This USB hub caught my eye last week and, maybe against my better judgement, I ordered 3 from the MIC Gadget Store website.

The device features an unauthorised Apple logo and it was clear that these items would not remain for sale for long, so it was no surprise that 1 day later I received an email from the supplier stating that Apple had required MIC to stop selling the items. The email assured me that, as I had already purchased the item, I would receive my iHub.

At a cost of US$9.90 each plus shipping costs of US$6.60 the device is certainly not in the price range of Apple products so it will be interesting to gauge the quality of the item when it arrives.

I will report back when my  3 iHubs are delivered.

I had just finished a new post and published it to the site. But the new post has vanished and the whole website is ‘distorted”.

and I have no idea what has gone wrong! I shall do my best to resume normal service as soon as possible.

So I hereby promise to pay it some attention, bring it up to date and generally improve things on here in the coming weeks.

Just need to remember how to do this stuff…

Thought I’d try out posting audio on my posterous blog

The latest update to Apple’s operating system, OS X Snow Leopard, has been released.

A few applications have been found to be incompatible with Snow Leopard so I thought I had better try the ones I have reviewed previously on this website.

A quick check showed that ACT Printer, SpaceSuit and Dock Spaces all work with Snow Leopard.

1Password did not work initially but the developers soon came up with a fix so the latest version works fine with Snow Leopard.

The only application mentioned on this site that doesn’t work under Snow Leopard (at the time of writing this post) is Jiggler.

This little app is designed to keep your Mac awake and prevent the screensaver kicking in. I emailed the developer who said to keep an eye on their website at www.sticksoftware.com for any updates.

Jiggler has yet to be updated so I now use a similar app called Caffeine to prevent screensaver activation as and when necessary.

Caffeine puts an icon in your Menu Bar. Click the icon to prevent your Mac automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or activating the screen saver. Simple but effective!

Caffeine is freeware and available from Lighthead Software.

I awoke to find that my home internet access was non-existent, re-starting router and modem didn’t fix it. My wireless network was working fine and I had my iPhone with access to the internet via the 3G cell network.

The problem was that I had a document on the Mac that needed emailing urgently.

The clever Evernote app only syncs via the internet, so no connection ruled that one out.

I ended up converting the  document to a jpeg file, importing it into iPhoto, synced the image to my iPhone and then emailed the jpeg of the document. Fortunately the image was clear enough to be read by the recipient.

But what a rigmarole to go through!

There surely had to be a better way for next time!

Searching through the iTunes App Store revealed the ACT Printer*Virtual Paper app, a long-winded name but cheap enough at AU$1.19.

This app allows you to “print” documents to your iPhone or iPod Touch via a wireless network, no internet connection necessary!

Act Printer requires the download of a Mac component on your computer. Once installed it gives you an extra option of “Print to iPhone” on the drop-down list when printing a document to PDF.

Then just follow the on screen instructions and the document will appear within the ACT Printer app on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Once stored in the ACT Printer app the documents can be emailed to anyone in your contacts list.

You can’t enter a new email address or add any text to the body of the email and be aware that the file will be sent as soon as you touch the contact’s email address, so make sure you’ve picked the correct contact!

The document is emailed as a PDF.

ACT Printer stores multiple documents, they can be enlarged for easy viewing however diting is limited to changing the title.

The documents can be re-arranged in the list and deleted when no longer required.

I did have a few iPhone crashes whilst using the ACT Printer app to import a large size file containing images but that aside, the ability to view documents on the iPhone without using the internet to sync can be just what’s needed for those of us with a less than reliable internet connection!

The ACT Printer*Virtual Paper app is produced by Houdah Software, the makers of well known software creations such as HoudaSpot, the file search tool and HoudahGeo for photo geotagging.

This easy method involves the Services menu within Finder.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I seldom look at the long list within the Services menu and even if I had gone searching through Services, I doubt I would have recognised the option that actually performs the task of copying a file path!

Once the required Service is pointed out, it all becomes so obvious:

First select the file or folder whose path you wish to know, then within the Finder menu click Finder > Services.

Towards the end of the long Services list choose TextEdit > New Window Containing Selection. 

This opens a new TextEdit window with the file or folder path already pasted in and hyper-linked to the object.

To remove the link from the text just Ctrl-click or right click on the link and choose Edit Link.

A new window opens enabling you to delete or alter the link.

I did a little further Googling into the subject and found there were various ways to achieve a file path, including dropping the file on to an open Terminal window, using TextWrangler, AppleScripts and Automator.

There are a few free and paid utilities that provide a contextual menu option allowing you to copy the file path to the clipboard. These include FileXaminer at US$10 and the freeware utility FileUtilsCM from Abracode.com.

FileUtilsCM installs a Finder plug-in which provides the ability to set different file or folder attributes. Amongst the various options offered by a Ctrl-click or right click on the selected file is Copy Path To Clipboard. 

So there you have it, a few alternative ways to get your file path copied to the clipboard and into a text document. No doubt there are a few more examples of how to achieve this, if you know of any, then please share the knowledge with us all by adding a comment below.

Now I think I’ve been given the help I need: the SpaceSuit 1.0  application  provides the opportunity to distinguish your various Spaces by enabling you to set a different desktop image to each Space.

Yes, I can now move between Spaces screens and very easily recognise which Space I am in!

It was while listening to Tim Verpoorten on the Mac ReviewCast that I first heard about SpaceSuit and I thought it sounded the perfect piece of software to compliment DockSpaces 2.10 that I had installed and reveiwed a few weeks earlier.

SpaceSuit is a wonderfully simple app, the Dock icon is all you need to use SpaceSuit, just drag an image file onto the application’s Dock icon and SpaceSuit will apply the image to the current desktop.

Right click on the icon to be given a list of display settings and the option to remove the image.

If you have a multi display setup the image will be displayed on both screens and I couldn’t find a way to have a different image on both screens.

The image filled my MacBook Pro screen.

Initially I was concerned when the image did not fill the whole screen on my external display, but it was a simple matter of choosing “Fit To Screen” from the display options within SpaceSuit to have the larger external monitor filled with the new desktop image.

One point to remember is that if you quit SpaceSuit then the desktop image on each Space will revert to your previous OS X desktop image and will again be the same for each Space. Relaunch SpaceSuit and it will return your chosen SpaceSuit images to the desktop.

SpaceSuit 1.0 is such a simple little app that provides a really useful addition to my ever-growing list of installed application software and best of all it is a free download. 

If you have problems identifying your Leopard Spaces then give SpaceSuit a go!