Math Cartoons

November 30, 2009 by dmacnet

Here are a couple of cartoons I drew in April, 1987 for the St. Olaf College Math Department newsletter, the Math Mess. I have no idea what software I drew them with.

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Pasting Plain Text

September 18, 2009 by dmacnet

When I copy text on a computer, most often I want to paste it without the accompanying formatting. On both MacOS X and Windows, there is no built-in way to do this that works in all applications. After trying several approaches, I found freeware solutions that provide a hotkey for that missing function.

Mac (tested on 10.6 Snow Leopard):

  1. Download Spark and the Plain Clip Plug for Spark (I couldn’t get the regular Plain Clip application to do the paste part, so I had to use the special Spark plugin version).
  2. Open the Spark disk image and drag Spark to your Applications folder.
  3. Create the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Spark/PlugIns
  4. Open the Plain Clip Plug disk image and drag Plain Clip Plug.spact to the ~/Library/Application Support/Spark/PlugIns folder.
  5. Double-click Applications/Spark to run it.
  6. The first time Spark runs, it shows a screen including two checkboxes, to activate Spark at login and immediately. Leave them checked.
  7. File>New HotKey>Plain Clip
  8. Type a name for the hotkey (such as “Paste Plain Text”), check the Send Command-V keystroke box, and click on the Shortcut box and press Command-Option-v (or whatever key you want to be the shortcut).
  9. Click Create
  10. Now Command-Option-v pastes the clipboard as plain text.

Windows (tested on Windows XP and 7 RC):

  1. Download PureText
  2. Unzip PureText by right-clicking on the Zip file and selecting Extract All
  3. Create the folder C:\Program Files\PureText
  4. Copy PureText.exe to C:\Program Files\PureText
  5. Double-click C:\Program Files\PureText\PureText.exe to run it. It opens as an icon in the system tray.
  6. Right-click the PT icon in the system tray and select Options.
  7. Check the box Automatically run PureText each time I log on to Windows, uncheck Play a sound, and click OK.
  8. Now Windows-v pastes the clipboard as plain text.

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iDVD Tips

August 11, 2009 by dmacnet

For authoring a DVD of home movies, my preferred program is currently iDVD 7, which is part of iLife 08 and 09. It’s a pretty easy way to get attractive menus, but it does have some annoying limitations and bugs. Here are some tips for using it.

  • If possible, use Professional Quality (2-pass VBR) in the Project Info. If you have time to wait, you might as well get the highest quality encoding. For details on the iDVD encoding options, see What iDVD ‘08 Compression Options Really Mean and Review: iDVD ‘08 and iDVD 7.
  • Turn off the Apple watermark in Preferences.
  • Use a menu without fancy animation. The default menu in iDVD 7 can take longer to encode than the movies do.
  • Turn off the menu sound for each menu by turning the volume slider in the Inspector box down all the way. Menu sound is annoying.
  • Preview the DVD to make sure it looks the way you want.
  • If you mix 4:3 and 16:9 videos on one DVD, iDVD will probably mix up some of the aspect ratios. To fix the aspect ratios:
    1. Save as a VIDEO_TS folder in iDVD.
    2. Use myDVDEdit to check and fix the aspect ratio in each VTS (either 4:3 or 16:9 auto Pan&Scan and Letterbox).
    3. Burn the VIDEO_TS folder with Burn.
  • To include videos that are already encoded as DVD-compliant MPEG2 in an iDVD project (assuming they don’t need chapters):
    1. If the you have an MPG file or a VOB with no IFO, demux and remux as needed to make a VOB and IFO, using a program such as ffmpegX.
    2. Include a short dummy video in the iDVD project as a placeholder.
    3. Save as a VIDEO_TS folder in iDVD.
    4. Duplicate the VIDEO_TS folder in Finder.
    5. Open myDVDEdit on the VIDEO_TS folder to figure out which VTS number each placeholder video is.
    6. Replace each placeholder VOB and its IFO and BAK files with the real ones in the duplicate VIDEO_TS folder using the Finder (renumber their file names as necessary).
    7. Open both the unmodified and modified VIDEO_TS folders in myDVDEdit. myDVDEdit will probably report and fix some errors in the modified folder; that’s normal and good.
    8. Make new empty PGCs in the menus as needed to make the same number as in the iDVD-authored IFO.
    9. Use Select All with copy and paste to copy the iDVD menu navigation pre and post commands from the iDVD-authored placeholder menu PGCs to the replacement video.
    10. Play the VIDEO_TS folder with both VLC and Apple DVD Player. While playing the video you replaced, make sure the sound, seek bar, and Menu button work.
    11. Burn the VIDEO_TS folder with Burn.

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