Office 2008 SP1 Released with Infinite Looping Setup Assistant

Service Pack 1 for Office 2008 was just released recently. However, many people (including me) have experienced the infinite looping setup assistant problem. Basically, you can’t get any of the Office Apps working. If you try launching any of the Office apps, it would bug you with the Setup Assistant over and over again.

So here’s how to fix it:

Make sure you have your CD Key ready.

Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008 (you can use the Finder’s Go => Go To Folder… feature, just cut and paste this into the box)

Delete Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist

then Navigate to /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/

delete OfficePID.plist

You will be asked for the CD Key the next time you launch any of the Office apps. But that’s about it, it should fix the “Setup assistant loop” problem. ;)

P/S: Please don’t ask for CD Keys from me, your requests will not be entertained.

Accessing Internet Explorer-only Sites on a non-Windows PC

Recently, a friend asked me if there was a way to access IE-only sites on his Mac. Off the top of my head, there are two options – one is to use IE itself thru virtualization methods and secondly is to spoof your User Agent in Firefox.

Every browser has its own designated user agent that tells the website what browser you’re using. Therefore, you can actually trick the website to think that you’re actually using a different browser such as Internet Explorer.

Enter User Agent Switcher – this Firefox add-on does just that.

This add-on is extremely easy to use. First, download it here

After installing, you will see the option to switch between different user agents in Tools => User Agent Switcher

As you can see, there are 3 different user agents to choose from. The add-on itself is also easy to use.

Here, using IPChicken to check my user agent and indeed the add-on spoofed it to IE7. Neat stuff.

This tip works on any computer that has Firefox. Doesn’t matter if it’s running Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD etc.

Hope you found much use with this tip. Cheers ;)

Put the Power of the Web in Your Hands with Quicksilver

Wanna do a quick Youtube search? How about a quick Google translation for “Good morning” in Spanish? Wanna quickly shrink your subway-long url’s with TinyURL? These are just a few of 600+ search engine functions that can be done with Quicksilver.

All you need to do is go Quicksilver => Catalog => Modules

Make sure “Web Searches (from docs.blacktree.com)” is ticked.

Enjoy the power of the web in your hands. As you can see you can even quickly track your UPS package with Quicksilver. What? That’s amazing.

What’s your favourite Quicksilver trick?

If you would like to know what Quicksilver is all about, check out my Quicksilver introduction here.

A Better Safari With A Couple of Addons

Safari, Mac OS X’s default web browser. While Firefox is awesome in its own ways, Safari is not that bad at all. Safari is in fact the fastest browser when it comes to Javascript load times (As of 28 March 2008). It even scored 100/100 in Acid3 test, even Firefox didn’t come close to that.

Ok, I’m not here to explain how good Safari is. I am here to introduce you two addons that can make your Safari more enjoyable.

First off, I’m pretty sure most people hate ads. In fact, I’m pretty annoyed when it comes to ads. Most ads are bogus, just like the ads on The Pirate Bay where random hot girl pictures are shown and the ads tell you that they actually live in your neighborhood.

BEFORE:

AFTER (Notice the Subway ad just disappeared!):

Introducing SafariBlock, say goodbye to ads forever. You won’t miss a single ad when every website that you visit look clean and tidy, free of ads. SafariBlock works on both normal ads and Flash ads.

Download SafariBlock here

 

 

The next addon is actually a pretty cool one, and a time saver. This addon will change your perspective on search engines forever.

Introducing Inquisitor, this addon allows you to type your search queries in your usual search box, and BAM! Search results come out just right after, in a cool black dialog on the bottom of the search box. You can navigate to the search results with the arrow keys, or with your mouse.

This addon is one of the main reasons why I made Safari my main browser on my Mac. It’s plain awesome. I can do multiple searches and find what I want quickly. Heck, it even suggests different search queries, on the bottom of your search results. On the other hand, you can customize it to show a list of other search engines so you can quickly make searches of the same query on other search engines (On the screenshot it’s only showing Flickr and Amazon, but the list can be customized for more than that).

This addon is a definite must-have for keyboard warriors. By far the best addon made for Safari. Highly customizable and useful.

Download Inquisitor here

With these addons, Safari will be a better browser ;)

Hope you enjoyed this tech tip, any questions or comments are welcome.

Put Your Music In Control With These Great Apps

iTunes has been my #1 music player on both Windows and Mac platforms for years. Don’t get me wrong, I love iTunes. However, your music collection is often stored in a way that you can’t easily retrieve your music and share it with your friends. So, I am here to introduce several apps that can help you put your music in control.

First off, let me introduce iTunesFS. This app requires MacFUSE installed to be functional. iTunesFS lets you browse your iTunes and iPod music collection as if the playlists were folders with music as files in them. This way, you can copy out some music quick and easy and then share them with your friends. Simple to use. Nice and clean.

Installation directions:
1) Install MacFUSE
2) Install iTunesFS
3) Launch iTunesFS whenever you want to access your music files

Download iTunesFS here

Download MacFUSE (required for iTunesFS to work) here

MacFUSE (Tiger) direct download

MacFUSE (Leopard) direct download

 

 

Ok, so what if you’ve got another friend with a relatively large, filled (no, not that) iPod and both of you would like to sync both music collections together? Misu to the rescue. Misu is a relatively new app and its concept is brilliant. I haven’t got another iPod here to test it but from reading comments about it most people seem to be happy about it. What Misu does is, you plug both your iPods to your computer, and it will do its magic. It will detect which music on one iPod is missing on the other and merge them both.

At time of writing, you can get Misu for $9.95 at MUPromo (original price is $19.00). Offer ends in 10 hours.

You can visit Misu’s website here

 

 

Lastly, what if your friend doesn’t have an iPod or he’s somewhere far far away. Mojo is the answer to powerful music sharing over the internet. Mojo is dead simple to use. All you need is to get an account with Mojo’s service, then you can just add your friend’s account and browse his/her music collection just like that! You can even play or download music that you like. However, Mojo doesn’t support accessing music on connected iPods. Hopefully, this feature will be added on future releases.

Mojo is available for both Windows and Mac platforms, free

P/S: Both you and your friend need to have Mojo in order to browse each other’s music collection.

I hope you liked this tech tip. Any questions or comments are welcome.