari

Fri, Dec 21 2007 at 7:30AM PST • Submitted by johnga1t

As input managers are in danger in Safari 3.0 and later versions, it might be useful to know that a type-ahead search feature that emulates Firefox can be enabled in Safari using a fairly simple hack that involves native OS X tricks.

To do so, quit Safari and go to System Preferences » Keyboard & Mouse » Keyboard Shortcuts. Click the ‘+’ to add a new shortcut, select Safari as the Application, Find… as the Menu Title, and a temporary (and arbitrary) shortcut as Keyboard Shortcut. (Note that this field does not allow a simple entry, such as ‘/’, but instead requires a modifier key like Command or Option.)

Now go to ~/Library/Preferences and edit com.apple.Safari.plist. (You may be able to just double-click and open the plist in Property List Editor if you have Xcode installed.) Find the NSUserKeyEquivalents entry and edit the string entry for Find…, replacing the arbitrary shortcut you entered earlier with /. This will remove the need for a modifier key, and allow / to activate search.

Now relaunch Safari and type /; you should see the Find box appear, emulating the type-ahead search in Firefox.

via macosxhints.com – Emulate Firefox’s type-ahead search in Safari .

Castellamonte, Italy – TweakerSoft today introduces CoffeeBreak 1.0, their new coffee junkie app for iPhone and iPod Touch. Developed specifically to leverage the iPhone’s GPS abilities and interface, CoffeeBreak uses a 3D rendered and gorgeous animated user interface to quickly discover and compute the route to the nearest coffee shop.

Fast easy and accurate, CoffeeBreak is ideal for the coffee junkie or frequent traveller. The application includes eight popular store brands as well as alternative shops. Users can see each coffee shop’s location on the map, view the route from where they are, add a location to their contact list or even email the information to family and friends.

Feature highlights include:
* 3D Rendered and animanted user interface
* Eight major brands and other coffee places availables with a single touch
* Uses iPhone GPS to find the users current location
* Save the coffee shop to the contacts
* Email the coffee shop address
* Show the coffee shop on the map
* Compute the route to the coffeeshop

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La Jolla, California – Extendmac is proud to announce Flow 1.1, an update to their award-winning FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and .Mac client for Mac OS X. Presenting a gorgeous user interface, Flow streamlines both transferring and editing files by leveraging high-speed connections.

Armed with the belief that file-transfer should be both powerful and elegant, Flow brings the best of the Mac to managing server files and folders. By integrating with the latest OS X technologies, like Quicklook, Flow makes working remotely every bit as intuitive and natural as working locally with the Finder.

After uploading a file, the URL to the file on the web can be automatically copied to the clipboard for easy sharing. Flow also includes a powerful integrated editor, as well as support for editing in an external application of the user’s choice. Users may now specify a specific external editor to be used for a particular extension when editing externally.

When using the internal editor, code is colored for easier readability, and can be previewed using WebKit. Flow can suggest completions of HTML, CSS, and PHP elements, properties, and functions, respectively. To further enhance readability, Flow now includes “Bitstream Vera Sans Mono” as the default editor font.

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Los Angeles, USA – Macvide has announced Audio Recorder 2.0, their Audio capturing conversion utility for Mac OS X. With a focus on ease-of-use, Audio Recorder allows capture voice, music and other audio that you can use in podcasts or other audio or voice presentations. All of the most popular formats are supported, including mp3, amr, wma, mmf, aac, ac3, flac, mp2, and helps bridge the gap between many audio standards.

Macvide Audio Recorder allows you easily record voice or music directly from a microphone or other external line-in input. In addition you can also record sounds that are being played by your Mac internally such as audio that is being played by other applications such as iTunes, QuickTime, Flash, and various games or via internet broadcasts and internet streaming audio or music. Audio Recorder is ideal for recording interviews, news or melodies from radio, speech in conferences, and other situations that require instant recording.

Feature highlights include:
* Record sound, voice, notes, music or any other audio
* Save recordings to your hard drive in mp3
* Save recordings to your hard drive in amr
* Save recordings to your hard drive in wma
* Save recordings to your hard drive in aac
* Save recordings to your hard drive in ac3
* Save recordings to your hard drive in flac
* Wave encoding at sample rates between 6000 and 196000Hz in PCM or many other codecs and bits
* Designed to be simple and robust for professional and corporate recording applications

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Chicago, Illinois – Yazsoft has released a major new update to ShareTool. Developed for Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, ShareTool is hands down, the fastest, easiest, and most secure way to access all of your Bonjour services from anywhere in the world. No server or technical skills required. Just a simple mouse click. Also works with VPN connections. For anyone that’s been itching to get Bonjour working over VPN, ShareTool is for you.

What is ShareTool and why should I care?

Scenario: You’ve just purchased a brand new iMac and MacBook and are simply loving it. You’ve set up your home or office network exactly the way you want it. You have file sharing between the two machines and can transfer your documents easily between them; you can listen to your iMac’s iTunes Library from the MacBook and view your MacBook’s iPhoto Library from your iMac. Everything on your network works exactly as you want it to and life is beautiful.

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Middleburg Heights, Ohio – Grantwood Technology, LLC today announced the release of the tuneband(TM) for the 4th generation iPod nano, an armband product designed to comfortably secure the iPod nano 4th generation in place during exercise, including Nike+iPod compatibility.

Each tuneband consists of a comfortable and flexible armband strap that can accommodate both large and small arms, a durable silicone skin that allows access to all ports on the iPod nano, and a low-tack, cut-and-peel screen protector that helps guard against smudges, moisture, and daily wear-and-tear. The silicone skin of the tuneband was specifically designed for runners and walkers fully covering the bottom corners of the iPod, securely holding it in place, yet allowing access to the USB port and headphone jack. The silicone skin also does not cover the click wheel to allow it to be used without interference.

“By using the best design features of our previous tuneband products,” states Michael Banks, co-founder and CEO of Grantwood Technology, LLC, “we made this the best iPod armband for the 4th generation iPod available at a very competitive price,” states Michael Banks, CEO of Grantwood Technology.

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San Diego, California – Siavash Ghamaty introduces Recycler, the first recycling-friendly iPhone application for free download. “Recycler”, by developer Siavash Ghamaty, untangles those complicated and seemingly arbitrary PEC plastic codes on the bottom of your recyclables. Acceptable plastic recycling codes vary from location to location. Recycler allows users to add their location’s codes into an attractive interface that makes a green-conscious lifestyle easy.

“I created this application to remind myself of what items I can throw into my recycling and which just don’t go,” Ghamaty says, “After using this application for a couple of weeks, I ended up memorizing the plastic codes and hope other users do the same. It’s a win for the land fills and environmentalists either way.”

When asked how this excells over use of a standard notes application to store this information, Ghamaty replied, “It’s not just a Post-It note or reminder on your fridge that triggers memory, especially for the Mac-friendly user. Everything must look as good as the iPhone, visually appeasing and an overall nice experience. I feel I nailed this on a certain level and hope the audience agrees. Mainly, I just want people to recycle more.”

The App Store features other environmentally friendly tools such as Green Meter which focuses on fuel consumption. Ghamaty’s application is the first of its kind, blending answers to everyday recycling challenges with the convenience of the iPhone.

Ghamaty Website
Recycler
Download Recycler from iTunes
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3

Siavash Ghamaty is a computer programming professional and has built other applications for the app store in the games and utilities genres. He runs Ghamaty.com, the home of an Adobe Flex/ Flash and iPhone development blog, as well as support for his iPhone applications. Copyright 2008 Siavash Ghamaty. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Frankfort, Kentucky – Steven Riggs is proud to announce TimeTable 1.5. TimeTable allows you to easily analyze and total the number of hours recorded in iCal.

Why not use iCal for more than just scheduling? TimeTable reads and filters iCal calendar data and then calculates the hours spent in the events. Find trends by searching the details of events and viewing the average, maximum and minimum times spent on projects. This makes it particularly suited for tracking and billing without keeping a second record outside of iCal.

Thanks to feedback from customers who helped shape this new release!

New in version 1.5:
* New exports for to do details to text and CSV.
* New expandable to do drawer.
* New set custom hours for all day events.

Bugs fixed:
* Problem with non-numeric characters in the hourly rate field causing TimeTable to crash fixed.

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American Fork, Utah – MileBug LITE, a lite version of the premier iPhone mileage log application, is now available for only $2.99 (compared with $6.99 for Standard). MileBug LITE helps those driving their own vehicles for business, charity, medical, or other reasons receive their reimbursement and/or tax deduction. In the U.S., IRS business rates are up to 58.5 cents/mile. MileBug LITE for the iPhone/iPod Touch helps people track their miles and provides emailed reports for easy submission to employers, accountants, and the IRS.

What’s New?
* Option for kilometers vs miles (General Settings)
* Custom deduction rates
* Define multiple business rates (reimbursement vs. deduction)
* “Other” business category for percentage tax filers
* Foreign and other special characters supported in reports
* Notes included in reports
* SPANISH version

MileBug LITE answers the call from the many international customers. Inside the General Settings is now an option to select kilometers instead of miles. From within the Presets, users can define custom rates for business, charity, medical, and other categories. If you get one rate from your employer for reimbursement, and another rate from the IRS for your side business, you simply create two different business rates.

As an added bonus, MileBug LITE supports Spanish. Simply select Spanish as the language of your iPhone or iPod Touch in the General Settings –> International area and restart MileBug LITE. Bienvenido a MileBug!

MileBug LITE
Download and Purchase

Izatt International is an iPhone/iPod Touch application development company in American Fork, UT. Izatt develops applications internally as well as accepts outside development projects. Fingerspell is another application developed by Izatt now available on the App Store. Copyright 2008 Izatt International. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Hutto, Texas – Macgamestore today announced the release of Righteous Kill for the Macintosh. Developed by Merscom, Inc, Righteous Kill is a downloadable casual game based on the major theatrical movie released in September.

Step into the shoes of Erica Dean as she investigates crime scenes in New York City. It’s a man hunt for a vigilante on a killing spree through 16 locations containing over a thousand hidden objects. With the help of Sergeant Vasquez, Erica will use clues she collects in a number of detective-themed mini games. Inspired by the motion picture film, Righteous Kill features clips from the movie and 15 animated levels.

Features:
* Engaging side story to the Righteous Kill movie
* Animated and atmospheric environments
* In-game tutorial seamlessly integrated into the game
* Beautiful but realistic visual style that conveys the New York City setting
* Multiple mini-games bases on detective activities
* Over one thousand objects
* Integrated hint system
* Exciting plot and storyline

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Cerdanyola de Valles, Spain – Aero Quartet has released Treasured, an app for the Mac that is able to diagnose and preview corrupt movie files. Treasured is the perfect complement to the Movie Repair Service unveiled last year: Video Professionals can now check whether a corrupt file still contains the precious footage and is repairable, directly on their computer and in a few minutes.

If you decide to repair the file, Treasured sends the report to Aero Quartet, whose technicians will develop a customized solution. Treasured and Movie Repair Service are designed to work perfectly together, delivering a 90% success rate in a 48 hours turn-around time.

Aero Quartet has already developed repair techniques for a wide range of formats and codecs: DVCPro HD, HDV, Intermediate, XDCAM, ProRes422, DV, H264, MPEG4, JPEG. The list grows longer every month.

Availability:
Treasured is free and runs on Mac OS X 10.4 and higher.

Aero Quartet
Treasured
Download Treasured
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Screenshot/App Icon

Aero Quartet was founded in 2005 in Barcelona, Spain by Benoit Joossen. Our charter is to create useful software for the Macinstosh platform. “The major software companies have already filled the space with their big software suites. But you don’t fill a box only with big stones, you also need lots of pebbles. As a small developer, I want to craft some of those pebbles, indeed I want them to be gem stones !” Copyright 2005-2008 Aero Quartet. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, and Mac are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Los Angeles, USA – Macvide is proud to announce ScreenCap 1.9, their video to Flash conversion utility for Mac OS X. Developed specifically for Mac users, ScreenCap allows video recording, single screenshot or timed screenshot series capturing from your Mac. All of the most popular video and image formats are supported: iPod mp4, 3gp, QuickTime MOV, Adobe Flash SWF and FLV, jpeg, png, tiff, bmp.

ScreenCap offers an easy-to-use interface that guides the user through the capturing and recording process. The application can select capturing area in a preview window or on a whole screen. ScreenCap automatically provides ideal default settings and control many audio/video preferences. Audio capturing can record your voice during creating your video from microphone or just grab all sound of your Mac.

Feature highlights include:
* Record Video from your desctop or selected area
* Record Flash Video FLV or SWF from your Desktop or selected area
* Capture part or whole of screen by selecting capturing area
* Capture single frame screenshots
* Capture timed screenshots series
* Store result screenshots to PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP formats
* Save captured video to quickTime MOV, iPod mp4 or Mobile 3GP formats
* Save captured to Flash SWF and FLV Video
* Selectable area for Capturing
* Preview of selecte area
* Hotkey support
* Easy to use

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Munich, Germany – Boinx Software announced today FotoMagico 2.6, an update to its award-winning photo presentation software for professional photographers. The new 2.6 version of FotoMagico Pro now also supports Adobe Lightroom 2 libraries and comes with an plug-in for Aperture, enabling photographers to select their photos from within Aperture and to export them directly to FotoMagico.

“FotoMagico always was the premier photo slideshow tool on the Mac. Professional photographers treasure its fine-granular controls for creative storytelling”, says Oliver Breidenbach, co-founder of Boinx Software. “With the new version 2.6, which is a free update for all FotoMagico 2 users, we further deepend the integration with the two leading photo workflow solutions from Adobe and Apple.”

“The Aperture Plug-in provides the missing link in my workflow”, says Derrick Story, Author of The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers. “Now I can select the images for my slideshow in Aperture, and the plugin automatically creates a FotoMagico document with them. Very nice.”

Adobe Lightroom 2 Support:
In addition to iPhoto, Aperture and Lightroom 1 libraries, FotoMagico 2.6 (Pro version only) now also supports libraries of the new Adobe Lightroom 2. With the integrated iMedia Browser users can also seamlessly access GarageBand songs, iLife sound effects and media libraries from iTunes or media files from any other folder on their hard disk.

FotoMagico Plug-in for Aperture:
The new FotoMagico Plug-in for Aperture allows photographers to select the pictures in Aperture and export them to FotoMagico to create stunning animated photo presentations with transitions, titles and more. A photographer can now access his Aperture library from the iMedia Browser from within FotoMagico, or the other way around – send a selection of pictures from Aperture to FotoMagico. The FotoMagico Plug- in for Aperture is part of FotoMagico 2.6 and also available as a free download at the Boinx Website.

Availability and Pricing:
FotoMagico 2.6 is available immediately for download from the Boinx Website. A built-in assistant will guide users through the process of aquiring the proper license. The update to FotoMagico 2.6 is free of charge to current FotoMagico 2.x license owners at their current license levels. FotoMagico 2.6 Express is available for $49 (USD) and FotoMagico 2.6 Pro is available for $129 (USD) via Kagi. For all purchase options see the Web site. Commercial multi-user license discounts are available upon request.

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New York, NY – Indie-focused online music radio broadcaster, BreakThru Radio is using technology from TVersity to offer on-demand radio shows to iPhone and iTouch users. The news means the broadcaster’s diverse range of channels – covering the gamut, from reggae to rock.

Access is easy; iPhone and iTouch users simply need to navigate to iphone.breakthruradio.com in Safari on their device. Once there they will be presented with a series of drop-down menus which allow them to choose the on-demand show they want to hear.

Designed to break the dull stranglehold of commercial radio playlist culture in the US, BreakThru Radio is a channel collection that comprises interesting new sounds presented by DJs from the underground scene: death metal, dancehall, dubstep, hip-hop, indie rock, skronk, roots country, reggae, electronica, acid jazz, ambient beats, dub, two-step or folk, whatever … The site offers its daily listeners unlimited access to underground music, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

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Mainz, Germany – Synium Software makes the final version 5.3 of MacFamilyTree available for download. After less than a month of public beta testing, the popular and intuitive genealogy application for the Mac receives another important update.

With new WebKit-based Reports and an entirely new Kinship system, Synium rewrote two core components of MacFamilyTree from the ground up. Hobby genealogists as well as serious researchers can freely define lists of persons, families, events and places. Reports’ layout, look and feel can be cutomized to specific workflow and publishing needs. Font types and sizes can be adjusted to perfectly match your output requirements, in print or PDF – and on the Web.

For MacFamilyTree 5.3, the Kinship analysis technology has been redesigned completely, and the German software developers heavily improved the Descendant Chart too. Both analysis tools now ensure better and more reliable visualization of complex family relations. Also, using the Virtual Globe was heavily enhanced with the new interactive events list, allowing direct access to places for, e.g. the birth of a child or a marriage event.

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Boston, MA – Outer Level today announced the immediate availability of Bullfrog Touch 1.1, the addictive arcade game for iPhone and iPod Touch. This new version adds 25 new challenging levels, redesigned game controls, better performance, and many other improvements.

Race against time to defend your swamp from invading bugs and return peace and quiet to your home. Hop your way through 75 challenging levels to earn your spot atop the online global rankings.

New in Bullfrog 1.1
* Game controls now use on-screen buttons
* 25 New Levels
* Pause brings up a new in-game menu
* New Save and exit option from in-game menu
* Updated Scoreboard graphics
* Improved rendering performance and controls responsiveness
* New Help screen replaces in-game tutorial
* Several bug fixes

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London, United Kingdom – The Escapers are proud to announce the full release of Stuf, the new clipboard manager for Mac OS X. After a beta period under the code name “Shadow”, which allowed The Escapers to mold Stuf in the image which users wanted, Stuf was launched on MacZOT.

Following in the footsteps of Flux, Stuf promises frequent, free updates for all users, and a responsive development team eager to respond to feature requests and bug reports.

As well as managing all your clippings, Stuf offers the following features:

* Share your clippings over your local network, you can even give clipboards passwords so you can share with some users, but not others. Put simply, you can copy on Mac, paste on another.

* Paste directly from the menu bar, Stuf puts a menu on the right of your Mac’s menu bar, letting you paste into any app directly from Stuf.

* Search all clippings, even over the network. Stuf has an incredibly simple search function, which searches all your clipboards, and others over the network.

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