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Mac tip: Copy and paste plain text with Get Plain Text

Rich text formatting, be gone!

Two questions: Do you use a Mac? Do you find yourself copying and pasting text throughout the workday? If you answered "yes" to both questions, I would recommend spending $2.99 in the Mac App Store on Get Plain Text.

Once installed and running, Get Plain Text places an icon in your Mac's menu bar. Click on it and from the drop-down menu, choose "Automatically clear formatting." Now when you copy and paste text, you'll grab only the text and none of its formatting. You can easily turn this … Read more

Back up your DVDs with free BDlot ISO Master

The days of physical media are slowly but surely drawing to a close. Of the last 10 movies I rented, eight came from Amazon Instant Video and one from iTunes. There wasn't a shiny silver platter in sight.

That said, lots of folks have giant DVD libraries, and with good reason. DVDs are cheap. They work great in minivans that have DVD players. And, um, oh, what was that third one again? I can't...sorry. Oops.

I kid, I kid. I'm just jokingly making the case for why you might want BDlot DVD ISO Master, a free … Read more

Microsoft hit by patent lawsuit over Skype

Microsoft's ownership of Skype has placed it in the crosshairs of a patent lawsuit.

CopyTele, a company that calls itself "specialists in patent monetization and patent assertion," launched its suit today, alleging that some of the technology used in Skype violates patents owned by its subsidiary, Secure Web Conference Corp.

In its complaint, CopyTele is asserting the infringement of two U.S patents -- "Method and apparatus for securing e-mail attachments" and "Portable telecommunication security device," both granted in 2005.

Both patents concern secure Web-based peer-to-peer communications, such as those used by Skype. … Read more

How to manually verify copied files in OS X

When you copy files from one location to another in OS X, the system should run a number of checks to validate the data and ensure that it was copied correctly; however, if you are using third-party utilities to copy a file, you might be concerned about potential corruption.

MacFixIt reader Douglas recently wrote in with such a concern.

I was wondering if there is any way to verify a copy of files from one hard drive to another? I used SuperDuper to copy one of my RAIDs to another RAID; it was 7TB of stuff and took two days … Read more

Zynga: Oh, sure we copy other people's games

There are those who adore playing Zynga's online games.

What else are they going to do? Work? Live? Love? Naked handstands in public?

Yet somehow the fascination of managing your own farm for fun has never seemed entirely entertaining to me. It's always felt like a social carbuncle.

Zynga VP Dan Porter, however, managed to entertain Wednesday night at a panel discussion in New York.

As Quartz so helpfully reports, he offered this rather beautiful nugget of joy: "Zynga is often accused of copying games, which is mostly true."

Porter was clear to explain what he … Read more

Easy DVD Converter converts or rips scenes from your DVDs

AoA Media's Easy DVD Converter can convert entire DVDs or just the parts you want, and save them in a wide range of formats, including high-quality files, widely compatible file types, and even Flash video for sharing online. It can also extract and save audio tracks from DVD movies. Easy DVD Converter is shareware that is free to try, though the trial version limits conversions to 10 minutes of video. The latest release, Version 3.0, features a new engine, and it's also compatible with Windows 8.

Easy DVD Converter's user interface is small and fairly plain, … Read more

Active ISO Burner packs a lot into a simple interface

To burn discs with your PC, you need two things. The first is a CD burner, or (better) a DVD burner, or (better still) a Blu-Ray burner. The second is disc-burning software. For the first, you're probably limited by the burner you already own, and your burner's capabilities will determine what kinds of disc you can burn, how much and what kind of data they can hold, and how long it takes to burn them. But for the second requirement, the burning tool, you have a lot more choices, and a lot of them are free. Active Data … Read more

Keep your Blu-rays and DVDs, Hollywood -- I've gone digital

It had been years since I actually bought a DVD or a Blu-ray copy of a movie. But over Christmas, I bought one. I really wanted those extra features that a physical disk provides. Why not get a Blu-ray with a digital copy, I thought, and have the best of both worlds?

Why not turned out to be because redeeming digital copies is a nightmare. Are you getting a copy for iTunes? Or for Amazon? Or whatever on earth UltraViolet is supposed to be, something that finally crashed into my awareness as a new Blu-ray owner?

The film in … Read more

When it comes to patient records, doctors guilty of the old copy-paste

Ah, the old copy/paste. Such a handy keyboard shortcut for such a wide range of applications. But would you want your doctor using it while maintaining your oh-so-personal and unique-to-you medical records?

Because chances are good that your doc does, according to new research out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Excuse me while I take a moment to summarize, rather than copy and paste, some key findings from the research.

Assistant professor of medicine and lead author Daryl Thornton and his team scrutinized 2,068 electronic patient progress reports at an ICU in Cleveland. Some 62 … Read more