Run MacTubes and search for a video. If you already have the URL, just enter it into the search box in the upper right corner of the program. If not, search for the kinds of videos you want. I entered the URL of a video I uploaded to YouTube and it found it without difficulty. I also tried searching for video by entering a search phrase and it returned what I was looking for on YouTube.

You can preview the videos from within MacTubes to make sure you found the right one. The included player has all the controls you would expect since it’s just a wrapper for the online video.

Right-click the video you want to download and a menu pops up.

From the pop-up menu you can play, search for other videos, add to a playlist of videos you wish to download, get the video’s information or download it. If you choose the Download option, the menu expands with all the available video formats. MacTubes won’t transcode the video but will download it in the available formats. In the example above the video had three formats available – flash video (FLV) or MPEG 4 (MP4). You can also choose between the two kinds of HD content (720p or 1080p).

Choose the video format you wish to download and MacTubes saves it by default to the desktop. You can change the locations in the Settings menu accessed from the MacTubes menu.

With MacTubes you can view the list of videos it finds in a list view with details or in a grid of thumbnails.

The program works well. I occasionally wish to show videos I’ve found online in my teaching at church or graduate school. This simplifies the process.

Download MacTubes for free.

How To Download YouTube Videos To Your Mac with MacTubes is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

I know your pain. Some keys just get in the way.

The solution to this problem is simple: re-map troublesome keys so they act like different ones or turn them off all together.

You don’t need to manually edit the registry or have a lot of technical expertise to do this. There’s a program for Windows that will do it for you no matter what kind of PC you have.

Here’s how to turn off or change any key’s behavior:

Step 1: Download SharpKeys 3.5, compatible with Windows 7 on down to Windows 2000, and install.

Step 2: Make a backup of your registry just in case.

Step 3: Open SharpKeys and click Add.

The left column shows a full list of keys on your computer. Choose the key you want to change here.

You can also click the Type Key button underneath to quickly add the key in question.

Step 4: In the right column is the same list of keys. This is where you’ll choose what the key does going forward.

You can change it to a more convenient key — for example, when using the IdeaPad U400 I changed the pesky Home key to Backspace just in case I miss the real Backspace key.

If you want the key to do nothing, choose Turn Key Off (first choice in the list).

Step 5: Hit OK.

To can re-map multiple keys, start again at Step 1.

Step 6: Once you’ve added all the keys you want to re-map or turn off, click Write To Registry.

Step 7: Reboot or log off for the changes to take effect.

Now those pesky keys you don’t need will no longer trouble you. And the process is reversible. Just go back to SharpKeys again to delete or change key re-maps.

How To Turn Off Or Change Troublesome Keys In Windows is a post by K. T. Bradford from Notebooks.com.

When copying or pasting text, most people select the text and then use the Edit menu and choose the Copy command or the Cut command. Then they move their cursor to the new place they want to place the text and again use the Edit menu to find Paste. You don’t have to do it that way. Let me show you some tips for turbocharging your Cut, Copy and Paste in some OS X apps.

These don’t work in every app. For example, a couple of these tips don’t work in Safari. They do work in the Text Edit program or in Microsoft Office applications.

The Basics

If you’re even a bit experienced in using OS X, then you can probably skip to the next section because this is for beginners.

These work in nearly all OS X applications. Instead of using the application’s Edit menu each time, try the toolbar buttons or use the right-click menu. Some apps have a button for cutting, copying and pasting on the toolbar, like Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac does (see below).

Click the scissor button to cut text. The button next to it copies text. The button with the clipboard behind the image of a document performs the paste function, but you knew this. You might not know about the right-click menu.

On a trackpad, click or tap with two fingers after selecting the text you want to cut or copy. If that doesn’t work you may need to set it up in Settings. Choose the Trackpad applet and then click the Point & Click tab. Put a check mark in Secondary Click to enable the two finger right-click. Now you can tap or click the trackpad with two fingers to bring up the right-click menu. If you don’t want to do this, then use the Control + Click combo.

The right-click menu pops up with the Cut or Copy commands at the top. You will also see that there are keyboard shortcuts. Command + X cuts the text. Command + C copies it. Cut will remove the text so you can place it in a new place, a new document or a different app. Copy leaves the text behind but lets you place a copy in the new place. Pasting is placing it in the new place. Use the edit menu, the brush button on the toolbar or the Paste command on the right-click menu. The keyboard shortcut for pasting is Command + V.

Selecting Non-contiguous Text

Let’s say you want to copy a sentence from three different paragraphs or maybe certain words in multiple sentences. You can just Copy and Paste over and over, but that gets monotonous if you have a bunch of text to copy. Instead use the Command + Select combo. You hold down the Command button while you select the text with your mouse or trackpad. Select the various sentences, phrases or words that you wish to copy or cut. After you select the text, then copy/cut the text and paste it wherever you wish.

You can use this to select words you wish to look up and create definitions for a study session. You can also cut sentences to make a study sheet. There are plenty of uses.

Select Contiguous Text

Selecting contiguous text by using the Shift key held down while dragging to select the text. You can also use the keyboard arrow keys. To select a whole line place the cursor before the text on the line and use Shift + Command + Right Arrow. Select text before your insertion point using the Left Arrow.

Select a Block of Text

It is possible that you want to select a block of text in the middle of a paragraph (see the image below).

To do this, hold down the Option key and the select the box of text with your mouse or trackpad. You might want to do this to quickly grab a bunch of random text from a document in Word. This doesn’t work in Safari for some reason.

Source: Cult of Mac

OS X Shortcuts for Cutting Copying and Pasting is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

[Please read How to Get the Most Out of Lion's Launchpad]

I’ve got a tip for you that includes involves blowing away all the icons with one single Terminal command and then adding back only the ones you want by dragging them from the Applications folder in Finder to your Launchpad icon in the Dock.

To start, open the Terminal app and enter the following command by copying it and then pasting it into Terminal:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db “DELETE from apps; DELETE from groups WHERE title<>”; DELETE from items WHERE rowid>2;”; Killall Dock

Now, all of your Launchpad icons will be gone. If this freaks you out and you want them all back, you can do so by entering the following Terminal command:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db; killall Dock

That reverses the action and puts them all right back to their default locations.

The next step is to add back the icons you want. Open the Applications folder and then select all the apps you do want back in Launchpad.

If you want certain apps in a folder, then do this step in parts. First, select the apps you want to have grouped into one folder in Launchpad by doing a Command + Click on each app icon in the Applications folder you want in your Launchpad folder. Then drag those onto the Launchpad icon in the Dock. To create the folder in Launchpad drag one icon onto another, which creates a folder. Keep dragging the other icons onto the folder to group them all into one folder. Now repeat this step to create another folder of icons. Keep doing it till you have all the apps you want in folders. The last group of icons dragged onto the Launchpad Dock icon will be those you don’t want in folders.

You now have a nicely grouped collection of icons in Launchpad, making it cleaner and easier to find your favorite apps. Now, if only you could launch Launchpad and use it as the default OS X interface.

Source: MacWorld

Quickly Clean Out and Organize OS X’s Launchpad is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

How DNS Works

A DNS, or Domain Name System, resolves Internet addresses and helps people find web pages based on names instead of numbers. It’s like as if, on a telephone, you could pick up and say, “Call Kevin Purcell” and it would automatically route the call to my home phone number so you didn’t have to know that phone number itself. A DNS is a computer that keeps track of webpage names like Notebooks.com, and routes your web browser to that page so that you don’t have to know the IP address of the computer that services up our page. Instead of typing four numbers with up to three digits each separated by periods (like 208.67.222.222) you can type the web page name.

Faster DNS Thanks to Location Info

The change made today includes adding location data to DNS requests so that the request routes the data through a server closer to your location. Most of the time the speed bump will be minimal, but on occasion it will be noticeable. So it routes the request to a closer source of that information. Which helps, since web pages are cached or saved on computers all over the Internet. If I click a link to a video playing on Vimeo, the new Google and OpenDNS servers know I’m in North Carolina. It sends the request to a server closer to my location, like Atlanta instead of New York or Chicago.

Routing Internet Traffic Through Closer Servers Speeds Things Up

How to Set Up a New DNS Address

If you want to take advantage of this, the best way would be to change the DNS numbers of your router. I use a Netgear router so I enter the IP address of the router, enter the login information and click on Basic Settings link along the left side of the page. In the section labelled “Domain Name Server (DNS) Address” I enter the new numbers. For OpenDNS you enter the two numbers as follows:

• 208.67.222.222
• 208.67.220.200

For Google’s Public DNS use the following numbers instead:

• 8.8.8.8
• 8.8.4.4

I click Save and reboot the router. From then on my router will bypass the Charter DNS server and use either OpenDNS or Google’s Public DNS servers.

In addition to a speed boost, the OpenDNS service includes:

• Parental Controls for Filtering Objectional Content
• Filtering of sites for security reasons
• Anti-fraud and anti-fishing
• Reliability of always on servers even if your ISP has trouble with theirs

If you sign up for the OpenDNS service, you can customize the filters. Maybe you don’t like your children looking at porn but want to access other sites that some find find objectionable but you don’t.

Google’s service doesn’t offer as many features, but may be faster for some users. Try them both out and after using them both, pick the one that seems to work best for your needs.

If you don’t have router, you can change the DNS numbers of your computer’s network connection. For Windows use their steps and for Mac use Apple’s guide. You can bypass the coffee shop’s slow servers if you change the settings directly on your laptop. This might also cause problems with a coffee shop’s log in system so be sure you remember how to change it back if necessary.

Source: Lifehacker

How to Speed Up Your Internet Connection with OpenDNS or Google Public DNS is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

While working with a program I learned that my preferences file for that app was corrupted and needed to be deleted. So much for Macs not needing that kind of under the hood help! That file, however, is hidden in one of the hidden folders – the Preferences folder in Library.

In Lion you need to unhide Library to get to folders like Preferences

Here is how to get back your Library folder in Lion.

1. Open the Terminal app
2. Type the following (without quotes) into Terminal or just cut and paste it from here: “chflags nohidden ~/Library/“
3. Log off your system by going to the Apple Menu in the upper right corner and choose Log Out ‘User Name’ where User Name is your name
4. Log in using your password and everything will be restored as it was when you logged out

When you log back into the system, you should now be able to go to your Home folder in Finder and see the Library folder. There are a lot of different folders there that might be useful to see, like the Preferences folder or the folder where Mail stores downloads. The Preferences folder contains all the .plist files that contain preferences for programs. They occasionally get corrupted and a tech support person for a software company might tell you to delete a .plist file, like Nuance did for me when I was having trouble with Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac while I was reviewing it.

How to Unhide the Library Folder in Lion’s Home Folder is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

Here are five tips to help you work in OS X like a pro, including two new Lion features AirDrop and Smart Magnify in Preview. We saved the new stuff for last so let’s get started with three features that have been a part of OSX for a while.

1. Launch Apps with Spotlight

Even if you put a lot of apps in your OS X Dock, you still have a lot more installed than will fit at the bottom of even the largest screen. You can always click on the Applications folder and scroll or swipe up or down to find your app. If you know the name, a faster way is to use spotlight to launch the app.

Most people think of Spotlight as a way to search their system. It is also a fast way to start a program. Click on the Spotlight icon in the upper right. It looks like a magnifying glass. Start typing the name of the application and a list will drop down. Click on the app name and it will launch.

As a bonus, don’t bother with the mouse or trackpad. Just engage Spotlight with the keyboard using COMMAND + Space. Type the first few letters of the app name. If it is not the first one on the list use your arrow keys to highlight it and hit enter.

2. Open Applications Folder with Keyboard

You can also launch applications by using the keyboard shortcut COMMAND + SHIFT + A when you are viewing your desktop. This will open the Applications folder in Finder. Now use the arrows to find the file and hit Enter to open it. If the application is nested in a folder inside the Applications folder the Enter key will open that folder. Then use it again to open the application.

This keyboard shortcut might not work when an application is open. For example, I use Mars Edit to create blog posts and this keyboard shortcut does something else in that app.

3. Setup Smart Folders to Quickly Access Certain Files

Create a Smart Folder if you want to quickly access all the files of one kind, like all PDF files on my system. Use following steps:

1. Open a new Finder window and click File, then New Smart Folder or use the keyboard shortcut COMMAND + OPTION + N.
2. Enter the search terms in the search field at the upper right corner of the window if needed. You could search for all files with the word “project” in the file name. In our example for all PDF files, leave it blank.
3. Narrow the scope by using the tiny plus sign in the upper right just below the search box.
4. Use the drop down boxes left of the box for changing the file types with options like kind of file, searching by date, name or contents. Click Other to define other attributes. There are dozens.
5. Narrow the search terms: depending on what attribute you select in the previous step, there will be another dropdown box. In our example of PDF files, we chose Kind so the dropdown box has file formats listed, and we can select PDF from the menu. You can choose things like JPG files, Music files or others.
6. Click Save in the upper right below the search box.
7. Give the folder a name and it will by default save itself in the Saved Searches folder and be added to the sidebar.
8. Uncheck or check Add to Sidebar depending on your preference.

As you can see below, we now have a new item in our Favorites list in Finder called PDF Files and it contains every PDF file on the computer.

You could use smart folders make a folder of all the JPG files, MP3 or other Music files, or all the files created in a date range. You can include broad categories of files such as the above examples, or as narrow as photos with specific photographic attributes like: aperture, or shutter speed. You could also save a list of music files with a specific length, which might be useful for finding the ringtones or quick voice memos.

4. Get Close Up with Smart Magnify in Lions’s Version of Preview

Speaking of working with PDFs or JPGs, Preview is a great way to quickly take a look at a file without opening slow apps like Photoshop, iPhoto or Acrobat. If you want to get in close on your photos because you want to see how blurry or sharp they are, or find out who that person is behind Uncle Joe in the family photo taken at your last reunion, use Smart Magnify. This is a new feature in OS X Lion.

After you have opened a file in Preview by double clicking it in Finder or by using the File, Open menu items in Preview, you can now use Smart Magnify. Start it up either by using the Tools menu and clicking Show Magnifier or use the Tilde key (upper left under the ESC key and left of the 1 key). This will zoom in only where your mouse cursor sits. You can move around the document or image by moving the cursor.

5. Share Files With the Lion’s New AirDrop

The new AirDrop folder in Finder offers a quick way to send files to another computer in your network. Below you will see that my MacBook Pro, represented by the icon at the bottom, and my MacBook Air, represented by the icon at the top, are the only two OS X machines on my network. It would be nice if either Microsoft or a third-party software maker created an AirDrop tool for Windows.

To quickly send a file to my Air I find the file in Finder and drag it and hold it over the AirDrop folder, which you see above in the left hand column of Favorites. This will open after I hold the file over the AirDrop folder with my mouse or trackpad. Then I can drag the file over the computer’s icon for my Air and the pop-up box in the image below appears.

The recipient will see a box like the one below and their Finder Dock icon will start to bounce notifying them of your intention to share a file. The person can click Save and Open, which will save the file to that machine’s drive and open the file in the default program related to that file format. For example, an image file will open in Preview if Preview is the default program for that kind of file. A Pages file will open in Pages and so forth. If the person clicks decline the sending machine will notify the sender. Click Save to keep the file without opening it.

OS X Lion’s New AirDrop and 4 Other Useful Tools is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

We will show you how to create your own installation DVD or USB Flash Drive. For now those are your only two options since Macs won’t boot from an SD card. In the case of the Flash Drive we will also show you how to put two partitions on one 8GB or larger flash drive so that you will also have all your Mac apps on the drive ready to install after you install the OS.

Why Make an Install Disk

Why would someone want to create an install disk instead of install Lion on top of their old OS X installation the way Apple wants? While it seems to work well in our experience, here are a few reasons to go through the trouble:

• Clean install of an OS is usually more stable
• Forces user to clear out old file and app clutter that is not used anymore saving drive space
• A future hard drive crash might leave you unable to install from the Mac App Store or the new Lion Recovery feature
• Your are a geek and trying technical stuff on a computer is fun

While the first two and last option are good reasons, the third is the most important. This is a backup plan so you don’t have to take your computer to Apple to fix it if the hard drive or SSD drive won’t boot anymore. A clean install usually fixes these kinds of problems.

What You Need

In order to do this you will need the OS X Lion installation file. If you already upgraded to Lion the install image is deleted by default and it is already too late. Some other sites have posted that you can re-download the file. But the only way to do that is on a system that doesn’t already have Lion installed. The only way to do this is to use your computer’s restore disk to reinstall Snow Leopard or an earlier version of OS X. Do this before you install Lion but after you download it from the Mac App Store.

You will need a USB flash drive of at least 5GB. We tried this with a 4GB drive and Disk Utility would not burn the Lion install image saying it was too small.

We chose a 16GB drive instead and created two partitions on it, one for Lion and one for our downloaded, non-Mac App Store apps. That way you have a single disk to restore your OS and your apps. Back those app files up though in case you lose your flash drive.

How to Create the Disk

1. Download Lion from the Mac App Store but don’t install it yet
2. Open the Applications folder and right-click on the Lion installer
3. Click Show Package Contents and find the InstallESD.dmg image file in the Contents, SharedSupport folder
4. Open Disk Utility in OS X and insert your Flash drive
5. Either open the image file from the File menu or drag it from a Finder window into the Disk Utility’s left hand column
6. For DVD insert your DVD and select the disk image and click the Burn button and when it is finished skip to step 16
7. For Flash Drive click on the drive listed in the left hand column of Disk Utility and select the Partition tab
8. For 2 partitions like we did, then under Partition Layout: choose 2 Partitions
9. For 1 partition making the whole USB drive an install dive under Partition Layout: choose 1 Partition
10. If you want two partitions, then below the Partition Layout drop down is a visual representation of your layout – drag the slider up or down till it shows about 5GB or enter it manually in the Size box to the right – note: the Lion image file is about 4GB but needs room to expand
11. Give each partition a name and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
12. Click Apply
13. After previous step finished choose the Restore tab and in the Source box drag the Lion install image from the left hand window
14. Drag the USB partition you set up in step 9 to the Destination box and click Restore to make it burn the Lion image
15. When complete put all the app files you want to install on the non-Lion install partition of the flash disk
16. Insert the Flash Drive or DVD drive into the Mac you wish to install Lion on
17. Boot the machine holding down the option key
18. Choose Mac OS X Install ESD from the optional disk to boot from when they appear – note the end of the disk name is cut off on some monitors
19. Follow the installation instructions on-screen
20. Reboot when it is finished and now you can install your apps from the Flash Drive if you created one

Be sure to save this USB drive and as we said before make sure you have a backup of the downloaded apps on the second partition, if you go that route.

How to Make a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion USB or DVD Install Disk is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

Introduced in Windows Vista, this new experience focused on providing an elegant user experience for the Windows environment. Most modern systems can run Aero, but older systems can struggle to keep up with the graphical demands of Aero, resulting in a slower computer.

The best thing to do in such scenarios is to turn off the Windows Aero Glass theme. Doing this is very simple, just right-click your Desktop then click Personalize

Turning off Aero

This will open the Personalize Control Panel item which includes a variety of tools and options for customizing your Windows user experience.

Windows 7 Personalize Settings

Windows 7 includes three types of themes: Aero Glass, Basic and High Contrast themes. Aero Glass is the premier theme that includes effects such as semi-transparency of window border along with the ability to utilize desktop effects such as Aero Peek, Snaps, Taskbar Thumbnail Previews and others such as Flip 3D. Aero Glass requires that you have a GPU (graphical processing unit otherwise known as your video card) powerful enough to compose the desktop. To run Aero Glass, you need a video card that supports DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver.

If you don’t meet the requirements to run Aero Glass, it doesn’t necessarily mean you cannot run Windows 7. Many older computers work just fine with the Windows Aero Basic theme which provides some of the features of Windows 7, but not the more visually stunning aspects such as the semi-transparency.

If your computer is capable of running Windows 7 Aero Glass, but performs slow, you can turn off some visual embellishments to improve the speed of the interface. To do this, click Start, type: Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows

Hit Enter on your keyboard

Adjust performance in Windows 7

Select the Visual Effects tab

Here you will see a number of options available for you to choose from. You have Windows choose the best experience or you adjust according your hardware capabilities. You can even select the Custom option and uncheck options that can give you more speed while still enjoying the benefits of the Aero Glass user experience.

Additional Resources

Making Windows 7 Your Own: Personalization and Themes

How to Turn off Windows Aero: To Speed Up Windows 7 is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

How to Check if Your Mac Malware Definitions Are Up To Date

First, check to see if you are up to date by opening Terminal. Paste the following command into the Terminal box.

more /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/XProtect.meta.plist

You will see a date. We posted this on June 3 so, as you can see above, we have the latest version of the definitions file. If yours is anything older than today’s date, then you will want to move on to the next step.

How To Force Your Mac to Update Malware Definitions

Open System Preferences and go to the Security preferences.

If the options are grayed out click on the lock icon to allow changes. You will likely have to enter your user password.

Find the item that says “Automatically update safe downloads list” and uncheck it and then check it again. If it is already unchecked then just check it. This should force the system to download the newest definitions file. You will have to be connected to the Internet before doing this for it to work.

To ensure that you have the latest version of the definitions file, repeat the first step in the previous section by pasting the command into Terminal. It should show the current date.

Via MacWorld

How To Force Your Mac to Update Malware Definitions is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.