BrockLi Soup

MacTipcs .org has an article about the new Stacks features that came with the latest update to OS X. The big thing everyone has been talking about is the ability to display a folder as a folder when you’ve got it in your dock. Up until now, a lot of people have been using the method explained here: basically, put an icon file in the folder you’re going to put in the dock, and it will appear at the front of the stack.

Now, the folders in the dock will actually look like folders. This is a start, but it would be a lot better if they actually used the folder’s icon. For example, I’ve got two folders in my dock: Atheism and Finances. I want icons for each dock item to make it clear which is which - an X icon (or something else) for Atheism, and a dollar symbol for Finances. I was accomplishing this by dropping icons in those folders so that they would appear at the top of the stack, but it’s not an ideal solution. Now that the dock can display these as folders, I would rather use that for consistency.

The problem is that they just look like folders in the dock. I mean, in a perfect world, the Finances folder would have a dollar symbol on it, just like the Applications, Documents, Music, and other folders in OS X have icons to denote what they’re for. So I put an icon on the Finances folder, but alas, the icon isn’t used in the dock; it’s still just a boring folder. Everything else in the dock has the right icon - why not my stack folders?

This year, I got me a Sansa TakeTV for Christmas. The system requirements make no mention of OS X, so I did some looking around online before opening it up - I only have a Mac, you see, and I wanted to make sure I could use the damn thing.

The Internet says I can use the damn thing, and I can. Unfortunately, it doesn’t handle many formats, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to convert video files and DVDs to DivX without having to pay for any software, or put much effort into it.

I’ve already got VisualHub, so I was hoping I could use that. I couldn’t find any specifics online for VisualHub and TakeTV, so I spent a little time fiddling with it. It took me a few tries, but I figured out how to do it.

1. Select the AVI tab
2. Drag your video file(s) into the big box in the middle
3. Click on the Advanced button - you have to change one of those fields that they tell you not to change
4. The last field in the Video section is “Extra ffmpeg flags.” In that dropdown, select “Best Possible MPEG-4″ (even though you’re making an AVI). This should be replaced with the following ffmpeg flags:

-vcodec xvid -mbd 2 -me full -flags +4mv+trell -aic 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2

5. Close that window
6. Pick a destination directory in the “Save To” box
7. Click the Start button
8. Give it about half an hour, and you’ll have a video file to drop on your TakeTV flash drive

I hope that makes life easier for someone, because I spent a while looking around with no luck at all.