MacMost Now 25: Web Save Net Share iTunes Playlist

Gary Rosenzweig answers viewer questions about saving Web pages, sharing a network connection and creating a podcast playlist.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now.  Let's look at some viewer email.  Clem writes:  'I'm looking for a fast, single 'keystroke shortcut or click' way to save the web page I'm currently looking at.  I'm using a Mac with Mac Os X v10.5.1, using either Safari of Firefox.'
Well, I'm glad you're open to using Firefox for this because there's probably really no good way to do it in Safari.  You also noted in your email that you can save it as a .pdf, but it's just too many keystrokes.  And it is.  You have to choose the type of .pdf, you have to choose where to save it, and all that.  I did find a couple quick ways to do it in Firefox.  There are two Firefox add-ons that you can get for Firefox.
One is called Scrapbook and it actually works inside Firefox to save pages as a list inside them.  But I also found that you can export them, as well, and it will save them in their native format, and so it's .html, you're saving .gifs, you're saving .jpegs, and all of that.  But it is very fast to use.  Just one click or one keystroke will do it.
Another extension I found is one called Screengrab and Screengrab will actually save it as a .png, which means it can be very large file sizes.  But it does give you the option of saving exactly what you see on the screen or the entire webpage.
I also hear that Firefox 3.0 will have the ability to save out .pdfs natively.  Now I don't know how that's going to differ from how we already do it in any application on the Mac, but maybe it will be single click.  We'll have to wait and see.  But until there, here are two good alternatives.  Hopefully, one of them will work for you.
Tyler asks:  'Is there any way to have a Wi-Fi Internet connection and use my Ethernet port on my laptop to supply Internet to another computer?'  Actually, I was surprised to find that there is a way to do this, a very easy way, actually, in Leopard.  All you need to do is go to the system preferences and go to sharing.  Now, in sharing, you can choose Internet sharing.  And from there you can share over AirPort, FireWire, or Ethernet.
Now I haven't really tried any of these.  But we can see how it's set up here and turn on Ethernet sharing, start Internet sharing.  And now it should work if you actually plugged in an Ethernet cable to other computers.  And, supposedly, you can also do it over FireWire.  You may even be able to do this over AirPort, so actually getting an in incoming connection and also sharing one out.  Although I think the AirPort connection is probably for getting a wired connection in and then you can use AirPort to share out.
I'd like to hear from some of the students that have a set up like this and if it's worked for them.
Lynn writes:  'Is there a way to manage podcasts podcasts in iTunes so that the episodes you wish to keep can be placed permanently in a personal playlist or smart playlist and then deleted from its original Podcast location?'
Well, Lynn, yes and no.  I mean, for something to be in iTunes or be in iTunes so it transfers to you iPod or your iPhone, it has to be in the library somewhere.  And don't confuse the library with playlists.  Playlists are basically a list of links to things in your library.  Your library is everything that's contained there.
So you can actually browse through your library or you can browse through your playlist.  Now I think what you really want to be able to do is only look at your podcasts in your playlist.  For instance, I have tons of podcasts in my iTunes collection, but I never look at them in the library because there are just too many of them.  Instead, I have smart playlists set up and I look at those to see what the most recent episodes are.
For instance, here's how to set up a smart playlist that shows you your most recent episodes of all your podcasts.  Now here's iTunes.  You can see I've got a whole bunch of podcasts in the podcast folder and I don't want all of these episodes to be transferred to my iPod or even see them in the list.  One thing I can do, then, is create a smart playlist.  Choose file, new smart playlist.  
Now the dialogue is almost custom made for this because you can basically go and say 'I want podcast, is true' and I can also say 'limit to' a certain number of items, say the last five items, selected by most recently added.  And make sure live updating is selected and click OK.  And I can name this 'recent podcasts.'
And you can see it only puts the most recently downloaded podcasts in, here there are only five of them.  It will automatically update as I add new podcasts.  What's even better is I can select this smart playlist to synch with my iPod or iPhone.  So I instantly only get the most recent podcasts on my iPod and iPhone.  
And then when I actually go to listen to podcasts in iTunes, I just select this playlist and ignore the very large podcasts library directory.
Well, that's all for now.  Remember, if you have any questions, you email me at questions (-at-) MacMost.com.  I also want to remind everybody that next week is going to be a whole special week.  We'll be spending most of it at the Mac World Expo and we will be reporting live from there.  It you're at the Mac World Expo, be sure to look for us and say hi.
Until next week, this is Gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now.

Comments: One Response to “MacMost Now 25: Web Save Net Share iTunes Playlist”

Daniel

16 years ago

Cool questions on this week's show.
I know this is not what the viewer wanted exactly but a cool app for web saving in PDF format is Tasty Apps Web Snapper. It'll place a button on top of Safari, click and save web page as PDF. You are given the choose of multi pages as one PDF file too. It's not free but only $8.00 US for the light version.
URL: http://www.tastyapps.com/

I use Apple Airport Extreme and run my Ethernet through it and everyone in the house (four Mac's) log in wirelessly on my one account. No troubles with speeds, downloads, etc. Plus my wife still can have her phone line plugged into her PowerBook for her Ebay Faxes, or to change over to her Ebay dial up site and when she logs off, she's back on wireless with out having to do a thing.
She runs Tiger, I run Leopard.

Hope this helps.

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 25: Web Save Net Share iTunes Playlist

Comments: One Response to “MacMost Now 25: Web Save Net Share iTunes Playlist”

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