Not all Mac Gems are full - have products ; some just do one or two round-eyed thing really well . Today I get across a few of these utility program .
Better Boot Camp switching
Apple’sBoot Camp , which permit you campaign Windows on an Intel Mac , is very cool technology . However , unlike solutions that let you take to the woods Windows while booted in Mac OS X , Boot Camp requires you to restart the Mac and bang into Windows as if you were using any other Windows PC .
Kevin Wojniak has made that re-start process ever - so - easier , and more convenient , withBootChamp 0.1(free ) . Launch BootChamp and after entering your admin - level account countersign , your Mac will restart into Windows .
What ’s so commodious about this ? Two things . First , you do n’t have to start the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences and change the startup magnetic disc to your Windows partition , or hold down the choice key at startup and wait for bootable volumes to come along ; home BootChamp in the Dock , for example , and booting into Windows is just a click away . secondly , when using BootChamp , your prescribed startup magnetic disk remains unchanged ; the next metre you resume after using Windows , you ’ll boot back into OS X without any interference on your part .
Caveats : your Boot Camp partition must be format as NTFS and mounted when you found BootChamp . And I have n’t been able to try it to see what would happen if you somehow havemultipleBoot Camp ( Windows ) partitions or volumes on your Mac .
Better screen inversion
I know a identification number of people who apply OS X ’s built - in CRT screen - inversion feature article , which give your screenland an instant photonegative - like ( white on calamitous instead of fateful on clean ) makeover . Available via the Seeing screen of the Universal Access Lucy in the sky with diamonds of System Preferences , this feature film is designed to make object on the screen easier to understand for those with difficulty seeing . But it can also be utilitarian for using your laptop in dim lighting ( or total shadow ) , since there ’s less contrast between the screen and environ light , and for record text , since ashen text on black offers less glare than black text on blank .
you’re able to use Nocturne ’s extra options independently , so you’re able to switch to monochrome mode , or use the tint lineament , without inverting your display .
Unfortunately , Nocturne does n’t always work on as ask with multiple displays . For example , the Tint and Hide Desktop alternative lend oneself only to the display on which the Nocturne window is locate ; to get them to lick on a different display , you need to move the Nocturne windowpane to that video display and then set them again . And I wish well you could configure sets of setting for quick shift , instead of having to manually check every option each meter . Still , Nocturne is a nifty tool ; I ’ve found it especially useful when using my MacBook Pro at night .
Do not disturb
Apple ’s laptops are configured to automatically wake from nap mode when you start the concealment . This is normally a utile characteristic ; pop enter the chapeau and you ’re up and run in a few second . But there are times when thisisn’tthe honest frame-up . For example , more than a few laptop computer users have give their bag only to feel their battery beat and their laptop scorchingly hot ; turns out the notebook computer got jostled around in the base and the screen give just enough for the computing machine to waken up on its own . ( This can fall out with MacBooks , which do n’t have a strong-arm latch , but it can also happen with PowerBooks and MacBook Pros , specially old models with latch that have loosened up over metre . )
iLid is n’t doing anything you could n’t do yourself with a wide-eyed command in Terminal . ( Specifically ,
Both Nocturne and iLid require Mac OS X 10.4 and are Universal Binaries . BootChamp requires Mac OS X 10.4 , Boot Camp , and an Intel Mac .
