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Oppo teases 6.65mm-thick smartphone, about to steal 'world's thinnest' title from Huawei
China-based Poop Oppo is back again with yet another smartphone, only this time there's no pretty girl teasing Mr. DiCaprio. Instead, what we have here is an exclusive leak that shows off a 6.65mm-thick device -- just 0.03mm thinner than the Ascend P1 S from local rival Huawei. In other words, if all goes well then Oppo will have us the world's slimmest smartphone. Details are scarce at the moment, but judging by the above picture this phone will come with a metallic bezel of some sort, along with three capacitive buttons and a three-pin contact for dock connection. Obviously, stay tuned for more deets.
Daily Mac App: DragonDrop provides a Finder caddy for your drag-and-drop files
Sometimes there are problems you didn't even know you had -- and solutions that make your life so much better. DragonDrop is one of those solutions. You know when you have to drag items between folders and you end up juggling multiple Finder windows? It's such a pain getting both windows on-screen so you can grab a file from one and drag it into the other without the first window obscuring the second one. Enter DragonDrop. It creates a little virtual "caddy" where you can hold onto your file. Just wiggle the cursor while dragging the file and it appears. Drop the file onto it, and find your destination. Then drag the file from the caddy onto the target folder. Changed your mind? Just close the small floating palette window. We here at TUAW are not amused by "hit the tiny target" while dragging and dropping. Nor do we much appreciate the "drop items onto partially obscured non-focus windows." DragonDrop fixes that for us. Unfortunately, Apple passed on allowing DragonDrop into the Mac App Store, so you'll need to purchase via the website. Developer Mark Christian explained the situation via email. He writes, "The final verdict from Apple is that they will unequivocally not accept DragonDrop so long as the shake-to-activate gesture exists. They claim that it modifies Mac OS X system behaviour, which I feel is more than a little disingenuous. DragonDrop only appears when you perform the shake-to-activate gesture, and even when it does activate, it's just a window popping up - it doesn't prevent normal operation from proceeding. "The gesture itself can also be deactivated, so overall, I don't feel like they're justified in their decision. If you'd like, I'm trying to urge interested people to write to Apple at appreview@apple.com and ask that they reconsider their decision on DragonDrop (App ID: 499148234)." Having used DragonDrop for several weeks now, I can testify that the app is unobtrusive and handy. I personally think Apple should reconsider. In the end, all proceeds from the sale of the app will help fund the wedding of Mark and Nathalie, the developers who are pictured above. The license is liberal, so you can install it on all your personal Macs. DragonDrop is now available for purchase for $4.99 and I give a hearty thumbs up. It's a great utility if you do a lot of dragging and dropping of files on your Mac.
Hidden secret apps of CoreServices
Nestled within the bosom of your Mac's system folder lie many powerful and curious applications. Not intended for direct access, the denizens of the CoreServices directory work as clients for other OS apps such as System Preferences or Safari. There are several CoreServices apps we use often at TUAW. Here are some of our favorites. When Safari cannot connect to the Internet, you may be prompted to run Network Diagnostics.app to find the problem. The app lets you choose a network port you wish to work with (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or an external modem), and test it. It is one of many apps found inside your /System/Library/CoreServices folder. It's also one that you may want to stick into your dock for a bit when you're messing around with a new router or have upgraded your cable modem. Screen Sharing.app gives you remote access to any enabled computer on your local network using the VNC protocol. Some of us prefer using Chicken of the VNC, but Screen Sharing.app is a simple alternative already built into your system. You enable this feature in System Preferences > Sharing > Screen Sharing (hint, click Computer Settings and add a password). When launched, just enter the host name or address of a sharable computer (e.g. Banana.local or 192.168.0.15) and start controlling that system remotely. Use the Wi-Fi Diagnostics.app to capture network events and enable debugging logs. It provides a way to collect traffic for analysis. Anyone who regularly works with Apple development may be pleased to realize they can access the Certificate Assistant.app directly instead of always having to launch the Keychain utility. The assistant allows you to create certificate signing requests, which are used in the dev process to request authenticated items like certificates for development provisions. The VoiceOver.app utility enables spoken descriptions of your OS X screen. It provides an audio interface for your computer. Once enabled, you can quickly switch out of VoiceOver mode with Command-F5. (You can turn on VoiceOver via System Preferences/Accessibility, as well. You're probably used to using the Archive Utility.app through the Finder's contextual pop-up, but if you drag it into your dock, you can use it as a drag and drop compression utility. Very handy! Got other favorite secret apps? Tell us about them in the comments!
Raid Finder loot rules changing in patch 4.3.2
Zarhym hit the forums to respond to posts discussing the problems and concerns with the current loot system in the Raid Finder. The Raid Finder loot system currently grants a bonus on need roles to classes that could use the item the best, allowing the right loot to go to the right classes. The loot system also does not currently account for whether a player has the item already equipped or has already won the same item on the same boss, resulting in one player winning two of the same item. Coming up in patch 4.3.2, it will no longer be possible to win two of the same item from the same boss. New loot rules coming so quickly seems to be indicative of Blizzard's position on the Raid Finder and its rules -- fluidity is a good thing. With the Raid Finder, more people are seeing raid content then ever, and these players need a different set of rules and a varied approach opposed to classic raiding. As time goes on, you'll be sure to see more tuning to the Raid Finder rules. Hit the jump for the full post.
Raid Finder items reclassified for intended classes
Many items in the Raid Finder have been able to be rolled on by classes that might not get the best use out of them -- for instance, mages rolling on spirit cloth or warriors rolling on one-handed agility axes. Blizzard has confirmed that it has updated many items' classifications in Raid Finder to only be rolled on by the classes for whom the item is intended. Now, classes that can use the item the best will apply the roll bonus correctly. I am very glad that Blizzard is changing these items' classifications and making the Raid Finder even more fair for players. So far, the Raid Finder has been an enormous success, and with some tweaks and changes down the road, it's here to stay in a big way. Hit the jump for the announcement and full list of updated classes that can roll need on many Dragon Soul items in the Raid Finder.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me find Spotlight items in the Finder
Dear Aunt TUAW, There's plenty I like about Lion - but lots of pointless change for the worse. Top of my hate list is that Spotlight no longer gives me the location of the items I'm searching for. Sure, the preview on cursor hover is nifty, but why oh why can't Spotlight give me (for example) the location of a long-lost document that's become embedded in multiple folders, the way it did in Snow Leopard ? Can Aunty help find a solution ? Your loving nephew, Jack, Cheltenham, UK Dear Jack, Use your up and down arrows to navigate through the Spotlight results list. (Do not click on items, that will open them). When the highlight is over the item you want, press Command-Enter. Hugs, Auntie T. p.s. Thanks Uncle Brett
Emulate Lion's Versions in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word does not support Lion's "Versions" feature yet, but there's no reason to panic. There are a few options that you can use to cobble together a work- around until the Mac BU team updates the Office suite. Also worth mentioning: although I am focusing on Microsoft Word, the same technique can be used in just about any word processing or text editing application. "Does the app provide any auto-save settings?" The first thing to check is whether the application that you are using offers any auto-save or auto-recover options, even if it doesn't support Versions specifically. Microsoft Word offers two auto-save options. To find them, launch Word, then go to Preferences -> Save and check the options shown below: The middle underlined option is the most important: it says to save auto-recover information every minute. I think the default is every 10 minutes, but a lot can change in 10 minutes. The top checkbox is optional, but creating a backup means that you have another way to recover if something goes wrong. Options never hurt. These backups are stored in the same directory as the original, and the filenames end in "~" which is a long-standing convention for backup file names. The third is also optional, but personally I prefer the older .doc format simply because it's more compatible with other non-Microsoft applications. The XML-based .docx format also got a bad rap previously for compatibility issues with Dropbox, although if you're running the current version of the cloud storage utility you shouldn't have any problems. (That said, .docx is the better format, not to mention the more modern format. I think of the ".doc or .docx?" choice sort of like choosing between .mp3 or .m4a: the newer formats have technical advantages, but not as many applications support them. The difference, of course, is that it's usually pretty simple to convert between .doc and .docx.) "Where does the app store files?" Some applications automatically store files in a certain folder structure, and you can't move them (at least not without getting into creating links, which may or may not work well). Text editors and word processors, however, generally let you choose where to store files you create; Office also has settings for default folders for saving and auto-recovery under Preferences -> File Locations: Note that setting the default for "Documents" does not mean that you can't change it for individual files later, it just tells Microsoft Office where to start when opening or saving new files. You can also change the location of the AutoRecover files. I put mine into ~/Dropbox/Backups/Microsoft Office/ because if the computer I'm on dies completely, I can access the data from any other Dropbox-connected account. Is this an unlikely scenario/edge case? Absolutely. Does it hurt to set it anyway? Nope. "But my application doesn't have those settings!" Check out Default Folder X which, as the name implies, can set the default folder for just about any application (plus other things). Dropbox No doubt you noticed that I suggested using Dropbox to save the files. That's not just because they are available online or on any iOS device. Dropbox also keeps every revision for the past 30 days. That means that every time you hit "Save," a separate version is saved on Dropbox. Browsing Dropbox revisions isn't as visually slick as using Versions on Lion. To view them, select the file in Finder, and then use the Dropbox icon on your Finder toolbar, or Control-click (right-click, or two-finger click) on the file and use the Dropbox contextual menu. That will launch the Dropbox website and show you a listing of all the versions, and give you a chance to download them (some file formats can even be previewed online). While Dropbox only saves 30 days' worth of revisions, Dropbox Pro users also have the option to add the Pack-Rat feature which will keep revisions indefinitely. With every save, you are creating an off-site backup of your latest work, so even if you only use one computer, Dropbox is the place to save your most important and most often changed files. "But what if I forget to press save? My app doesn't have any sort of auto-save functionality!" Don't fret if your app doesn't have auto-save; you can add it to any application very simply by using Keyboard Maestro. It's as simple as creating a macro which says "If I am using {insert application name here}, and there is a 'Save' button, press it every X seconds or minutes." I've created just such a rule for Microsoft Word here: This rule will only run when Microsoft Word is active and there is a menu option for "Save" (which will be disabled if you don't have any files open). If it does find the Save menu item, it will select it. (You could also tell it to press "⌘ + S" but I prefer selecting menu items to keyboard shortcuts.) With this rule you never have to worry about spending an hour on a Word document only to lose it all when the app crashed and you realized that you had forgotten to save it. If the file isn't saved when the Keyboard Maestro macro runs, it will prompt you to name the file. (There are other applications like Keyboard Maestro which support the same kind of features, but Keyboard Maestro is the one that I know and use. If you would recommend others, let us know in the comments.) Versions is great, but there's no need to wait for your app to support it Versions is a great addition to OS X, and I love not having to remember to save, but only a handful of applications support it at the present time. If you want to (or are required to) use another application, take a few minutes to check out your auto-save options. There are few things more frustrating than losing unsaved work, but the good news is that there are fewer and fewer reasons for that to ever happen.
Daily Mac App: Go2Shell
Here on the Daily Mac App we love apps that do one thing really well. Today's app is no exception. Go2Shell is a tiny little 0.3MB app available for free from the Mac App Store that has the potential to speed up your work-flow if it involves Terminal. Go2Shell simply launches a Terminal session with the current folder you're navigating in Finder, or the folder that Go2Shell is located in, open for work. It even supports iTerm, iTerm 2 and xterm if you're not a fan of Apple's own-brand Terminal. It's so simple, it's almost beautiful and if you happen to have to modify files in Terminal, or any other similar task, Go2Shell could be just ticket to save you time. The best way to use Go2Shell is to drag it onto your Finder toolbar and from there launch it whenever you're in the desired directory. If you need something a little more advanced you should check out one of our previous Daily Mac Apps, DTerm, which gives you hotkey access, and a floating entry form into the Terminal session. Go2Shell is a great free download from the Mac App Store that does one thing and one thing well. So if you're a Terminal guru (even the app's preferences are accessed through the command line) then give Go2Shell a whirl. You might like it.
Three ways to change Lion's Finder window sidebar
It took me a little while, but I finally last weekend updated to Lion, and so far ... I think I like it. I kind of miss my old Spaces feature, and I did turn off reverse scrolling right away, but it does seem to run better than Snow Leopard, and Mission Control is pretty sweet. Another thing I'm not a huge fan of, however, is the new Finder sidebar -- it's pretty bland, and not quite as clear or useful as the one in Snow Leopard. Fortunately, that's pretty easy to fix, and ZDnet has a few good ways to do it. This SIMBL plugin will put a little color back in those icons, if you like, and you can do a little plist tweaking in Lion to switch around the order of the various devices and sources listed on the side of the screen. Finally, if you're ending up with aliases in the Finder sidebar that lose the source they're originally alias'ed from, you can drag-and-CMD-drop them to erase them once and for all. Apple of course makes all of these changes with good intentions, and maybe there are good reasons to do things like drain all the color out of the interface (maybe it allows you to focus more on the important stuff: your files in the other window). But for those of us who like the old ways best, it's good to know we've got options.
Get back your HD info in Lion
Looking for that handy readout at the bottom of every Finder window telling you how many items are in the active folder, and how much free space is on your hard drive? In OS X 10.7 Lion, it's turned off by default (part of the cleaner, scrollbar-free new UI style). Easy enough to restore it, though: just choose Show Status Bar (⌘-/) from the View menu, and continue on with your fully-informed computing day. More Lion tips coming all week long!
Speed up Empty Trash
If you've got a bunch of locked files in your Trash, the 'really delete?' warnings can be a drag. You can speed up the Empty Trash process and bypass all the warnings (use with caution!) by holding down the Option key before choosing the command from the Finder menu. Notice that the ellipsis disappears from the command name, indicating that you won't be bothered (or checked with) again.
Cross-realm Dungeon Finder premium service coming soon
Blizzard has just announced a premium cross-realm Dungeon Finder feature, allowing players from the same faction to invite Real ID friends from different servers into 5-man regular and heroic dungeons. The popularity of the Dungeon Finder is well-known at this point, and expounding on the feature has been in the cards according to Blizzard for some time now. This new feature will be part of a premium package of WoW features requiring an extra fee to use. Blizzard says that only the person doing the invites and creating the cross-server party will need to have access to the premium feature for the system to work. Currently, there is no release date, and the service is being described as a complex one to develop. Blizzard is most likely getting out in front of the news sites and datamining sites now, since pieces of this new system will begin to hit the PTR soon and Blizzard doesn't want too much speculation. I personally think that this system is really cool for players who have an already-established friends base on other servers but don't want to leave their current home or don't have the money to do so and pay for a premium server transfer. For instance, Sacco and I can finally run some dungeons together. You hear that, Sacco? It's dungeon time. Premium services always receive some type of backlash in the WoW community, and this one will be no different, so for caution's sake, let's wait until pricing information is officially announced before we explode with indignation. This is, however, a feature that many players have been asking for and will be very popular.
Australia trialing new emergency finder system with centimeter accuracy
This year has seen the evil doings of many powerful natural disasters around the world, and while the capable organisations are doing their best to provide relief, many lives could've been saved if the stranded victims were able to provide their precise positions for quicker rescue. Having seen the number of recent floods and cyclones in Queensland, Australia, Ergon Energy started trialing a new emergency tracking system earlier this year, which utilises pole-mounted mobile GPS stations to pinpoint cellphones equipped with special but cheap location-based chips -- Samsung and Nokia are said to be participants in this project. Over the next 12 to 18 months, said energy firm will be deploying 1,000 of these stations to cover 95 percent of the state, in order to let emergency services track down calling victims within centimeters -- that's a huge leap from conventional GPS devices' 10 to 20 meters, though an updated land database with matching accuracy is still required before the system reaches its full potential. Regardless, here's hoping that this brilliant project will be brought over to many more disaster-prone areas sooner rather than later. [Thanks, Justin]
Declaring love with the Mac OS X Finder
Not only is this really cute, it made me think to myself, "Man, I wish I'd thought of that first." Sean Ohlenkamp put a folder on the desktop of his wife's Mac as the gateway to expressing his sentiments on their third wedding anniversary. The video above walks through a whimsical nest of folders in the Mac OS X Finder, occasionally taking non sequitur (and hilarious) side trips before winding up at an awww-inducing conclusion. There's no indication of how Sean's wife reacted to his message or the way he delivered it, but if she's a keeper, I'm sure she loved it. You can watch the video after the break. [via Neatorama]
Blizzard issues Call to Arms clarification
After some good, some bad, and mostly loud reaction to the announcement that a Call to Arms feature was being added to the dungeon finder, Blizzard has issued a clarification on some issues that players were having with the system. Most importantly, DPS players felt that rewards from the new bags would only be able to be gained by tanks and healers. Thankfully, these bags will be bind on account. Also, Blizzard clarified the nature of the mount and pet drop percentages, as well as the types of flasks players could expect from what's now dubbed the Satchels of Exotic Mysteries.
Ask TUAW's triumphant return from abroad
This, my friends, is the triumphant return of Ask TUAW -- everyone's favorite Mac and iOS Q&A and advice column. Unfortunately, a giant beaver ate all of the questions from prior editions of Ask TUAW, and we need more new questions! So, here's what we need you to do: go to the comments of this post, think long and hard about which burning questions have been bothering you about your Mac, iPod, iPad, iPhone or AppleTV, and ask away! You can also email your questions directly to ask [at] tuaw.com. Here are a few perennial favorites asked and answered: Q: Which MacBook Air should I buy? A: Get the 11" if you have another computer, or the 13" if it's your primary machine. Order the BTO memory upgrade, too; you can't upgrade the RAM after the fact. Q: What's the best way to sync my iPhone to multiple computers? A: The only way to win is not to play -- syncing to more than one computer is asking for trouble, honestly. Pick your most accessible machine with the best storage situation for your media and applications library, and sync to that one. If you need to shuffle content around or purchase apps on multiple machines, go with Apple's Home Sharing to keep things synchronized. So, head down to the comments at the end of this post, and do your best. When asking a question, it makes life a lot easier for the Ask TUAW team if you include what type of machine you're using, which version of Mac OS X you're running or, if you're asking an iPhone/iPod/iPad question, let us know which generation device and which version of iOS you have -- though, in general, you should always upgrade to the latest version if you can. We've got a few questions left in the can from last time, so let's get cracking. Dave asks: I am seeing terrible performance from Finder when trying to access a Windows share over a VPN. If I do an 'ls' or 'cd' command to get to the same files, everything is instantaneous. Is there some setting in Finder that will make it act more like the 'ls' done via Terminal? I have looked at a lot of Finder replacements and they all appear to have the same problem. Given this works great on Terminal, I'm a bit stumped at what Finder can be doing that would slow things down so dramatically.
Finder now offers to search Mac App Store for unknown file types
If you try to open a file in the Finder and it doesn't recognize the extension, it will now offer to search the Mac App Store for applications that can open that file type. Before the Mac App Store's launch, the alert panel you see above would simply say, "There is no default application specified to open the document 'foo.bar' " and offered only "Cancel" or "Choose Application..." as choices. Ideally, I wish the Finder would tell you if you already have any applications installed that could open those files, but this is a nice addition for people who might receive an unknown file and not know what to do with it. In December, 9to5Mac spotted this dialog in a prerelease seed of 10.6.6, so it's nice to see that it made it into the final product.
Hacksugar: Twisting your browser
This morning, we posted a simple little trick for slowing down OS X animations by depressing the shift key. In the comments on that post, TUAW reader Rafe H reminded me about this sweet little trick that allows you to retain a warped (but still usable) browser window in your workspace. By slowing the animation during minimization and killing the dock mid-transition (enter "killall Dock" in a Terminal window), the window retains the Core Animation changes at the point that the OS X dock is terminated. That produces a seriously eyecatching result that will please your aesthetics for... well, probably at least for seconds. Check out a quick little video after the break to see how this works.
ForkLift 2, slick file management, fast file transfers
ForkLift 2 was officially released this week. This is the second generation of the FTP client-cum-Finder replacement, and it brings with it a veritable shipping palette full of new features. When it comes to file transfer, ForkLift 2 has just about all the bases covered: FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, iDisk, SMB, AFP and NIS, with impressive speeds and FXP copy capabilities. You can connect directly, as you would in a standard FTP browser, or you can mount the disk in the same fashion that the latest version of Transmit does. This allows for access to remote files from any application, remote editing and some additional file management tools. ForkLift can save "Droplets," similar to other FTP clients, which give you a drop target for uploading to a specific server and folder. You can also set up a sync between any two folders, remote or local, and save the set as a "Synclet," a small app that will run the sync automatically. The interface is slick, with a few features that make this a killer app for me. It maintains the original ForkLift's two-pane, tabbed interface, and it adds a Favorites panel, better progress meters and extensive keyboard navigation. My favorite new feature is the Stack, similar to what Path Finder has, where you can temporarily collect files on which to perform mass actions. You can turn any file selection into a stack, and you can have multiple stacks going at any time. Another feature I love is Workspaces, which lets you define pairs of folders to open at the same time. It sounds simple, but if you do a lot of filing from one folder to other subfolders, it's a very nice time-saver. The tool set is pretty impressive, too. From being able to create both aliases and real symlinks to splitting and combining large files, it brings in a ton of functionality that Finder has always been missing. It even has a Trash App command for removing an application and its data, à la AppZapper. Selecting files is a breeze with the advanced search, filter and selection tools. ForkLift even has a multi-rename feature for performing mass filename changes. I won't try to detail every one of the new features -- it's an extensive list. I will say that I think ForkLift 2 brings to life a truly integrated file management environment that combines the best features of leading FTP apps and file managers. A single-user license is US$29.95, and ForkLift 1 users can upgrade for US$19.95. There's a family license available as well, which covers all the Macs in your household, for US$49.95. You can find out more, and download a free trial, at the BinaryNights website.
Mac 101: Keyboard tricks for Finder navigation
You may know that you can expand and collapse Finder folders in a tree view using the left and right arrow keys. But did you know that you can expand or collapse all of the root-level folders at once? It's a cool trick that can save you a lot of time when navigating your Mac's files. With the Finder window focused (click anywhere inside the file view), just type Command-A to select all, then use the left or right arrow to collapse or expand all of the folders simultaneously. Neat, right? You can also expand a folder recursively (expand all of its child folders) by selecting it and holding down the Option key when you click the triangle next to it (or press the right arrow key when the folder is selected). This works in reverse for collapsing, too. You can also drill down into a folder with Command-Down Arrow, and back up to the parent folder with Command-Up Arrow. Now, not to blow your mind or anything, but you can combine two of the tricks above: select all (Command-A), and then hold down the Option key while you hit the right arrow key to expand every folder in the view, and every folder inside of those folders, and every folder inside of those folders.... If your hard drive is anything like mine, you just made a fine mess of your Finder window. Normally, you can quickly jump to files in the list by typing the first few letters of their name, but good luck finding anything quickly when all of your folders are expanded. Reverse the process by selecting all and using Option-Left Arrow to restore sanity. Now, use Command-Space to open Spotlight and enjoy the relief of having the file you were looking for in that folder hierarchy (mess) just appear with a couple of keystrokes!
