Jesus loves geeks » Software

Keep Quicktime on Top in Mac OS

aaron — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:33:06 +0000

It’s been annoyance to me ever since coming over from the PC world (though actually I still play in both), but in Windows You can make Quicktime always stay on top of other windows. Logically, you would think that since Quicktime is an Apple product this nifty little feature would have been standard. Well you would be wrong.

No matter, because now there is Afloat. Afloat is a great little utility for mac that lets you keep windows afloat (pun intended) on top of all others. Afloat is easy to use and adds more windows management features to most Mac applications.

Using afloat is easy. Once it’s downloaded and installed just click on your application (for me it’s Quicktime), and go the the Window Menu. At the bottom of the menu you will see several new options with clouds by them. To keep your window on top of everything else, just click “Keep Afloat” or if you are a keyboard shortcut junkie like me then press control+command+A.

You can also adjust the effects to make it visible on every desktop of spaces, make it opaque or even just make the window and overlay so you can still click on what is under it. I’ve left some pros & cons below.

Pros

It does what Apple left out of Quicktime, simple and easy
It’s free. And we all love free apps right?
In addition to keeping the window on top (afloat) you can adjust the transparency, make it an overlay, move or resize from any location on the window, keep it on all desktops and pin the window to the desktop.

Cons

It won’t work if you use filevault. OR maybe it will but you’ll have to get pretty nerdy and what not to do so.
No application memory. You have to set the application “afloat” each time you use it. You can view this as a pro or a con I suppose but it was annoying for me.

Overall it’s a fantastic addition to mac and can be used with either Leopard or Snow Leopard. For more info or to download try the ∞labs page for afloat. If you liked this app or find something I’ve missed then leave it in the comments!

Microsoft Outlook MAPI32.dll is corrupt error message

aaron — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 21:08:48 +0000

We got a new computer in a few days ago and it had a trial version of Office 2007 on it. Since it was trail version and we have the licenses for Outlook 2003, I had no desire to go the 2007 route just yet. So after uninstalling 2007 and installing Office 2003 I get this fun message when starting Outlook 2003 that reads something like “Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. MAPI32.DLL is corrupt or the wrong version. This could have been caused by installing other messaging software. Please reinstall Outlook.”.
I should also mention that when I went to Control Panel > Mail…I would get some random error message about not having enough memory. Either way, the first MS support article I found was of no use. And my first urge was just to delete or rename the Mapi32.dll file, but I want something solid to say “This won’t screw things up worse.” Which I finally found here (MS Support Article 926196)

The short of the fix is to go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Msmapi\1033\ and rename MSMapi32.dll to MSMapi32.old (I also renames Mapi32.dll to Mapi32.old since it was referenced in the error message).

After you do this restart Outlook 2003, this will make Office rebuild the files and things should be fine.

Stopping Unsupported Display errors from iTunes

aaron — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 09:03:05 +0000

So I run dual Displays on my Windows XP System and since upgrading to iTunes 7.2 (7.2.0.34 is my current version) every time I would switch users or even go into sleep mode with iTunes open, I get a nice little “Unsupported Display” error message and Windows would hang up. This forces me to press my favorite 3 keys Ctrl, Alt and Esc (I get me to where I’m going faster than Ctrl, Alt, Del, plus thats far too cliche by now…but I digress) to end the iTunes task and get running again. Now I should note my secondary monitor is on the left and has a lower resolution and reinstalling in all shapes, forms, etc, did nothing but waste my time.
The iTunes support page was little help and the other solutions I saw were to simply keep iTunes on the monitor with the lower resolution…however, that’s not a great solution in my opinion. The better solution I discovered is to adjust a Quicktime setting.

Go to Start >Control Panel >Quicktime
Select the Advanced tab and set the Video option to Safe Mode (GDI Only)

The only downside that I have found is that you can no longer jump into full screen…However, since I am running dual monitors it does not really bother me that much. Hope this helps & please let me know if anyone finds another solution.

Cheers,
aa!2on

Tech Tool Must – GETTSCIP

aaron — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 04:17:31 +0000

I love command line tools! Don’t ask why, maybe I enjoy being “old school.” Either way. We use Terminal Services and Citrix here. Sometimes users login from a computer and sometime from a Winterm or dumb terminal. I use Microsoft Terminal Services Manager to help users remotely and often it’s really nice to know the client’s ip address.

Well Thanks so much to the peeps over at Ctrl-Alt-Del It Consultancy for their great set of Terminal Services command line tools. The tool that is perfect for this job is called GETSCIP. Take this file and put in in the %system root%\Windows\System32\ folder on your Server and then from any client session open up the command prompt and type GETSCIP. There, in glorious CLI fassion, will be the current sessions client ip address!

Enjoy & here is a direct link to download: GETTSCIP zip download

Tech Tools Must – Autoruns by Sysinternals

aaron — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:00:21 +0000

Not a lot of time to blog today but I did want to recommend a little utility called Autoruns by Sysinternals (which is now, sadly, part of Microsoft.)

Either way, this is a very cool little utility that tells you what will run on your system at start-up. IT has by far the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-start location on a p.c. that I have seen. I have removed some very pesky viruses & spyware thanks to this utility. Auto runs will allow you the power to either disable or delete any start-up entry.
Tip… If you have a very pesky virus that keeps coming back after each boot, start up in safe mode and then uses Auto-runs to remove the entry. I know it sounds simple..and it really is, who am I kidding.
Here is a direct download link: Autoruns Zip file(490Kb)

“beep”ing Terminal Service!

aaron — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:19:17 +0000

Silly issue… actually. It won’t be a problem that keeps you from working, though if your not used to hearing it it might drive you mad! After our recent upgrade to Windows 2003 (for Terminal Services) and Citrix Presentation Server 4, users kept complaining about a “beep” that would happen all the time. For example, if you were going to close a Microsoft Word document without saving it you would hear a “beep” sound when the message box pops up.

It’s a fairly easy fix and you can deploy it a number of ways. Modify the following key on the Terminal Services server using regedit:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Sound]
“Beep”=”no”
“ExtendSounds”=”no”

Now since this is a registry setting for the current user you will have to have it applied to all users who use this system. Now I did this by making a simple reg file and referencing it in a bat file that I put in the “All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.” Users will have to log on & off …then back on… to notice the change but still…no beeping.

Also to make this effective for new users either just keep the bat file there forever or change the same keys in this location:
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Sound]

Hope this helps someone.

Firefox 2…showing closed tabs

aaron — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 04:38:39 +0000

One reason I enjoy using Opera at times, is because it if I close it with 5 tabs open and then open it back up then all five will open back up again. The fact that I couldn’t get Firefox to do this was most always a bother. Well it seems now with Firefox 2 you can.

Go to Tools >Options and in the “Startup” area select the drop down box beside “When Firefox starts” and select “Show my windows and tabs from last time.”

I noticed that when Firefox closed unexpectedly it prompts you about whether you want to reopen the start page or all the tabs you had open. A little searching revealed this. By the way…nothing against Opera, I still enjoy using it at time…but overall I prefer Firefox.
Enjoy