Mountain Lion is Coming Next Month: Here’s What We Know

While Apple’s Mountain Lion has been coolly waiting for its chance to pounce on Apple’s website, Craig Federighi announced at WWDC 2012′s opening Keynote that the next big cat will be available next month (no specific date given) for only $19.99 from the Mac App Store.

“With iCloud built right in and the new Notification Center, Messages, Dictation, Facebook integration and more, this is the best OS X yet.”

Mountain Lion brings OS X closer to iCloud thanks to a community of integrated apps and services that allow for seamless syncing of Mail, Notes, Reminders, Calendar events, Contacts, and Messages. In addition to these iCloud enabled apps and services (which we’ve long been familiar with), Apple is introducing Documents in the Cloud.

Documents in the Cloud is a new feature that integrates with Apple’s iWork suite and enabled third party apps to bring you documents that are stored in iCloud. In his demo, Federighi opened Pages which brought an iCloud-based document library. In Mountain Lion, Documents in the Cloud is enabled for Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Preview and TextEdit. The new document library browser provides a simple way to access recent documents no matter which device you access them from. Apple will be making available an SDK so developers can use this feature for their own apps.

Game Center, a brand new Safari with a unified search field, and AirPlay mirroring, and greater accessibility for China were also shown off. AirPlay mirroring lets you send up to a 1080p quality secure video stream or an audio stream to an AirPlay receiver as iOS devices can.

While we’re talking about applications, I should take the opportunity to say that Gatekeeper on the Mac is completely user controlled. Outed as a feature that protects you from bad guys (my words), users can decide whether or not to trust 3rd party applications from outside the Mac App Store. Gatekeeper itself will check for security updates in the background, and it provides kernel ASLR for protection against buffer overflow attacks. Overall, it’s a solid security update.

Mountain Lion itself has something aesthetic changes — a brand new glass dock is seated at the bottom of the display, and the Notification Center icon has changed from its preliminary circle to an icon representing a list of items in the menubar.

Notification Center received plenty of airtime, with service integration being demonstrated on stage. Notification Center is reminiscent of Growl, with banners sliding down from the upper right corner. Alerts stay on screen until you dismiss them, and additionally there’s an on / off switch for showing notifications. Notification Center is smart too — when connected to a project, the Notification Center will automatically shut off.

Given that you could dictate in iOS 5, it’s only right that the feature makes its way onto the Mac. Dictation really needs no explanation: “Anywhere you can type, you can now talk.”

Sharing in Mountain Lion is prevalent, with Twitter being used as the first example. Just like in iOS, a cute tweet sheet pops up that lets you quickly jot down your thoughts and send it off to share with your followers. Additionally, Facebook integration in OS X brings your friends and contacts closer than ever. Integrated in Mountain Lion just like with iOS 6, a single sign-in gives you access to share across a bevy of services including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Vimeo. Facebook sharing lets you post to your wall, reply to a comment from an update displayed through the Notification Center, and directly update your Contacts with your friend’s information. To expound upon Notification Center, it displays updates from Twitter as well (for example, when someone mentions you in a tweet).

Power Nap is a feature we haven’t heard of before, letting your MacBook Pro with Retina Display or 2nd Gen (and above) MacBook Air receive data while it sleeps. All of the information you care about will be updated even before you open the lid — contacts, calendar events, emails, and other iCloud enabled services such as Find my Mac will work without user intervention. Even more amazing, your MacBook will be able to back up to Time Machine while in its Power Nap state. Supposedly, expected battery life should be maintained even when your MacBook is sipping power and downloading data while it’s asleep.

Customers who purchase one of Apple’s new MacBook Airs or MacBook Pros after June 11th will get a free update to Mountain Lion when it ships. Existing customers will be able to download it next month from the MAS. Today’s demo expounded what we already know, showcasing the rigidity of iCloud and new concepts that extends the Mac as an always active, lifestyle device. Mountain Lion’s integration with iCloud runs deep, and with over 1700 APIs available for developers, it’s a great release for developers and consumers alike.

Links

• Mountain Lion
• New Features
• Tech Specs and Supported Models

Mountain Lion Available in July From Mac App Store

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Apple® today announced that OS X® Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, will be available in July as a download from the Mac® App Store™. Mountain Lion introduces more than 200 innovative features including the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Facebook integration*, Dictation, Power Nap, AirPlay® Mirroring, Game Center and the enhanced security of Gatekeeper. With iCloud® built into the foundation of OS X, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to keep your content up to date across all your devices.

“The pace of innovation on the Mac is amazing, OS X Mountain Lion comes just a year after the incredibly successful launch of Lion,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With iCloud built right in and the new Notification Center, Messages, Dictation, Facebook integration and more, this is the best OS X yet.”

Using your iCloud account, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to set up your Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, Reminders and Notes. The new Reminders and Notes apps help you remember important tasks and jot down your thoughts quickly, while iCloud automatically keeps everything up to date. Documents in the Cloud works with iCloud-enabled apps including Apple’s iWork® suite so you can always access and edit your documents on any device.

The new Messages app replaces iChat® and brings iMessage™ to the Mac, so you can send messages to anyone with an iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch® or another Mac. You can include attachments, high quality photos and HD video, and your iMessages appear on all your devices so you can pick up a conversation right where you left off. iMessage includes group messaging, delivery and read receipts, typing indicators and secure end-to-end encryption. The Messages app also supports traditional instant messaging services, including AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk and Jabber.

Mountain Lion streamlines the presentation of notifications, and with Notification Center you can see all your notifications from OS X and third party apps in one convenient place. You can customize which apps send you notifications, the type of notification you receive, and how many items are shown in Notification Center. When you want to focus on your work or watch a movie, you can choose to temporarily suspend all notifications.

New system-wide Sharing is built into Mountain Lion, making it easier than ever to share links, photos, videos and other files. Clicking the Share button allows you to share quickly without having to switch to another app, and you just need to sign in once to use third-party services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo. Facebook and Twitter are integrated with Notification Center so you can receive notifications when someone sends you a message or mentions you in a post or Tweet.

With built-in support for Facebook, you can post photos, links and comments with locations right from your apps. Once you’ve signed in, your Facebook friends automatically appear in Contacts with their profile photos. Your Facebook notifications work with Notification Center in Mountain Lion, and you can even update your Facebook status from within Notification Center.

Dictation is built into Mountain Lion and allows you to dictate text anywhere you can type, whether you’re using an app from Apple or a third party developer. Mountain Lion also introduces Power Nap, an innovative new feature that keeps your MacBook Pro with Retina™ display and MacBook Air (second and third generation) up to date while it sleeps. Power Nap automatically refreshes Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Photo Stream, Find My Mac and Documents in the Cloud, and when plugged in, downloads software updates and backs up your Mac using Time Machine®.

The revolutionary new Gatekeeper feature makes downloading software from the Internet safer by giving you control over which apps can be installed on your Mac. You can choose to install apps from anywhere, just as you do today, or for maximum security you can set Gatekeeper to allow only apps from the Mac App Store. The default setting allows you to install apps from the Mac App Store and apps from developers that have a unique Developer ID from Apple. In addition to checking daily for security updates, Mountain Lion includes app sandboxing to keep misbehaving apps from compromising your system, and kernel ASLR for improved protection against buffer overflow attacks.

Additional new features in Mountain Lion include:

• AirPlay Mirroring, an easy way to wirelessly send an up-to-1080p secure stream of what’s on your Mac to an HDTV using Apple TV®, or send audio to a receiver or speakers that use AirPlay;

• Game Center, which brings the popular social gaming network from iOS to the Mac so you can enjoy live, multiplayer games with friends whether they’re on a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch;

• a faster Safari® with a unified Smart Search Field, iCloud Tabs that present your open tabs across your devices, and a new Tab View to quickly swipe through them;

• new features for China, including significantly improved text input, a new Chinese Dictionary, easy setup with popular email providers, Baidu search in Safari, built-in sharing to Sina Weibo and popular video websites Youku and Tudou; and

• over 1,700 new APIs that give developers access to the latest core OS and web technologies, as well as the newest features of OS X, including Documents in the Cloud, Notifications, Sharing and Game Center.

Pricing & Availability

OS X Mountain Lion will be available in July from the Mac App Store for $19.99 (US). Mountain Lion requires Lion or Snow Leopard (OS X v10.6.8 or later), 2GB of memory and 8GB of available space. For a complete list of system requirements and compatible systems, please visit: apple.com/osx/specs/. OS X Server requires Mountain Lion and will be available in July from the Mac App Store for $19.99 (US). The OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge via the Mac App Store to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 11, 2012.

*Facebook integration will be available in an upcoming software update to Mountain Lion.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple’s PR website (apple.com/pr), or call Apple’s Media Helpline at (408) 974-2042.

© 2012 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, OS X, App Store, AirPlay, iCloud, iWork, iChat, iMessage, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Retina, Time Machine, Apple TV and Safari are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Apple
Bill Evans, 408-974-0610
bevans@apple.com
Monica Sarkar, 408-862-3204
monica_sarkar@apple.com

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(Via MacStories.)

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Google Earth iOS Update Adds Bike Routes, Earth Gallery And More

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Now you can access earthquake info, bike routes and lots more from within Google Earth ittself

Google Earth just got what turns out to be rather a big update. On paper it seems like nothing more than a few interface tweaks and the ability to open KML and KMZ files linked from Safari, but one new bullet point — “Touring support: load tours from the Earth Gallery or from mountain layer” — turns the map app into something entirely different.

First, V6.2.0 does have few other changes and fixes. The aforementioned ability to launch KML and KMZ files in Google Earth when clicked in the browser is actually very useful, letting you browse many travel and outdoor sites for routes and see them in a native app. Also, tapping on the screen to zoom now zooms in on the spot you tapped instead of the center of the screen.

But it’s the Earth Gallery which stands out. You launch it from the wrench at the top of the screen, and you get a sheet which lets you search for anything in the gallery. This includes travel tips, but also route-finding websites.

The Wikiloc layer is an amazing resource for bikes and hikers

One of these is Wikiloc, a wiki for sharing GPS routes. I use it to search for places to tour on my bike, or routes that will keep me away from major roads. With the new Google Earth you can not only open these routes directly in the app, but they are actually overlaid in a new layer right there in the app.

It’s super-neat. Activate the layer and the current map gets a lot of little icons showing hiking or cycling routes. Tap one, and it gives an overview of the route, with distance, elevation and so on. Tap again to show the route on the map as a thin white line. You can’t do a fly through like you can in the desktop version, but it’s a great way to fond a route when you’re out and about.

As ever, Google Earth is free. If you have any interest in the outdoors whatsoever, you should be downloading it for your iPhone or iPad right now.

 

 

(Via Cult of Mac.)

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30 New OS X Mountain Lion Features In 2 Minutes [Video]

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If you’re as excited as I am about OS X Mountain Lion, you’ll want to check this video out. Since only developers have access to the Mountain Lion beta at this point, I put together this quick video for all of Cult Of Mac’s great readers detailing 30 of the best new features of Mountain Lion, all jam packed into just two minutes. Check out the video after the break.

This isn’t a complete list of features, so if you found any more that I didn’t list, leave them in the comments.

 

(Via Cult of Mac.)

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Will OS X Mountain Lion’s Docs In The iCloud Kill Dropbox?

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The Finder's new iCloud view works just like iOS. Screenshot: Pocket Lint

With Mountain Lion, Apple has finally tied iCloud to the Mac desktop. While iCloud has worked seamlessly on iOS since launch, moving documents between iCould and your Mac was embarrassingly awkward, involving web browsers, dragging and dropping.

Now, it has been shoved deep into the heart of the OS, in the form of a kind of alternate Finder.

At the top left corner of open/save dialogs you’ll now find two buttons: “iCloud” and “On My Mac.” On My Mac gives you the regular Finder file system. ICloud switches you to the now-familiar linen window seen in the file-management section of apps like the iOS version of Pages.

Here you’ll find documents that were saved into iCloud from any of your devices. Unlike DropBox, which acts like a de-facto Finder for your iDevices, iCloud only shows you the documents that have been created with the current app. In this way it feels a lot like iTunes or iPhoto in that you never have to touch the file system.

Some of you may have seen this style of window on OS X before. PDF Pen, an app for both the Mac and the iPad, uses a similar window to let you access the iCloud storage area shared by both apps. Here it is:

PDF Pen has been using a similar file-browser for a few weeks now

The iCloud Finder acts just like its iOS counterpart. Dragging one file onto another makes those pseudo folders that look like iOS Springboard folders; new documents can be created, and there’s a sharing button for exporting files to other places.

The easiest thing to say about this is that it means death to Dropbox, but I’m not so sure. While it is indeed very handy to never worry about where your files are, ever again, it is also very handy to be able to move files around in an arbitrary manner.

For example, If I hear of a movie I’d like to see, I can (theoretically) find and download the Torrent file with Safari on my iPad and save the file into a folder in my Dropbox. Now my Mac, back at home, is set to automatically open any .torrent files that appear in that folder. Thus the movie could (in theory) be ready by the time I get home. Try that with iCloud.

We’ll have more to say once we have gotten to play with Mountain Lion, but right now it seems like iCloud might just be OS X 10.8′s killer app.

 

 

(Via Cult of Mac.)

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Apple Intern Worked On ‘Secret’ Project Porting Mac OS X To ARM

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While Apple has previously dismissed the idea of porting its entire Mac OS X operating system to ARM-powered mobile devices, the Cupertino company has at least been working on it. That’s according to one intern who worked with Apple’s Platform Technologies Group — a subdivision of the CoreOS department — for four months back in 2010. But does it really mean anything?

Tristan Schaap wrote a thesis on his time at Apple shortly after he left the company in 2010, but he was unable to publish it until August 16 2011, when an embargo protecting the sensitive subject matter was lifted. It’s now available for anyone to read, and it details Apple’s work on porting its Snow Leopard desktop operating system to devices powered by ARM processors.

iMore points to this particular section of Schaap’s report:

The goal of this project is to get Darwin into a workable state on the MV88F6281 processor so that other teams can continue their work on this platform. The project has three major milestones:

1. Getting the buildsystem into shape, so that it can build the kernel and kexts.
2. Building and booting the kernel into single user mode.
3. Booting the system into multi-user mode.

iMore notes that since Apple started working on this “secret” project, it has shipped new MacBook Airs and a new iPad; neither of which show any sign of Mac OS X on ARM. It’s unclear if the project is ongoing at Apple’s Cupertino campus or whether it has now been dropped. But Schaap is now a full-time employee at Apple, working as a CoreOS engineer.

So what does Schaap’s thesis suggest? Well, many have jumped to the conclusion that it means Apple was — and could still be — planning to port Mac OS X to a device like the iPad. But we’re skeptical of that. After all, we already know that the company is so secretive that new employees must work on “fake” products until they can be trusted, so why would they allow an intern to work on a project as big as bringing Mac OS X to the iPad?

Furthermore, I think it’s safe to assume if this thesis revealed any details about Apple’s future plans, Schaap would no longer be an Apple employee. What’s included in his report must now be largely insignificant.

 

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(Via Cult of Mac.)

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How To Enhance iTunes with AppleScript

Many people would agree that iTunes is fast becoming (or has already become) bloatware. It has a ridiculous number of features and uses, but not always what we’d consider to be the right ones. You can find out what songs Bruno Mars is particularly enjoying at this time, and yet can’t search YouTube for music videos.

Luckily, everybody’s in the same boat, and people have been working tirelessly to create ways for you to make your iTunes work the way you want it to. Today, we’ll be focusing onDougScripts, a site started by Doug Adams a little over 10 years ago in February 2001, which is home to around 500 AppleScript files.

These scripts are free to download and easy to install. In this article, we’ll be showing you how to do just that, and showcasing some of Doug’s best work over the past 10 years.

Installing a Script

Installing an AppleScript script is just about as easy as you can get. If you want to follow along with this short tutorial, we’ll be working with Just Play This One, a script which plays a selected song in iTunes, instead of the whole album or playlist.

1. Download the script, and uncompress the ZIP file.
2. Open up the DMG. In this case, you will have all of the instructions laid out for you already, but if you download scripts from other sites, you are not always so lucky.

Installing the Script
3. Open up a second Finder window, and navigate to (your username)/Library/iTunes/Scripts. If you haven’t got a “Scripts” folder, which is likely, if you’ve never installed a script before, simply make one.
4. Drag Just Play This One.scptd into your Scripts folder. You can put the instruction file in too, but it’s not necessary for the script to work.

Running a Script

1. Bring up iTunes. There is no need to quit and reopen iTunes, the script will be loaded automatically.
2. In the case of the “Just Play This One” script, select a song from an album or playlist, go into the AppleScript menu (A scroll icon in the menu bar), and click “Just Play This One”. iTunes will play the selected song and stop.

Running a Script

Every script is different, so you will use them differently. Check the instructions that come with the script on how to use the individual script. One thing which stays the same is that you run the script from the AppleScript menu.

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut

Having to go through the menu bar every time you want to activate one of these scripts is time-consuming. Wouldn’t it much easier to use a keyboard shortcut? Here’s how:

1. Take note of the exact wording of the command in the menu bar you want to add a shortcut to. All punctuation, capitals, etc. are essential for it to work.
2. Close iTunes.
3. Open System Preferences, and navigate to the Keyboard panel. Then, go to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
4. Click on the “+” button and a panel will pop up.
   

   Setting a Keyboard Shortcut
5. Select iTunes as the application.
6. Type the exact command into the “Menu Title” field. In this example “Just Play This One”.
7. Choose your keyboard shortcut. Try not to make it anything that will conflict with other shortcuts.
8. Open iTunes again and use your shortcut at will.

20+ Great Scripts to Improve iTunes

Now that you know how to install and use scripts, it’s time to start building your script library. Here are over 20 of the most useful scripts from Doug Adams.

Super Remove Dead Tracks
“Dead tracks” are those in which the file is no longer locatable, and can be identified in iTunes by a “!” next to their name. This scripts gets rid of them from your library in one fell swoop.

Delete Tracks Never Played
Everybody has a number of songs with a play count of 0 which they have never listened to. Maybe, eventually, you’ll conclude that if you haven’t listened to it yet, you probably never will, and want to delete them. This script does it easily.

Import iPod Audio Files
If you somehow lose some songs from iTunes, but have them on your iPod, you can use this script to recover them. This won’t work for your entire library, but it should be able to handle an album or two.

Update Expired Podcasts
If you haven’t listened to a podcast for a certain length of time, iTunes will stop downloading updates. Use this script to update them again.

Change iTunes Hidden Preferences
There are a number of iTunes preferences which Apple have decided to hide, but you can access them with this script. You’ll be able to hide the Ping buttons, use half stars for ratings, and several more.

Change iTunes Hidden Preferences

Gather Up the One-Hits
This script creates a playlist of the artists of which you only have one song by. Often, these  songs are crackers, so this is a very useful script.

Needle Drop
This can be used to play a certain length of every song before skipping to the next. If you have a low attention span, this could be for you.

Block Party
This app creates playlist of random songs, but in blocks of 2 or 3 songs by each artist. So you’ll get 2 songs by The Beatles, then 2 by Queen, 2 by Bowie, and so on.

Block Party

Just Play This One
This is the script from our tutorial. As previously explained, it plays a single song and then stops, instead of a whole album or playlist.

Play Selected Track Next
This is a nice way to queue up a track. Simply select it while another track is playing, and run the script. The selected track will play after the current song has ended.

Now Where Was I?
This script remembers the song you played when you quit iTunes, and starts playing it again when you open iTunes again. It requires a little more work to get its full function, but it’s very useful if you put in the little bit of extra time.

Tracks Without Artwork to Playlist
This does exactly what it says on the tin – Places all tracks without any artwork into a playlist so you can work through them in your own time.

Remove n Characters from Front or Back
Sometimes, all tracks in an album will be named something along the lines of “07 – The Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night”. With this script, you can remove a certain number of characters from the front or back of a track name, in order to clean it up.

New Play Count
I like my play count to be an accurate representation of my favourite songs (it rarely is), and this script can assign new play counts to songs, if you had to re-import a song, or if you just wanted to hide how many times you’ve listened to that Hannah Montana soundtrack.

New Play Count

Rate Me! Rate Me!
This script reminds you to rate a song, whenever an unrated song is played. If you’re not in the habit of rating songs, this is a great way to start.

Sundry Info to Comments
What do you put in the Comments field in iTunes? If you’re like me, you won’t have much to put in there. This script allows you to put the file name, file path, sound volume, file creation date or a number of other details in the comments field.

Album to Album Artist
In most cases, except compilation albums, the artist field will read the same as the album artist field. With the script, you can quickly synchronise the two fields.

Proper English Title Capitalisation
If you’re anything like me, you want every little meta tag to be perfect, and poorly capitalised song titles will drive you to despair. This script will save you from a lifetime of frustration.

Search Wikipedia
No prizes for guessing what this does – It searches Wikipedia for the song, album, artist or composer of a selected song. Great for getting data for meta tags quickly.

Search Wikipedia

Search YouTube
This too is pretty self-explanatory – It searches YouTube for the selected song. If you love music videos, this will be an essential download.

Guitar Tab Search
Can you guess what this script does? Yup, it finds guitar tabs on Ultimate Guitar for a selected song. How did you guess?

Music Trivia
This is less useful, more fun. It plays a snippet of a song, and you must guess the song.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are plenty of excellent scripts available, and that’s just on one website. Start exploring more websites and you’ll never need to manually edit a thing on iTunes ever again.

Considering how easy it is to install these scripts, and how much time they save, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get started straight away!

via : mac.appstorm.net/

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30 Fantastic Geeky Tricks to Get The Most From Your Mac

If you’re one of those Mac users that loves to dig in and play with hidden features and settings, this post is for you.

Below you’ll find 30 tips and tricks to help both seasoned and beginner Mac users to get the most out of their OS X experience. We’ll cover everything from obscure Terminal commands to keyboard shortcuts that every Mac user should know and use. Let’s get started!

Dock Tricks

Recent Items Stack

Stacks are quite the handy addition to your Mac’s dock and the good people at Mac OS X Hintsfigured out a way to make them even more useful by creating a stack that automatically contains your most recent applications.

These can of course be found under the Apple menu as well but it’s much more convenient to have them right in the dock.

Recent Items Stack

To accomplish this feat, simply copy and paste the line below into Terminal.

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'

Once you’ve completed that command, type “killall Dock” to relaunch your dock with the new stack.

Stacks List View

Use the snippet below in Terminal to activate a really nice looking list view in stacks complete with icons and a scroll bar.

defaults write com.apple.dock use-new-list-stack -bool YES

As with the previous example, use “killall Dock” to make the change take effect.

Stacks List View

Resizing Your Dock

If you click and drag the little divider bar in your dock, you can resize the entire dock without going to System Preferences. Hold down option to make proportional changes.

Resizing Your Dock

Force Magnify Dock

If you’re like me and have dock magnification permanently turned off, you can temporarily activate it by holding down ⌃⇧ while hovering over the dock.

Force Magnify Dock

Desktop & Finder

Show Hidden Files

One of the most well known and widely used terminal commands. Use the snippet below to make hidden files visible in the Finder.

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Set it back to “NO” to re-hide the files.

There's Nothing You Can See That Can't Be Seen

Hide Your Desktop Debris

If you find yourself constantly embarrassed or distracted by your messy desktop habits, download Camouflage, a free app that quickly hides everything on your desktop.

Hide Your Desktop Debris

Choose a New Library

There are several applications in OS X that allow you to choose or create a different library on startup. Simply hold down the option key when you click on an app in the dock to see a window similar to the one below.

Choose a New Library

Sync Application Libraries Across Macs

Use the previous tip to create a new library for an application and place that library in yourDropbox folder. Then choose this library with the same application on any other Macs that you own and all the application data will remain synced between the two Macs!

This trick is completely free, just be sure to watch the size of the libraries you are syncing as it’s really easy to eat up all your Dropbox space.

Finder Window Shortcuts

It’s easy to miss that you can actually add item shortcuts to the top of your Finder windows. Simply drag the application into the space to the left of the Spotlight field.

Finder Window Shortcuts

Pimp Your Desktop

You may have caught a glimpse of my desktop in one of the images above and wondered how I could display weather, time and date as a part of my background. Using GeekTool you can add all sorts of functionality to your desktop. It’s everything Dashboard should’ve been.

Pimp Your Desktop

Check out our recent GeekTool tutorial to get started.

If it’s all a bit too technical for you, check out Yahoo Widgets instead. They’re just like Dashboard widgets only you have the option to display them right on your desktop.

Stationery Pad

If you have files that you often use as templates but want to prevent accidental replacement of the original file, you can use the “stationery pad” option. Enabling this on a specific file makes it so that when you try to open that file, the Finder creates a duplicate and opens that instead.

Stationery

To find this option, get info on a file with ⌘+I and click the “Stationery pad” checkbox under the labels in the “General” section.

Quick Look Zoom

While Quick Look is launched, hold down the option key to turn your cursor into a magnifying glass. Then click to zoom in. Hold shift and option to zoom out.

Quick Look Zoom

Screensaver

Screensaver Wallpaper

Have you ever wanted to set a screensaver as your desktop background? Well that’s a horrible idea for more reasons than I care to list. However, it turns out that it’s perfectly possible. Just use the following command in Terminal:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background

When you’ve had enough fun, hit Control+C to return things back to normal.

Screensaver Wallpaper

Twitter Feed Screensaver

When you’re looking at your Twitter timeline in Safari, click on the RSS icon in the URL bar to see the timeline as an RSS feed. You may need to add the login to Keychain for it to work properly.

Then copy and paste that feed into your RSS reader screensaver in System Preferences and voila! A free, continually updating tweet-filled screensaver.

Twitter Screensaver

Debugging and Troubleshooting

Enable Safari Inspector

The Safari Inspector is an impressive suite of development tools for examining and debugging web pages. It’s hidden by default but you can use the following command in Terminal to enable it:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true

Enable Safari Inspector

When All Else Fails, Repair Permissions

Sometimes your Mac will simply refuse to do something that seems completely routine and normal. This can be anything from installing and running a new application to duplicating files in the Finder.

When you’ve tried everything else and are at your wit’s end as to how to solve the problem, try opening up Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder) and repairing your disk permissions.

You’d be surprised at just how many mysterious problems can be solved with this single step!

Repairing Permissions

Miscellaneous

Automatic Time Zone

It used to be the case that you had to set your time zone manually in OS X. However, with Snow Leopard you can choose to have your Mac guess your time zone by attempting to grab your current location.

Automatic Time Zone

You can also use a free app called Jet Lag that runs in the background and constantly makes sure that your computer is set to the proper timezone.

Giant Cursor

If Grandma has been having trouble following that tiny cursor around on the screen, open up the Mouse & Trackpad section under Universal Access in System Preferences and crank up that sucker’s size.

This is also an awesome trick to play on any friends not savvy enough to know how to turn it off.

Giant Cursor

Better Screen Sharing

The screen sharing utility has a number of hidden features that beef up that really beef up the experience. This includes a number of options for adjusting quality and allowed input on each side of the screen share.

To turn on these options, throw the following code into terminal:

defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing \
'NSToolbar Configuration ControlToolbar' -dict-add 'TB Item Identifiers' \
'(Scale,Control,Share,Curtain,Capture,FullScreen,GetClipboard,SendClipboard,Quality)'

Better Screen Sharing

To read more about what all the added buttons will do, check out MacWorld’s explanation.

Syncing Google Calendar and iCal

Now that iCal has CalDAV support, syncing your iCal calendars with Google Calendar is as simple as typing in your Google account info under “accounts” in the iCal preferences window.

Syncing Google Calendar and iCal

Safari Undo

In Safari 5 there are several commands that can be undone with a quick ⌘+Z beyond typing mistakes. For instance, if you get carried away while closing tabs and accidentally close one that you wanted to keep open, just undo it! Nifty no?

Kill Dashboard

Many users have abandoned OS X’s dashboard functionality either completely or in favor of alternatives like GeekTool. If you never want to see your dashboard again, you can kill it completely with the following Terminal command.

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

To bring it back, change the “YES” to “NO”.

Scheduling Time Machine

Time Machine is an excellent utility that makes backing up all the data on your Mac extremely easy. However, there’s so much emphasis on making this task easy that there are very few customizable options. Most notably, you can’t control how often Time Machine runs an automated backup.

Fortunately, there are two free applications that remedy this problem. Time Machine Editor andTimeMachineScheduler are both great solutions for customizing your backup intervals.

Scheduling Time Machine

Tricks for New Mac Geeks

Force Quitting an Application

This is one of the most vital tricks in the whole list and is well known by most Mac users. If an application freezes on you, hit ⌘⌥+esc (command + option + escape) to bring up the Force Quit menu.

Just select the troublesome application and kill it to fix the freeze (all unsaved data will be lost). Right clicking on most frozen applications in the dock will give you the same option.

Force Quit

Hide Others

This shortcut is known by almost everyone but more than likely ignored by most. I’ve recently started using it and now find it to be an integral part of my OS X experience.

I always have well over ten applications open at once, each with their own various windows scattered throughout my spaces. This can cause some serious screen clutter that takes forever to sort through and manage.

Hitting ⌘⌥+H to hide everything but the current application is a quick and easy way to start over and give yourself some breathing room. I find myself frequently clicking on the Finder in the dock before performing this action so that all open applications become hidden.

Blank Screen in a Hurry

For those college students out there who like to check out the scores on ESPN.com during lectures, there’s a shortcut that will help you hide your obvious inattention as the professor walks by.

Hit ⌃⇧+eject to immediately dim your screen to zero brightness. This will effectively put your display to sleep so that inquiring eyes find only darkness. Be careful though, moving your mouse or hitting any key will bring it all right back up.

Safari Extensions

The most recent iteration of Safari has a new extension system similar to that of Firefox. To install an extension, simply download the file and double click it.

To find some excellent extensions, check out 30 Incredible Safari Extensions Available Now.

Force Quit

Custom Application Shortcuts

OS X allows you to create a custom keyboard shortcut for any menu item in just about every application. To access and create these, check out Snow Leopard’s new and improved keyboard shortcut manager in System Preferences.

Assigning Custom Shortcuts

I find the “Merge All Windows” menu command in Safari to be particularly useful so above I assigned it a keyboard equivalent.

Paste and Match Style

This is another shortcut that’s clearly listed in OS X but is likely missed by many users. To paste text that matches the destination formatting into any of Apple’s applications (doesn’t work in most third party apps) , use ⌘⇧⌥+V.

I use this command every single day and really wish that Adobe would create an equivalent in Photoshop and Illustrator!

Mail Threads

Gmail automatically organizes all your incoming mail into conversations so that when you receive a reply, it’s easy to scroll through and see the entire conversation.

Apple Mail actually has a similar feature that groups email messages into threads. Each thread is a collapsible collection of messages from a single back and forth conversation.

Mail Threads

To activate message threading, click on “View” in Mail and select “Organize by Thread.”

via : mac.appstorm.net

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