A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Episode 091. Apple has made several updates recently to Safari with a ton of new features. Many new things have been added in both Safari for Lion and Snow Leopard. I’ve started to use many of these new enhancements and in this episode I’ll cover some of my favorite new features. I’ll also share some tips and tricks related to the more recent Safari additions.
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In OS X Lion Apple has added a new application (feature) called Launchpad. Basically it is a full screen application launcher reminicent of the Springboard launcher in iOS. After install Lion adds the Launchpad application to your Dock. On Macs with a built-in trackpad or Magic trackpad you can invoke Launchpad with a new 3-finger plus thumb pinch in gesture. I have a Macbook Pro and use it mainy as a desktop with an Apple Wireless Keyboard and a Magic Mouse. Since there isn’t a gesture for invoking Launchpad using a Magic Mouse I wanted an easier way to access Launchpad from my desktop setup. Lucikly it’s fairly simple to assign a keyboard shortcut to invoke Launchpad. I covered this tip in the latest Maccast, but in essence you do the following:
Go into System Preferences–>Keyboard
Click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab
Select the ‘Launchpad & Dock’ category in the left colum
In the right pane, check ON ‘Show Launchpad’ and double-click the area near where it lists the assigned shortcut keys (by default this is blank for Launchpad). That will make the area editable.
Press the desired keyboard shortcut to assign it. (I assigned mine to the ‘F8’ key).
Close the System Preferences
So this is what I did and it worked great. I was able to access Lunchpad just fine wth one tap of my F8 key and all was going great until this morning. I had been hearing reports of people having an issue where Launchpad application list was not being updated when installing new apps. I was fairly certian that I wasn’t having this issue, but I wanted to double check so I pressed my F8 key and… “Bonk!” I got the invalid key press system sound. I thought that maybe in my testing of Lion’s new Universal Access features I may have inadvertantly enabled something that was causing a conflict. I double checked my F-key settings and did all the standard keyboard troubleshooting, but couldn’t find anything wrong. I finally realized it was only Launchpad that wouldn’t respond to the assigned keyboard shortcut. I even tried assigning a completely different one, but to no avail. “Bonk!” was the only response it cared to give me. I was still able to open the Launchpad application from the Dock and even confimed that all the applications I had recently installed were in there. I wasn’t suffering from the issue I had been hearing about, but I had determined Launchpad was definately my culprit. I thought I should at least try the fix that had been reported for the other Launchpad issue and see what would happen. Long story short, it fixed my issue too.
Doing Launchpad Repair
It seems like Apple has some more tweaking to do with respect to Launchpad. In the meantime though, it appears there may be a universal perscription for general Launchpad issues. I found this information over on TUAW and it’s referenced from an original article by the folks over at HaiTeq. In those articles it specifically mentions this proceedure for fixing a Lunchpad that is missing newly installed applications. Since it also fixed my keyboard shortcut issue I decided to write it up here and share it for those who may have suffered a similar fate to mine. Here’s the proceedure.
Navigate to the Application Support folder in question (cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock)
Open the folder (open .) and drag all the .db files to the trash.
Restart Dock (sudo killall Dock, followed by authentication)
Small disclaimer. Launchpad is a new technology and mucking about with it’s core files could have unexpected results. Anytime you go messing around in the bowels of the OS there is potential for trouble. This fix seems to have worked for me, but your results might not be the same. You have been warned.
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 358. New Macbook Air. New Mac Mini. Thunderbolt LED Display. Installing Lion. Lion first impressions. Lion tips and tricks. Fixing the new Desktop Zoom.
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Episode 090. OS X Lion is here and in this episode I cover how I did my upgrade. I did what I’m calling an “extreme” clean install and I will cover just how I did that. I’ll also give you my first impressions of the new OS and offer a couple of early tips and tricks along the way.
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A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 357. When Apple released the latest version of Final Cut Pro they created quite an impact although it may or may not have been the one they wanted. The Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) release was very anticipated and had a lot of hype. When it shipped many in the high end pro video market cried foul. In this episode I invited three video pros, Richard Harrington, Ron Brinkmann, and Chris Fenwick to come on and help the average Mac Geek make sense of why this release was such a big deal. The changes impact not only those in the video community, but also bring insights and revelations for the rest of us as well.
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Episode 089. With the imminent release of Mac OS X Lion are you ready? In this episode I’ll go over everything you need to get yourself ready for the upgrade to Apple latest OS.
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The audio for this episode is available to Maccast Members. Sign-up or log in by visiting the Maccast Member site.
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 356. Lion due out this week? More of the same in iPhone 5 rumors. iOS and iTunes more HD’ified. Another OS X Mail “conversations” trick. Nerdtacular 2011, the interviews with Veronica Belmont, Mike Schramm (TUAW), and Tom Merritt.
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Episode 088. The third and last interview in my series from Nerdtacular 2011. In this show we chat with Tom Merrit from TWiT’s Tech News Today. Tom and I discuss where he thinks Apple might be headed using some of the technology and ideas laid out in the WWDC keynote.
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The audio for this episode is available to Maccast Members. Sign-up or log in by visiting the Maccast Member site.
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 355. True Apple TV in the works? MacBook Air Back in Black. iPhone 5 Rumors. More OS X Lion details. Airport and Time Capsule updated. Mac OS 10.6.8 Update. Could low cost iPhone replace the iPod Touch. Verizon moving to capped data plans. Debate on “retina” iPad display. Final Cut X Pro launches to mixed reviews. Thunderbolt details and cable released. Check your clones boot-ability. Testing for Rosetta. Living without a Finder. iPhone cropping trick. Apple bullies developers with it’s “innovation”. Get Mail “conversations” in Snow Leopard.
