WiFi secrets revealed

I've joined a new broadband and phone provider. New ISP, new modem - and this one seems to be noticeably slower than its predecessor. So I checked my earlier blog about wifi problems, and opened up Apple's Wireless Diagnostics.

Last time I ran this application there were lots of interesting charts and information about one's wifi connection. Now, they seem to have disappeared with only a boring screen telling one all is well (or, I suppose, not).

However, I found a clue elsewhere online. The discussion refers to Mavericks but I'm running Mountain Lion - same applies.

Bizarrely, with Wireless Diagnostics open, go to the top menu bar and click Window > Utilities. You get a new window with all the previous ways to allow you to obsess about your wifi setup.

Oh dear, my Performance chart is not looking good -  apparently signal (RSSI) should be a lot stronger than noise (makes sense), at least -25 between the numbers, while mine has barely -10.

I can see hours of "fun" coming up trying to sort this out. Watch this space.

Sound lost on iMac

This iMac is not very new! So when it ceased to emit sound other than the startup chord I wondered if something had died inside it.
I have a pair of external speakers plugged in, so first I tried unplugging those. For a while, music flowed out of the tinny internal speakers, but next day - silence reigned again.
So,

1. tried restarting the computer - no change. Opened System Preferences > Sound, nothing appeared wrong.
2. Okay next most simple answer - unplug and replug. When I'd unplugged and replugged the audio speaker jack in the headphone socket a couple of times - Yes! Fixed!
3. En route to this happy result, I also checked System Preferences > Sound again and found that the Mute button at the bottom of the window had got ticked. Well, unticking that doubtless helped.

Ebooks - best prices or free

I just discovered two fantastically useful applications / apps, invaluable if you read ebooks.

Luzme

First, Luzme.com, you can search for ebooks by title, author, ISBN etc and compare the prices. You can instantly buy the book, or add it to a watch list to get an email notice if the price changes. It turns out there huge differences between online bookstores. You see a little chart of price changes for each ebook store, too.

BitLit

Second, BitLit - from Canada - allows you to purchase an ebook version of a book you already own, free or at a reduced price. Smartphones only for this one. You scan the cover at a set angle, and then the copyright page to which you have added your name. BitLit is signing up publishers fast so your particular book may not yet be available.

Apple's iTunes Books

Luzme revealed that Apple (iTunes) was the least expensive source of one or two ebooks. I haven't tried Apple before as a source, but I duly did. However, iTunes warns you that you can only read your downloaded book on an iOS device, not even on your desktop Mac.

After initial optimism I found this is true, so far, for paid-for books. I cautiously acquired a couple of free ebooks from the iTunes Store - these are fine, you can transfer them around and read them on whatever device. Your book gets downloaded into your iTunes music library (under books) as an Adobe Digital Editions epub file.

Reassured, then I paid for one. The ebook seemed to open in Adobe Digital Editions and transferred into Calibre and on to my Kobo but alas, it is blank. The DeDRM tools don't work on it. So least expensive, yes, but so far very restricted use unless it's a free book.

Calibre ebook library and software

Just to remind you about the superb Calibre -

To manage your ebooks library and reader content using Calibre

Calibre is a generic ebooks management application, very handy, search to download it for free (be fair, do donate). Using Calibre you can:

• manage the books on your ereader
• assemble all your ebooks from whatever source in one folder
• read them on your desktop 
• automatically convert books from different formats for your own ereader, whatever that is

and much much more besides which I haven't tried out.

To set up Calibre to automatically convert books for upload

1. Downloaded and instal Calibre
2. Install the DeDRM plugins that you have already obtained
   - Go to Calibre's Preferences (under Calibre in the top menu)
   - Under Advanced, click Plugins
   - Select Load plugin from file
   - Navigate to the downloaded folder of Tools
   - In the sub folder inside that, Calibre plugins, click and load each of the zip files in turn
   - Click the green Apply tick, top left
3. Repeat until all are installed. Restart Calibre.

Then, Calibre's menus are self explanatory. You can just add the book file to the Calibre library and upload it to your device - select Autoconvert and it will do the conversion as part of the process, as long as the DeDRM plugins are installed.

Watch BBC iPlayer via iPhone + Apple TV

Don't want to tie up your Mac streaming BBC iPlayer to your Apple TV? Easy, use your iPhone instead. Turn on AirPlay mirroring in your iPhone to stream direct to the Apple TV.

You need -

• An iPhone 4s or later (or iPad 2, iPad mini, iPod touch)
• Apple TV 2nd or 3rd generation

What to do 

• Download the BBC iPlayer app from the app store
• Make sure both the iOS device and the Apple TV are connected to the same WiFi network
• Swipe from the bottom of the screen to show the Control Centre.
• AirPlay is just above the 4 icon buttons at the bottom. Tap to turn on AirPlay.
• Next screen - select the Apple TV to mirror to, then switch on mirroring.

Wow! you'd think it would be low res coming from such a tiny screen, but all the iPhone does is channel the WiFi signal to the TV, it doesn't go via the screen at all. Enjoy!

Five nice apps for your Mac

Five incredibly useful applications, I use them all the time. Free or worth the low cost.

• Thunderbird (free) - A free open source email client from Mozilla that's streets ahead of Mail imho.
• VLC Player (free but donate) - I expect you know this. Play music without all the total domination of iTunes, play almost any format video file.
• Airfoil ($25) - if you don't have Airplay on your Mac, Airfoil does the biz. Plug your iPhone or iPod into your radio, speakers, whatever, and transmit whatever you're playing on your Mac to the radio, speakers etc.
• TotalFinder ($18) - Finder windows open in tabs, just like in Chrome or FireFox. Yes, Mavericks does that too, but I prefer the upward tabs to Maverick's downward ones as in Safari. Also the Mavericks version seems more complicated and less intuitive. Folders on top of the file list, just like in Windows (ssss...) Easily show system files ...
• Web Snapper (£10.49) - Capture web pages as pdf files (or a range of other formats), just as you see them on the screen.

Time Machine - change backup interval

Time Machine can be a life saver - but do you really need backups every hour? I've got a big external hard drive and it really slows my Mac down when it starts its backups, always at the most inconvenient time.

Change the frequency! It's easy. There are two little applications that will let you do this, such as -

TimeMachineEditor (free).
Reviews say this is very easy to use (it is, I have) but there are some warnings - if your Time Machine backup drive is not available or if Time Machine is turned off you get confusing warning messages.

TimeMachineScheduler (donate).
Reviews - this one scores better than TimeMachineEditor, but there seem to be more problem reported.

Or, you can open Time Machine preferences and switch it to Off - but remember to switch it on again at intervals.

Music files: convert m4a to aiff - or other

I use Audacity to edit music files.  I delete the chat or whatever, tag different tracks and save as AIFF format files, one for each track. For some reason, recently I've saved some recordings as m4a files. (Was it something I set??) Audacity won't read these - I installed the plugin as recommended but all it did was crash.

iTunes does the job

After quite a while trying this and that, I finally found out that iTunes will do the job. This is what you have to do:

Set up iTunes

• Choose iTunes > Preferences > General
• Click the dropdown choice button, Importing preferences (never mind it's associated with When a CD is inserted, ignore that)
• Click Import using: and select your choice of format from the dropdown list. I use AIFF, high quality and seems to be fine for burning to CDs or playing in iTunes or on an iPhone.
• The Setting: seems to want to be automatic.
• Click OK, and OK in the Preferences pane.

Convert your music file

• Import your m4a (or other format) music file into iTunes
• Highlight to select it
• Right click - and you have a choice to Create AIFF version - iTunes will make an AIFF copy for you.
• To see it in a Finder folder, right click again and select Show in finder.

Edit your music file

Then you can locate your converted file, open it in Audacity, and edit and save it in the usual way.
Credit where credit's due, http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1550 does sort of explain all this.

Image transfer iPhone to computer

Break free from struggling with iPhoto and iTunes to retrieve images from your iPhone! Instead use Image Capture, or even Preview. Preview allows you to do some basic image editing, as well.

First, simply connect your iPhone to your computer (maybe you can also use WiFi, but I don't).

Using Image Capture

• Open up Image Capture.
• Your iPhone will appear under Devices and you'll get a list of thumbnails in the window (omg, what a lot of images I've got there!) 
• Set the folder to Import to in the usual way
• Select the images to be imported
• If you want to delete them from the iPhone, you need to select them all, cmd-a, or those you want. Once imported, you have the option of deleting them from the phone.

Using Preview

• Open up Preview
• > File > Import from iPhone
• Thumbnails of your images appear.
• Select those to be imported, or Import all
• Click Import
• You can then select the folder to import to
• And also choose to delete the selected images from the iPhone.
• The imported images open up in Preview.
• There you can delete selected images (cmd-backspace sends them to the trash)
• Or edit them, using > Tools > Adjust colour or > Adjust size.
• Adjust colour provides various adjustments and to sharpen the image, too. And you can crop by using the cursor to draw a rectangle, then > Tools > Crop.
• You can also Rename the file, but I find that a very tedious way to do it.