Ask TUAW: Protecting files, Remoteless Front Row, Boot problems, and more

Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW

In this final Ask TUAW of the year we'll tackle questions on password protecting files, starting Front Row without a remote, booting problems with a Time Machine drive, configuring the OS X firewall, updating an offline Mac and more.

As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. And now to the questions!

Continue reading Ask TUAW: Protecting files, Remoteless Front Row, Boot problems, and more

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iPhone Doom updated, close to playable

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hacks, Open Source, iPhone

Here's the latest build of iPhone Doom, sent to us by Stephen T a.k.a. psychochromatic, who recently took over the application from stepwhite. Last night on the Talkcast we were chatting about the biggest stories of 2007, and I totally should have mentioned iPhone NES and iPhone Doom-- these were two huge projects we heard about in the early days of iPhone hacking that really set the pace for putting third-party applications on there.

Psycho says that this build is not quite playable yet, but he's got it faster than ever and working in widescreen mode. The control scheme is definitely interesting, too, although not quite as intuitive as you might hope. At any rate, steps are being made. I continue to be impressed with the potential of the iPhone in terms of gaming-- here's hoping, yet again, that the official SDK will let us do this stuff as well.

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Five ways you can make life easier for new Mac users

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, Holidays

As we close out 2007, there are thousands of new Mac users just beginning to explore the wonderful world found on those shiny computers that were tucked under the tree/menorah/nonsectarian gift deployment venue. If there's one thing we'd recommend that experienced Mac hands could do to make the adjustment easier... well, there isn't just one thing, there's five. Got other suggestions for onboarding the switcher nouveau? Drop them in the comments.

1. Don't buy Apple RAM. This should be stenciled on every Mac box, printed on UPS driver caps, and possibly placed on street stickers outside the Apple Stores (I kid! Don't sue me). I recently priced a 512 MB upgrade for a vintage G4 iBook, and while I would have liked the convenience of the Apple Store for quick pickup, I could not possibly justify the 300+% markup over crucial.com's price for the exact same part ($150 vs. $38). I doubt that an educated-customer avoidance of Apple memory, either BTO or upgrades, will make much difference to pricing policies, but this situation is so insanely out of whack that something has got to give.

2. Make a shareware gift basket. You've got the massive downloads folder and the experience with your favorite Mac programs; why not leverage that? Burn a CD full of your top shareware apps, or register a couple of them in your buddy's name. Nothing says "I care" like software.

3. Give the gift of bookmarks. Your experience as a Mac veteran has populated your browser bookmarks with a zillion helpful sites; export them and send them on over! If you need a starter list: macfixit, macintouch, macworld, dealmac, macosxhints, versiontracker, iusethis, and of course our humble little blog.

4. Provide a personal support gift certificate. An email that says "call me anytime" might give too much license for midnight pleas for help -- maybe a stylized one-sheet saying "This certificate good for three hours of handholding, gentle instruction, wireless troubleshooting & general Mac advice" will set the ground rules.

5. Deliver the Kool-Aid. One of the hardest transitions for recovering Windows users to make when adjusting to the Macintosh Way is the attitude: expecting things to "just work" instead of having to tweak registry settings and swap out DLLs, being willing to cooperate with your computer instead of fighting it all the way. Sit with your buddy and watch them work for a bit; if you notice points of friction, try to lubricate. Remind them they can still right-click, allow them to plug in a printer and not go searching for drivers. See the light in their eyes return.

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Beta Beat: Simple sync with Changes

Filed under: Software, Beta Beat, Developer

This one is ostensibly for developers, but if you ever rock a revision control system or get excited about a little late-night diff-and-merge for whatever reason, your life may have just gotten easier. Changes is an app designed to simplify project synchronization and differencing for groups or individuals working locally or remotely. It provides a GUI and an impressive list of features for an initial release, including MacFuse support, Subversion and other SCM integration, a TextMate bundle and a command line utility.

Yes, it bears a resemblance to FileMerge, but Changes offers features and options well beyond Apple's aging utility. Because it uses existing systems (chdiff) and provides a plugin SDK, it's both easy to implement and extensible. The command line utility and F-Script support provide additional options for incorporating Changes into your existing workflow. I appreciated the familiar interface and was impressed by how simple it was to integrate Changes into my existing TextMate/Subversion workflow with a few keystrokes.

Changes, which is a Leopard-only release, is currently in beta and is available for immediate download. As of today, the download requires registering for a beta key but the developer has let us know that an upcoming build will switch to a simple time-locked beta. If you dig the software you can get a pre-release discount on a full license, receiving $10 off the $39.95 release price, but the offer is only good until the end of the beta period. And, less importantly, I made it through the whole post without a Bowie reference. Phew.

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A few laser etched Macs to ring out 2007

Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends

I have no problem admitting that I'm a sucker for a cool laser etched piece of tech. Our friends over at DVICE have gathered up a few great examples of what a laser can do to spiffy up your Apple product of choice (interestingly 8 out of 9 laptops in the post are Macs with the exception of an HP with My Little Pony etched on it).

Check it out, and if you're interested in getting something like this on your MacBook head on over to Engrave Your Tech.

No comment on the Barry Manilow etching pictured above.

[via Funfurde]

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Permanent Eraser 2.3.3

Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, Freeware, Leopard

Should Auld Acquaintance be deleted... then too bad! Especially if you are using Edenwaith's free Permanent Eraser product. Unlike Disk Utility (and Mac OS X's secure empty trash), this disk eraser will over-write data 35 times (versus secure empty trash's 7 times). What many users don't know is that when you delete a file from your computer, it's not really deleted; the operating system just marks that space as "free." However, this software will over-write the area of the hard drive where the data remains until it is scrambled and unable to be read.

This software received a new update yesterday that improves a bug that limited you to deleting 250 files. This application also has full Mac OS X Leopard support; including new icons for Leopard. In addition to deleting files in the trash can, you can also drag files to the icon to securely delete them.

This application can be downloaded for free from the Edenwaith website or from Mac Update.



[via Mac Update]

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Gish goes universal

Filed under: Gaming, Tips and tricks, Universal Binary

Gish isn't a Mac-only experience, but as a platform game, it's a pretty good one. I played it way back when it was released on Windows, but Inside Mac Games reports that Chronic Logic has released a universal binary of Gish, so now you can play it on Intel or PowerPC Macs alike.

Like I said, I found the game pretty fun. You play a ball of tar (no kidding) that rolls through underground locations in search of his lady friend (isn't that always how it goes), and the fluidity of your main character brings a lot of weird physics manipulation into play-- you can squeeze through small places, and even stick to surfaces like walls and ceilings. It's definitely a fun twist on platforming (and Gish can even invade old platformers with "warp zones," little psuedo stages that let you visit other games with Gish's abilities), and if you're in the mood for a great indie game, make sure to check out the demo. The full game is $20 over at the Chronic Logic website.

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Mac OS X screen capture tips

Creating a screen capture of part or all of the screen with OS X is pretty straightforward once you know what keys to press. Here's a quick rundown:

OS X SCREEN CAPTURE KEYSTROKES

* Command-Shift-3: takes a screen capture of the entire screen
* Command-Shift-4: allows you to select the area of the screen to capture
* Command-Shift-4 [release] Space : allows you to take a screen capture of an application window

Each of the above commands creates a screen capture of the desired area and places it on your desktop. If you prefer to take a screen capture which you can paste into a document, email, chat (etc.), just hold down the Control key in addition to the keystrokes above. The screen capture will be put onto the clipboard instead of saved in a file to your desktop.

CHANGING OS X SCREEN CAPTURE FILE TYPE

The default file type for screen captures is PNG. If you prefer a different format, it can easily be changed:

* Open a Terminal window

* Type the following line:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

The above Terminal command will change the screen capture file format to JPEG format the next time you log in. Available screen capture file format options include:

* gif
* jpg
* tiff
* pdf
* psd

Leopard dock tip: Show recent applications, documents and more

The Leopard dock has a great undocumented feature which allows quick access to:

* Recent applications
* Recent documents
* Recent servers
* Favorite volumes
* Favorite items

Here's how to enable the feature:

* Open Terminal

* Enable the Dock item by typing:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'
* Stop and restart the Dock to see the change by typing (still in Terminal):

killall Dock

The new item appears on the right-hand side of the dock and defaults to displaying Recent Applications. To change what is displayed right-click the icon.

Apple Q108 results webcast Jan. 22nd; more on iPhone 1.1.3 leak

Apple's first fiscal quarter results due Jan. 22

Apple has posted a notice for investors that it will discuss the results of its first fiscal quarter of 2008 on January 22nd.

The Mac maker says it will host a conference call and live webcast to discuss its performance during the quarter, which ends today.

Recent analyst reports have suggested that Apple will outperform its guidance for the quarter in iPod and Mac sales during the three-month period, which has already been characterized as unusually positive.

Video purports to confirm, explain iPhone 1.1.3 details

After drawing attention through its initial iPhone 1.1.3 leak, Gear Live has responded with a detailed video highlighting the new features found in the increasingly likely (though unconfirmed) update.

VOIP comes to the iPhone - iPod Touch

It looks like 2008 will be a great year for iPod hacking.  The first SIP compatible VOIP solution for the iPod Touch (and hopefully soon the iPhone) should be coming our way in the next 10 hours (as we write this).

The SIP application actually requires a bit of extra hardware on the iPod touch because of the lack of an audio in port on the device.  Thankfully they are selling the microphone as well.  The iPhone should eventually support this application without hardware modifications.

Hopefully this will light a fire under the VOIP industry, which hasn't been quick to port their applications to the iPhone.  As of now - or in 10 hours - only SIP accounts are supported on the Tochmods VOIP client.  Raketu had earlier announced an iPhone application for their VOIP service but as the application was in Flash form, it wasn't able to work on the iPhone.  It turns out they hadn't even tested the device on their system.

It is about time!

(video after the "jump")  

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Motley Fool declares Apple stock of 2008

Filed under: Apple Financial, Apple

Will 2008 be the year of Apple? I thought 2007 was the year of Apple (and before that 2006 wasn't too shabby as I recall), but it would seem that those foolish stock dudes over at The Motley Fool think that Apple stock will be the stock to have in 2008. They point out Apple's aggressive, and successful, retail growth, the iPod and iPhone, and rumors of movie rentals in iTunes as reasons to be bullish about Apple. Not to mention that people actually like Leopard (no offense, Vista, you are trying pretty hard and we appreciate it!).

I, personally, do not own a single share of Apple but I wonder how many TUAW readers out there are shareholders. Sound off in the comments.

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