Mac - page 66

Here’s a fun, kinda crazy way to use the sudden motion sensors that come in some Mac notebooks, like the newer unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros. These sudden motion sensors are used by Apple to detect when a laptop with a physical spinning hard drive is dropped, and therefore this tip won’t work on the 2010 or 2011 MacBook Airs that shipped with flash-based, non-spinning SSDs. Using a third-party app, you can pick up your laptop and give it a shake-to-undo option, just like the one on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Apple’s Migration Assistant is a handy utility for moving data between old and new Macs, but sometimes you can get duplicates of existing applications. Here’s one way to avoid the issue:

I’ve transferred over my user account from old to new mac. I’m just about to transfer a second user account from another mac to this same new mac. The new Mac has all the applications from the first transfer in the System level Applications folder.

The second user account that I’m about to transfer also has apps in the System Level Application folder. I was wondering what would happen, would they replace the existing apps on the new Mac when I transfer the second user account using Migration Assistant? – Phillip

The Library folder changed from being visible in Mac OS X Snow Leopard to being invisible in Mac OS X Lion. Apple decided to hide the Library folder from users to protect them from damaging the contents of that folder. Although that makes some sense from a security perspective, there are times when you need to get into that folder for troubleshooting or other reasons.

We’ve showed you how to make the Library folder permanently visible, but today I’ll show you how to get temporary access to this folder. Using this method will give you access when you need it and at the same time give the folder the protection Apple thinks it deserves.

I like the new Preview app that ships with Mac OS X Lion. It comes with a lot of new features, but one I find particularly useful is the feature you can use to sign PDFs digitally.

Lion has introduced some new yet basic privacy settings. The new settings control how you share your location and collect usage data to send to Apple. Although now it seems to be fairly basic I think it is still important to know what if any apps on your Mac are accessing location services on Mac OS X.

I’ll show you how to find out if they are or not in this tip.

Back in 1997 at the beginning of the Second Jobs Dynasty, Apple introduced a special edition Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (TAM) to celebrate the company’s 20th year in business. The TAM was positioned as a high-end luxury system, selling for $7000 and delivered by a tuxedo clad technician, but highlighted where Apple was heading in industrial design with a vertical orientation, elegant fit and finish, and an LCD display later adopted by the iMac.

In this promotional video a (then) relatively unknown Apple designer named Jony Ive (with a full head of hair) shows off his newest baby and explains the company’s design philosophy. The TAM was a flop in the marketplace but foreshadowed Apple’s subsequent design renaissance, and has since become a coveted collector’s item.

[via 512 Pixels]

The tip today is a simple one that most Mac experts might already know, but I met a newbie today who didn’t have any idea why there are so many items listed in Recent Items a sub-menu on the Apple menu.

“There are just toooo many recent items under documents,” they said, and complained about the Server item being there when they didn’t have any servers.

So I showed them how to fix it, and now I’ll show you too.

Did you buy an app for your Mac that you later regret having bought? Or did you decide it was so terrible that you don’t want to be reminded about having bought it? Well, you are in luck, because now there is a way to remove purchases now from your Purchased history in the Mac App Store.

Apple has fixed an issue with Mission Control’s All Windows mode in Mac OS X 10.7.2 that will make a lot of people happy. You can now rearrange the desktop spaces and full-screen applications by dragging. The Dashboard and the first desktop space remain fixed in place at the first and second places in the desktop spaces and full-screen applications list.

Although dragging these objects around is new, the trick to getting it to work is similar to a previous tip.

Although Steve Jobs is not known for ostentatious displays of his wealth, he was designing his own luxury yacht. And typical of Jobs, he was designing it himself so that he could obsess over every detail.

In a conversation with President Obama last year, Steve Jobs sounded like an out-and-out Republican, according to another excerpt from the upcoming official biography.

During President Obama’s trip to Silicon Valley in the fall 2010, where he met several business leaders, Jobs complained about regulations, taxes and the teachers unions. I always thought Jobs had a liberal bent, but he sounds like a member of the Tea Party.

He told Obama he would be a “one-term Presidency” unless he became more friendly to corporations.

The AP has somehow “purchased” an early copy of Walter Isaacson’s official biography of Steve Jobs, which is due to hit store shelves on Monday. According to this initial report, Jobs called Android “grand theft” and threatened to start a “thermonuclear war” with Google.

As Apple’s stores nationwide prepare to close for a few hours on Wednesday to remember Steve Jobs, many are removing the memorials that sprang up on their windows and doorsteps. The memorial at Apple’s flagship store in San Francisco, for example, was removed last week.

Not so the Apple store in Palo Alto, Calif. — Steve’s hometown. Quite the opposite, the number of Post-It tributes has grown to the point that both windows are now almost completely covered. The picture above was snapped just a few hours ago on Tuesday evening.

It’s a nice tribute. Let’s hope they stay up for a while longer. Here are a few more pictures:

Although they missed the chance to picket his funeral and memorial service, the Westboro Baptist Church still plans to stage two hate-mongering protests for Steve Jobs in Cupertino on October 19.

The Kansas-based congregation, infamous for picketing the burials of slain soldiers and its “God Hates Fags” slogan, plans to picket outside Apple headquarters during the employee celebration of Jobs and at a local high school.

In a rambling online statement, the church cited the immorality of “some nerdy people possessing ONLY what God loaned them for a very short while, have stolen God’s glory and given it to themselves.”

Earlier, the church had announced plans to picket Jobs’ funeral on October 6.

Planted in your shiny new iPhone 4s and in the iOS 5 are the seeds of tomorrow’s Mac of the future, and indeed the future of all computers. You can find them if you know where to look. (And I’ll tell you where below.)

It’s not supposed to be this way. In the Microsoft world, at least, new technology starts at the top and “trickles down” from bigger and more powerful computers over time to mobile devices and eventually cell phones. If you’re focused on the machines, this makes sense, as larger computers are more capable of handling powerful new features.

But if you’re focused on the user, as Apple is, this approach doesn’t make sense. Apple has developed what I believe is a unique strategy: introduce new interfaces and new ways to interact with computers and the Internet on the smallest devices first, then scale them up over time, eventually ending up as desktop features.

To celebrate Steve Jobs Day this Friday, Erica Montelongo and Gunter Zieber are getting married at their local Apple Store.

 “Gunter admired Steve Jobs and this is how he wanted to celebrate Steve Jobs Day,” said Montelongo, 34. “And when you add in Tiffany and Co., how could a girl say no?” To learn more about the steve jobs wedding, check out this detailed article.

This tip is especially handy for Mac OS X Lion users, but it should even work with Mac OS X Snow Leopard too. You’ll be able to activate a hidden debugging menu and other hidden secrets in the Disk Utility app on your Mac in the folders Applications –> Utilities.

Having an uncluttered and minimalistic desktop has several benefits. Not only does it remove visual distractions, it can also actually speed up your Mac. In this video, I’ll show you a few ways to clean up and un-clutter your desktop.

Finder has two nice features that you might want to turn on if you aren’t using them already the Finder status and path bars. Both of these give you kick access to some very useful information about your Mac.

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In the tradition of artists throughout history, those proud iconoclasts at Apple who created the original Macintosh signed their creations for posterity. Inscribed into the inside rear panel case mold for the 128k, 512k and Mac Plus are the signatures of Steven Jobs, Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, Bruce Horn, Jef Raskin and the rest of the historic team.

The newest app to grace the Deals.CultofMac.com hub is a nifty little tool called Disk Drill Pro. This is a sort of app that you hope you never have to use, but is a lifesaver when it’s called to the line of duty. In almost any situation Disk Drill Pro can assist in recovering lost data on your Mac. It has patented technology to deep-scan your hard drive and find files you thought were gone forever. Currently, the app is on sale at deals.cultofmac.com for $30 (that’s 66% off its usual $89 price-tag).

Today we’re holding a giveaway for 2 app codes of Disk Drill Pro. You have to actually play to win the giveaway though, so here are the rules for the contest:

You’ll either love or hate Mac OS X Lion’s Restore feature. If you didn’t know it the Restore feature kicks in when you relaunch an app. All the windows that were open the last time you used that app are open again and restored when the app launches again.

Although Restore works great for some apps like Safari I don’t really like how it works for the Preview app. Lucky for us we can permanently turn Restore off for Preview.

Here’s the cover of the October 17, 2011, issue of The New Yorker. Notice that they reuse the same ‘St. Peter uses an iPad’ gag as the recent Next Media Animation tribute to Steve Jobs.

Me & Steve Stories — Some of the best stories about Steve Jobs are the personal, intimate ones. We’re collecting them here and will run as many new stories as we can find. If you have a story about Steve you’d like to share, please send us your submissions.

In September, 2004, KC Bradshaw was working as a trampoline installer, which is how he got to meet Steve Jobs in person and leave with a very special souvenir.

In recent years, Steve Jobs became famous for emailing terse responses to queries sent by Apple customers to his public email address: [email protected].

It’s not a new habit, it seems. Back in the early days of Apple, Jobs used to mail letters with computer chips attached to them. Letters of Note posted the one above. How many of these are out there?