I often use thumb drives or external hard drives for transferring data from one computer to another – especially at work when I need to give a client many drawings and documents, or giving a friend a bunch of photographs from an event. Who doesn’t?

Note: when I refer to Disk, Drive or Volume – they all mean the same thing, and apply to thumb-drives, memory cards, external hard drives etc.

Some Mac OSX Trash 101 basics

When transferred I want to remove the files from the thumb drive / external hard drive to clean it up. Most (experienced) Mac OSX users will know that when you delete the files on an external drive it places them in a trash folder on the disk itself, and that this trash remains, getting bigger and bigger, taking up space on your external drive until you empty it.

If you empty your trash on your Mac without this hard drive connected – it doesn’t empty the trash on the external drive. Plug it in again and it’s still there.

If you empty your trash on you Mac with any external drive attached, it will empty the trash on all attached volumes/drives/disks.

 

But I want to only empty the trash on my external drive without touching my Mac’s hard drive trash

I like my trash, at least for a short period of time. It’s that just-in-case thing in addition to my TimeMachine backup. I certainly empty it regularly (a good habit), but I don’t want to have to empty it every time I eject a temporary thumb drive.

There are some pains third party applications for managing such things, but I was given this simple solution that does exactly what I want it to. I sourced this answer when asking the question on the Apple Discussion board, many thanks to Jacques Rioux.

It involves creating a simple script, using your built- in “AppleScript Editor” (look in Utilities). Just create a new file, and copy and paste the following code into it. Then Save As an “Application”.

To use, simply drag your Volume/Drive onto the icon or alias of this application you’ve just created.

So here is the code for two different options, where the second one ejects the disk as well as emptying its trash.

Note these scripts remove the items from your trash (your user ID) folder on the volume. If other users use the volume this script will not delete the items from their trash folder, otherwise the script would need an administrator password to do that.

Empty Trash on a Specific disk/drive

on open these_volumes
    set t_id to user ID of (system info)
    repeat with i in these_volumes
        if (kind of (info for i without size)) is "Volume" then
           set tPath to (POSIX path of i) & ".Trashes/" & t_id
           do shell script "/bin/rm -Rf  " & (quoted form of tPath) & "/*"
        end if
    end repeat
end open

Empty Trash on Specific Disk/Drive, then Eject it

on open these_volumes
    set t_id to user ID of (system info)
    set volToEject to {}
    repeat with i in these_volumes
        if (kind of (info for i without size)) is "Volume" then
           set tPath to (POSIX path of i) & ".Trashes/" & t_id
           do shell script "/bin/rm -Rf  " & (quoted form of tPath) & "/*"
           set end of volToEject to contents of i
        end if 
    end repeat
    if volToEject is not {} then tell application "Finder" to eject volToEject
end open
 

AirPlay Mirroring on Apple TV

Many Mac fans will know from the recent Apple Keynote speech at the 2012 WWDC, of the impending release of OSX10.7 Mountain Lion and it’s ability to match the iPad 2 (or later) and iPhone 4S’ capability to mirror their screen on an Apple TV via AirPlay. This will be great once it is released later this year.

Mac OSX Snow Leopard & Lion on Apple TV

You may not be aware that there is way to do this right now and with OSX 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or greater:

AirParrot

With AirParrot, Apple TV and a Mac you can:

  • Mirror your any Screen
  • Extend your desktop to use as second/third screen
  • Stream a single App full screen
  • Audio Streaming
  • Supports 1080p for third generation Apple TVs

It works great. The trial version works for 20 minutes then you have to restart, so you can fully test it out before purchasing, but it is not expensive! As it works over your wireless network and is transferring a lot of data there is some lag so it’s not for fast gaming use, but it is perfect for many other uses.

Windows XP or greater on Apple TV

And guess what? There is also a solution for the Windows users out there, even as far back as old XP:

AirParrot

That’s right, AirParrot has a Windows version too.

It is currently limited compared to the Mac version, but it still can:

  • Mirror your Screen
  • Audio Streaming
  • Supports 1080p for third generation Apple TVs

We needed this for our work to show/present on a big TV in the meeting room. We have a mix of Windows and Macs in the office so needed a solution to work for both. This is the reason why I’m posting this here as it took me quite a bit of searching to find a good wireless solution for Windows. Try searching for “Wireless Windows Desktop Mirroring TV” in Google and see how easily you can pick it up (without knowing in advance that AirParrot works for Windows or including “Apple TV” in your search). That is why I’ve titled this post to include “Windows” to hopefully make it easier for people to find…

Other Wireless Windows solutions

There are other reasonably priced options for Windows to connect to your TV. These all require a Dongle as opposed to installing software and using your current wireless network – which has its advantages and disadvantages. e.g. Some may work quicker / have less lag as it is using its own wireless link rather than through your wireless network (check reviews of products – I’ve not tested anything).

None of these have the other features available with an Apple TV, features which will increase/improve with software updates, and they won’t work with an iPad/iPhone. Software updates and additional further features of these products below are unlikely – (see commend under Veebeam one!)

Warpia

Warpia Various products that can stream by use of a USB or HDMI port Dongle like the StreemEZ. USB versions don’t support Mac

Veebeam HD

USB dongle, also support Mac but only up to Snow Leopard, 10.6. They literally can’t be bothered to update and deal with Lion or Mountain Lion, and amusingly even go as far as to recommend in a sad little FAQ:

“you do not upgrade to Lion”

“installing Lion on your Mac as a separate partition”

“if you have already upgraded to Lion, you can make a new partition and re-install Mac OS X 10.6 so that you can then run Veebeam”

Other Solutions

I’ve not reviewed or checked many other solutions or more expensive ones (i.e. > $150). Some weren’t worth mentioning, especially if they didn’t support Full HD. However I certainly appreciate any comments or suggestions of other options for future readers of this post.

 

Some fun message tones to enjoy on your iPhone I have been enjoying various message ringtones on my iPhone recently – very happy that iOS5 finally brought customisable message tones into the mix. I don’t like many funny phone call ringtones, but message tones can be great as they are short, sweet, and you don’t have to pick up your phone or take it out of your pocket when one goes off. There have been many amusing incidents during the last few months, when in a serious conversation at work, an important meeting, out to lunch with friends or even just [read more...]

 

Today Google announced they are killing off Wave. Finally. Adobe Flash for mobile id dead. Finally. I thought it was abut time I reviewed my year old Say Goodbye post to see what has changed since and what’s the state of play now. That post was (when written) going to be my last post, but – as I said things come and go in waves…

 

Apple doesn’t support iCloud on Windows XP, however…. Apple’s iCloud Control Panel for Windows clearly states its minimum requirements are Microsoft Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7 (and for good reason I think, see below…). If you try to install it on Windows XP you get a message saying it won’t work on that version. Some people are stuck on XP for various reasons. For me, my work place is very slow or reluctant to upgrade, sadly. I see on various posts about iCloud and Windows XP the (pointless) discussion going on about – well you should simply upgrade Windows! You [read more...]

 

Walkman – Pilot As new technology is developed we say often say goodbye to the old, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes with fond memoires. Most recently but not surprisingly, the original Sony Walkman hit the dust. I was more surprised to find out it was still being manufactured up until now! I’ve still got one sitting somewhere of course, along side an original Sony Minidisc player. The 1/4″ floppy stopped being manufactured this year (a fantastic ice scraper for your car btw). Being a hoarder I’ve got quite a few things sitting around, including one of the the first real touch screen devices, [read more...]

 

Further to my previous post on flavors.me, which is a brilliantly simple yet effective concept to gather up your many profiles and persona, and present yourself on the web (read more detail in previous post if you don’t know about it) – They’ve just updated the service with some key improvements that us users had asked for: They’ve acquired the domain flavours.me which now mirrors everything at flavors.me – excellent for us British English speaking users It no longer runs on Flash – so now iPhone and iPad browsers can view sites They’ve improved their customer support over on Get Satisfaction [read more...]

 

The world’s first road legal flying car! I’ve been watching Parajet’s Skycar development since January ’09 when I heard about what the flying car they had developed and their planned expedition to fly from London to Tombouctou, on Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 Show Podcast. Back then they were testing it out and preparing for the expedition. It was mentioned on the show, a few key things that immediately caught my undivided attention: To fly it you only needed a Paragliding licence The car would be fully roadworthy to drive around town It takes about 3 minutes to self launch the [read more...]

 

UPDATED October 2011 & again June 2012 SugarSync now rules… SugarSync is now, by far my favourite for online cloud storage and syncing files. Great new features on iPhone App, and excellent support and updates. They also give you 5Gb free to start with. I’ve also just installed and used their Outlook add-in which makes emailing big files a sinch. Zumodrive is no longer active after purchase by Motorolla (who are owned by Google), and has changed to MotoCast. I’ve not tried it so have no opinion on the product, except that it doesn’t look like it would be useful for me. [read more...]

 

I have been a fan of Cooliris since it’s first release as PicLens in 2007, and it just keeps getting better. It’s a fantastic must have plug in for your browser, that is designed to present your photos and other media as an interactive 3D wall, easy, intuitive, fun and a delight to navigate around. Initially it was for photos and linked with Facebook, Flickr and Picasa sites to view albums there. Now it includes movies and other media and is also available for your iPhone (stating its “The best way to enjoy media on iPhone” – and I agree) or [read more...]

© 2011 xlii Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha