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Posts tagged with "os x"

Access Recent Apps, Volumes, Servers and Documents From Your OS X Dock

Here’s an interesting tip about the OS X dock I absolutely didn’t know about, which was brought to our attention by OS X Daily. With a simple Terminal command, you can create a new “smart” stack item in your dock that will automatically collect your most recent applications, servers you’ve connected to, documents, volumes and Favorite items. The stack – which needs to be manually enabled – comes in handy if you’re looking for a quick way to re-open items you’ve recently launched – and especially for Servers and Volumes, this means the stack is collecting my most used items, not just the recent ones.

To enable the recents menu, type this in the Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’

Then, to relaunch the Dock:

killall Dock

The new stack will automatically be placed in the rightmost section, next to the Trash. To remove it, simply drag it out of the Dock. I like this menu because it’s making me save lots of time that would have been spent into the Finder otherwise (the method above worked just fine for me on Snow Leopard 10.6.7). Check out more screenshots below.

Update: if the Terminal command throws you a syntax error, make sure to copy the plain text from OS X Daily.

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Printopia 2.0: AirPrint From iOS To Your Mac Apps

When I first reviewed Printopia by Ecamm back in November, I was impressed by how easily the app allowed me to send documents from an iOS device to a shared printer on OS X via AirPrint. The problem with AirPrint we discussed in November – which Apple hasn’t fixed yet – is that unlike the first betas of OS X 10.6.5 and iOS 4.2, the final versions of these OSes didn’t ship with AirPrint support for shared printers. AirPrint works out of the box with a bunch of HP printers, but Apple promised last year that it would also work with any printer previously configured and shared on a Mac. No need to install additional drivers on iOS: as long as a printer was shared on OS X, it would show up in AirPrint. With 10.6.5 final, that wasn’t the case. AirPrint support for shared printers was pulled at the last minute, and a series of unofficial hacks surfaced to re-enable it without reverting back to a beta of 10.6.5 (Mac OS X has reached version 10.6.7 since then). Among those hacks and apps, Printopia was without the doubt the most elegant one because it provided a GUI in System Preferences to manage shared printers, and allowed you to print a document to a virtual location on your Mac or Dropbox.

Version 2.0 of Printopia, released yesterday, builds on the great virtual printing functionality by adding support for unlimited printers in any location (could be your Downloads folder, the Desktop – you name it) and PDF workflows and applications as well. The feature is more exciting than it sounds on the changelog: with Printopia 2.0, you can send a document from your iOS device (through AirPrint) to any app on your Mac that can preview, say, PDFs. Example: I’m on my iPhone, and I find a PDF I want to read on my computer. Both devices are on the same local network (but it should work with this kind of VPN setup as well), and Printopia is running on my Mac. I take the PDF, and “print it” to Evernote. The document will automatically open in the Evernote app on my desktop. I tested this with Google Chrome, Preview, DEVONthink, Yojimbo, Numbers, Pages – it works really well. But there’s more. Not only you can print to applications, you can also print a document to an Automator workflow that supports the file type. Here’s another example: last night, I sent a PDF document to CloudApp’s own “Upload with Cloud” workflow, and AirPrint sent the document to CloudApp, automatically returning the file’s URL on my desktop.

Printopia 2.0 opens the door to a lot of possibilities for virtually printing documents anywhere on your computer, and of course support for physical shared printers is still there. Printopia 2.0 also introduces support for passwords you can assign to any virtual or real printer and settings for paper size / tray and colors.

If you want to get the most out of AirPrint and you have a Mac, Printopia is the utility to install. With support for real and virtual printers and system-wide integration with apps and Automator, Printopia is a full-featured solution to get any document from iOS on to the desktop. A demo version is available, and a full license can be purchased at $19.95. More screenshots below. Read more

Safari 5.1 Gets “Do Not Track” On OS X Lion

As noted by The Wall Street Journal, Apple has enabled an option in the latest developer build of OS X Lion (Developer Preview 2 was released two weeks ago) to activate “Do Not Track”, an open project by Mozilla to prevent advertisers and other web companies from tracking you online.

Apple Inc. has added a do-not-track privacy tool to a test version of its latest Web browser for keeping peoples’ online activities from being monitored by marketers.

The tool is included within the latest test release of Lion, a new version of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system that’s currently available only to developers. The final version of the operating system is scheduled to be released to the public this summer. Mentions of the do-not-track feature in Apple’s Safari browser began to appear recently in online discussion forums and on Twitter.

Already offered by Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4, “Do Not Track” can be enabled or disabled by a user at any time; the service will then tell advertisers, web app or companies to stop tracking your movements online and, in a typical scenario, won’t serve “targeted ads” anymore to the browser. The new option hasn’t been given a standalone preference panel in Safari 5.1 yet, but it’s very likely that there will be one come the final release of Lion this summer. Right now, developers can activate the option from the Develop -> Send Do Not Track HTTP Header.

OS X 10.6.7 Introduces OpenType Text Bug (You’re Not Alone)

If you find yourself scratching your head over jumbled text in (commonly) PDF files after the 10.6.7 update, it’s an issue that’s cropped up and found its way on Apple’s Discussion boards according to the folks over at Macworld. The text bug occurs with OpenType Postscript fonts, which aren’t included by default with your new Mac but can be later added with the installation of third party software (Adobe is noted). The problem seems to only occur in apps utilizing OS X’s rendering engine outside of the Preview application, displaying jumbled text that’s impossible to read. Upon printing, you may encounter an “invalid font error” in rare cases. The bug only crops up if you’re using software such as Adobe Reader, and the PDF you’re reading utilizes the aforementioned fonts. By using Preview or opening documents that use a common font such as Helvetica for example, it’s possible you’ll never see the word scramble in action.

[via Macworld]

Image credit Macworld

OS X Lion: Multi-User Remote Access, New Auto Save & iChat Options

Following the release of the second Developer Preview of OS X Lion two days ago, several blogs have posted details and screenshots of what’s new, improved and changed in this build and, overall, Mac OS 10.7 itself. Together with the new features we covered in the past, Lion introduces a brand new multi-user screensharing system that will allow users to remotely log into their own computer even while it’s being used (locally) with another account. This is a major change that turns Mac OS’ Screen Sharing tool into a powerful remote computing solution with fast users switching options.

AppleInsider has posted details and screenshots of the new feature. A user has the possibility to log into a computer with his own account while another account is currently managing and using the machine; the “remote user” will still see his desktop environment, all his files and applications. In previous versions of OS X, when a user tried to connect remotely and share the screen, the “local user” would have to give up on the possibility of controlling the screen – or otherwise find a way to communicate in real-time with the remote user to decide who should move the mouse and control the computer. We’ve all been in this situation: when a friend asks us to control his machine for troubleshooting purposes, we have to make sure he doesn’t do anything while we’re controlling his desktop UI. Or, we tried to remotely log into our home computer only to find out a family member was using it and we had no way to independently access to our apps, files and folders. Lion will change this, and we believe it’s quite possibly one of the most interesting features unveiled so far, as it opens to a lot of possibilities for remote access, troubleshooting and, overall, effortless management of a machine not in our local network. Read more

Want Lion’s Scrolling on Snow Leopard? This Free App Enables It

One of the most discussed features of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is the “backward scrolling” that, in an attempt to resemble the behavior of iOS devices, is enabled by default in System Preferences. In the Lion Developer Preview (both 1 and 2), if you move your fingers down the screen scrolls up, and vice versa. This is activated by default to make iOS users feel comfortable when using the new desktop OS, but has annoyed several long-time OS X users as the preference is automatically enabled and is buried deep down into the Trackpad settings as a checkbox.

If you believe, however, that changing the scrolling system is actually a great idea and you want to practice before Lion is released to the public, free app Scroll Reverser lets you do just that – on Snow Leopard (and 10.5, too). Once downloaded, it’ll sit in the menubar waiting for you to choose whether you want reversed scrolling or the normal one. A click on the dropdown menu allows you to make the change in seconds, and revert back again. The app can start at login, and has no additional preferences.

Download here. [via Lifehacker]

Apple Releases Lion Developer Preview Update 1

As noted by iClarified, Apple just released a first update for the OS X Lion developer preview in Software Update. A few days ago, TechCrunch reported Apple was getting ready to seed a GM build of Mac OS X Lion, and while this build isn’t touted as “golden master” to developers, it appears that the sources close to TechCrunch were right about Lion moving forward in the development stages.

The changelog indeed suggests this is only an update aimed at allowing developers to download new builds from the Mac App Store in the future:

This update is required to redeem downloads of Mac OS X Lion seed builds from the Mac App Store.

We’ll update this post with changes as more details come in.

WWDC To Be Software Focused, No iPhone 5 Launch?

There is speculation today from Loop Insight that this year’s WWDC, to be held from June 6 , will not include any new hardware announcements – namely the iPhone. Apple said in its press release earlier today that WWDC ’11 will  focus on unveiling “the future of iOS and Mac OS.”

Based on information from his sources and the focus of the press release, Jim Dalrymple believes that this means more than just a strong focus on iOS and OS X, but a complete focus on the software driving Apple’s hardware forward. The iPhone 5 has, until now, largely been expected to launch as previous iPhones have, during the WWDC launch. Dalrymple contemplates that instead of a new iPhone taking stage it would be Lion, which is set to launch around WWDC and the ever-important iOS.

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Disk Drill Out Of Beta, Adds S.M.A.R.T Disk Monitoring

While Disk Drill was in beta, we had it thoroughly reviewed as an excellent file recovery solution for the Mac, helping prevent disaster from unavoidable data loss thanks to power failure, hard drive crash, or accidental file deletion. Not only does the Recovery Vault watch what files you delete and keep a tab on them in case of recovery, you can also have Disk Drill scan external HFS/HFS+ or FAT drives and flash media to possibly undelete pictures, music, and documents. Disk Drill comes in free and Pro versions, with the free version supports files protected Recovery Vault, you’ll gain the ability to recovery anything thanks to a new deep scan algorithm in the Pro version, which will attempt to recover files that haven’t yet been overwritten by the operating system. Included in both versions is now a menubar utility that monitors your hard disk for errors, and will allow you to back up failing partitions to a disk image at the first sign of trouble.

Disk Drill is user friendly, and I recommend you check out our initial review before checking out the free version. The Pro version costs $89, but if you already own a competitor’s product that you’re unsatisfied with, you can send Disk Drill a proof of purchase for a 50% discount. Students and non-profit organizations also qualify for a 20% discount.