Aunt TUAW
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Dear Aunt TUAW: Excel pooped on my desktop
Dear Aunt TUAW, I just started using Lion and for the first time loaded up Excel today. Much to my surprise, I ended up with a whole bunch of Excel temporary files on the desktop (see the attached screen shot) So I go ahead and try to delete them and I can't. Lion won't let me. It puts up this message. And then I try deleting them from the command and they aren't in my Desktop folder!!! I mean, WTF, Auntie. What are these files and why can't I delete them? Your loving nephew, Raoul W. Dear Raoul, Alas, Auntie has run across these Excel droppings as well in her work and sympathizes. There is a quick solution, however. You just need to restart Finder. Auntie sees that you're comfortable at the command line, so just use a simple killall Finder. Finder will restart and that nasty detritus will be whisked off from your Desktop. For those of you who don't have a "Snuggie" level of comfort with Terminal, Auntie has another suggestion. Choose Apple menu > Force Quit, and then highlight Finder in the list of open applications. The "Force Quit" button magically changes to a "Relaunch" button that will also shovel the Excel dung out of the Mac desktop stable. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: What is this "Lock" TextEdit speaks of?
Dear Aunt TUAW, I have a list of books that friends recommend to me. I don't update it a lot but when I do, I just want to go into the list and add new ones. Today, I was going to add M. K. Hobson's Native Star and Text Edit stopped me, saying the file was locked because I hadn't made any changes to it. How do I stop Lion from being my big brother? I have enough of those in my real life. I just want to make my edits and save my stuff. Your favorite niece, Jennifer Dear Jennifer, Auntie is well acquainted with the dialog you speak of. It's supposed to guard against accidental edits of archival material. While Auntie gives credit to Apple for trying to do the right thing, Auntie believes operating systems should not prevent you from doing what you need to in the name of your best interests. This dialog is produced by (of all things!) a Time Machine preference, which Auntie discovered when she turned to Uncle Steve (who is writing the book on Lion) for assistance late in the Lion Beta period. He directed her to the Time Machine prefs panel where you will find a checkbox that controls whether files are locked or not, and when. Adjust the timing here to your heart's desire or just disable it entirely as an expression of your fundamental right to edit at will. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help revert scrolling to normal
Dear Aunt TUAW, I hate Lion's new reverse scrolling feature. I mean I really really really really really really really really really hate it. Fix it for me and I'll buy you prune juice. Your loving niece, Sophie Dear Sophie, Auntie's still new to Lion but Uncle Steve was quick to the rescue. He walked Auntie through the steps so she could relay them to you. In Lion, you can disable that nasty reverse scrolling both for your mouse and for your trackpad. Head on over to preferences and choose Trackpad > Scroll direction:natural > disable or uncheck Mouse > Move content in the direction of finger movement when scrolling or navigating. Both options return your Mac to its traditional "down-means-down" scrolling behavior. Although Auntie prefers reverse scrolling for touch screens, Apple's touch-screen Mac line is a little thin on the ground at this time, if you get what she means. Uncle Steve's Taking Mac OS X Lion to the Max should hit the shelf by Autumn. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me read and annotate my PDFs
Dear Aunt TUAW, I am in love with my iPad 2 and am eager to turn my upcoming trip to the beach into a working vacation. I find the that the PDF support in iBooks leaves a lot to be desired. Which is unfortunate, as I have spent a lot of time uploading a lot of PDFs into my iTunes to have them handy when I want to get work done. Is there a PDF annotation app out there that can access the PDFs I have stored in iBooks? (I realize that iBooks can't actually display PDF annotations, at least at present, but if I could at least quickly import PDFs into another iOS app, that would be a start.) Your loving nephew, Josh L. Dear Josh, Your problem is that you're reading PDFs in iBooks instead of Good Reader, PDF Expert, or any of the other multitudes of wonderful PDF clients that can display and edit annotations. Unfortunately, no, you cannot directly share PDFs out from iBooks to other applications but you can import them in iTunes when you're home at your computer using the device Apps tab. That's the "direct" answer. There is, however, a sneakier solution that gets around iBooks' "Roach Motel" mentality (i.e. documents check in but they don't check out). If you really need to transfer those PDFs when on-the-road, you can use iBook's built-in e-mail sharing to send a copy to yourself and then use your iPad's "open in" feature from Mail to send the PDF to the app of your choice. Another good solution is to place all your PDFs into Dropbox/Box.net/Cloud app/Google Docs etc to ensure that your files can be accessed, read, and edited from all your devices. The reading experience may not be as lovely in these other apps, but you'll be able to get your work done. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me tune my Mac
Dear Aunt TUAW, Think you should discuss how to speed up a mac that is bogging down with long beach ball spins, etc. I have been having this problem with a 3 year old iMac, and I know others are too.... What can I do to get it back to the way it should run? Your loving nephew, Austin Dear Austin, Auntie's answer is...it depends. Your problems are most likely due to software issues, but they can be caused by hardware ones as well. The standard answers may include reinstalling the OS to remove some of the cruft, fixing permissions, remove fonts, etc. Google around for any number of lists on these. Another thing you might try is rebooting into safe mode, which performs some basic maintenance as a side effect. Just hold down shift after you hear the chime until the Apple logo appears. After entering safe mode, reboot and see if your computer begins acting better. Sometimes the issues aren't just software. Long beach ball spins and a slowed down system may be due to a failing hard drive. Many Apple systems ship with SMART drives, which can self-monitor and report reliability issues. Volitans Software makes a GUI utility that can analyze your disk and let you know if you're approaching disk failure; it has a short trial period before you buy. The same underlying software can be downloaded and compiled for the command line as well -- albeit without the friendly interface. When Auntie faced a recent system slow-down, it turned out that her 3 year old Mini was experiencing drive failure. Yikes. Fortunately, Josh Carr of the Denver-based MacWorks was able to update her mini with a brand new SSD. SSDs are a bit pricey, so if you go that route, be prepared to work out some strategies for moving data off your main drive onto secondary units. Auntie used application prefs to place her Safari download folder onto a USB data drive, along with her iTunes library, and all her e-mail. Auntie ensured that these items are still all backed up using Time Machine even though they don't live on the primary drive any more. MacPaw's Clean My Mac offers a tour-de-force of OS X tuning tools that allow you to streamline your system by removing extraneous cache files, logs, unused languages, and so forth. It can greatly decrease the space the OS occupies, so you can use more of that SSD for personal files and less, for example, for French, German, and Japanese translations. Clean My Mac also slims down universal binaries (which won't ever be needed on Lion, now that Auntie thinks of it), scrubs iPhoto's separate built-in trash folder, and more. On Josh's advice, Auntie enabled 10.6.8 TRIM support for her new SSD. TRIM allows SSD drives to proactively scrub deleted files to enhance performance over time. So how is Auntie's mini? It reboots like a dream, even though the somewhat limited drive size does make her a bit nervous. Even with a new drive and tuning tools to keep things running smoothly, Lion lurks on the horizon. Auntie is unsure how performance tuning will work under 10.6 although she suspects a lot of the approaches will remain the same: safe mode, cleaning up extraneous files, checking for hardware failures. Got any suggestions for how to keep your Mac running fast and smooth under Lion? Let Auntie know in the comments. Love, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Will there be a TV from Apple?
Dear Aunt TUAW, Is there any chance Apple will release an actual TV? I'm considering the ATV2 but its close enough to September should I wait? Your loving nephew, Sean Dear Sean, Auntie considers the likelihood of Apple releasing an actual consumer electronics TV to be as likely as Donkey Kong giving up bananas, or red- and blue-state Senators crossing the aisle to indulge in a festival of love and mutual appreciation, or Boston baseball fans giving up on hating the Yankees. Will Apple TV itself, i.e. the box that connects to real TVs, get a bump? Er, possibly. Is it likely? Probably not. Will the features be so awesome that you will regret having laid out $99 on the previous generation if such a mythical product does appear? Again, probably not. The Apple TV 2 has re-defined itself into the must-have product for accessorizing your iOS device to the living room. With it and iOS 5, you'll be able to wirelessly mirror movies, music, and games. You'll be able to give Keynote presentations, product demos and more. And you can get that all with the current Apple TV 2 box and it will be ready to use in September when iOS 5 debuts with those mirroring features. So should you wait until September? Sure. Why not? Even if you don't need Apple TV 2 now, you'll really want to pick one up when iOS 5 goes live. And in the unlikely case that Apple introduces a new generation, the old one will drop from very-affordable to dirt-cheap. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me disable in-line tool tips and advertising
Dear Aunt TUAW, There are works [sic] that are highlighted and linked to pop-ups when I go to webpages and pass my mouse pointer over them and I would like that to stop. Your loving nephew, Sabon Dear Sabon, Auntie isn't entirely sure whether you're talking about tool tips or in-line advertising. So she's going to answer both of these possible questions. Tool tips are those yellow pop-ups that appear when you hover your mouse on top of URL. They look something like this. It's a feature that helps expose the link you're looking at. It gives you more information about where you'll go if you click that URL. To get rid of these pop-ups open a Terminal window and type in the following. (If you don't know what Terminal is, or how to use the command line, this write-up probably isn't for you.) defaults remove com.apple.Safari WebKitShowsURLsInToolTips Quit and restart Safari and your tool tips will be disabled. To restore the feature, use this command, entering it into a Terminal window. defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitShowsURLsInToolTips 1 And, again, quit and restart Safari for your changes to take effect. Here's the other question Auntie thought you might be asking. If you've ever seen those underlined (typically green) links, you know how utterly annoying they can be. Here's what happens when your mouse goes near that link. Irritating, isn't it? So what can you do? Auntie turned to Uncle TJ for the answer. And she warns you that it too involves a bit of command-line ability -- in fact slightly more than "a bit". You will need your administrator credentials here. Head on over to someonewhocares.org and copy their hosts file to your Mac as hosts.withlove. This file contains a gadzillion host rules that block out a lot of really irritating Internet hosts, protecting you from some (but not all) spyware, pop-ups, and so forth. Or, as they put it "Using a Hosts File to make the Internet not suck (as much)". In Terminal, make sure the saved file is created without an txt extension, i.e. hosts.withlove, not hosts.withlove.txt. Move the file into the /etc folder, e.g. sudo mv ~/Desktop/hosts.withlove /etc/hosts.withlove In /etc, copy hosts to hosts.original. This creates a backup of your original hosts file that you can revert to if needed. sudo cp hosts hosts.original Use your favorite text editor to match up the start of the withlove version to match the original version, just so you're working more or less from the same starting point. Then move it into place. sudo cp hosts.withlove hosts To test this, you don't have to restart Safari but you should re-load whatever page you had seen the in-line advertising. For example, the Business Insider page that Auntie captured above now looks like this after enabling the withlove version of the hosts file. Yay! Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help convert my iDevice into a graphics tablet
Dear Aunt TUAW, I am looking for an iPad app that allows it to function as a graphics tablet, similar to something like a Wacom tablet. I have not found anything; are you aware of something that would fill this need? Your loving nephew, Joe V. Dear Joe, As Auntie recently told another nephew, when it comes to the iPad, it's simply not a very good graphics tablet option. The iPad doesn't provide pinpoint entry, even with third-party styluses. It doesn't handle pressure, sensitivity and angle detection. That's not saying that people don't create art on the iPad, they do -- it's just not up to Wacom standards. There are any number of third-party apps that allow you to use your iPad as an external touch entry controller for your Mac or Windows PC computer, but these won't replace a Wacom -- at least any time soon. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me convert my iPhone to an iPod touch
Dear Auntie, Is it possible to completely convert my old iPhone 3G into an iPod touch? I don't want it to think it is still my phone and keep trying to backup and restore in iTunes. Your help would be really appreciated. Thanks and cookies! Ryan Dear Ryan, Yes, and it's really easy to do. Just "Restore" that phone to factory-fresh and don't restore-from-backup afterwards. Set it up as a new phone instead. Auntie has a 3GS she uses like that, and it's great. It has all the iPod touch features and works with GPS. That's super for all kinds of run-tracking apps and search-by-location ones, like Yelp. You can throw in a cheap SIM and use your old unit for phone calls and data, too. So long as it is an AT&T SIM, you don't have to jailbreak or unlock. Hugs, Auntie T
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me find a pointy iPad stylus
Dear Aunty TUAW, I just bought an iPad and I want a stylus for taking notes, but every stylus I see online has a tip that's as blunt as a piece of chalk. Why aren't there any pointy-tip capacitive styli available? Your friend, R Dear R, Pointy styluses (stylii?) are a no-go because they don't provide enough contact with the screen. Google tells Auntie that your fingers register on capacitive screens because they distort the screen's electrostatic field. A pointy stylus with such a small tip does not. Some hard round-tipped styluses, like this one from Targus, provide a pretty good compromise between the need for contact and the desire for accuracy. And if you'd rather not get all up-close-and-fingerprinty with your iPad, there's always the frozen hotdog option. Aunt TUAW contacted Matt Geyster, the guy behind the Artistree kickstarter project, whose stylus looks pretty pointy. This is a pre-production project, and Auntie was not able to test the prototypes. Geyster said, "Yes it is true there is a certain size that works best," but added that "We have used our small tip with no problems." Auntie is a bit concerned that the close-to-the-tip grip used in the demo video was less of a comfort issue than one of bringing larger quantities of salty water (i.e., the user's hand) closer to the screen. Geyster added, "If during testing I need to go a little wider with the fine tip to get better feel and response, then I will." The people who are looking for fine stylus control because they want pinpoint accuracy when drawing on their iPads are met with a sad fact: the iPad really isn't the device for that kind of interaction. And it's not just about pinpoint. There are also control issues, like pressure, sensitivity and angle detection. Those features are just not iPad practical. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me find a better alarm
Dear Aunt TUAW, Why do all iPhone alarm clock apps have to simulate an old and unattractive 7-segment display? Or the old, cheap, unattractive flip-clock display? I understand the gee-wiz factor of emulating these classic displays, but aren't we way past that point? I would love to see a simple, attractive and reliable alarm clock app for the iPhone without 7-segment or flip displays. Does such an app exist? Thank you! Your loving nephew, Pete L. My Darling Pete, Auntie is right there with you on alarm clocks. Auntie is so over mornings. Just let her sleep in or bring the caffeine right to her, along with roses and a tasteful continental breakfast, as she rises to a well-designed iDevice app's summons. After receiving your letter, Auntie set out on a hunt for beautiful clocks. Thanks to many of her electronic nephews and nieces, she tracked down the following suggestions that offer alternatives to the humdrum. Emerald Observatory (US$0.99) offers a stunning clock that's full of astronomical information without sacrificing a clock or a daily alarm. Observatory was the single-most recommended application in Auntie's search. The presentation includes the phase of the moon, the current time, sunrise and sunset times and much more. Night Stand HD ($1.99) offers some handsome analog displays as well as those 7-segment and flip presentations you're looking to skip. Clockus ($0.99) puts a mechanical spin on 7-segment output with elements that flip and adjust to show the time. Art Clock Van Gogh (free) provides a beautiful take on waking up. It has a criminally small audience (only nine ratings to date), and offers over 50 impressionist backgrounds. Unfortunately, the highly recommended Pencil Clock from Paz Interactive seems to have disappeared from the store -- but the screen shots that Auntie has been able to track down show that it really had a fabulous and non-traditional take on time. Hopefully one of these apps will strike your fancy and help you transition away from the boring 7-segment/flip-clock run-of-the-mill alarm apps. Love & hugs, Auntie T. Thanks to gonzopancho, NienorGT, pTracker, josh_m, Consumer_NeXT, mssres, rosskimes, zyafa, LucasTizma, jeffmc, and everyone else who tweeted suggestions...
Dear Aunt TUAW: Installing new betas borks my production Xcode
Dear Aunt TUAW, Every time I install a new Xcode beta these days, it kills my production Xcode and I can't submit to App Store. What gives? I thought you said that Xcode installs could live side-by-side in separate folders! Your loving nephew, Scott McA. Dear Scott, Although you can use separate folders for each installation of Apple's IDE, many of the tools used to create and submit packages live in the /usr/bin directory. And, when it comes to a shared folder like /usr/bin, the rule is last-installed-wins -- your subsequent Xcode installation will overwrite the older versions of the tools in that folder. To get around this you can disable the UNIX Development install option on the "Installation Type" screen of the Xcode installer. This option, which is enabled by default, adds command-line development tools onto the shared install volume. Unselect it during your beta install, and you should be able to skip the development tools re-install when you use the older Xcode version. Auntie adds that qualifying 'should' because a good fresh install of a release Xcode almost always fixes any problems left around by a beta install, even if you pick all the right options while installing. Hugs and good luck, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me get a MobileMe refund
Dear Aunt TUAW, I renewed MobileMe in April for $99. It appears there will be no refund. Where's the loud and insistent outcry? Your rather ticked-off nephew, Z Dear Z, Auntie totally gets where you are coming from (although as far as she's concerned, MobileMe is something that always happened to other people). Apple has renewed all MobileMe customers until the middle of 2012 but, honestly, what's the point? Anyway, Apple has clarified its MobileMe refund policy on this Knowledge Base page. Unused activation codes and codes used for 45 days or less will be fully refunded. Codes used for 46 days or more will receive pro-rated refunds. Shipping costs and rebates will be deducted from any refunds. You'll need to provide proof-of-purchase documentation before submitting any claims. You can contact Apple directly and request a refund by phone. This worldwide list of numbers provides contact information on a country-by-country basis. That's what Uncle Steve did. He renewed at the start of the year, getting a few months of service but paying for the entire year. He might have gotten a couple of months more value than you but he's totally in the same boat. So Auntie made him call up Apple and demand, I tell you, demand that refund. Here's what happened. He was quickly transferred to the MobileMe department, and the phone rep there recommended that he wait on canceling. "You can cancel your MobileMe subscription at any time for a pro-rated refund," they told him. "However, if you use MobileMe for email, contacts, calendar, iDisk files, and MobileMe Gallery, that information is going to be deleted and you won't be able to sync devices." The Apple support rep recommended waiting until iCloud becomes available. "[If you wait until] those services are available to you, you can cancel the MobileMe subscription and receive a refund for the remainder of the year. You cannot reactivate your MobileMe subscription after you cancel it, so be sure that if you are going to cancel that you have alternative sources for email, and for syncing. " Uncle Steve chose to wait. He's going to cancel after iOS 5 and iCloud are firmly chugging along this Fall and request his pro-rated refund at that point. You might want to wait and do the same. That's because Uncle Steve is very sensitive about his "mac.com" email address. He wants to keep it forever and ever, and hug it and love it and call it "George." It appears that he'll be able to do so. Yay! He's more than a little concerned about the 5 GB free storage limit on iCloud, though. His email will chew that up in no time -- much like how Auntie's little Pekingese puppy Spunky Sue (AKC registered name "Spunky Sue Your Pants Off Champion Johnnie Cochran") chewed up Auntie's favorite slippers last week. You'll discover a wealth of information about iCloud both in the press release announcing the service and in the web pages that describe it, so be sure to do a little reading for your homework. Do you have any other concerns about MobileMe and the transition to iCloud? Let Auntie know in the comments. Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I make iTunes forget my apps?
Dear Aunt TUAW, The "Purchased" area added to the iPhone "App Store" will show you every app you have ever bought, including the accidental purchase you've made. I love that I can re-download anything I have bought in the past, but there are a few apps I want to permanently remove (throw-away) from my "purchased" area. I just feel as though I am no longer in control of what I own. Do you see Apple ever giving consumers the option to completely remove apps? Best wishes, Sean Dear Sean I really don't see this happening as it would introduce a whole new category of customer requests on the iTunes customer service staff, and require the infrastructure to support those requests. If it did happen, Auntie imagines that it could work like this. Imagine right-clicking an app in iTunes. In addition to the "Get Info" and "Show in Finder" options, iTunes could offer to "Remove from purchase history." Once selected, iTunes would ask for confirmation: "Are you sure you want to do this? We will send you a link so that you can re-enable this feature later." iTunes would remove any errant purchases from your history, like the copy of "iFartz: Supreme Flatulence" that Auntie downloaded while on a late-night liniment binge. Or, even easier, Apple could add more controls to the iCloud side of things, offering an iCloud config that lets you choose what apps to offer and what apps to forget. And it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if you could keep violent games and other apps meant for adults out of your kids' iPods. "iFartz: Supreme Flatulence" is probably going to follow Auntie around forever. Warmly, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I deal with voice latency?
Dear Aunt TUAW, Why is VoIP so freaking awkward? I really like using Google Voice with Safari but then I always end up talking over the guy I'm calling to. What gives? Love, Denny Dear Denny, It's called latency, and it happens with all kinds of computer telephony solutions like Google Voice and Skype, as well as with iOS voice chat apps. What it means is that you're talking in their past. It takes time for your voice signal to make its way to the other party, and theirs to you. Historically, this was mostly an issue for intercontinental or satellite calls, but the march of technology has delivered it to calls you make across town as well. The lag in calls can vary from mere milliseconds up to a second or more, in bad cases. Google Voice in particular seems to have trouble with latency; traditional VoIP services may do better (assuming nothing's wrong with your network connection). By comparison, plain old telephone service has latency of about 45 milliseconds. You can find out exactly how much lag you're dealing with by using a simple trick. Ask the person at the other end to mirror you as you slowly count to 10. Tell him or her to count along at the same time. You'll hear the differential between your numbers and theirs, to get a sense of how far apart you are. There are ways you can deal with the latency problem with VoIP. Here are a few suggestions that might be able to help. Identify Let your partner know that VoIP is in use as early in the conversation as possible, and that there may be lag involved. Switch to Wired Using a Wi-Fi connection can exacerbate latency. Try plugging in directly and see if that helps. You may also want to test a call while connecting your computer directly to your cable or DSL modem to see if your router is making it worse; most router manufacturers have specific configuration tips for handling VoIP traffic. Avoid Active Listening Many people show they are paying attention by interjecting feedback into a conversation like "yes" and "I know!" VoIP disrupts the normal flow of conversation by introducing an unnatural rhythm. If you're saying "yes" or "I know" while someone is speaking, rather than in natural pauses, your conversation is going to stumble over itself. Proactively set VoIP-aware talk patterns Using phrases like "go ahead" and "Okay, now you..." help transition between one speaker and the other, creating a smoother discussion pattern in a latency-burdened channel. Also, don't be afraid to monologue to get your point across -- normal back and forth discussion patterns are at their weakest with VoIP. Offer alternatives It's fine to say "Can I call you back on my cell?" when latency significantly hinders communication. So, that's what Auntie has to suggest. Surely she has missed a few obvious suggestions. Add yours in the comments! Hugs, Auntie T.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me pick a shopper card app
Dear Aunt TUAW, My wallet is full to bursting -- and not with cash. (Don't try pulling a Soupy Sales on this nephew.) I've got too many shopper cards, library cards, etc. Help me empty my wallet of cards -- and if you don't mind, fill it with cash instead. Your loving nephew, Fnulnu Dear Fnulnu, (And, yes, Auntie knows what that stands for.) Auntie isn't about to send you money, so she's skipping the filling-with-cash part. Cheeky! She does, however sympathize about the shopper cards. All of us now carry more and more IDs around that stretch our wallets to their limits and our patience as well. She's reminded of a great scene from Neil Gaiman's American Gods, where the hero tried to argue with a ticket agent that an expired driver's license was worthless for driving but perfectly valid for identification purposes. Good book. Auntie is most familiar with two iPhone Apps, CardStar and Key Ring Reward Cards. Both are free. CardStar is ad-supported, and Key Ring seems to be monetized by referrals. Both are fairly badly designed, with annoying GUI quirks, and Key Ring requires that you register -- so your personal information is almost certainly being used to fund the app. It is, however, the slicker and easier-to-use of the two. Auntie qualifies "easy to use" because both apps have significant issues. For example, Key Ring never seems to have assumed that you might want to enter a pile of IDs all at once. You have to keep going back to a main menu to get to "Add Card" again. CardStar (first mentioned here) offers buttons that seem to have been tested on the computer rather than on actual devices -- its Cancel and Next buttons are so close together that Auntie always hits the wrong one. On the iPhone, developers need to remember that the human finger is bigger than a mouse cursor and space items accordingly. Key Ring is superficially prettier and offers a much more complete set of retailers. Both apps allow you to enter vendor names manually, but CardStar's entry method (you have to edit "Title," halfway down the page, not "Merchant" at the top) is poorly designed. Key Ring also automatically offers you coupons related to your vendors, so it's got some smart marketing happening. Neither app really wins Auntie's heart. She really would like to see either or both developers hire some good GUI talent and work on their app usability. In addition to the current functionality, she'd love to see both apps add a rotation lock, so when you present your ID to a retailer, the person working the cash register won't get confused by the iPhone's autorotate feature. She'd also like to be able to snap photos of IDs in addition to just scanning bar codes. (Although the scanning features offered by each app are sweet.) On the whole, Auntie rather prefers Key Ring, privacy issues aside, because it's somewhat slicker than Card Star. Plus the coupons can be occasionally cool. Both apps are useful enough to keep around on your phone until someone gets around to developing a tighter solution, but both would benefit from interface overhauls -- as well as more explicit privacy statements from inside the app. If you're looking for a more general keep-track-of-stuff app that can handle loyalty cards and the like , Uncle Mike suggests either the free Evernote (which will take pictures) or the paid 1Password (which will keep things extra secure). Hugs, Auntie T
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me switch between YouTube and iTunes
Dear Aunt TUAW, Do you know if there exists a nice program or plug-in for safari which decreases the iTunes volume/pauses the current played song, when I am going to watch a YouTube movie? Each time I click a YouTube movie on Facebook, etc. I just find it really frustrating to go to iTunes, pause the current song and go back to watch the movie... and then restart the current song in iTunes again when the YouTube clip is finished. I want it to work in a similar fashion as on the iPhone. Kind Regards, Forrie
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me stream my music
Dear Aunt TUAW, Do you know an app that streams music from Mac to iOS? I hear that Apple's iCloud is going to do this but I don't want to pay $25 a year. Your loving nephew, Ivo
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me join my life, my heart, my iTunes account
Dear Auntie TUAW, Can you believe my wedding is in a few weeks?! That's got me thinking all of our digital goods that we now will both share. While I would like to know if it is possible to combine 2 iTunes libraries and still keep metadata (like play counts and composers), I am more concerned with the number of Apple ID's that will be under 1 roof. I've got an old Apple ID that I've made a LOT of purchases with, both hardware and digital goods. In January, I purchased MobileMe, mostly to keep our calendars in sync on 3 macs and 2 iPhones, but I would also like for that me.com address to be my new Apple ID for purchases in both the iTunes store and the Mac App Store (especially for syncing apps on all the machines). Can I just use that ID on all machines? What happens to my purchase history, like all my apps, movies, and anything with DRM? And of course, my future wife has her own Apple ID as well. Is it possible to bring all this together? And don't worry, the band will play a polka the first set, just for you. Thanks! Love and happiness, Dave
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me customize my ringtone
Dear Auntie, Just got my first iPhone, but the ringtones stink! How do I take my super awesome Star Trek MIDI file and use it as a ringtone? Hugs and snuggles, JayW. in MN
