I recently downloaded a zip archive of freely-distributed MP3 files. But when I double-clicked it to decompress it, all I got was a .cpgz file (an archive file in the CPIO format). Double-clicking that file just created the zip file again, and thus I was stuck in an endless loop
Searching on Google, I saw that plenty of other people had come across the same problem. Some of them suggested some fixes, but none of those fixes worked for me. Some online posts suggested that I download the file again, because the first file might have become corrupted. But as it was a very large file, I really didn’t want to try that.
The solution for me was to use the free The Unarchiver, which turns out to be a Swiss army knife for decompressing many obscure types of archives. Opening the file with The Unarchiver decompressed it correctly.
In versions of OS X before Lion, you could quickly search for messages from a given domain (macworld.com, for example) just by typing it in the search field. But such searches are more difficult in Lion's version of Mail. That's because, when you type the domain name, the program will show you all of the messages that have been sent to or received from that domain, as well as any messages that contain that domain as a string of text in the body; it will also show you a drop-down suggestion-list of specific senders from that domain.
Reader pfernandes points out that there is a way to refine Mail searches to find all senders or recipients from a given domain: If you type from:@domain, you will see a list of all the messages you've received from any email addresses in that domain. You can also use to:@domain to look for the messages that you've sent to any addressees in it.
Note that you will see these search results in Mail's message-list pane after you type the search-term but before you hit Return. If you then hit Return, Mail will convert your search term into a token and treat it literally; in other words, it will look for senders (or recipients) whose addresses consist solely of the domain name and therefore return no results.
You probably know that you can choose keyboard shortcuts for Mission Control and Dashboard in the Mission Control pane of System Preferences. But the shortcuts listed there are limited. For example, for Mission Control you can choose function keys from F1 to F13, but you can’t select, say, F14 or F15; you have a few other options, such as the right or left Shift or Control keys. The same is the case for Dashboard, though it is limited to only the F keys.
Reader channui figured out a way to enter other keyboard shortcuts for these features. Just go to the Keyboard pane in System Preferences. In the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, select Mission Control or Dashboard and enter your keyboard shortcut there. It will automatically be reflected in the Mission Control preference pane. You can use this same procedure to set keyboard shortcuts for many other system features, such as Launchpad, the Dock (hiding and displaying), and so on.
The recently released iTunes 10.6 has plenty of notable new features, including support for 1080p video and some tweaks to iTunes Match. But many music lovers will appreciate one new feature in particular: In the past, you could automatically convert songs with a high bit-rate to a more manageable 128 kbps when syncing them to an iPod or iOS device. Now, with iTunes 10.6, you have three bit-rate options for that conversion: 128, 192 and 256 kbps.
To access this feature, connect an iPod (or iPhone or iPad) to iTunes, select the device, and go to its Summary tab. At the bottom of that window, in the Options section, you'll see the Convert Higher Bit Rate Songs To option. If you select that option, you can then choose the bit-rate you want from a drop-down menu.
Many iTunes users have been hoping for this option for a while. If you have a lossless library, it allows you to convert audio tracks with higher quality when you sync your iOS device. Note that this conversion can take a long time the first time around, but subsequent syncs will be much faster.
If you've been using OS X Lion, you've no doubt seen the dark linen pattern that Apple uses as a background for the login screen. That same pattern pops up in iOS 5, too. If you like that look and would like to use it as your everyday desktop background, OS X Hints reader rgetter found out how to make that so.
In the Finder, choose Go -> Go to Folder, and enter
Many of us use Finder labels to mark and more easily differentiate icons and files. There are several 'official' ways of assigning a label to a selected file: from the File menu, from the Action menu on the Finder toolbar, or from the the Finder’s contextual menu. But reader adipoos points out another way to assign labels that isn't so well known.
First, you need to sort your files by label; to do this, click the Arrange button in the Finder toolbar, then select Label from the list. (If you don’t see that button, choose View > Customize Toolbar and add it.) If you haven’t yet assigned labels to any of the files in the current directory, the Finder will sort them all into a single No Label category.
To make use of adipoos’s trick, you need to create a section for the label(s) you want to apply; to do that, you need to assign that label to at least one file. So, if you want to apply the Red label to a bunch of files, at least one file or folder must already be labeled Red.
While I certainly like OS X's built-in spell-checking tools, I also find it somewhat annoying because it requires the mouse—first to click on the misspelled word, then again to choose the correct spelling. OS X Hints reader Zonker.in.Geneva points out that you can actually use the keyboard to correct spelling errors in programs—such as TextEdit, Mail, and iChat (or Messages)—that use Apple’s system-wide spell-check system.
For the trick to work, you must first enable two options in each program’s Edit -> Spelling and Grammar menu: Check Spelling While Typing (the While Typing part may be in a submenu) and Correct Spelling Automatically.
That done, when you misspell a word, press the spacebar to insert a space after it, then use the left arrow key on your keyboard to move the cursor back so it’s immediately after the misspelled word’s last letter. If you wait a second, you’ll see a list of suggested spellings appear. Using the up and down arrow keys, select the spelling you want from the list, then press Return. That will replace the misspelled word with the correct spelling. If you want to dismiss the pop-up, press the Escape key.
