Aunt TUAW
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Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me ditch the screenshot shadow
Dear Aunt TUAW, I miss my old style screenshots. I use screenshots a LOT for presentations and training purposes -- specifically the window-only snapshot (cmd-ctrl-shift-4 followed by the spacebar). This feature is still in Lion; however, it now includes a pretty big drop shadow with the screenshot. Is there a way I can turn this drop shadow off to trim the window down to just the important parts -- the window and its contents? Your loving nephew, Patrick Dear Patrick, There's a simple command-line approach to controlling whether Lion adds those shadows or not (Snow Leopard, too, as this dates back quite a while). Just issue the following to disable the shadows. Use false instead of true to enable them. defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true There are other cool screencapture preferences you can use as well. For example, you can set the capture format to JPEG, TIFF, or PNG using the following. Google around to discover more. defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpeg After setting the defaults, you must restart the SystemUI server: killall SystemUIServer And there you have it. If you're not a command-line kind of guy, you can also use the latest build of GrabUpper to set the shadow and capture format defaults with a simple menu selection. Hope this helps! Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me expand Mail's tracking-fu
Dear Aunt TUAW, I really like Mail 5's shipment tracking feature, but it only seems to look up shipments in USPS. What if I have a package arriving from some other service? Is there a way to change what site Mail looks up for tracking info? Your loving nephew, Bob V. Dear Bob, Those features that automatically connect to shipment look-up are called data detectors. OS X Mail has built them into Lion, allowing you to track packages sent by UPS, FedEx, and the US Postal Service. They work like this. When Mail detects shipping information, hovering your cursor over a tracking number produces a dotted outline and a small button with a downward arrow. Click that arrow and choose Track Shipment from the contextual pop-up. Mail opens a QuickLook window populated with your shipping information. You can enable and disable data detectors by issuing a command-line defaults request, e.g. defaults write com.apple.mail DisableDataDetectors YES, or NO. What you can't do is change what detectors there are, or add to them. As far as Auntie can tell, data detectors seem to be built into apps via the underlying programming system rather than specified through defaults. Data detectors are actually quite complicated things. They are based on regular expressions that match the characteristics of the item they are detecting. Apple provides built-in detectors for tracking numbers, phone numbers, dates, addresses and for URLs. A simple web search for regular expression and, say, phone number shows how deeply complex the problems are -- and how little suited they are for end-user expansion. GummyDev offers an interactive regex checker. Its relatively simple regex for UPS is /\b(1Z ?[0-9A-Z]{3} ?[0-9A-Z]{3} ?[0-9A-Z]{2} ?[0-9A-Z]{4} ?[0-9A-Z]{3} ?[0-9A-Z]|[\dT]\d\d\d ?\d\d\d\d ?\d\d\d)\b/i. If UPS is simple, FedEx is less so. FedEx apparently keeps updating their number system based on their internal corporate structure and the number of packages delivered. In Apple's SDK, the NSDataDetector class derives from the NSRegularExpression class and basically works the same way. Class instances can enumerate through matches found in a string and applies property updates based on those matches. Here's a quick example of a custom data detector that matches against any occurrence of the string "auntie", marking it in orange. So to sum things up, here's what Auntie has believes is likely going on. (Although if she got any of this wrong, do correct her -- as usual -- in the comments.) As an end-user you can enable or disable all data detectors for mail. You cannot add new data detectors, say, for the Canadian postal service. Developers can build detectors into their own apps as needed, but these detectors and the regular expressions that power them are not shared between apps. Regular expressions can be really, really ugly. Here's hoping that helps. Hugs and kissies, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me choose between a Wi-Fi and 3G iPad
Dear Aunt TUAW, Should I buy a Wi-Fi iPad or a 3G model? I need to know! Please help me choose! Your loving niece, Meg Dear Meg, Auntie's helped other nieces and nephews with this same dilemma and it always seems to boil down to this: do you own an iPhone? If not, spring for the 3G. Ubiquitous computing is what really makes iOS sparkle. You won't be sorry you sprung for the 3G experience. Auntie's dad swears by it. At the same time, the Wi-Fi is usually enough for most iPhone owners. Wi-Fi units are lighter and cheaper. If you need to get work done, there's the iPhone hotspot service if you can't get access near a Coffee House. The 3G isn't just about getting online. Location-based services make so many apps compelling. So if you can't get those on your phone, be sure to grab them for an iPad. Yes, there are a few edge cases here -- mostly surrounding grandfathered unlimited plans that can't be used with hotspot service. (Just wait until September/October. Auntie's betting that those unlimited plans are about to drop like flies.) But Auntie's advice holds. If you have connectivity and GPS on your phone, you probably can live without it on your iPad. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me snag an out-of-contract iPhone
Dear Aunt TUAW, I wanted to get a cheap iPhone plan for my dad but your write-up says that I can't use my first generation iPhone with AT&T's Pay As You Go. I'm going to need a 3G or newer unit. So what's my best bet for scoring an inexpensive out-of-contract iPhone? I looked at eBay and everything there is unlocked and expensive! Your loving nephew, Steve Dear Steve, Unfortunately, the used iPhone market is hotter that Auntie's collection of vintage Big Band LPs, all because of those unlocked units. Websites like gazelle.com snatch up used models for resale. Auntie thinks Apple's move into the unlocked market will slow down that demand. Currently US$649 (and likely to drop in a few months), the unlocked iPhone 4 offers something that homebrew unlocked models have been unable to match: the ability to upgrade on demand without destroying the unlock. Until that slowdown materializes, though, the used market remains quite expensive. Your best bet is to ask around to find friends and colleagues who might be willing to sell or give you an older model that's no longer being used. If that doesn't pan out, Auntie suggests contacting your local Apple authorized service provider (ASP). They sometimes receive broken units as trade-ins for other work done -- almost always due to broken glass. It costs about $80 to replace the glass on an iPhone 3G, more (about $130) if the LCD breaks as well. Those costs prompt some people to barter their phone rather than repair it. Since a large part of that cost is labor, ASPs can absorb the screen replacement work and resell units at a lower price than you might find elsewhere. Your best bet is to call around with a wishlist, leaving your name and contact information, and then be prepared to wait. Auntie talked to ex-TUAW-ian Josh Carr, who works as an ASP at MacWorks in Denver. He told her that while they do get units with broken components that they fix and turn around, it doesn't happen on any regular basis. He always has a wait list. As a final option, if you don't mind spending, you can buy a refurbished 3GS for under $400. You pay AT&T $9 on their current refurb special, sign up for a 2 year contract, and then cancel in the first month, paying a prorated amount for the month and $325 for the contract cancellation. It's an awfully expensive way to do things (remember the $175 cancellation fee from a few years ago?) but it's one more option in your arsenal. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: There's a spider in my iMac
Dear Aunt TUAW, There's a tiny spider running around just behind the glass of my iMac. Hopefully it won't be cause for a service call! [The photo is attached at the end of this post.] Your loving nephew, David R. Dear David, Obviously your Mac isn't running the Robot Exclusion Standard that keeps spiders off of it. That's a little Auntie geek humor. All in all, it's probably harmless if a little unsightly. It probably got in through one of the ports or the speaker grill. Give it a few days and it will either find its way out or fall to the bottom, where it will go peacefully to eternal sleep and decompose to dust. Auntie consulted with Josh Carr of Denver-based MacWorks, who demurred. "If someone brought this in to me, first thing I'd do is disassemble the iMac to take a look around to see if the spider had made itself at home and laid eggs. If the nest is on the board, it could potentially short out." He mentions that the iMac glass can be removed with a couple of suction cups, but that's something that freaks out Auntie's sensibilities. She'd more likely than not break the glass while trying to lay it down on the ground. Your mileage will vary. In any case, you may want to get it looked at by an Apple Authorized Service Provider but things are probably going to be just fine without. Hugs and kissies, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: What are those lockfiles?
Dear Aunt TUAW, With Lion, I'm seeing a lot of plist.lockfile in my Preferences folder. I'm assuming the "lockfile" business has to do with the new autosave stuff in Lion, but why would that apply to a preference file? Is this a bug or a feature? Your loving nephew, Darren Dear Darren, Feature. Historically, lock files have restricted file access to one application at a time. Auntie has no reason to think that Lion's use of this concept differs. A lock file prevents a second edit from being applied concurrently, preserving information integrity. Access control is especially important when competing processes might want to update an application's defaults at once. Auntie went ahead and used opensnoop to watch what happened as she updated a few preferences. Sure enough, the lock file seemed to be set on application launch and reset on quit % sudo opensnoop -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TextEdit.plist UID PID COMM FD PATH 501 23363 mdworker 6 /Users/ericasadun/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TextEdit.plist 501 23363 mdworker 7 /Users/ericasadun/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TextEdit.plist What surprised Auntie was how if she didn't identify a specific preference to watch, that all the preferences lockfiles were refreshed whenever a new lock was applied (Try it yourself, with sudo opensnoop with no arguments). It was also fun to see how TextEdit updated its autosave information, its saved state, its shared file property list and more. Opensnoop is curiousity crack. Hope this helps! Love & snuggles, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me find my disk space
Dear Aunt TUAW, I had been reading your post on TUAW since i start using my mac, your "Dear Aunt TUAW" helps alot cause i still new to this OSX. Now i had a minor problem and hope you can help me sort it out. I had no idea the available disk space shows when i hit "space bar" (quick look window) is different from the "Get info" window. How can i retrieve those missing disc space? Your loving nephew, Mua Dear Mua, You're working on a laptop, aren't you? Auntie is guessing that because Time Machine works slightly differently under Lion with portable systems. Before Auntie gets to the answer, she wants to remind all her nieces and nephews of a few key tricks for checking space under Lion. In any Finder window, Command-/ will toggle hiding and showing the file size status bar, including free space availability. Right-Click > Get Info on any Finder item opens an Info window complete with file size information. Apple > About This Mac > More Info > Storage > shows Disk Usage bars, similar to the ones you've seen in iTunes for years. Auntie's main drive looks something like this. And yours looks something like this. The big difference? Is the purple Backups portion, between the green Apps and the yellow Other. (Don't confuse the Backups purple with the Movies purple. Apple, you couldn't have gone with, say, red? The items are in order, so Movies only appear between blue and orange.) On mobile systems, Time Machine automatically creates local backups, saving hourly snapshots of newly changed files. The free space you see in About This Mac on a laptop reflects those backups, but the Finder's Get Info free space does not. That's because the local snapshot material is ephemeral. Time Machine automatically removes these as needed to make space for your applications to use. What's more, Time Machine periodically condenses these backups, to minimize disk use. Local backups mean your computer is always watching your back, making sure your data is being looked after without having to hook up an external drive. It's a great feature and one that hasn't been as hyped in Lion write-ups as it deserves to be. Hope this helps. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: What is this cheap iPhone data plan you speak of?
Dear Aunt TUAW, What is this "cheap" AT&T SIM with data for the iPhone that you often speak of? You've written about it numerous times. Please dish. Fondest regards always, Mister Humann Dear Humann, Auntie is talking about AT&T's standard PAYG plans. She usually buys the US$100 cards which offer a full year of air time -- that is, the balance will not expire for a year, regardless of how much of the balance is used. Plus, dear Auntie can use that airtime balance to buy data. That's sweeter than a bowl full of Werther's Original. You may want to start out with a $25 airtime investment (won't expire for 3 months) to make sure that the set-up does, in fact, work on your iPhone. Auntie is currently using this approach with her 3GS. The model is important because pre-iPhone 3G units won't accept a SIM as-is. They must be jailbroken and activated first. Auntie's 3GS, however, is not currently jailbroken and it's working fine with her AT&T SIM. Here's what she did. Setting up a PAYG iPhone Account You can purchase air time for any SIM by visiting an AT&T retail or calling AT&T at 1-800-331-0500. Unlike the Best Buy $10 no-data SIMs ($5 of air time, expires after 90 days) that you can buy, activate with a phone call and pop into your iPhone, PAYG SIMs cannot be set up anonymously. You need that PAYG account to load affordable data onto your iPhone and, much like Auntie on Pinochle night, AT&T is a little more buttoned-up. To get started, you'll need a home address, a credit card, and a non-iPhone AT&T phone with a valid IMEI identifier and, of course, the SIM number. These allow you to register an account with AT&T. You will not have to leave that credit card on file, however. This will be a one-time payment of $25 or $100 (or however much you want to use to get started). Now you're pre-paid, baby! When your money and time run out, your account dies and you're never charged again unless or until you choose to add more money and time. If you're planning to use the account primarily for data, make sure to choose the per-minute plan ($0.10/minute, $0.20/text), not the per-day plan. (Your other option is a $2/day unlimited plan, which allows you to pay only on those days you talk on the phone.) Once your account is charged and you're given a new phone number, head on home (if you didn't do this all by phone, like Auntie does) and put the SIM into your iPhone. It should be recognized immediately and you'll be able to place and receive phone calls. Adding data Next you'll want to add data. Auntie recommends starting with a $15 100 MB data package. As you'll see, her recommendations change once you get all the kinks worked out, but starting with 100 MB for 30 days at $15 lets you buy in and test the system for under $25. Plus, that leaves you $10 with which you can call Mom and tell her you love her every day, approximately 3 times per day over that 30 day period. If Auntie has her math right. And she usually does. To add your data package, call the irritating robot at 611 from your iPhone. This is a free call, which is small recompense for having to interact with the unpleasant, robotic beastie. Make sure to turn on the speaker and flip to the number pad. When you're allowed to speak, say "Buy features" and then "Data Packages." Work your way through the robotic menu to select the 100MB plan for $15. The 'bot will helpfully tell you when your data package expires and how it rolls over. That roll over bit is the good part. Take note of that. Also take note of how you check your data balance (Call 611 and say "Check my feature packages"). Configuring Your iPhone for 3G Data Next, you need to update your iPhone to work with prepaid data. Auntie's favorite how-to write up can be found over at amirnaor.com. Here are the steps you need to take. Download Apple's iPhone Configuration Utility and run the installer. The application is placed into your /Applications/Utilities folder. Launch the application with your iPhone connected. Create a new configuration profile (File > New, Command-N). Edit the name to AT&T PAYG (arbitrary) and add an identifier, e.g. com.sadun.payg (also arbitrary). In the Advanced settings (scroll down), click configure and set the following fields: APN: wap.cingular User Name: wap@cingulargprs.com Password: CINGULAR1 Proxy wireless.cingular.com port: 80 Locate your device on the left source list column. Click it. Click Install next to the profile you just created. On your iPhone, the Settings app launches. Tap Install on the profile. Disconnect the iPhone, disable WiFi, and test the data connection in Safari. Annual Data Planning Leaving aside the $25 airtime proof-of-concept, here's how you can think about budgeting airtime purchases for inexpensive data over a year. AT&T's feature plan buckets currently go for $25 for 500 MB / $15 for 100 / $5 for 10. Best of all those feature package balance rolls over if renewed before expiration date. That means if you refill the feature plan before the end of the month (i.e. 28 or 29 days -- you can set your iPhone to alarm you), the data rolls over, so you can keep adding $5 for another 10 MB so about a total of $25 + 5 * 11 = $80 for a years data, with $20 left over for the occasional phone call and a budget of 610 MB for the year. 610 MB. Total cost $100. You can always add more during the year for $25 for another 500 MB, taking away the $5 you would have spent for 10 MB. So let us say that you use 100/month and need at least 1.2 GB of data for the year. You could buy, say, all that data at the start of the year, or (more likely) start with a $25 buy-in of 500 MB and then go for 3 months at $5 for 10 MB each. That means each four month period (approximately, since the "months" are going to be 4 weeks...say 28 days), you will pay $40 for 4 months, for a budget of 530 MB. That fits comfortably into the 100/month data budget. If you find you have lots of data left over, you can even skip one of the three $25 payments for a $10 one. Auntie uses the savings for new doilies, but that's up to you. 1.59 GB. Total cost $120 Assume you go with the $25/5/5/5 plan. You'll need to re-fund your account about 8 months in, assuming you haven't made lots of phone calls and need to refund sooner. At that point, let's say you add about $50. Month 1 $40 Month 5 $40 Month 9 Add $50, spend $40 (Month 13, new year -- Add in at least $100 so you're guaranteed a full year) You will have spent $150 for the year total, including about $30 of airtime available. If you want, you can use $25 of that for another 500 MB data bump if you really don't talk much; less if you talk & text. Auntie's Downside: You must remember to refill on time. Using a 4-week schedule, and a calendar reminder program, helps. It means you always refill on the same day of the week -- and keep in mind you will have to refill 13 times for the year, not 12, which throws off the math a tiny bit. Auntie is, honestly, really bad at this. Scheduled calendar reminders help. Auntie's Upside: Compare and contrast that cost with *normal* iPhone talk and data plans. Outside of the fact that you have a contract with a $375 cancellation penalty, it will cost you $55-ish or more per month for standard service. This provides data and voice for about $10/month. Discussion: This kind of data is *not* explicitly approved by AT&T (big surprise, but also no big deal) and, no, this isn't the old style Pick Your Plan that AT&T cracked down on, forcing people to move to standard contracts (Auntie was on a PYP on her original iPhone and it was a really good deal with rollover credits for unused airtime), but you're using it with an out-of-contract unit, so why should it matter if you're doing so on an iPhone versus, say, a cheap Nokia? Who is this for? Anyone who wants to be able to Google on the go, check e-mail and do very light web surfing. The 100 MB/month calculation is similar to iPad plans. But even if you end up using, say, double the data, for approximately $200/year (that's because the 3 times at $25 doubles to $50, but not the $5 maintenance costs), it's still very affordable. Here are a few purchase scenarios you might consider. 3 $25 buckets, 9 $5 buckets: $120 + $30 airtime: 1.6 GB costing $150 6 $25 buckets, 6 $5 buckets: $180 + $20 airtime: 3 GB costing $200 9 $25 buckets, 3 $5 buckets: $240 + $10 airtime: 4.5 GB costing $250 12 $25 buckets: $300 + $25 airtime: 6 GB costing $325 For comparison, the expected per-year cost for really basic iPhone service at $55 per month: $660 (Auntie thinks that's the lowest available, you might want to check). So that's how you get cheap iPhone data plans. Best of all, you can keep adjusting your bucket purchases over the year to match your usage. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: What are those duplicate files?
Dear Auntie TUAW, Since Installing Lion, when I copy files to a PC compatible hard drive it creates duplicate unreadable files with and underscore in front of it. filename.mov _filename.mov It makes sorting through files a nightmare as I never had this problem with Snow Leopard. What has changed and can I hide these automatically? Cheers, Sanj Dear Sanj, What you're seeing there is metadata lint, copied over from your Mac's HFS+ drive. The Hierarchical File System (Plus!) was developed by Apple for it Mac computers. The extra file name (which has a period in front, by the way, so it's ._filename.mov, not filename.mov) contains all the extended attributes for your copied file. And because of that extra period, it's normally invisible. These attributes typically contain information about the data formats in use as well as other curious items like the kMDItemWhereFroms field, which shows where your data files were downloaded from. You can see some of this by opening the metadata file in a text editor, although I warn you in advance that it's a heavily binary format, so the useful bits are few and far between. It's easier to start taking a look at your metadata from the OS X side of things. In the Terminal, you can use the mdls utility at the command line, e.g. % mdls ~/Desktop/cat.gif This lists all the metadata information associated with the file, including (for GIF files), the color space, bits per sample, the universal type indicators (public.image, public.data, etc), content update dates, physical sizes, etc. You can access and edit these attributes with a second utility, xattr. For example, you can list the custom attributes embedded into the file % xattr cat.gif com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDownloadedDate com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms Or you can add your own attribute % xattr -w com.sadun.foo "HELLO" cat.gif You might want to print out the value of any attribute % xattr -p com.sadun.foo cat.gif HELLO Or you might want to recursively strip an attribute from all the files in some hierarchy, e.g. xattr -r -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDownloadedDate * So your answer in a nutshell is this. The extra file you see is the same data that's normally hidden in the OS X file system and made available to apps and utilities like these through system calls. Feel free to delete the extra items if you like or keep them around for better compatibility with OS X when you use the PC-formatted drives. As for the actual deletage, it's a lot easier to do at the command line than trying to slog through things in Finder, where those extra bits are supposed to be hidden by default. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me keep my keyboard clean and white
Dear Aunt TUAW, Got any good tips for keeping the white keys of the Apple keyboard clean? Having switched to a desktop setup, I'm no longer using the black keys of my MacBook and typing basically constantly trying to write my thesis is starting make the white keys of the external look a little grubby. Do people just use household cleaners or does isopropanol or something similar work better? Muchos gracias, Your loving nephew, Sam Dear Sam, Oh my, my, my. Auntie is going to answer as seriously as she can. And that includes her admonishment to wash your hands before touching expensive electronics. Before getting to that however, she recommends that you get out a white sheet of typing paper. Or "printer paper" or "Xerox paper" as it now seems to be known among you youngsters. Place it on a table and invert your keyboard over it and gently tap the bottom of the keyboard or (if applicable) your laptop. Just tap, tap, tap. Start watching things fall out. Hair, dried sneezes, bits of dandruff -- truly it's horrifying what gets into our keyboards. Auntie's solution is to hit the liniment and pretend that gross stuff just isn't there. If she can't feel it while typing, then logically it doesn't exist. There's probably even a scientific theorem about that. The non-observation principle. However, if you're bound and determined to clean your keys, here are a few tips. First, most keys on modern keyboards can be removed, and scrubbed individually. Some people even use the dishwasher for this with a small cage. You probably want to photograph your keyboard before de-keying it, the better to return each key to its proper home. Second, melamine sponges (e.g. Mr. Clean in the US, but they probably have something equivalent there in the UK), are wonderful for re-bright-ifying white Apple products. Be careful at the top of your keys because they may scrape off existing letter names (all the better for Dvorak users). You can try using an eraser, if you're willing to vacuum afterwards. Third, never underestimate the power of good suction. A small handheld vacuum can de-yuck your keyboard like nothing else. Finally, if you're trying to remove items from surfaces, you can use simple rubbing alcohol or miniral spirits (like Goo Gone). Uncle Victor suggests that alcohol is probably your best bet as it won't kill the paint but will loosen the grime. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me Spring Clean my protected music
Dear Aunt TUAW, I have a huge library of music and hundreds of songs from multiple Apple ID's. There are many songs for which I don't have the authorization anymore and need to delete them all. Is there any way to see which songs belong to which account? Do I really need to go through 30,000 songs to see which ones are playing and which ones are not??? Thank you Aunt TUAW Your loving nephew, Daniel Dear Daniel, Auntie was feeling a mite antsy and procrastinating today. Instead of going to her Liniment Abusers therapy group, she played hookey and wrote you up a utility to help you. It's called Account Identifier and it's written in AppleScript. Because if Auntie isn't off improving herself with a dozen steps, she's deep into feeling bad about it. Nothing exemplifies self-hatred better than AppleScript. You can download a copy of the utility here. It works like this. Search for your protected files. In Finder, do a basic search for m4p, and select the Protected MPEG-4 audio Kinds option. Then dump batches of the files onto the Account Identifier utility. The utility scans the files (using an embedded AtomicParsley install) and lists the files and the associated account in a new TextEdit document. e.g. File: 01 Acquired Taste Account: auntie@tuaw.com Path: MusicAndData:iTunes Music:Liniment:Acquired Taste From there, it's up to you to figure out which items you want to toss. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me fight the evil that pushes native app reminders
Dear Aunt TUAW, It seems that every time I go to a website on my iPad or iPod touch I get pestered by these little popup windows (that look just like the native Apple push notifications) letting me know that xyz site has a native app, and offers to take me to the app store to download it. Not only do I not care about the app, the popups annoy the heck out of me! Is there any way to get rid of them, jailbreak or not? Your extremely flustered nephew, Kyle Dear Kyle, Auntie know precisely what you're talking about, and those things seriously get on her nerves. That's because you, as the user, can't do anything about it other than by spoofing the user agent so the site doesn't catch that you're visiting on a mobile device. It's up to the site administrator. Site admins can and should turn them off. But they don't, because there's simply not enough public outrage. So yes, you can jailbreak and universally set a different user agent using one of the many switcher tools to surf with Safari. You can also use a third party App Store browser with built-in user-agent spoofing on non-jailbroken systems. (Auntie really isn't crazy about any of the ones she's tried to date, so she doesn't generally recommend third party browsers for day-to-day surfage.) In the end, the root of the problem is that not enough people are calling, writing, and picketing against this widespread mal-de-web. If you know a website that does this, drop Auntie a note and she'll try to create a Sites-of-Shame list over the next week or two. With your help, we shall fight in the Web Browsers, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets... Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me agitate for Lion Rosetta
Dear Aunt TUAW, Apple should SELL Rosetta in the App store. Please remind folks that they can complain about Lion most effectively by writing to Apple's feedback page. Your loving nephew, Dave Y. Dear Dave, Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as that. Rosetta represents far more than a simple app. Auntie is not an expert on these matters so she turned to Uncle Mike for clarification. Here's how he explained things. The Power PC (PPC) backwards-compatibility provided by Rosetta was created by an entire OS of "fat" frameworks, combining support for PPC as well as Intel. Apple described it this way: New applications bearing the Universal symbol will run natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Mac computers. What about the applications you already own? Enter Rosetta. You'll never see it, you'll never configure it, you'll never have to think about it. It's built into Mac OS X to ensure that most of your existing applications live a long and fruitful life. Rosetta was pretty awesome. It invisibly translated and executed code so old apps could continue to run on new hardware. Here's what the QuickLook framework looks like under Snow Leopard % file QuickLook QuickLook: Mach-O universal binary with 3 architectures QuickLook (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library x86_64 QuickLook (for architecture i386): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library i386 QuickLook (for architecture ppc7400): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc And under Lion % file QuickLook QuickLook: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures QuickLook (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library x86_64 QuickLook (for architecture i386): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library i386 Notice how the new frameworks don't have any PPC architecture? Even though Snow Leopard wouldn't run on PPC hardware, it still provided this backwards compatibility for PPC-compiled apps to link to, which was in turn translated in real time to the native instruction set. Apple can be pretty brutal when it comes to policy decisions. From the floppy drive to Rosetta, it has a vision of the future that it moves forward to meet. It never hesitates to cut away the anchors of the past. Lion has dropped support for all PPC applications, creating a leaner meaner cleaner operating system that isn't tied back to archaic processors. But that means Apple can't just sell Rosetta in App Store. Sorry. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me locate incompatible software
Dear Aunt TUAW, Is there a way in LION to conduct a search for all those incompatible apps that have the ø thru them? Your loving nephew, Paul Dear Paul, Uncle Steve tells Auntie that Lion automatically searches for incompatible apps during installation. You can do a Spotlight search for "Incompatible Software" and it will find a folder containing all of those apps, plus a text file explaining which apps are "bad". Here's what he found on his iMac just after installation: A quick look into that folder revealed a couple of kernel extensions that weren't playing well with Lion. The "Read Me" file showed exactly what those files were: A simple Finder search also helps you locate incompatible software on an external drive or software that you added after the Lion installation. In Finder, start a search for "Kind is Application" and sort by Kind. Your "Classic Application" files will appear at the top of the list, each one representing a now-unsupported app. This allows you to detect those apps on demand, even after you've already installed Lion. Hope these pointers help you. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: If I sell my old Mac, does Lion go with it?
Dear Aunt TUAW, So, the last time I sold a Mac I bundled it up with my Tiger install discs and sent it on its way, but having installed Lion on my MacBook and readying my bank account for the impending purchase of a MacBook Air, what happens to Lion when this laptop goes to the big eBay in the sky? Can I sell something on if I don't own the physical product? If it's tied to my iTunes account does it take records of my associated email account with it? Your loving nephew, Matt Dear Matt, Auntie is not a lawyer. She does not even play a lawyer on TV. But as a completely unqualified non-expert, here's how the matters seem to shake out. App Store Lion licenses follow the account and not the hardware Pre-installed licenses follow the hardware, and not the account The install process from the recovery partition seems to follow the hardware as well. Preinstalled Lion Here's what Apple says about hardware that came with Lion. If you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware, you may make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software (in its original form as provided by Apple) to another party... Hardware that already had Lion on it, can be sold and the license transfers with it. You can restore the machine to its virginal state and sell it off. The new user should be able to use the recovery partition to re-install the OS whenever needed. Your e-mail should not be involved. Since the hardware is newer, should the hard drive fail, the user should be able to use the over-the-air restore process. That process does not seem to involve any user authentication. The hardware likely checks in with some kind of central Apple database that associates the machine ID with shipped-with-Lion install, but Apple is being closed lipped as usual in disclosing how the eligibility is determined. Auntie guesses it's the hardware identity. Upgraded to Lion For pre-Lion hardware, Apple takes a firmer line. Here's what they say about selling systems to third parties. If you sell your Apple-branded hardware to a third party, you must remove the Apple Software from the Apple- branded hardware before doing so, and you may restore your system to the version of the Apple operating system software that originally came with your Apple hardware (the "Original Apple OS") and permanently transfer the Original Apple OS together with your Apple hardware... So as far as Apple is concerned, you still "ship with DVDs" but you also need to downgrade to the original OS. That means completely wiping the drive to remove the recovery partition as well as experiencing all the joys of an OS re-install from DVD. Auntie suggests another way. Starting in August, you will be able to purchase an install dongle at the Apple Store. That additional $69 may simplify the whole process and the questions behind it ownership transfer. When you ship a dongle along with a newly dongle-installed machine, you ensure that the new user can start fresh and will have a full license of their own. Of course, that extra $69 takes a bite out of your profit margin. But you'll be selling Lion-installed hardware rather than whatever your system started out with. (Do make sure to send the original install DVDs as well.) Dongle installs shouldn't be associated with your identity either. So again, you should be safe there as well. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me retrieve the Lion installer
Dear Aunt TUAW, I live in New Zealand. Internet costs a lot here. I want to install Lion on my wife's MacBook without downloading it again. Where can I find the "Install OS X Lion" application on my MacBook Pro? Not seeing it in /Applications/. Hugs, Cousin Chris R. Dear Chris, Auntie has some bad news for you. The best thing to do in these situations is Save Your Installer Before Installing. Auntie knows how tremendously unhelpful that is. She tried really really hard to work out a solution based on retrieving the installer from the Recovery partition but when it came down to the wire, the Recovery installer prompted: "To download and install Lion, your eligibility must be checked with Apple." After all that work, it was only a partial installer. Sure, the installer might save you a few bytes -- but it's not a full working install so you'll still be doing some downloadage. So while Auntie wasn't able to find a way to make a full Lion install that you can transfer between machines, she did find a means to create a basic Lion recovery disc that you can use in case one of your Macs' hard drives goes to the bit bucket in the sky. Here are the steps Auntie took to retrieve her installer and put it on a USB drive. 1. Launch Terminal. This is a command-line-heavy solution. 2. Run diskutil list. Your primary drive should be disk0, and the Recovery partition (Recovery HD) should be the third partition on that drive. 3. Mount the drive: diskutil mount /dev/disk0s3 4. Navigate to the right folder: cd /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot 5. Copy the dmg you find there to the desktop: cp BaseSystem.dmg ~/Desktop. Then Reveal the dmg: chflags nohidden ~/Desktop/BaseSystem.dmg. 6. Change directories out of the recovery volume. 7. Eject the recovery volume in Finder's sidebar. 8. Open Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities). 9. Insert a 2GB or larger USB thumbdrive, wait for Disk Utility to load it, and choose the Restore pane. Drag the BaseSystem.dmg into the Source field. Drag the thumbdrive's partition to the Destination field. 10. Click Restore, read the warnings, and cautiously agree to move forward. Wait as Disk Utility transfer the data to the USB thumbdrive. 11. When the restore is finished, eject the USB thumbdrive, and transfer it to the new computer. Restart it and press Option as it boots. Select the drive to boot from it. 12. Install Lion. You will need to authenticate, agree to become a centipad, and sell the soul of your first born child. From there it's just a matter of waiting for your data to download at NZ$Insane per GB and hoping the installer makes that bottom line slightly less expensive. A proposition that Auntie cannot guarantee or verify. In the end, the USB drive created by these instructions can come in handy for any pre-Summer 2011 Macs with hard drive failures, but Auntie isn't convinced that all that work will save you a big trip to Internet Bucket Land on your next month's bill. Hugs right back atcha, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I edit that Reading List thing?
Dear Aunt TUAW, I've been trying to figure out if there is a way to add a URL to Reading List from outside of Safari, i.g. right-clicking a link in a Twitter post and using an Automator action from the services menu, etc... I don't see ANYTHING in Automator or AppleScript about Reading List. This seems very stupid to me being that the only way Reading List has a chance of getting used instead of Instapaper is to throw things into it from every possible browsing location. Have you come across anything yet? Your loving nephew, Dan B Dear Dan, Auntie hasn't had much opportunity to explore the new Reading List under the hood but she did find that the standard Safari bookmarks property list has been expanded. In ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist, Auntie found references like this: ReadingList = { DateLastFetched = 2011-07-12 23:21:06 +0000; PreviewText = "SCHEDULES RTD SYSTEM INFO RIDER TOOLS FARES & PASSES BUSINESS CENTER INSIDE RTD SEARCH View the entire RTD system at a glanc"; }; URIDictionary = { title = "http://www3.rtd-denver.com/elbert/SystemMap/"; }; URLString = "http://www3.rtd-denver.com/elbert/SystemMap/"; WebBookmarkType = WebBookmarkTypeLeaf; WebBookmarkUUID = "EBC18578-DF36-46B3-86A5-561DBCB0D7AC"; }, She hasn't had much luck discovering where the local files are cached yet, but surely one of her many TUAW nieces and nephews may be able to help out here in the comments, possibly explaining if setting items in the ReadingList here is alone sufficient to make them cache out. Hugs, Aunt TUAW
Dear Aunt TUAW: Get Resuminator for control of Lion's restore windows feature
Dear Aunt TUAW, So far I love the Lion with one exception. Users should be able to toggle "resume" on and off per app. Love it when I'm reopening Pages but hate it when I'm reopening Safari. I tried to send feedback directly to Apple by utilizing my Apple Customer Pulse invitation, except that since getting my invite to participate the service has been completely silent and the website shows a blank default page with no log-in. Curious. Can you help, Auntie? Your loving nephew, Jeff Dear Jeff, Auntie will certainly try. The store-windows-on-suspend behavior is normally controlled in System Preferences > General Settings using the Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps preference. This pref translates into a global preference called NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows. When enabled, Lion attempts to restore windows to their previous positions and their most recent contents. The preference is stored into .GlobalPreferences.plist. (Notice that first period? It makes it invisible.) What's interesting is that Lion does respect this preference on a per-app basis even though there's no such functionality built into preferences or into apps. The NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows preference can be used in application user defaults files, which are found in your home Library/Preferences folder. Auntie put together an application (the "Resuminator"; windows won't be back) to help you with this, which you can download here. When run, you can select an application and override resume for just that application. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: I need a prettier lock screen
Dear Aunt TUAW, I wanted to ask if Auntie TUAW could look into how to change the lion lock screen. Many sites show different lock screens. My lock screen is just black and I wanted to change it so if you could look into it I would appreciate it thanks. Your loving nephew, LaRonn B Dear LaRonn, Yes, you can customize your lock screen. And you can do this in several ways. For example, you can add a custom message. Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Click the lock, authenticate, and then use this option to show custom text. Auntie suspects that's not entirely what you're looking for, however. So here's another approach you might take. In the same Security & Privacy settings, check the Require password option. This makes the lock screen activate as soon as your screen goes to sleep. With this option, once your screen sleeps, the lockscreen not only activates but does so over your current screen background. Pretty, isn't it? It's hard to see here, but there's even a status display at the top-right corner of the screen. You can sleep your screen using an Expose smart corner (Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners) or you can use the Control-Shift-Eject sequence. If your keyboard doesn't support that, you can go completely geeky and write your own command line utility. *kof*. For the curious, if you ever need a screenshot of your lockscreen, you can ssh in from another computer. Make sure the screen is active, so the login prompt is shown, and then use /usr/sbin/screencapture from the command line with one argument, a path to the destination file. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Where's my Lozenge?
Dear Aunt TUAW, I miss the lozenge. You know what I mean? The chicklet thing that used to be at the top right of my Finder windows. Click it and it would show the sidebar. Click again, sidebar gone. How can I show and hide the sidebar in Lion? Your loving nephew, Michael N. Dear Michael, You refer to, of course, the savior of everyone who used to struggle with DMGs on Leopard and Snow Leopard. Auntie remembers the lozenge fondly. Unfortunately, the lozenge is a thing of the past with OS X 10.7 Lion. But that doesn't mean you can't still hide and show your sidebars. Just right-click on the title bar of any Finder Window and select Show Toolbar or Hide Toolbar from the popup. Unfortunately this affects both the toolbar and the sidebar, but Auntie takes what she can get. Hopes this helps next time you run across one of those unfriendly windows. Hugs, Auntie T.
