by Matt on March 10, 2010
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Exactly one year ago, Cal wrote in to ask, “I once had ‘hidden files’ on my mac – running tiger. Now every application and file is visible, but ghosted back. How can I undo the view hidden files?” I am sorry, Cal, that I am only responding to this question now. I recently bought a 5th generation iPod nano, and I spent an hour last night troubleshooting a problem that was preventing me from uploading my recent runs to the Nike+ website. To properly solve this problem, I needed to manipulate invisible/hidden files and folders. I normally do this through the Terminal, since it is easy to access any kind of file there. The reality, though, is that most people using Mac OS X want a way to access invisible files through the Finder, and luckily this is quite easy to do.
Getting the Software
First, you need to download a great Dashboard widget called “Hidden Files.” This widget is ultra simple: it has one button that toggles between the words “Show” and “Hide.”
Using the Software
All you need to do is open Dashboard to access this widget. You can open Dashboard by pressing F4 (or a different F-Key if you have changed this setting), selecting Dashboard from your Dock, or opening it from the /Applications folder.
When you press the button while it says Show, Hidden Files will enable the Finder setting that shows invisible files. It then restarts the Finder so that you can see these changes. You can then see all of your hidden and invisible files!
As you can see from the above screenshot, I can now see the dozens of invisible files and folders in my home folder. These files are “grayed out,” which is how the Finder indicates that a file or folder is invisible.
Once you are done viewing the invisible files, you can return them to their natural, hidden state by opening Dashboard again. This time, you will notice that the button on the Hidden Files widget has changed from “Show” to “Hide.” Press the “Hide” button. Hidden Files will change the invisibility setting and restart the Finder to make these changes take effect.
It is easy to lose track of the black mouse cursor on your screen. This is true whether you have 20/20 vision or need bifocals to see your screen. Even if you can locate the cursor, you may have difficulty determining exactly where the cursor is pointing. Part of this is the fact that screen resolutions have become enormous compared to a decade ago or two decades ago. By fitting more desktop real estate on your screen, the mouse pointer’s prominence takes a back seat, often to the point of invisibility. Vivid colors on the screen can also camouflage the pointer’s whereabouts. Luckily, Mac OS X’s Universal Access system preference can help you out by making the pointer BIGGER.
To make your mouse cursor larger, follow these easy steps:
- Open System Preferences, either from the Apple menu, your Dock, or the /Applications folder.
- Select Universal Access (it is in the lower-right portion of the System Preferences window).
- Once the Universal Access preference opens, click on the Mouse & Trackpad tab.
- Towards the bottom of this tab, you should see a line that reads, “For difficulties seeing the cursor.” Below this line, there is a slider. The slider’s range goes from “Normal” to “Large.” You can move this slider back and forth to grow and shrink the size of your cursor. Once you have found a cursor size that works for you, you’re all done, so you can quit System Preferences.
That’s it! Your setting for the size of the mouse cursor will remain intact even after restarting your computer. If you want to change the size later (or go back to the default size), you simply follow the same four steps above to reset it.
Did this tip work for you? Are there other ways (or other software you use) to deal with a lost cursor? Share your thoughts with others in the comments section.
As many fans of the iPad know, Apple is currently having a war of words with Adobe over its Flash plug-in for web browsers. As a Mac user, you have probably already experienced Safari or Firefox crashing due to Flash. You have likely heard your computer’s fans go crazy when Flash videos are on screen (I can’t tell you how many times my fiancée has had to put on headphones just so she can hear the video). And, you’ve likely noticed that your machine slows down when your web browser needs to load Flash. This is truly a love-hate relationship, as many people want or need to use Flash but hate dealing with its bugginess and poor performance on Mac OS X.
Swearing off Flash is not realistic for most people right now, but if you could selectively decide which Flash animations and videos to load, you could control your web browsing experience, improve your browsing speed, reduce your processor load (which keeps the fans down), and even improve your battery life (if you’re on a laptop). How can you do this? Install ClickToFlash. This is an amazing Internet plug-in that lets you do all the things I have just mentioned. It also can force YouTube to load the QuickTime-native, H.264 versions of videos (which are typically higher quality and use less processing power). You can even “whitelist” certain cites so that ClickToFlash always loads the Flash content from those cites, meaning you don’t have to manually click a flash animation each time you want to display it.
As you can see from the image above, when ClickToFlash is running, it shows you the outline of location that a website has placed a Flash video. In the middle of the outline box, the word “Flash” appears. If you click inside the outline, the Flash animation/video loads. That’s it. If you don’t click inside the box, the Flash video never loads! This way, you control what you see and when you see it.
Two other notes:
- You can click the gear in the upper-left corner of the outline box for advanced settings, including whitelisting the site you are currently on (again, whitelisting means ClickToFlash will always load Flash from that site without your prompting).
- You can access the ClickToFlash preferences from the Safari menu. This lets you further customize your Flash experience.
To install ClickToFlash, follow these steps:
- Download ClickToFlash.
- Once downloaded, double click the installer in your downloads folder (if it does not automatically open). This brings up your typical installer window.
- Follow the prompts to install ClickToFlash, which places the plug-in in your /Library/Internet Plug-ins folder.
- Restart Safari or Firefox, if they were open while you performed the installation. Only then will they load the plug-in.
That’s it! You have successfully installed ClickToFlash and are on your way to a better web browsing experience.
Did this tip work for you? How else have you improved your web browsing experience? Do you have any tips for avoiding problems in Flash? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
A lot of my readers have been asking me whether they should buy an iPad, and while I can offer that advice, it’s not the kind of article I would normally post at MacGuruLounge.com. This question and many others, however, has convinced me to post articles on Apple-related topics not strictly confined to troubleshooting. Helping Mac users solve their problems will always be the primary goal of this blog, but I hope that informative commentary can also play a role. Apple’s fantastic new device, the iPad, is the first topic I would like to cover.
When Apple announced the iPad on January 27, technology geeks everywhere immediately divided themselves into two camps: those who loved the device and those who hated it. Granted, very few people who offered opinions on the device’s viability had even held one in their hands, and those who did could only use it for a few minutes. Thus, the opinions we have heard stem from an author’s idea of what the device is and how it functions. Advocates and detractors state their opinions based on their personal computing philosophies rather than empirical evidence. My opinion is no different.
Technology writers have offered opinions generally praising the device (David Pogue), dismissing it (Gizmodo), or deciding the jury is still out (Engadget’s editorial staff). All of these reviews are written for computer people by computer people. While the news media tends to discuss Apple’s announcements for about a minute on the day a new device debuts, technology geeks pour over a device’s details for days and weeks after an announcement. This type of fascination is interesting, but it is far from normal. Regular people (meaning those not obsessed with technology) are not asking whether the iPad supports multitasking. They either do not know that Apple announced an iPad, or they know nothing more than its name.
The distinction between a normal person and a technology geek is important. There are many people who were going to love the iPad regardless of the features it offered. If Apple makes it, they want it. If it’s a new technology, they want to own it. There are those who simply believe it is a tool that can help them and are interested in purchasing one. At the same time, there are technology geeks who hate the device. Some hate Apple. But I suspect that most people who dislike the iPad do so because they either want the iPad to replace their laptop/netbook or because they don’t see how the iPad lets them do anything more easily or efficiently than they do now. These are perfectly reasonable (if not shortsighted) criticisms, but they come from people who already have well-defined technological needs, for which they have determined reasonable tools to fulfill their needs (and for which the iPad is not one).
The iPad is not going to succeed because people with great technological knowledge see it as a revolutionary device to meet their needs. It is going to succeed because regular people want an easy and enjoyable way to access technology in a way they cannot currently access it. When Apple released the iPhone, critics dismissed it as a toy that was not a “serious” phone. They often make that argument today, saying the device is great if you want to play games but not if you want to do “serious” work on it. Critics simply ignore the iPhone’s tremendous growth and broad appeal to both men and women because, if they took it seriously, they would have to admit that Apple is making the smartphone that regular people actually want to purchase.
Admob recently conducted a survey that showed Droid users skewed much more heavily towards male users. Is this any wonder? The Droid commercials are basically dripping with testosterone and proclaiming to be tougher and better than the competition. Is this appealing to women, seniors, parents, artists, students, and the like? I certainly don’t think so, and Verizon and Motorola seem content to appeal to the “hardcore” technology consumers, which they seem to feel are technologically savvy males, age 15-35. Most of the criticism of the iPad has come from these same hardcore technology consumers (whether male or female), and if Apple were trying to design the iPad to be a cool netbook on steroids in order to appeal to these consumers, then the iPad criticism would be warranted.
Luckily, Apple is trying to foster the same broad appeal the iPhone enjoys with the iPad. When the iPhone OS was at 1.0, the device did not enjoy broad appeal, as the built-in applications were not sufficiently interesting to many types of people. Only when developers could submit their own applications did the iPhone take off. In any coffee shop, you can hear iPhone owners discussing their favorite applications, and this social marketing fosters desire for the device. The same will be true with the iPad, which should cause us to revisit one very important lesson: the killer applications for the iPad–the ones that will “wow” audiences and create excitement–have not yet been written. Ingenious developers will use the iPad’s size and unique features to create a user experience unavailable on any computer or on the iPhone. It is this new user experience that will allow the iPad to flourish.
Within two years, I predict that parents and seniors will be as excited about the iPad as teenagers are about the iPod touch. Can you think of any demographics more difficult to excite with technology? That’s how impressive the iPad is.
Cheryl wrote in to say that she is having problems with Mac OS X’s Mail application. She wrote, “When I open some emails I am getting a small blue box with a question mark inside and I cannot see the picture I have been sent.” These images can sometimes be annoying (like when they come from advertisers), but most people enjoy emails containing both text and graphics.
If you receive an email in Mail that has blue boxes with question marks in them, this is for one of three reasons:
- You have no Internet connection, which prevents Mail from downloading the images.
- The message is in your Junk Mail folder. Mail refuses to grab images for these messages as a safety measure. In this case, you must take the message out of your Junk Mail folder (or click “Load Images” at the top of the message while viewing it).
- The option to display remote images in messages is turned off in the Mail preferences.
If your problem stems from scenarios #1 or #2, you know how to fix this. You either need to connect to the Internet (at which time Mail will automatically download the messages), or you must take the message out of your Junk Mail folder. To fix the problem with scenario #3, follow these steps:
- Select Preferences from the Mail menu.
- Click on the Viewing tab in the Preferences window.
- Make sure that you check the checkbox next to Display remote images in HTML messages. If this box is not checked, Mail will not load your images, and you’ll see blue boxes with question marks instead.
That’s it! These solutions should solve the question mark boxes on your end. If you continue to have problems, there is one more possibility: it might be the image server’s fault. Whenever you see these images in an HTML message, you are really viewing a web page, which means each image has a web address associated with it. If the address is incorrect, or if the image has been pulled from the server, you will see a blue question mark box because Mail cannot load the image. There is nothing you can do about this short of contacting the person or company who sent you the message to see if they can correct it.
Did this tip help you with Mail? Have you found another work around? What other problems have you had viewing images in Mail? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
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