The tool you need is Aimersoft Mac DVD Copy, which you can download for free from:
http://www.aimersoft.com/mac-dvd-copy.html

It’s very easy to use, just with three simple steps then you can easily copy DVD on Mac.

Step1. Select DVD Source

After you install and lunch Aimersoft Mac DVD Copy, put the DVD disc into your DVD drive. Click the “Select Source” drop-down list to browse your computer and located your source DVD movie (either in a folder or from your DVD-ROM).

Step2: Select DVD Copy Method
Aimersoft Mac DVD Copy allows you to back up DVD to a folder on your hard drive or directly copy DVD to a new DVD disc. In the “Select DVD Copy Method” field, select a method to output the selected DVD movie according to your need:

If you want to back up your DVD movie to a folder on your hard disc, you can select the “Output DVD Folder” option, and specify a directory to save the copied DVD movie.

If you want to directly copy your DVD movie to a new DVD disc, you can just select the DVD Burner where you have inserted a blank DVD disc.

Note: If you are copying a DVD disc from your DVD Burner to a new DVD disc, Aimersoft Mac DVD Copy will ask you to insert a blank DVD disc when the program gets ready to burn. Then you can just take the original DVD disc out and insert a blank DVD disc.
But if you have two or multiple DVD Burner, you just need to change object DVD to another DVD burner and insert a blank disc into it , then Aimersoft Mac DVD Copy will automatically copy DVD movie to the new DVD disc. No need to wait for the conversion to insert a new blank DVD disc.

Step3: Program Settings (optional)
Set Buffer Directory: Specify a directory on your hard drive as the buffer directory to store the temporary files generated during the conversion. We recommend that you select a folder on a hard drive that has relatively big free space.

Select Language: Select an interface language for the program. The currently available languages are English and Simplified Chinese.

Step4: Start Copying DVD
After all things done, click the Start button to start copying your DVD movie or burning it to a new DVD disc. That’s all.

Technorati Tags: dvd, max, osx, copy, backup, for legal use only, wink, wink, technology, geek

What you need is Aimersoft DVD Ripper for Mac; you can free download it from here:
http://www.aimersoft.com/dvd-ripper-for-mac.html

Part1. How to rip DVD to MP4, MOV, AVI, MPEG, 3GP, FLV, M4V on Mac OS X?
Step1. Download and install Aimersoft DVD Ripper for Mac. Insert your DVD disc into DVD drive, then run the software, click “Load DVD” button to import the DVD file. You can also load DVD folders from your hard drive by clicking “Load IFO”, DVD folders files name appear like “Video_TS”.

Tips: This software supports converting by selecting chapters or customizes conversion time. If you just want certain part of the DVD movie, you can check the chapters you want or trim the movie.

Step2. This software can convert DVD to various video formats such as MP4, MPEG, AVI, M4V, MOV, 3GP, MPG, FLV, etc. Click the “Profile” drop down list to select a format you want.

Tips: If you don’t know much about video formats, you can select a format according to the name of your portable player. For example, you can select “iPod Touch MPEG-4 (*.mp4)” when you want to rip DVD movie for iPod Touch, and the default setting works great. This software also includes the DVD Audio Ripper function, so you can extract audio from DVD movie to MP3 or AAC for web using or other portable player.
If you want to customize the output video quality, you can click the “Settings” button next to the format field to open the Settings window and set video resolution, frame rate, bit rate, encoder, etc.

Step3. Select Subtitle and Audio
Regular DVD movies usually have several subtitles such as English, French, German, etc. You can select one you prefer. You can also delete the subtitle by selecting “No Subtitle”. Selecting Audio is the same.
Note: If you want to combine several DVD chapters into one file, on the main interface, there is a check box “Merge into one file”, select it, then you will only get one output file instead of several files by chapters.

After the above steps, click “Start”to start conversion. When the conversion finished, you can click “Open” to locate the file in your hard drive.

Part2. How to edit (trim, crop, join) DVD movie on Mac OS X

If you want to edit your movie before converting it, Aimersoft DVD Ripper for Mac provides your with various powerful functions including:

1.Crop DVD
After you load the DVD file, If you want to cut the black edges of the DVD movie, you can click the “Crop” button, and then you will see a pop up windows (See the figure below). There is a frame in dashed line around the movie video; you can drag it to cut the black edges.
More over, you can click the Crop drop-down list to select a Crop model you prefer, for example: “Cut off top and bottom black edges”. You can even type the number in the box to cut off black border accurately.

2.Snatch Pictures
If you want to snatch pictures from DVD, while you previewing the DVD movie, there will be a small camera icon below the preview window, click it when you want to snacth the picture, it supports output picture as JPEG or BMP format.

3.Effect DVD
You can click the “Effect” button and customize the brightness, saturation, contrast, volume, etc (See the figure below). You can even apply special effects such as “Emboss”, “Negative”
, “Old film” and “Gray” by selecting an effect from drop-down list.

4.Trim DVD
A whole DVD movie might be very large. By default, this software will convert the whole DVD to one file; if you just want several chapters of the DVD, you can just select the chapters you want to convert (you can preview the DVD clip before converting it).
Or you can click “Trim”button to open the trim panel, drag the trim bar to set start time and end time to convert a clip from your movie. You can also type the exact time values in the Set Start Time field and Set End Time field to trim video.

Time to dump Windows?
Can it be done? Is it the right time? Find out what it’ll take to finally switch to desktop Mac OS X or Linux

By Galen Gruman at InfoWorld

InfoWorld’s “Save XP” petition asking Microsoft to keep Windows XP available indefinitely, not end most sales on June 30 as currently planned, has prompted many readers to suggest that maybe the best answer for those who don’t like Vista is to switch to another operating system completely.

“Don’t be afraid. Just switch to Linux and become a member of a really free society,” wrote Carlos Raul Gutierrez.

[ Find out the deployment secrets of early Vista adopters ]

“Windows Vista was the reason I bought a Mac mini. I didn’t want my only choices to be an operating system that would soon be obsolete (XP) or one that was buggy and would break much existing hardware (Vista), and I’m not enough of a geek to use Linux (do things from the command line? Puhleeze…),” wrote “Jack.”

How realistic is a switch to Linux or Apple’s Mac OS X? For some users — often technically savvy people such as engineers, consultants, designers and CTOs — it is clearly an option that already works quite well. In the past year, running Mac OS X or Linux as your default OS has been made easier by the capability to run Windows in a virtual machine, giving you access to both Windows-only applications and Web sites that rely on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer-only ActiveX technology. But in a business environment, switching to a Mac or Linux PC may not be quite as easy.

The Mac OS X option
Of the plausible alternatives to Windows, Apple’s Mac OS X has the largest market share and history. InfoWorld chief technologist Tom Yager has written that the latest version of the Mac OS, Leopard (10.5), is simply the best operating system available. And Macs are indeed popping up more frequently even within IT circles — I’ve seen more MacBook Pros in the hands of CTOs and IT execs at conferences in the past year more than I’ve seen Mac notebooks in such venues ever. Although there are no real numbers on just the business adoption of Macs, it’s clear that Apple is in growth mode, gaining an increasing proportion of all new computer sales for more than a year now.

InfoWorld’s Yager has chronicled the adventures of one PC user who switched to the Mac OS, showing that for an individual, the conversion was ultimately a rewarding one. The TechWeb site has also provided a good guide on how to make the switch to Mac OS X.

A key tool for any Mac OS X switcher is a virtual machine to run Windows for those apps and Web sites that require it. Both Parallels Desktop 3.0 and EMC VMware’s Fusion software will do the trick, as InfoWorld’s comparative review has shown.

Although Macs are compatible with most typical hardware, such as monitors and drives, fitting a Mac into an enterprise’s management systems and ERP applications can be a different story. Yager’s Mac Enterprise blog and the Mac Enterprise user group both provide advice on managing Macs in a traditional IT environment.

The Linux option
The more technically inclined may be attracted to Linux, the most popular form of desktop Unix. Linux desktops typically are challenged by limited hardware compatibility (due to lack of drivers), limited application options, and user interfaces that require active participation to get work done, which tends to keep Linux away from the general user population. But those who work with a Linux server all day may find that using it on the desktop as well actually makes their lives easier.

Just as Mac users need occasional access to Windows, so do Linux users. Because Linux distributions run on Windows-compatible hardware, it’s straightforward to use desktop virtualization software, such as Parallels Workstation, Sun’s (formerly Innotek’s) VirtualBox, and EMC VMware’s Workstation software, to provide access to both environments.

Although some enterprises have committed to wide Linux deployment — such as automaker Peugeot Citroën’s plans to install 20,000 Novell Suse Linux desktops — most have left Linux to the engineering and development staff.

InfoWorld Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall Kennedy argues that desktop Linux is doomed to remain a tiny niche OS, given the Linux community’s lack of interest in providing a UI that regular people could use. Kennedy tried to spend a week working on nothing but the Ubuntu distribution of Linux but gave up on the fifth day.

But Kennedy’s take isn’t the last word on desktop Linux. Frequent InfoWorld contributor Neil McAllister put together a special report on how to move from Windows to Linux, concluding that the effort was not as hard as you might think.

Who’s right? As with any platform choice, they both may be. A one-size-fits-all approach may be unrealistic. And that likely explains why many businesses will have a mix, dominated by Windows XP today (and perhaps Vista in a few years) but not exclusively tied to Microsoft’s OS.

Apricot intends to take on this challenge by recruiting a team of six who will have six months to create a fully 3D game using Blender and Crystal Space.  One of the goals of this project, which I fully support is ” to improve open source tools to better fit to the professional gamedev industry.”

Actually creating a game using open source tools only will certainly go a long way towards doing this as the developers will be able to point out all of the good and bad bits in Blender and Crystal Space by the time they’re done.

They’ve also launched a DVD pre-sale event with the hopes of selling 1000 DVDs prior to February 1st.  What will be on the DVD?  “Expect on the DVD the complete game, all content in Creative Commons Attribute, video blog material, and clear examples and/or tutorials for how to extend the game, add levels, change characters, and so on. Early purchasers of the Apricot game will get their names credited on the game intro and final credit roll.”  The DVD costs 34 Euro, or about $50 US and goes to support not only this project but Blender or Crystal Space.  Pre-ordering will also get your name in the credits.

The game is based on project Peach, an open source movie created entirely in Blender.

Let’s hope the end up with an amazing game and take Linux gaming one gigantic step forward by not only making a game that’s in the public’s eye but by helping to improve development tools and giving game developers easier access to open source products.

Technorati Tags: gaming, linux, windows, osx, open source, project peach,   apricot

 Let’s see, Tiger crashed—oh yeah, NEVER. Ten months and I’m installing everything from production-level Office for the Mac 2004 to 0.x releases of VLC, Seashore, and Ecto—even betas of Firefox and Parallels. Whatever my nerdy little heart desires. I’ve had those early apps crash, but Tiger never faltered.

A month of using Leopard with the same software I had under Tiger and the OS has dumped six times. That’s six cold reboots for Oliver. Apple isn’t even honest enough to admit that Leopard is crashing: The OS just grays out my desktop and pops up a dialog box telling me I’ve got to reboot. Like the whole thing is my fault. I even snapped a picture of it. After all, I HAD PLENTY OF CHANCES! And all my complaints, mirrored by online forum traffic, are the same complaints I heard about Vista when it first reared its unbaked head.

Ouch!  Click here for the rest of the article.

Technorati Tags: osx , leopard, leoptard, mac, apple, vista, should be using linux

I just had a chance to download and start using Flock and I am loving it. Yes, it’s a tad slower than Firefox but the tools and integration it comes with are great!

It allows you to upload photos to flickr directly, drop videos into YouTube, check on the status of your Twitter account, see who’s online that you’re friendly with on any of these sites and more.

In fact, I’m posting this to ArsGeek via the Flock blogging tool. It’s not perfect – I can’t upload images directly to the blog but I’m still enjoying it. And best of all, it’s native to Linux, Windows and OSX.

If you’re interested in trying it out on your Ubuntu install (or any other distro) just download it, copy the compressed file to your home directory, right click on it and uncompress and then double click on the script file called ‘flock’.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: flock, social websites, web 9.0

Here’s how to get to the terminal in OSX.  Go to your Finder, then Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal.

Once there, you can try one of these three easter eggs out.

1. Lord of The Ring – Terminal edition.  In your terminal session, type the following:

LOTR /usr/share/calendar/calendar.history

2. Good and Bad singing.  In your terminal session, type the following:

say -v Good

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

then try:

say -v Bad

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

(Those are the letter ‘o’ not zeros).

Lastly,  the history of our world, according to OSX.  In your terminal type:

 cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.history

There’s a few easter eggs for you!

Technorati Tags: easter eggs, osx, mac, terminal, oh what fun

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Cnet is reporting that Apple has plugged a number of security holes in Quicktime.

Read more here or after the jump.

By Joris Evers

Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: March 5, 2007, 2:47 PM PST

Apple on Monday released updates to its QuickTime media player software to repair eight serious security vulnerabilities.

The vulnerabilities expose both Macs and Windows PCs to cyberattack, Apple said in a security alert. In all cases, an attacker could craft a malicious file which, when opened with QuickTime, could give the miscreant full control over a computer running the software, Apple said.

The problems lie in the way QuickTime handles a number of formats. The security updates repair problems in the way the software handles QuickTime, MIDI, 3GP, PICT and QTIF files, according to the Apple alert.

The fixed version of QuickTime is release 7.1.5. Along with the fixes, the latest version also includes some functionality improvements, Apple said. The update is available for download from Apple’s Web site or through the Apple update feature, the company said.

Apple regularly issues patches for QuickTime. In January, the Mac maker put out a fix for a zero-day flaw that was released as part of the “Month of the Apple Bugs” project.

Security researchers have increasingly been targeting applications such as QuickTime in recent months. With operating systems becoming more secure, widely used programs such as media players, instant-message tools and antivirus shields have become popular hacker targets, pundits have said.

Technorati Tags: quicktime, apple, apple security, quicktime security, patches

Technorati Tags: onyx, osx, apple, mac osx tweaks, osx tricks, trick or osx

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Look no further.  Open Source Alternative has a huge database chock full of OSS applications which are fun, free and may even give you a warm fuzzy feeling.

They’ve got lists of programs for Linux, Mac or Windows users.

Dafont.com offers a staggering number of fonts for free.  Check out the Medieval fonts to see some of my favorites.

Lifehacker once again has a great article on running Windows and Mac apps right next to each other with Parallels.

TheAppleBlog has a great listing of 10 OSX apps that you really should have.  Not all of them are free, but they all look very useful.

My favorite – Garage Sale – an ebay auction poster that makes ebay easy and fun again.

I found this article on macosxhints.com, which talks about a third-party codec pack called Perian, which enables Quicktime to playback: “Divx, XviD, FLV, AVI, MS-MPEG4 v1, MS-MPEG4 v2, MS-MPEG4 v3, DivX 3.11 alpha, 3ivX, Sorenson H.263, Flash Screen Video, Truemotion VP6, and these formats when they are inside an AVI file — h.264, mpeg4, AAC, AC3 Audio, and VBR MP3.” (quoted from robg on macosxhints.com). Full article here.

Many people today that are buying new macs, especially Mac mini’s, would most likely welcome this added functionality to Quicktime. Apple’s Front Row, which is a cute, easy and intuitive interface to using your Mac as a media center, is a great way to watch all your great vids that you’ve found on the web. However, not everything on the web is in Apple’s .mov or mp4 format, which makes playing things back using Quicktime and Front Row rather useless. Perian looks to be the anser to this folly, and I look forward to really taking advantage of it when I buy an Intel mini.

For now, sadly I’ll just have to utilize it on my Powerbook G4. Sigh

So you got that shiny new Apple computer and you need some additional software? These are some of the most useful and free software out there for OS X.

Technorati Tags: free, osx, essential

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You can find all of the details here.

Note that there will be some uninstalling/reinstalling involved and that the iTunes importer doesn’t work in Linux. (duh!)

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Technorati Tags: apple, panther, time machine

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OpenOffice.org is anticipating much wider use of their products (and rightly so)! They’ve decided to hold a contest for clip-art and template designs. The prizes are all in the form of cash money ($US). Be sure to make your entries soon, as the contest ends October 13th.

geek out.

Technorati Tags: apple, osx, rosetta

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Technorati Tags: apple, mac, safari, osx

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For a limited time, DAZ is pleased to offer Bryce 5 software absolutely FREE! Now through September 6, 2006, download Bryce 5 for no charge at Download.com. Once you have completed your installation, you will be prompted to register your copy at the DAZ3D.com website to receive your Bryce 5 serial number.

geek out.

Technorati Tags: bryce 5, 3D, free software

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I would reference my earlier review, but somehow WordPress ate most of the review when we migrated from the old servers. And, like a newbie, I did not save a copy of my review locally. D’oh. But, here goes:

I initially complained about the immense heat generated by the Macbook Pro. While I still think the heat is incredible, I have had the chance to contrast it with the heat from several other laptops, and it is not too out of line in regards to them. I think that the new breed of dual-core laptops just generates too much heat for a small chassis to efficiently disperse.

I am still sorely disappointed in the Macbooks inability to come out of sleeping gracefully. At least 50% of the time, I get to work, plug the power, mouse, ethernet, audio and DVI cables in (more on that later), open the lid, and….nothing. Nada, zip, zilch. I hear the CD-ROM spin a bit, then the Macbook goes back to sleep. I have to close the lid, wait a few seconds, then open the lid to try again. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The problem seems to happen mostly when I plug the external monitor in via DVI, but it happens sometimes (although less often) even if I don’t. Haven’t been able to figure this one out yet. Not a show stopper, but annoying nonetheless. So much for ‘Just works’, eh?

The lack of a docking station for the Macbook Pro is a show-stopper for business users. I find it highly annoying, and time consuming, to have to plug in 5+ cables to the sides of the Macbook every time I put the Macbook on my desk, and to remove the same 5+ cables when I remove it from my desk. Very very annoying. I have cables strung everywhere, and I know one of these days I’m going to bend a pin in the DVI connector trying to get it on.

I have a fairly serious issue with case fitment around the CD-ROM drive. I don’t use an external keyboard (that would be yet ANOTHER cable to plug in when I set the Macbook down on my desk), so my hands rest on the Macbook case (as the Macbook is designed) to type. What this has done is to bend the case downwards, making the hole the CD ejects from warp. Every few days, I have to pry the opening even again, or CD’s won’t eject from the Macbook due to them hitting the deformed case on the way out. This is a fairly serious design flaw, in my opinion. I have yet to call Apple for support on this, but I will soon enough.

Ok, enough on the negatives.

I like OSX so far. Fairly intuitive, and with the BSD core, I can use the command line to get a good chunk of my work done without having to resort to third party software (mostly SSH). Mail.app is as good as Thunderbird mail. I don’t use Safari at all, my browser of choice is still Firefox.

The Macbook Pro is slick, looks good, and gets lots of comments from people. Utilizing Parallels, I am able to run a virtualized Windows XP, so I can run the corporate mail client (the bloated hell that is Outlook 2003). Parallels runs very snappy, and I am able to completely multitask between the two operating systems.

I have also installed Bootcamp, which lets me run Windows XP natively on the Macbook Pro. Windows XP runs great on this hardware. My only two complaints: the Macbook Pro now boots to XP by default, so I have to hold the Option key during boot to boot into OSX. And there is no way to share files between OSX and XP, even though they share a hard drive. THAT would be a killer feature.

Software installation on OSX is generally a breeze. Sometimes its a simple drag and drop into the applications folder, sometimes is a very simple packaged install. Either way is simple, and easy.

Software updates are also just as easy. Simply choose ‘Software Update’ from the Apple menu, click OK, and you’re done. It will download the software, install it, and then ask you to reboot. Intuitive and simple.

Overall I am happy with my Macbook Pro. If I were to be in the market for a personal PC, I would be considering it, but I don’t think that I would actually purchase one. The heat, sleep issues and CDrom case issue would be killers for me. But who knows, maybe the Macbook Pro v2 will have addressed these issues by then.

Technorati Tags: OSX, mac, macbook pro, review

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, osx, quick tips

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In the world of linux, there are plenty of little programs that have big uses. Grep is one of them.

Looking for a particular phrase in that text document? Grep for it! Say you have a log file that you’re analyzing, and it’s full of IP addresses. If youre looking for every instance of a particular IP, let’s say 127.0.0.1 (localhost) for this example, you’d simply cat the file, and pipe it to grep:

cat logfile.txt | grep 127.0.0.1

Say you want to see everying in that log file except for your localhost? Try the -v switch:

cat logfile.txt | grep -v 127.0.0.1

There’s also another powerful version of grep – egrep , which allows you to search for multiple strings.

cat logfile.txt | egrep “127.0.0.1 | localhost”

That would turn up every instance of the IP address or the string ‘localhost’

grep and egrep also handles regular expressions. Say you had a file called images.db which contained a list of files, some of which had numbers in their names. If you wanted to search for any files that contain the numbers 1, 2 or three:

cat images.db | grep [123]

Or if you want to find any files who’s names include 1,2,3 or 5, 9 and the word ‘paper’ then try:

cat images.db | egrep “[123]|paper”

Grep and egrep can be very powerful tools, and this short article simply touches on what they can do. For more info, try ‘man grep’ and ‘man egrep’.

geek out[

Technorati Tags: linux, unix, osx, grep, cli