Mac 911

Rendering text-to-speech files

Reader Kurt Schwartz prefers some of his text spoken rather than written. He writes:

I have several text files that I’d like my Mac to read to me using its speech software. I know that I can use the Speak command within TextEdit to have that text read to me, but I’d love to be able to save that text as an audio file. Is there a way to do that?

Allow Automator to show you the way. Here’s how:

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Filtering faked email messages

Christopher Breen @BodyofBreen

• Sep 10, 2012 10:30 AM

Christopher BreenSenior Editor, Macworld

Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area.
More by Christopher Breen

Reader Paul Lomauro is receiving email that he’d rather not. He writes:

I am getting unsolicited mail from a source that has blank sender email address. How do I set up a new Mail rule on my iMac to totally block it or send this type of email to the trash?

I’m going to expand this one a bit to tell you how to filter any message that may have missing or faked information. When you select a message in Mail you see some of the message’s header information including the contents of the From, To, Subject, Attachment, and Body fields. There are times when some of this information is missing—when someone forgets to enter a subject heading, for example. And, of course, spammers and other digital ne’er-do-wells routinely fake some of this stuff. That makes it difficult to filter email when using only the entries that appears here because that information may not be accurate or the filter is too broad.

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When the size column matters

Reader Craig Moyer longs for a Finder feature he could once invoke via clever hack. He writes:

I’d like the Size column to always appear before Date Modified in Finder windows displayed in List view. Many years ago I was able to modify the com.apple.finder.plist file to do this, but that’s no longer an option as that file has changed. Is there still a workaround?

While this may elicit one or two “Well, duh!” responses from the less sensitive members of our forums, this is something I haven’t bothered to think about in… well, ever. And so this came as a surprise as much to me as it may to you.

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Bugs & Fixes: Safari Preferences solve two Safari-related glitches

I recently stumbled over two Safari-related problems. In each case, specific features of a website did not work as expected. While my precise symptoms may be limited in scope, the overall problems are general ones and the solutions apply to a wide variety of similar situations.

Extension prevents Flash video from running

One of my guilty pleasures is the NBC series Smash. I’m especially a fan of the show’s music. That’s why I was glad to discover that NBC offers video clips showcasing the musical numbers from the series.

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Create calendar events more efficiently

Reader Caroline Anders finds Calendar’s default settings a little inflexible for her tastes. She writes:

I use Calendar on my Mac running Mountain Lion (and used iCal before it) and I find I have to fiddle with events after I create them—changing all-day events to events that last a couple of hours and changing their start times. Is there a better way to create events so I don’t have to spend so much time editing them?

There is. First, it’s important to understand how Calendar creates events. If you double-click on a date when in Month view, you will create an all-day event by default unless you enter a time or specific event in the New Event field. For example, Meeting with George 3PM or Lunch with Dan. Otherwise you’ll have to edit the event if your intention was to create an event that lasts just an hour. If you want just that hour-long event, change to the Week or Day view and then double-click on a time. An hour-long event will be created at the time you chose.

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Prevent iTunes from switching library locations

Reader Alex Christie has run into a common iTunes frustration. He writes:

I have a lot of media files in my iTunes library and because of that, I store my iTunes media on a separate drive. I’ve configured iTunes so that it knows to place files on that drive but sometimes it loses track of the drive and reverts its storage location back to my internal drive. Is there any way I can prevent that or, at least, be warned that it’s happened?

I sympathize, Alex. Like you, I have a lot of media. Unlike you, I store it on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) so all my devices can use the same media library. If the NAS isn’t mounted (or iTunes believes it isn’t) not only is my library full of exclamation marks (indicating iTunes can’t find the files) but in iTunes’ Advanced preference, the iTunes Media folder location switches back to the default, which is the Music folder in your user account.

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Disabling Google auto updates

Reader Bill Carmichael has discovered something going on behind the scenes that concerns him. He writes:

I recently installed Little Snitch to help resolve some network problems I was having. When I looked at its Network Monitor window I couldn’t help but notice the many times Google Software Update, Google Software Update via ksfetch, and GoogleSoftwareUpdateDaemon appeared. What are these things and do I need them?

As the names imply, these are processes that automatically work in the background to keep your Google software—Picasa, Google Earth, Chrome, etc—up to date.

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