K’s Weblog

This week, I join the geeks live to record GGP #70. We decided to make use of the segment I prepped up for last week’s show before I found out about the Second Life Special Edition that Dave put together with the guys from

DMGConverter

As the name suggests this tool will allow you to convert all sorts of disk image files between various image formats. These include three ISO formats, CDR, Mac DMG image files, and others.

This application that will also help to create disk image files from folders on your computer. You can use this to create a burnable disk image like an ISO for easy distribution across platforms, or a downloadable DMG file so that your Mac buddies can download and mount the image on their systems.

This application will also support several Mac and PC file systems, including the new Extended file systems and FAT16 & 32. There currently is no support for NTFS.

This is a great tool for anyone who needs to distribute large quantities of information, or needs to make copies of any type of existing disc (legally of course!).

Where I see this for myself is creating image files and using them to archive things like photos, or music and podcasts that I’ve finished listening to.

DMG Converter is a free application.

Secret Notepad Plus

SecretNotePadPlus is a dashboard widget created by Japanese developer N. Wajima that will allow you to make and keep notes on your OS X dashboard the biggest difference between this widget, and many other similar ones is, you guessed it, the secure part.

SNP allows you to password protect the widget so that its secrets can be kept hidden away from the world, and would be particularly useful in one-mac homes where the computer is shared among many different people.

Yes, there are many other ways to do this, and storing the information in this way isn’t the _most_ secure mechanism available. Where this might be useful though, is keeping a list of your frequently used ID’s and Passwords for various websites. It’s easily accessible, and can be quickly hidden once you’re done your session.

Finally, SNP makes use of keychain to store its own password information as well as the notes and text. So this is a fairly secure method of being able to write this information to the disk. While you’d never write your latest novel, or the secrets to cold fusion technology in SNP, it’s great for quick notes.

SecretNotepadPlus is a free application.

AirPort Radar

The folks over at MacWireless.com have put together Airport Radar, a simple wifi scanning tool which shows you the networks in the area as well as the strength of their signals. Airport Radar performs it’s scanning magic from your OS X dashboard. This is a good way to troll for networks in those cases where you just _have_ to download the latest episode of the GGP and can’t make it home to the comfort of your regular broadband connection.

The scans are done at a user-configurable interval; the default is just under two seconds. The widget will display any networks it detects. If a network drops off, or drops below a detectable level it will remain on the screen in a ‘greyed out’ state, and will stay on the screen for a set number of scans (default is 5).

While not the most full-featured wifi scanner around, it’s a pretty good little tool. It should be noted that it only searches for “Infrastructure” networks, or access points. It won’t detect the wifi connection on other wifi ‘client’ devices like laptops, xboxes, ipod touches, psp’s, cell phones… well you get the idea.

Airport Radar is a free application.

XBox 360 Controller Driver

Last up this week is something kinda fun that I just had to share. For any of you who own an XBox 360 and have always wanted to use the controller in your favourite Mac games, I have the solution for you! Developer Colin Munro has created a driver package for the 360 controller to allow it to be used on the Mac.

For me there’s just something deliciously ironic about using a Microsoft controller on an Apple computer. The 360 Controller driver is also a freebie.

While I’m sad to see Tim go, he’s moving on to new challenges and I think we’ll see him around from time to time…  I’d like to extend a personal thank you to Tim for his help with my budding podcast career.  Looking forward to seeing the next big thing!

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