Category Archives: free & cheap software

fixed : Green Screen button not showing in iMovie 10

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Question :

I have made a video recording of myself in front of a green screen, and now I want to make the green transparent and put a video behind it in iMovie. I have iMovie 10.3.5 and the option for Green Screen should be in there, but when I import the video into iMovie and select it, there should be a Green Screen button at the left of the editing buttons above the clip preview, but the button just isn’t there, it isn’t greyed out or something, it just isn’t showing up… I searched in iMovie menus to find an option to switch the Green Screen button on, but there isn’t any…

What am I doing wrong ?

Answer :

Yes, it would have been better if Apple had included the button permanently in the row of editing buttons above the clip preview, then it could have been greyed out and instructions of what to do could be shown when you would try to click it.

So… yes… there is a modus operandi that isn’t obvious to everyone, but causes the Green Screen / Blue Screen button (the icon depicts ‘two overlaying squares’ and appears on the left of the row of editing buttons above the clip preview) to stay invisible :

the green screen video should always be an additional layer, but not the main layer !

so, do this to fix this problem and get the Green Screen / Blue Screen button to appear :

  • open iMovie
  • create a new Project
  • in the new project’s time line, import the video (or picture) that you want to show in the background first (so make the background video/picture the main clip in the time line)
  • then import the green screen video on top of the main (background) clip (so drag it in the row / layer above the main clip in the time line)
  • then select the green screen video in the time line (a yellow outline will appear around the clip) ; now the Green Screen / Blue Screen button will show up in the row of editing buttons above the clip preview on the upper right section of the screen
  • then click the Green Screen / Blue Screen button ; now the options needed to make the cut-out of the green screen will appear

That’s it !

enjoy 😉

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fixed : how to get PS Express edited images from iPad to Mac ?

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Question :

I had to do a small retouch on an JPEG-image that is on my Mac, but my AdobeCS-licence is out-fo-date (and I don’t want to renew it until I need to do more tan one hour of work with it) so I can’t use Photoshop CS as I would usually do.

Then I remembered that I have the FREE Adobe PS Express-app installed on my iPad that should be able to do the trick. I figured out a way to get the JPEG-image to open using iCloud, but when I try to save the end result, the image is not saved in iCloud…

How do I get the edited JPEG back onto my Mac ?

Answer :

To open the JPEG-image that is on your Mac in PS Express-app on your iPad, do this :

  • first, on your Mac, make sure that the image is saved on your Desktop (or another easily accessible folder that is being synced across your devices using your iCloud-account)
  • then, on your iPad, open the Files-app and got iCloud Drive > Desktop (or the folder where the JPEG-image is in)
  • now click on the JPEG-image and it will open in a preview window
  • there, click on the Export-button top-right [the square with the upward pointing arrow]
  • in the pulldown-menu you will not see what you are looking for straight away, so scroll down and click on “PS Express”
  • now the JPEG-image will open in the PS Express-app and you can edit it

After editing, export the image back onto your Mac doing this :

  • make sure you have the finished the image open in PS Express-app on your iPAd
  • now, click on the Export-button top-right [the square with the upward pointing arrow]
  • in the window that opens, you will not see what you are looking for straight away, so scroll all the way down and click on More [the three dot icon]
  • now, in the popup menu that opens, scroll down and click on “Save to Files”
  • in the new pop-up that opens, typ the name you want to give the JPEG-image over the random name that was automatically generated (to by-pass potential naming conflicts, give it a slightly different name than the original image)
  • then, in the list of iCloud Drive folders, select Desktop (or the specific folder that you want to save the finished image to)
  • then check that it says “Item will be saved to “Desktop” on iCloud Drive.” and click Save [top-right]
  • then go back to your Mac, and you will see the edited JPEG-image there

That’s it !

enjoy 😉

fixed : put printing & scanning shortcuts in the Dock

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Question :

Whenever I need to scan (or sometimes even to print) anything, I need to go into System Preferences, then Printers & Scanners, then click Open Scanner…

Isn’t there a one-click solution to do this ?

Answer :

Yes there is.

Back in the days of MacOSX there used to be an option for this called “Desktop Printer” : that would put a shortcut-link of your printer on the Desktop. And you could do the same for your scanner.

Nowadays, for some reason, this option is gone, and no easy alternative is given by macOS… so you will have to create some thing yourself… the easiest way is to put both your Printer’s and your Scanner’s icon in the Dock. To do so, do this :

  • go to Apple menu (Apple-icon top-left in the top menu bar)
  • when the pulldown menu appears, select “System Preferences”
  • in the window that opens, click “Printers & Scanners”
    • if there is no such option, click on the raster-icon (top-center) first and it will appear
  • in the window that opens, click on your scanner (in the list on the left)
    • if your scanner is not yet in the list, add it first by clicking the Plus-icon at the bottom and following the on-screen instructions
  • now your scanner opens in the main part of the screen (on the right)
  • click the “Open scanner” button
  • now, the Scanner-window will open, and the scanner’s icon will appear in the Dock
  • CTRL-click (right mouse button) on the Scanner’s icon in the Dock
  • from the popup-menu, select “Options”, then “Keep in Dock”
  • now, the scanner’s icon will be moved to the left and it will stay in the Dock even after you close the scanner software
  • so, next time you want to scan anything, just click on the scanner’s icon in the Dock to open the scanner software

    That’s it !

Note : creating a direct link icon in the Dock for your printer can be done in the same way

enjoy 😉

fixed : get rid of Virus Infection warnings in Calendar.app

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Question :
For some reason, my Calendar.app is flooding with red warning messages like “Your iPhone is infected”, “Virus detected”, “Critical Warning”, “Your iPhone is in danger” etc.

Is this true ?
Where did this come from ?
How can I get rid of these ?

Answer :

It is not a virus infection. These are not real iOS Error Messages. These are Calendar Events. You have recently clicked on some unreliable internet link that has subscribed you to an external event calendar…

To get rid of these, do this :

  • on your iPhone, open the Calendar.app
  • in the window that opens you will see your current appointments, and in the bottom-bar three buttons : “Today”, “Calendars” and “Inbox”
  • click on the “Calendars” button (bottom center)
  • in the pull-up screen that appears, you will see all Calendar-feeds that you have active
  • scroll down to the “Subscribed” chapter
  • if you have just one entry there, click on the coloured circle in front of it to remove the white checkmark
  • if you have more than one entry in the “Subscribed” chapter, click on the coloured circle in front of the top/first one to remove the white checkmark
  • then, click “Done” (top-right) to see if the error messages are gone
  • if they are, proceed – if not, redo the above step until the error messages have gone from your calendar
  • when you see that the error messages have disappeared from the regular Calendar view, click on the “Calendars” button (bottom center) again
  • then, in the pull-up screen that appears, scroll down to the “Subscribed” chapter again and click on the Info-button (encircled i-letter) that is at the right side of the name of the Calendar that you have previously unchecked (to make the error messages disappear)
  • in the “Edit Calendar” page that opens, scroll down completely and click on “Delete Calendar” (in red – completely at the bottom)
  • now, the pesky calendar subscription will be gone

That’s it !

enjoy 😉

fixed : convert video for WhatsApp

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Question :

I have a short video file (a movie clip) that I want to share with my friends on WhatsApp. When I drag&drop it into the WhatsApp.app in macOS, the file appears to start uploading… but when done, there is no preview shown and no Play-button, just a file icon… as if it were an unknown or incompatible type of file…

What can I do to fix this ?

Answer :

Before uploading your video file to WhatsApp, you must make sure your video file meets WhatsApp’s file requirements :

  • video format preferably MP4 in H.264 or MPEG-4 codec ( MKV, AVI or 3GP will also do )
  • audio format preferably AAC ( or AC3 codec )
  • file size smaller than about 16MB ( in reality even 18MB might be okay )
    • usually, this means your movie clip will be about 90 seconds, but by tweaking the display size and the frame rate ( fps ) you can even squeeze 3 minutes or more into about 16MB

Do this to check your video’s specifications :

  • right-click ( CTRL-click ) on the movie clip’s icon
  • select “Get Info” from the popup-menu
  • in the window that opens, check these :
    • the file name either has the “.mov” or “.mp4” file extension
    • at “Size:” less that 18MB should be listed
    • at “Codecs:” either “H.264” or “H.264, AAC” is listed

If these are all okay, you should be able to just drag&drop the movie clip into the macOS WhatsApp.app.

If not, you will have to convert the movie clip. To do this conversion, do this :

  • first, download the FREE OmniConverter.app ( by 7littlemen ) from the Mac AppStore :
  • then, open the OmniConverter.app and click on “Convert Video” from the list on the left
  • then, drag&drop your movie clip file onto the OmniConverter window
  • now, at the right of the arrow (in the middle), check if “MP4” is listed and the file size is less than 18MB
    • if you do not see “MP4” listed at the right of the middle arrow, click the Format-button
      • in the window that opens, select the “Device”-tab
      • then, select “iPhone” from the list on the left
      • then, select the “iPhone HD” option
      • now, click the Confirm-button
    • if you see a file size larger than 18MB listed at the right of the middle arrow, click the Edit-button
      • in the window that opens, at “Video”>”Encoder:” select “H.264”
      • and at “Audio”>”Encoder:” select “AAC”
      • leave the rest as is and click the Confirm-button
  • back in the Convert Video window, click on the Start-button ( circled arrow icon, at the right )
  • now, wait for the conversion to complete
    • if the file size already was less than 18MB, you’re usually okay and you will not need to do extra compression
    • if the file size was over 18MB, do this :
      • open the OmniConverter.app and click on “Compress Video” from the list on the left
      • drag&drop the .mp4-video you’ve just converted onto the OmniConverter window
      • check if the file size listed at the right of the arrow (in the middle) is less than 16MB
        • if so, click the Start-button on the right
        • if not, click the Edit-button (below the arrow)
        • in the window that opens, set the “Quality:”-slider in-between “Mid” and “High”, set “Resolution:” to “720P” and set “Frame Rate:” to “24 FPS”
        • if at “Size:” it now says anything less than 16MB, click the Confirm-button
        • if at “Size:” it says anything over 30MB, set “Resolution:” to “480P”
        • if at “Size:” it says anything between 20MB and 30MB, set the “Quality:”-slider to “Mid”
        • now, if at “Size:” it still says anything over 18MB, start tweaking the available settings until at “Size:” it says about 15MB ( see how much the file size decreases when you tweak each setting to find the optimal combination of settings )
        • when done, click the Confirm-button
      • now, in the “Compress Video” window, click the Start-button
      • …and wait for the compression to finish

After the file conversion, drag&drop the converted movie clip into the WhatsApp.app to share it with your friends…

That’s it !

enjoy 😉