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Chaos Theory: A guide to TSW's Christmas Conspiracies event
Silver bells, Krampus and Hel, It's Christmas time in The Secret World Ring a ling, hear them scream, Soon you will see a Christmas play! Ahh, it's the holidays. A time when other games pull out the stops on cute and cuddly, flinging festive colors and joviality about like Christmas confetti to make a joyous celebration. Then you have The Secret World. In TSW, the season is dark, twisted, and fiendish; nightmares are brought to life, and conspiracies worm their ways throughout even the most revered of traditions. And we wouldn't have it any other way! I always wonder how on earth the devs are going to top themselves each new event, and this season's Christmas Conspiracies definitely does not disappoint! From the story to the puzzles, this mission chain fits right in. It even incorporated my favorite new element introduced this year -- music -- and literally makes you play for your reward. Want to experience it? You've got until January 5th to thwart the conspiracy and collect all the treasure you can. (Of course, even if you have done the two previous Christmas' events, you'll want to do them again just to get the special goodie bags!) Here's a not-quite-a-guide to help nudge you through. As always, I won't offer a direct step-by-step walkthrough but instead will just drop hints (in italics) to help you along. That said, here's your warning: There will be spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk! If, however, you want even more spoilers, watch Massively TV tonight, December 25th, at 9:00 p.m. for a Stream Team walkthrough special.
iOS 8 app switcher good. Recent contacts bad.
While many people may love the "recent contacts" feature in the iOS 8 app switching jump screen, I personally don't. Showing a bunch of names and faces each time I want to move from app-to-app isn't my cup of tea as I find it visually distracting. Fortunately, there is a way to disable this new feature if you're so inclined. Hop into Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and scroll down to the Contacts section. Toggle the Show In App Switcher setting to off, as in the screen shot at the top of this post. Doing so removes the "quick access" icons from the top of your app switcher window. Once disabled, those icons will no longer appear, simplifying your switcher to a more iOS-7-like appearance.
Here are lots of helpful EVE UI tips
If you're confused by EVE Online's UI, CCP Karkur has made a new video that you'll want to watch. Actually, you'll want to watch it even if you aren't confused, because it's full of tips and tricks relating to searches, inventory, the market, fittings, fleet settings, and more. Click past the cut to have a look!
How to set up a complex passcode on your iOS device
Smartphones and tablets these days store an incredible amount of information, and with much of it sensitive and personal, many users like to keep their device somewhat private by limiting who has access. With the introduction of Touch ID on the iPhone 5s, Apple sought to make iOS devices more secure by making security as simple as a fingerprint. But with Touch ID currently an iPhone 5s-only feature, where does that leave all other iOS users? Thankfully, there's a solution. The default passcode setting in iOS 7 only allows for a 4-digit numeric string, otherwise known as a simple passcode. But when you're really serious about device security -- or just want to be extra sure no one finds out about your Taylor Swift app or questionable weekend photos -- iOS 7 offers more complex passcode protection. With a complex passcode, you can pick a passcode that includes letters, numbers, and special characters. What's more, a complex passcode can be much longer than just four characters. In iOS 6, the string limit was 37 characters long. But in iOS 7 I was able to enter in over 90 characters without receiving a warning about having too long of a passcode. This makes the task of guessing another's passcode exponentially more difficult. Time to get started. To set a passcode that can include numbers, letters, and special characters, go to Settings > General > Passcode Lock. If you've grown weary of Touch ID and would like to do this on an iPhone 5s, it's listed under Settings > General > Touch ID & Passcode. Next, simply toggle off the "Simple Passcode" setting. If you haven't set up a passcode at all yet, you'll first have to select the "Turn Passcode On" option located near the top of the settings pane. Upon doing so, you will be prompted to enter a complex passcode with the ability to choose from an array of numbers, letters, and special characters. You'll be prompted to enter the passcode twice, the first time you tap 'Next' to continue and the second time you tap 'Done.' While you can insert special characters like ñ or é in a complex passcode, you unfortunately cannot use emoji icons. Which is a damn shame because a passcode like this would be pretty cool. As is always the case, it's important to make sure that your passcode is hard for others to guess but easy for you to remember. After setting up a complex passcode, your new passcode lock screen will look like this, offering up a full text-and-number keyboard for your passcode entry. Is a Complex Passcode even necessary? With a 4-digit numeric passcode, there are potentially 10^4 (10,000) different passcode options. That sure seems like a lot, but a study on common iOS passwords reveals that many people still rely on passcodes that aren't terribly hard to guess. Some common passcodes to avoid include 1234, 0000, 2580, 1111, 5555 and 5683 (which spells out 'love'). Also try and avoid passcodes that represent (easy to guess) birth years such as 1949, 1985, and 1999. When using a complex passcode, however, the number of possible passcode combinations increases exponentially. With about 77 characters (numbers+letters+special characters) to choose from, and a passcode that can be as long as 50 characters (at least), that's already 77^50 possible permutations right there, making it effectively impossible for anyone to ever guess your passcode without peering over your shoulder. Even opting for a slightly longer 6 character passcode increases the number of possible passcode combinations from 10,000 to 208.4 billion (77^6). And with that, may your device always remain secure from prying eyes. As a final note, this comic strip about password strength from XKCD is on topic and worth sharing.
Here's a quick way to send a file to a screen-shared desktop
I've been doing a lot of Mac development recently. This means I often need to screen share to my headless OS X Mountain Lion system for testing. This morning, I was updating my folderol app to add features for folder tagging. I had to make sure that those Mavericks-only features wouldn't show up when the app was run on 10.8. Normally, I mount the headless system as a foreign disk drive and then copy/drag to the drive using finder. But for whatever reason today, I thoughtlessly dragged the app directly to the shared desktop. And I'll be gobsmacked, but it worked. The file just transferred, and a new File Transfer window opened to show me that the process was successful: I honestly have no idea how long this feature has been around. For all I know it goes back to the OS X stone ages. [It does go back quite a ways... drag and drop file transfers using Apple Remote Desktop were introduced in v3 back in late 2006. –Ed.] But I also know that if it was a pleasant surprise to me, some of you out there will appreciate knowing about it too.
Does your iPhone really charge faster in Airplane mode?
A widely circulated iPhone tip would have you believe that your device will charge must faster in Airplane Mode. On the surface, this makes a whole lot of sense. After all, with GPS lying dormant and all of the wireless radios inside the device rendered temporarily inactive, your phone can take a break from things like searching for a cellular signal and work on recharging. Intrigued, and perpetually in need of a charge, I decided to check out this oft-cited iPhone lifehack for myself. Here's what I found using an iPhone 5s as my testing device with all charging being done via a wall socket. With Airplane Mode turned off, I was able to charge from 1 percent to 25 percent charge in 21 minutes. Reaching a 50 percent charge took 45 minutes. Getting to a 95 percent charge took one hour and 32 minutes. Not too bad. Now it was time to try it with Airplane Mode enabled. Needless to say, my expectations where high. With Airplane Mode activated, I was able to get to a 25 percent charge in 18 minutes and a 50 percent charge in about 43 minutes. I was able to get a 95 percent charge in one hour 29 minutes. So does Airplane Mode help you charge faster? Technically, sure, but the difference isn't exactly earth-shattering. Still, if you're pressed for time and need to charge up as quickly as possible, you might want to resort to Airplane Mode just to ensure that your device doesn't begin updating apps in the background or processing, say, a video sent to you via iMessage. Was this the most scientific of testing environments? Not quite. There is an argument to be had for the iPhone's battery strength indicator not being 100 percent accurate. To that end, a test from a completely dead iPhone to fully charged might have been a tad more instructive, but this should still provide a rough framework for what to expect when charging in a hurry.
A PDF alignment trick so perfect, you'll wish you'd thought of it yourself
When reading a PDF document in Preview, you may have discovered how hard it is to hand-adjust a page's zoom and contents to provide a page-at-a-time display. The screenshot to the right shows how there's almost always either clipping or a bit of the next page to worry about. Don't work so hard to manipulate your window. Use a few handy built-in features to better improve your reading experience. Show just one page. Select View > Single Page (Command-2) to show just one page, perfectly centered, at a time. You can return to continuous scroll at any time by selecting the View > Continuous Scroll (Command-1) option. Zoom each page to fit the window. Enable View > Zoom to Fit (Command-9) to ensure that the page expands as much as possible to fit the current window size. Now, instead of using the zoom-in and zoom-out options, you can just resize the window and the page size will follow suit. View a page-by-page table of contents. For quick page navigation, enable an in-window contents display by selecting View > Thumbnails (Command-Option-2). A column of previews appears to the side of the page letting you move to the exact location you wish. The first and third of these features are also available directly from the View pop-up that appears by default at the left of the window's toolbar. The location of this feature, which looks like a rectangle with a line and two dots on the left, may vary on your specific installation because Preview allows you to customize the toolbar.
TextEdit smart links for fun and profit
I regularly create and update documents in TextEdit using both plain and rich text (RTF) formats. One of my favorite features enables me to use built-in data detectors to automatically convert URLs to clickable links in RTF documents. Data detectors work by constantly scanning the material you're typing. When it sees something it recognizes, like phone numbers and addresses in the Mail app, it provides a way to act on these detected items. In Preview, the "smart links" detector adds a working, clickable link to recognized URLs. To enable this feature, open TextEdit's preferences (Command-comma) and select the New Document tab. In the bottom-right corner, check Smart links. When you next create an RTF document, TextEdit will scan your entered text and automatically convert URLs to links on your behalf. Your RTF document updates with the link (unlike when you use the feature with plain text documents). The embedded link field "{\field{\*\fldinst{HYPERLINK "http://tuaw.com"}}" enables the document to carry that URL with it, even when the file is opened in other apps.
Awesome Safari tip in iOS 7 you probably weren't aware of
Mobile Safari in iOS 7 introduced a number of new and interesting changes to the way users browse the web and access information. One such feature you may not be familiar with is dubbed "Shared Links." "Shared Links" allows you to quickly and seamlessly scroll through all of the links in your Twitter feed directly from within the Safari app. All in all, this provides a superior and more efficient way to peruse your Twitter links. Here's how it all works. Open up Safari and tap the Bookmarks icon located toward the bottom of the screen. This brings you to the "Shared Links" pane. From here, select the "@" tab located in the upper-righthand portion of the screen. You are then presented with all of the links from your Twitter feed. Note that only tweets containing embedded URLs show up here. Think of it as a streamlined Twitter feed. If I tap on one of the entries, I'm immediately whisked away to the desired URL, in this case an article from the WSJ tweeted out by the Huffington Post. As I scroll down, the end of the article lets me know where the next tweet is from, in this case a tweet from Bomani Jones about NCAA athletes unionizing. If I keep scrolling downwards, that story soon takes center stage. When I get to the end of this article, the next Twitter link is already there waiting for me. And so on and so forth. Altogether, this is a great way to browse through your Twitter feed if you're actually looking to do some web browsing. Not only does the scrolling provide a seamless way to jump from story to story, it's also always typically more enjoyable to browse in Safari than with Twitter's built-in browser. One final point: Even though you scroll downwards in order to access new Twitter links, be aware that you cannot scroll back up to revisit stories you've already read. Instead, simply swipe to the right as you would normally do in Safari.
Tips and tricks for surviving WildStar's active combat
All gamers have areas of interest when going into an MMO beta test, the things that they want to see and the content that they want to preserve for launch. Personally I hate going through quests and spoiling the story while in beta, so if there's a way to skirt around that, I take it. That's why my time with WildStar has been so very combat-centric, as I've been happily grinding on both PvE mobs and PvP competitors during my sessions like the archaic dinosaur gamer that I am. Because of this, I've gotten very well acquainted with WildStar's combat system during these rough-and-tumble initial 15 levels. I'm no expert, mind you, but I definitely have a good feel for how these encounters work and what are the right and wrong ways to go about tackling them. So today I'd like to share with you some observations and lessons to help you survive your first few days on Nexus, whether as a beta tester or a player in live.
Norrathian Notebook: Preparing yourself for EQN Landmark
Whether you are a Founder who will access alpha or not, EverQuest Next Landmark is coming up on us like a bullet train; it will be here before you know it. As opposed to most games that stretch your anticipation out for years, this one is going from announcement to playable in less than six months -- if alpha does indeed make it out in January. Those who are opting for closed and open betas or even launch shouldn't have much longer to wait, either. I expect that those stages will maintain the same speed we've already seen, putting players into the game proper well before the next SOE Live. So with the ultimate build-it-yourself sandbox on the horizon, the question is this: Are you ready? Have you got all your ducks in a row in order to best experience Landmark? Can you say you are all set to take advantage of those first minutes logged in? If not, I've got a few strategies, tips, and tricks to help you prepare for when the game goes live.
iOS 7 power tip: How to swipe through the multitasking view much faster
It's hard to believe that it took Apple until iOS 4 to finally add multitaksing functionality. But you know Apple, always preferring to take its dear sweet time and make sure that a new feature is up to snuff rather than releasing something half-baked. With iOS 7, Apple completely re-imagined the iOS interface. In doing so, the multitasking pane was completely revamped into a much more aesthetically pleasing card-like interface reminiscent of webOS on the Palm Pre. While iOS 7 undoubtedly has its fair share of critics, most would agree that the new multitasking view in iOS 7 is much more useful and intuitive. Accessing the multitasking pane is as easy as tapping the home button twice and casually swiping through the list of open apps until you find what you're looking for. But there's a power tip lurking right beneath the surface. If you have a lot of apps listed in your multitasking view -- and they sure do add up quickly -- you can swipe through them at warp speed (read: much, much faster) if you swipe to the left or right with the icons themselves instead of using the actual preview screens. The video below, at about 29 seconds in, provides a clear demonstration. And here's one last multitasking tip on the house: As you likely know, removing an app from the multitasking pane is as easy as swiping an app card upwards. If you have a large number of apps open, however, you can speed up the process by selecting (i.e., tapping and holding) up to three cards simultaneously and removing them all at once. via Reddit
How To: Taking screenshots of Time Machine
Last week, I worked on a TUAW post about ways people talk themselves out of using Time Machine. At one point in the post I needed to show a screenshot that demonstrated how to remove individual backups. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that you cannot perform normal screenshots while engaged in the Time Machine interface. So what I did was step back and mess around a bit at the OS X command line to see if I couldn't get around that problem. Be warned that this solution uses the Unix terminal. If you are unfamiliar with that utility app, you'll probably want to skip the rest of this post. The screencapture utility can be found in /usr/sbin. It enables you to grab images from the screen and save them either to a file or, as I wanted to do, the clipboard. What I needed to do was set the screen capture in motion, enter Time Machine, set up my shot and only then have the screen grabbed on my behalf. Fortunately, screencapture offers a time offset that allows you to delay the shot however many seconds into the future via the -T option. You supply a number, in my case I used 20 seconds, and then have time to set up. Once the shot is captured, you hear a camera shutter sound and you can retrieve the image you've created. The exact options I used were as follows. The -c option stores the image to the system pasteboard (commonly called the clipboard, hence the "c"). The -m option shoots only the main screen (I use multiple monitors). % screencapture -c -T20 -m Together, this provided me a sweet solution for providing visual access to a screen that I couldn't normally capture.
How To: Fixing the FileStatsAgent bug
At times, your system may seem to be spinning its wheels. A peek into Activity Monitor (found in the Utilities subfolder of your Applications folder) can offer clues as to what's going wrong. Activity Monitor scans your computer to determine its current CPU load and helps visualize other system tasks related to RAM, disk use, network access and overall energy efficiency. As I discovered, some Mavericks users may find a FileStatsAgent process has been eating away at their CPU. If this happens to you, it's generally due to a corrupt file. You can discover which file that is by selecting the process name and clicking the "i" info button. When the info pane opens, click the Open Files and Ports tab. There you'll find the path to any file causing an issue. As a rule, you'll probably want to delete that file, which hopefully isn't too important. As the most likely candidates are generally media files (in my case, it was a corrupt movie recording), you may want to use a file converter to create a safe copy before deleting the problem file.
How to: Disabling iTunes song notifications
Was it only a year or two ago that we posted instructions on how to add "what's playing" notifications to iTunes? These days, we're fielding requests on how to turn the darn notifications off. Yesterday, our own Ilene H was haunting the TUAW back channel trying to figure out how to de-Mavericks her iTunes, so they wouldn't keep popping up as she was working. Fortunately for Ilene and other iTunes users, there's an easy fix. Just hop into iTunes and navigate to Preferences > General. In the Notifications section, uncheck the "When song changes" box and bob's your uncle. Those iTunes updates will stop popping up and you can get on with your work.
Some cool camera tricks in iOS 7's Panoramic mode
Apple originally introduced the ability to capture panoramic photos in iOS 6. In iOS 7, this feature was moved up to the big leagues, now occupying its own dedicated mode from within the Camera app. While taking panoramic shots is a great way to capture photos like wide landscapes, here are a few camera tricks you can play with in panoramic mode that you may not already be familiar with. Multiplicity One trick is to take a photo featuring the same person in different locations, all within the exact same shot. To do so, begin panning and once you've passed over your friend or family member (aka a willing test subject), have him or her run around behind you to another location, soon to be panned itself. The result is multiplicity and a fun photo result. You can, of course, make it a tad more interesting by assuming the same pose in each shot. Also keep in mind that this trick works best without any moving objects (i.e., people, cars) in the background. Vertical Panoramas Another trick worth trying is a vertical panorama, otherwise known as a vertorama. You can do this by panning vertically instead of horizontally. To do so, your camera must be in landscape mode. The result is often an eye-catching photo. Pan from right to left By default, panoramic photos in iOS scan from left to right. You can easily take a panoramic photo in the opposite direction by tapping the large white arrow. This reverses the orientation and you're now good to go.
How to secretly take photos and videos with your iPhone
Here's a quick and fun tip only available in iOS 7. So if you're one of the few people still hanging on to iOS 6 for dear life, perhaps this will convince you to jump ship. Thanks to iOS 7's affinity for translucency, you can now take photos or videos with your iPhone while no one's the wiser. To do so, open up the Camera app. Oh look, some vibrant flowers just begging for a photo. Next, all you do is swipe downwards to access iOS 7's notification center. The camera app remains active and I can easily take a photo of the flowers with no one being the wiser by pressing the "+" volume button. Note that this trick also works in video mode. What's more, you can pull down the notification center while a video is still recording and the camera will keep on rolling.
Scattered Shots: Siege tips and tricks, part 2
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the finer points of pew pewing in The Underhold and Downfall wings of Siege of Orgrimmar. Some of you have been waiting 6 weeks for the Downfall wing to unlock, but now all hunters will get their opportunity to turn Garrosh Hellscream into their own personal pin cushion. If you missed the column from a few weeks ago, you can go check out part 1 of the Siege tips and tricks, covering Vale of Eternal Sorrows and Gates of Retribution. The fights in the latter half of the raid range from purely single target, such as Malkorok, to complete AoE binges like Spoils of Pandaria. In this guide we'll be focusing on mechanics in flexible and normal mode, but some of this can apply to raid finder difficulty. Keep in mind that a lot of the forthcoming tips are simply suggestions and that your mileage may vary. What works for me may not work for you, but this will give you an idea of how our abilities can be utilized on the final six bosses. Stock up on some Tomes of the Clear Mind and let's get started.
How to search a webpage for a specific word in mobile Safari
One of the great, and yet little known, features in mobile Safari is that it allows you to search a webpage for a specific word. This feature is a lifesaver if you happen to come across a lengthy article, for example, and want to quickly skip ahead to a particular segment of the document. Here's how it all works. Let's say I hop on over to ESPN.com to check out the latest sports news. Here I see ESPN's splash page talking about the Red Sox playoff win. But let's say I need my football fix and want to quickly jump to any articles discussing Peyton Manning without having to scroll through the site's entire front page. So, to find any references to "Manning," I simply double tap the URL bar in mobile Safari, which brings me to this page. Next, I start typing my search query, in this case "Manning," into the Safari search bar. All I see next are listings of Google Search suggestions. But wait! There's more here than meets the eye. Scroll down and you'll soon see a section titled "On This Page" lurking below. The "On This Page" match indicates that there is one instance of the "Manning" string on the ESPN homepage. I give it a tap and I'm instantly whisked back to the area of the ESPN homepage where "Manning" appears. And to make things easier to find, it's conveniently highlighted in yellow. Pretty great, right? Now let's say I look for a phrase that appears multiple times across a document. For instance, upon typing "Brady" into the URL bar and subsequently scrolling down, I see that there are five matches on the webpage. I tap "Find 'Brady'" and am now taken to the first instance of "Brady" appearing on the webpage. To find other instances of "Brady," all I have to do is tap the rightward facing arrow located at the bottom of the display and I can quickly cycle through all mentions of the search string. All in all, this is a great search tool to keep handy when browsing through mobile websites where search functionality exists, but is somewhat buried underneath the surface.
Captain's Log: More Star Trek Online new user tips - bridge officers
Before I dive into the next installment of my new player tips, I'd like to let everyone know that the Star Trek Online site has issued a few new dev blogs hinting at some of the cool news about the upcoming Season Eight: The Sphere. There are some great new blogs featuring the concept art of the new Dyson Sphere space adventure zone, too. But back to the original topic. Last week's column that provided a basic outline to the Star Trek Online user interface proved to be surprisingly popular and generated far more emails from readers than I had anticipated. Many of the readers have asked that I continue on with the new user tips and I think it's a great idea. So if you've always wondered about the very basics of STO Bridge Officers, join me past the jump to learn more!
