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I write this article in response to a question read on a forum, in the hope that it will help someone in addition to the direct question (Stefano, aka "Pisubijoux").

There are several methods to do this, I suggest using a small script (to be created with AppleScript Editor) to be launched when the user login.

We arrive at practical ...

1) Open the AppleScript editor and enter the following code (commented to help you understand ... ah, comments are inserted with "--" ):


-- Open iTunes
tell application "iTunes"

- Show window of iTunes running (remove "-")
- Activate

- Set shuffle mode to the playlist "Music" (Change it if you want)
September shuffle of user playlist "Music" to true
- Remove shuffle mode to the playlist "Music" (Change it if you want)
- Set shuffle of user playlist "Music" to false

- Play music!
play

end tell

2) Click on Compile and then save it as Application.

3) Open System Preferences -> Accounts -> Startup Items -> enter the application you just saved!

For the lazy, you can download the file directly from here:

• iTunesRandomUS.app (Inglese Version of iTunes)
• iTunesRandomIT.app (Italian version of iTunes)

Only ... then proceed to step 3!

VMWare has finally released the long-awaited new version of Fusion , came to 3.0, bringing many new features that finally make it one of the best virtualization software within the Mac

One of the biggest gaps I've always complained in Fusion was a lack in the ability to open files with a virtualized Windows application directly from Finderl (Ex: open an XLS file directly from the Finder and make it opened with Microsoft Excel 2007 virtualized ). This is in fact a file association, or associate extensions with a program of your choice.

Despite the efforts of VMWare, you still can not do this by default with Fusion, but with some little ingenuity you can not work around the problem.

1. Position the Finder on the folder where your Virtual Machine (Windows for instance);
2. Click with the right mouse button on VM (Virtual Machine) and select "Show Package Contents" (Show Package Contents);
3. At this point you open a new window is located inside the folder "Applications" in which there are installed applications in a Windows environment;
4. Open another Finder and navigate to the / Applications folder of Mac and create a new folder called (for example) "Windows Applications";
5. Copy into the applications (the Applications folder in the VM that you want to be indexed by Spotlight as native applications on Mac;
6. Select a file with the extension you want to associate an application to Windows right click and choose "Get Info"
7. Select the "Open With" and then "Other" (Open With - Other)
8. At this point, choose the application you want to associate the file extension. You can find it easily in Windows Applications folder that you created previously in step 4!
9. Give OK and click "Change All" ("Change All" . From now on it will open Fusion and its application when you open a file with the extension.

Now some screenshots to better follow the instructions:

Have fun and good virtualization at all!

Another update of the well known and widely used platform for blogging that brings the version number of WordPress 2.8.1 .

Usually updated with a single click that an upgrade is complete and painless in about ten seconds. Great job as always!

This time updates are minors (those defined as "under the hood"). You can see the complete list from the official page of the changelog to 2.8.1 .

Good update to all and always remember to make a nice healthy backup of the database before proceeding with this type of transaction! You have been warned ...

After a bit 'of attempts are finally managed to acquire a satisfactory solution that emulates the Mobile Me service from Apple.

Tools and services required:

• Mac OSX 10.5.3 or higher
• iPhone 2G, 3G or 3GS with firmware 2.2 or higher
• Account Gmail
• Account Nuevasync
• Lingon
• Yahoo! account (for push email)
• Calaboration

Email
From the Gmail webmail set the option to forward a copy to a Yahoo! account (previously created) to take advantage of push notifications Yahoo! email on the iPhone!

On the iPhone, therefore, set your own account to Gmail and Yahoo! to be notified of the mail in real time.

Calendar and Contacts
Register on nuevasync and follow the correct instructions to configure the iPhone.

At this point you just have to say Addressbook and iCal to sync with their Google services: Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar.

For iCal can rely on the ease of use of Calaboration made ​​available by Google itself.

For Addressbook instead we have to rely to a little trickery. Enable AddressBook (Address Book) to your Mac to sync to your Gmail address book by its preferences:

Install Lingon and start it and enter a new agent (by clicking the + button) called such com.google.synccontact that will run the following command:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GoogleContactSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/gconsync --sync com.google.ContactSync

every 5 minutes (or it is possible to indicate at will the time interval for synchronization between Addressbook and Google Contacts).

Also as you can see from the image I added the "Run if this file is modified" by inserting a path:

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/AddressBook-v22.abcddb (check the name of the file on your computer)

Now Mac, iPhone and Google are perfectly aligned and synchronized automatically in style OTA (Over The Air)! :-)

This time the 'hack for the iPhone that allows you propose to emulate the Push mode on accounts that do not support this option.

Let me explain. Apple allows on our beloved iPhone you can use the Push mode or mode Fetch (simply download every n minutes).

Fetch would be fine if it were not that the options selected are:

• Every 15 minutes
• Every 30 minutes
• Hourly
• Manually

The reason for this choice is based, according to Apple, the decision not to consume too much battery power. However, it is also true that 15 minutes are a time sometimes too broad to claim to have notifications in "real time." Why not set therefore other choices shorter in time (eg every 1, 2, 5 minutes)?

Before you start remember to do this you must have:

• jailbroken iPhone 2G or 3G
• 2.2.1 firmware installed (maybe the procedure is the same / similar with previous versions)
• sFTP client (eg Cyberduck or Transmit )
• Editor. Plist file (eg TextWrangler )

The second premise is that this article does not explain, nor do I intend to do, how to jailbreak an iPhone or how to use an SFTP client and therefore its input parameters. There are hundreds of great guides that show how to perform these procedures on both Mac and Windows and other OS.

The steps to perform are:

1. Enter via sFTP on the iPhone
2. Surfing on your sFTP client to the folder / System / Library / PreferenceBundles / ScheduleSettings.bundle /
3. Edit the file ScheduleSettings.plist with TextWrangler (it is always good to make a backup copy of the original)
4. Open the folder. Lproj for your language and edit the file: ScheduleSettings.strings
5. Save the file and enjoy the new entries

I am attaching pictures of the changes to be made:

For the lazy here are the files that have been edited for the Italian and English:

For firmware 3.0:

• ScheduleSettings.plist
• ScheduleSettings.strings (ITA)
• ScheduleSettings.strings (EN)

For firmware 2.2.1:

• ScheduleSettings.plist
• ScheduleSettings.strings (ITA)
• ScheduleSettings.strings (EN)

Good hack at all!