Maya is great, it can handle all of them CG’s that are so popular now a’days. What isn’t so great is that due to it’s fancy pants nature, it can crash at very inopportune times leaving you with your hopes crushed and tears streaming down your face. . .

Luckily, Maya does store recovery .ma files on every operating system that it is available for, on the Mac they are stored in a hidden folder (/private/var/folders/), and in those hidden folders are folders that a normal human doesn’t really understand.

However, it is very easy to set up a search that will indeed search these hidden folders for .MA files, allowing you to easily find your latest recovery data.

I quickly made a saved search (smart folder) that anyone can use to quickly access this default recovery location:


Maya Recover Smart Search
(1kb .zip file)
[Mac OS X 10.5+ if you are using 10.4 you are kidding yourself)

Just unzip the file, and place it in a easy to find directory (I recommend the default Maya directory in your User/Documents/maya folder, so it is always easy to find). I don't care how cool you are, if you have used a 3D app, it has crashed on you before, and you have shed a tear. If you try this out leave me a comment.

UPDATE: This will-not always work 100%, sometimes it can miss some temp files, because it doesn't always search the entire nested directories, so if you aren't seeing it, another method is to go to a Finder window press Cmd+Shift+G, and type /private/var/folders/ and press return. In that "folders" folder is a bunch of arbitrarily named folders, in one of those there should be a -Tmp- folder that will likely have some .ma recent recovery files.

[andoru.labs]

User Friendly:

Not very Friendly at all:

Do you like having your Finder and Application windows organized in a specific way? Or maybe you spend a lot of time re-positioning your windows to specific locations when they are moved around.

Well this app I developed called “layout” can turn all of that time spent re-organizing your windows into a simple one-click process.

Here is a video explaining exactly how it works and how to set it up to fit your own setup:

Download full 1440×900 video
[98.23.mb Quicktime .mov]

Included in the package is an Instructions file for reference on getting your own configuration working.

Download:

[UPDATE]: layout 1.0 now available, fixes and changes include:
-Will now check to see which Finder windows and Apps are open and run accordingly. Won't open every listed app to re-position it, will only position the currently open Applications.
-Finder is now setup to make your default layout if no windows are detected.

layout 1.0
(63kb .zip file)

layout is a set of 2 apps, one “Get Sizes” to find the position of your application windows, and “layout” to reset them to this default position. The setup is pretty simple, just open all of the apps you would like specifically positioned, maybe Firefox, iTunes, and others. Then, run Get Sizes SETUP to configure the Get Sizes app to fit your specific setup. Run layout SETUP to configure your particular version of layout, then simply drag your version of the “layout” app, to your finder toolbar, or where you would like it.

Feel free to leave a comment (donation) on this post if you have any issues or questions. And let me know what you think. Enjoy, or ignore and move on. I promise it is worth it.

[App originally based off idea and scripts developd by "francodecoyo" of MacThemes, and reworked and completely re-scripted by me]

If you use Firefox, you should use this, plain and simple, best extension ever created. Basically allows you to do things quickly and easily by typing them in English. Too amazing for words, just watch, and try it out.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

[ubiquity]

I would have killed to have something like this in elementary school. I am completely blown away at how quickly they are able to continue to add more and more content.

Included in the new version is underwater and ocean tours, going back in time!, and many more incredible additions. You are crazy if you don’t check out the newest update.

Definitely check out Cousteau Ocean World!

And just to continue with the theme of Google being awesome, STOP MOTION! Google Japan’s Chrome Design animation, death to useless icons!

(Make sure to check it out in HD!)

Oh and don’t forget about Mars:

[Google Earth]
[Google Earth Blog]
[Cousteau.org]

Google makes many cool things, some of the best are all of there different web applications. The coolest thing about them now is that they are nearly all very accessible offline as well. Meaning you can still read your email without an internet connection, check your RSS feeds, as well as create documents and many other things. This is possible because of Gears, and its implementation is excellent, if you are on the go without a conneciton and create an email, it will be sent as soon as you have a connection again, just like an email App like Mail, or Outlook, or whatever, but with the nice features that Gmail offers. And the same goes for all of their other web apps as well.

So the main problem here is that having all of these apps just opened up in different tabs in Safari or Firefox is pretty annoying and a little difficult to manage, as well as really eating up your computers resources. A great solution to this is to make Stand-Alone WebApps, or SiteSpecificBrowsers (SSB’s) to manage each specific App. That way everything is more logical, to look at your email you open the email app, RSS feeds open up Google Reader, Docs, etc.

So how do you make these SSB’s? The best method I have found is by using an App called Fluid. You basically just type in the url you would like to create an App for and let it work its magic. It is very easy to do and customize on your own, so you can definitely do this on your own. But if you like you are more than welcome to just use the Apps I have already created for Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Docs, all with nice looking icons:

Google Stand-Alone Apps

You will have to adjust your own preferences and things, just the same way you would with an other Application. Also, I would make sure to just use the App for what it is intended for, and let it open up other links in your default web browser, it just makes a lot more sense and is much less confusing that way.

Also something cool to mention, when you are reading things in Google Reader, make sure to Star and Share items (S & Shift+S Respectively) and then you can use your Shared Feed to let others see what you are finding interesting. You can check out my Shared Items on the right column of this site. This is great because you can easily find great new sites this way and discover content you may have never come across. It is basically each persons filter of the web.

Definitely let me know if any of you setup a Shared Feed, as I know there are a few that are already using Google Reader. Feel free to post your feed link in the comments.

I am absolutely terrible at keeping track of my spending, I really didn’t have a simple and quick method.

Now, however, I have discovered an incredibly user friendly and efficient way of doing just that, all using Google Docs, so it will always be available from anywhere with Internet access. Google makes it EVEN cooler with access to all these things Offline as well meaning as long as the info has been recently synced up, you can check your balance spreadsheet, email, etc. without an internet connection, using Google Gears.

Here is my new gameplan:

I followed a Doc written up by Nick Espinosa, that allows be to access the Form to Add a Transaction or Deposit in many different ways, the main one being right from my email Account, other include a simple bookmark, etc. You could even do this with an Internet capable phone (iPhone, I wouldn’t recommend the others). So basically whenever you spend some $, you simply open up the form, fill out the info, press Add and the data will be sent to your Google Docs Spending Report spreadsheet, which you can also access easily from Gmail, or just a simple Bookmark, to checkout your total Balance, or really do what ever you want with it.

You could even make Pie charts of the different categories of your spending, or a line graph to watch how the amount of money you have is falling drastically. . .

Anyway, it is fantastic, I highly recommend trying it out. And for those not using Gmail already, come on already, it is not that tough to switch your email address, and it is definitely worth it.

Also I can email anyone the link the the Google Docs template from my own account so they can use it as reference as well. The part that will take the longest is creating your own custom form that you will use to add data to your spreadsheet. So worth the 10 minutes it took.

[LIFEHACKER)