QuickLock is a terrific little tool from ThinkDev that makes it quick and convenient to lock your Mac when you leave your desk. It sits in your menubar out of your way, and a click (or a keyboard shortcut) is all it takes to keep your Mac safe.
With the latest version of QuickLock, users can enjoy a brand new interface and a number of new features. Best of all, it’s completely free.
There are a number of tweaks for jailbroken iOS devices that add alternative security measures to your lock screen, but Piano Passcode is possibly one of the craziest. Rather than typing a code or drawing a pattern, you have to play it a tune on a set of virtual keys.
Lawsuit hopes to prevent iPhones from being locked to certain carriers.
Two iPhone users claim Apple has violated the Sherman Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by locking their handsets to the AT&T network without their permission. They’re now suing the Cupertino company in an effort to get their iPhones unlocked, and for monetary damages. They also want a restraining order that will prevent Apple from locking its smartphone to carriers completely.
Add a security lock to your new MacBook Pro to ensure it isn’t an easy target for coffee shop con men.
In an effort to create the thinnest, lightest MacBook Pro it has ever released, Apple did away with a number of features that MacBook Pro users have become accustomed to, including the Kensington security lock. That means, of course, that you can no longer secure your $2,800 notebook to a table in Starbucks, and that it could easily be stolen from right under your nose the second you get up to order another cappuccino.
But Maclocks has a solution: the world’s first MacBook Pro security case and lock.
Apple released iOS 4.2.1 for the iPad and true to their word converted the iPad switch from screen orientation lock to mute and un-mute. If you’ve had an iPad since it launched you’ll understand how convenient that switch can be when using your iPad. Of course, this change brings the iPad into alignment with the iPhone. The iPhone switch has always been used to mute and un-mute that device.
Both devices now use the switch in the same way and the screen orientation lock has been moved to the running tasks bar which is accessible by double-tapping the Home button and swiping to the left.
iPad task bar displaying the screen orientation lock on the left.
When the iPad was first announced, the little “lock switch” was originally intended to be a mute toggle. When the product launched, it was a “screen orientation lock”. Apparently it’s headed back for mute purposes. I think it’s a shame, as I see several paths to more usefulness.