Category Archives: Pre-2022 content

Old, poorly-written things from before 2022

Pre-2022 content, Uncategorized

Get a Windows-Style Trash icon on your Mac’s desktop

 Are you a Mac user? Of course you are, you’re reading this. Did you come over from Windows and are having trouble adjusting to macOS? Or do you just like the idea of a Trash icon on your desktop? It doesn’t matter. Whatever your reason, there’s a way to get Trash on your desktop. And it’s not even that hard. 

Notice that there is one bug with this implementation. That bug is that whenever you drag anything onto the icon, while it will be deleted, this will also automatically open the Trash folder in Finder. However, I find that just a minor annoyance, and if you would like, you can add a confirmation dialog here. Anyhow, without further ado, here’s what you do!

  1. Start by opening the Automator app on your Mac 💻 . If you don’t know where this is, just hit ⌘+Space to search for it. 
  2. In the New Document confirmation, select “Application” and hit create. 
  3. Now find the item “Move Finder Items to Trash” and drag it into the workspace. If you only want the item to delete items, skip to step 10. If you want double-clicking the icon to open the Trash 🗑 folder 📁 as well, continue.
  4. Now drag both “Get specified Finder Items” and “Open Finder Items” into the workspace. 
  5. In “Get specified Finder Items”, if any defaults were inserted, remove them. 
  6. Now open a Finder window anywhere on the desktop and hit ⌘+Shift+G. 
  7. Here, type ~/.Trash and hit enter.
  8. Now grab the Folder proxy icon from the top of the Finder window and drag it into the “Get specified Finder items” area. Now your workspace will look like this:  
     *Blurry screenshot, apologies 🙁

  9. Also, if you want to display a confirmation dialog before opening the Trash folder 📂 , find and insert the Ask for Confirmation box into the workspace before the “Open Finder Items” action. Add whatever text you want.
  10. Now, in the menubar, click “File” and then “Export”. In the “Export as” box, you will probably want to type “Trash”, although you can name it whatever you want. Location should be “Desktop”. Once you’ve confirmed these settings, hit Save. 
  11. Now, if you want the icon to look like a Trash can 🗑 , find any icon you like online and use it. Use this tutorial to change the icon. 
  12. You’re done!

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Pre-2022 content, Uncategorized

Open files in Quick Look instead of full applications in macOS

    Are you a Mac user? Do you LOVE the Quick Look feature because it’s a lightweight way to open a file without a full application? But maybe you wish that when you double-click a file, it opens in Quick Look instead of in Preview or Microsoft Word or whatever. It’s actually a lot easier to do this than you might think. Then again, it’s not super easy, either.


Set up the App

    You ARE installing an app when you do this. But don’t worry – you don’t need to download a single file for this. Just follow these simple directions to quickly build the app yourself! 

    First, hit ⌘+Space. Now type “Script Editor” into Spotlight and hit Return on your keyboard. You’ve now opened Script Editor, where you’ll be creating this script. 

    Type (or Copy and Paste) the following into the window: 

on run

set this_application_file to the path to me

tell application “System Events”

set this_version to (the short version of this_application_file) as string

end tell

set the dialog_title to application_name & space & “v” & this_version

activate

display dialog “Open a file with this app or drop it onto this Dock icon to show it in Quick Look” buttons {“Cool”} default button 1 with icon 1 with title dialog_title

end run

on open these_items

set these_paths to “”

repeat with i from 1 to the count of these_items

set these_paths to these_paths & space & (the quoted form of the POSIX path of (item i of these_items))

end repeat

do shell script “qlmanage -p ” & these_paths & ” >& /dev/null”

end open


    Now, hit ⌘+S. In the following dialog, make sure everything looks EXACTLY like this: 

    Now click Save to continue. Do you want files to open in Quick Look instead of their default application? Or do you just want a way to show a file in Quick Look as if it’s an app?


    Before continuing, I assume you’ll want to give this app a better looking icon. That’s up to you. If you want to, I’m sure you can figure out how. However, if you can’t, here’s a tutorial on how to change a Mac App’s icon. 

Pin to Dock 

    To pin your app to the Mac’s Dock, open your Mac’s Applications folder. Hit ⌘+F, select “Applications”, and search for “Quick Look”. Find the one you think is right. Drag it onto the Dock. Whenever you want to view a file in Quick Look, you now have the option to drag it onto an icon in your Dock to view it in Quick Look. 

Set default app to Quick Look

    If you want a particular file type to always open in a lightweight Quick Look viewer instead of, say, the full-fledged and unnecessarily weighty Preview application, here’s how. 

    First, find the file type that you’re looking for, in this case JPG Images. Highlight it using your cursor, and then hit ⌘+I. Then, in the Open with section, open the dropdown, the click “Other”. Hit ⌘+F again. Search for “Quick Look”. Click the little applet we made earlier and click “Add”. 

    To set all files of this type to open in Quick Look, just hit the Change All button. And that’s all there is to it! 

   


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Pre-2022 content, Uncategorized

How to Install Microsoft Office on a Chromebook

In this post, we’ll be covering how to install Microsoft Office on a Chromebook as a Progressive Web App. Before you get started, we should mention that it’ll feel like a Microsoft Office desktop experience… right up to the moment you actually open a file. Then it’ll just open it in a new Chrome tab. Microsoft very recently disabled the Microsoft Office Android Apps from working on Chromebooks. Microsoft really wants you using Office for the Web on Chromebooks. But, without further ado, let’s dive into it! 

Just watch the video below to see me install Microsoft Office on a Chromebook. The video will also show me using the app a little, and displaying some things you can do with it. Alternatively, I’ve provided written instructions beneath the video. 

First, open a new Chrome tab, and navigate to the URL “https://office.com“. 

Now, click “sign in” and sign in to your Microsoft Account. If you don’t already have an account, click “Sign up for the free version of Office” and create your Microsoft Account. Once you’ve logged in, you should see the Office Portal. Now, wait for about 20 seconds, then look for this icon in your URL Bar: 

If it shows up, click it, and in the following dialog, click install.  

If it does not, click the three dots button, and select the following option from the list: 

In the following Dialog box, select the following options:

 

And then you are done, and Office should be installed on your Chromebook!

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Pre-2022 content, Uncategorized

Windows 11 Announced by Microsoft

June 24th has come and gone. Thankfully, Microsoft has fulfilled upon its promise of details regarding the upcoming version of the Windows Operating System. The cancelled Windows 10X, and Windows 10 Sun Valley projects, have been replaced by Windows 11. The day before the announcement, I had the happy opportunity to try out the leaked build in a Virtual Machine. Here’s Microsoft’s YouTube video introducing Windows 11:


And here’s a 60-second summary of the June 24th Event, also released by Microsoft.


Here are the main points to remember:


All-new appearance

The appearance of Windows 11 resembles a cross between Windows 10X and the Sun Valley interface, with maybe one or two whole new things showing up. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable difference is that the Start button and Taskbar icons are now positioned at the center, rather than the left hand side. Don’t worry… you can change this back if you like. There’s also a widgets flyout, all-new themes, and a few of the apps have been totally redesigned.

New Microsoft Store

There’s going to be an all-new Microsoft Store on Windows 11 – with Android Apps as well. Yes, Android Apps on Windows 11, through the Amazon Appstore, which brings apps like TikTok and Kindle to Windows! That’s not all, though: Microsoft is going to allow app developers to use their own commerce engines within the Microsoft Store – and if they use the Microsoft Commerce Engine, Microsoft will only take a 15% cut from their profit, compared to Apple’s 30%. If a developer uses their own commerce engine, Microsoft takes 0%! Another important thing to note is that now, Win32 apps can also be distributed through the store. Microsoft, at the event, did flash Zoom showing up in the store for a second, so that’s rather exciting!

MS Teams integration

This one hasn’t showed up in the Insider Preview build yet, but based on the released information, it looks like there’s going to be a videochat icon on the taskbar which will allow you to instantly chat or meet with your Teams contacts. For Microsoft, this is a very strategic way to get lots of people to use Microsoft Teams.

Here are a few other minor points to notice:

The Taskbar can now only be positioned at the bottom of the screen.

Tablet mode has been completely removed from Windows 11.

The right side of the Taskbar looks a lot like Chrome OS now. The Action Center has been replaced by two separate Quick Actions and Notifications panels. The Quick Actions panel has some very strong Chrome OS vibes…

 

That’s all for now, and see you next Windows Update!

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