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Find the airplane flying over your head

It's not an exaggeration to say that there are iPhone apps for almost everything. And in my neverending quest to find apps for airline geeks, I came across a title that allows you not to locate your gate, track your flight, or find your seat, but to actually search for planes in the air.

Plane Finder by Pinkfroot uses a mashup of Google Maps to show current flights in a given area. The accessible interface doesn't resemble a radar scope taken from an air traffic controller's screen; instead, flights appear as plane-shaped icons that trail a path … Read more

Super searches

The built-in Windows search feature often leaves a lot to be desired; it's slow, clunky, and not always very thorough. For occasional or inconsequential searches it's not bad, but users who are serious about finding particular files on their computers often turn to a third-party search application. If you're in the market for such a program, Super Finder XT is a great choice. This powerful program makes quick work of serious searches.

The program's interface is attractive and intuitive, with a design that's reminiscent of recent versions of Microsoft Office. We liked that Super Finder … Read more

How to regain access to user files and folders after copying or migrating

There are times when you may copy files or folders to your system and cannot access them because the system does not allow you permission to them. In the case of folders, you may see a small "no entry" symbol to the lower right of the folder icon. This may happen after migrating or copying files, but it can also happen when accessing shared resources such as network drives, thumb drives, or external hard drives.

The reason these files are not accessible is a simple mixup in the permissions flags for them. Usually when you copy files, the … Read more

Finder automatically labeling newly saved items

The Finder's labels have been a convenient aspect of the Mac OS since early in the classic Mac's development. Applying labels gives a file an extended attribute that the Finder can use to sort or group files, making them easy to find and manage. By default the Finder should not be applying any labels to files; however, some people may see this happening.

Apple Discussion member "JimFerguson" writes:

"Sometime after upgrading to 10.6.4 on my MacBook Pro, I noticed that new files created by any application are labeled yellow. I've looked at … Read more

How to set up a dynamically resizing disk image

Creating Disk Images in OS X is relatively simple and an easy way to package items either for presentation, portability over electronic media, or encryption to protect data on otherwise unencrypted media. To create images you will need to use Disk Utility, but in doing so you may find yourself lost among the various options for creating a disk image.

The very first source of confusion may come from clicking the "New Image" button in Disk Utility's toolbar, which will only present you with a limited set of options for creating an image. To be provided with … Read more

iDisk unavailable when attempting to mount in the Finder

When trying to access the MobileMe iDisk in the Finder, you may run into a problem in which the disk will not mount and will give an error stating "Your iDisk is unavailable." This problem may crop up after applying software updates or reinstalling the system, but it may also happen after syncing with new mobile devices or computers, or even seem to happen randomly.

If this happens, there are a couple of things you can try to fix the problem:

Reboot

Sometimes a basic restart of the system will be enough to fix the problem. Usually just … Read more

Menu extras become nonfunctional in OS X

In setting up OS X one of the convenient options is to add menu extras to the right-hand side of the menu bar, providing convenient access to system settings as well as functions provided by third-party utilities (virus scanners, activity monitors, etc). Sometimes, however, some or all of these menu extras may become nonfunctional and show the spinning color wheel when you mouse over them.… Read more