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Google Photos will hide pics of your ex on Android
An unfortunate part of the future we live in is photos surfacing in our digital history of people we'd rather not see again. Google has a way around that with the latest update to its Photos app on Android. Now you can hide a specific person under the People tab. As the Google+ post tells it, that'll keep the new grouped photos tool from resurfacing in those people under the "rediscover this day" tab as well. It isn't quite the level that Lacuna, Inc. works at but, combined with Facebook's similar tools, it could help save some heartache. It's rolling out to folks running Mountain View's mobile OS right now, with iOS and web updates coming "very soon."
Facebook to ask users why they hide News Feed content
Hiding posts on Facebook has been a pretty simple affair, but the firm's gearing up to add a little more nuance. Instead of simply dismissing updates or sponsored stories, the social network will soon ask users why they decided to banish them from their News Feed. Details on how the feature will work are still MIA, but it could very well function like the site's advertisement hiding feature, which asks if ads are uninteresting, misleading or otherwise unpleasant. Naturally, giving the outfit the extra intel will allow it to serve up content and ads that better please your palate. Facebook's Product Manager for Ads Fidji Simo told ABC News that it'll start testing the tweaks soon, and users should start seeing them surface within the next three to four months. In the meantime, feel free to hide posts without answering to Zuck.
Mac 101: Where'd my send button go?
More Mac 101, TUAW's series for beginners. My mom called me up last week with this question about Mail: "Where did my send button go?" Turns out she had mistakenly clicked the white chiclet (pictured) in the upper-right hand corner of her message's compose window, hiding her toolbar. When she clicked it once, Mail remembered her settings and hid the toolbar for other message windows, too. So, just clicking that chiclet showed the toolbar again, and brought her send button back. Magic. Also, you can hold down command and click the same chiclet to show and hide icons and text labels in the toolbar. Repeatedly clicking with the command key held down cycles through all your options. Now that my mom is happily sending emails again, I can sleep well knowing all about the new Bob's Big Boy and the local woman who was on Survivor.
Smudge photos with Seashore
If you're looking for a quick and dirty way to smudge sensitive information in photos before putting them online then give Seashore a whirl. We've written about this neat little open source Mac-only app before and think it's great for basic image editing and touch-ups. To smudge parts of a photo, simply open the Seashore toolbar, then open the photo you want to edit. Select the "finger" icon from the left side of the toolbar and right-click on the mouse while dragging the cursor across the area you want to blur. Save the photo and you're done. Be advised, however, your blurring efforts can be undone just as easily so if you need to hide extremely sensitive information, you'll need to use another method.
TUAW Tip: Desktopple Pro can hide idle apps
Some utilities stick to doing one thing and one thing well, while others incorporate a number of related features for those who need a little more umph. Desktopple Pro is just such a utility. As we've mentioned before, Desktopple Pro is a powerful app that helps neat-freaks and podcasters alike to hide their desktop icons and display custom wallpapers either at the click of a mouse, or even automatically when starting some apps. What many (potential) users don't know, however, is that it can also automatically hide apps that are sitting idle in the background of your workspace, depending on a user-specified time limit. This means that some users of other similar apps that are designed specifically to perform this one chore - like Spirited Away and Shoo Apps - might be able to remove one more task from Activity Monitor, as Desktopple Pro has you covered. A 15-day demo of Desktopple Pro is available, as is a free Desktopple Lite for those who only need some of the basics. A single license for Desktopple Pro sells for a mere $17.
Bring 'My Computer' to Mac OS X's desktop
Erica just touched on Mac OS X's ability to selectively hide drives form the desktop via the Finder's preferences, but what if you still want access to those drives? Maybe you're a neat freak when it comes to your desktop, or maybe you're a recent Windows switcher who misses the comforts of My Computer. Either way, an app simply called My Computer might very well do the trick for you, as it really lives up to its name. Included with the app are some brief instructions that basically parallel Erica's post, teaching you how to use the Finder's preferences to remove your drives from the desktop. After that you can simply move My Computer.app into place (which really doesn't do much more than using cmd-shift-c to get to the same display of drives) and enjoy your home away from home, or simply what some might consider a cleaner desktop. While the choice for the app icon is a bit outdated, that can be rectified with a simple Get Info command (cmd-i) on the icon and choosing something new, perhaps from the endless archives at The Iconfactory.
Dock Dodger - easily hide running apps from the Dock
We've found easy methods for hiding the icons of running apps in the Dock, but you typically have to get your hands dirty with editing files inside the app package itself. For users who prefer a more simple drag and drop operation, there's always Dock Dodger. From the same FoggyNoggin Software that brought us Desktopple Pro, Dock Dodger handles the dirty work of ensuring your app never shows its icon on your Dock; simply quit the app if it's running, drop it on Dock Dodger and restart it for the ultimate in 'what am I going to do with all this open space in my Dock?' experiences. While Dock Dodger performs the same editing of app files that you can do yourself, we'll still echo their recommendation of duplicating the original app first so you have a backup just in case. Dock Dodger is available as donationware from FoggyNoggin Software.
Hide an Icon in the Dock
The über-Mac geeks over at mac geekery answer a reader question I have often wondered about myself: is it possible to hide an application's icon so it does not appear in your Dock, even though the application is running? And the answer is yes, if you're up for a little bit of relatively easy hacking. Apparently all you have to do is drill down into the Application package (right-click on the application icon and choose "show package contents") and add one key to its Info.plist file. JC warns that this may have some unintended consequences, as the "Dock controls almost all aspects of application switching," so if you do this you may "lose" the application and have no way to interact with it. In addition some applications "interact with their Dock icon programmatically" (e.g. the way Mail.app shows the number of unread messages in its Dock icon), so this is not a good idea for those programs. However, if you have something that must run all the time, but with which you don't interact much, and whose Dock icon you want out of there (e.g. the DynDNS Updater client), this is a handy tip. One word of warning, be sure to duplicate any application you decide to try this on first, so that you can go back if necessary. A second word of warning, this affects the menubar as well as the Dock.[Update: several commenters have mentioned Dockless, as a more user-friendly way of doing this. I originally misunderstood what Dockless did, but after a little more research it turns out that Dockless basically just automates the very same process this tip describes (i.e. changing the value of the LSUIElement key in the info.plist file).]
On TextExpander cursor positions and why the Dock hiding feature no longer works
Users of the fantastic TextExpander who are also fond of the cmd+opt+d shortcut for hiding/showing the Dock might have noticed a weird behavior with this shortcut as of late. To be specific: the shortcut doesn't quite work anymore, even in 10.4.8; pressing it will cause the Dock to hide (or un-hide), but the Dock quickly reverses the behavior as soon as you let go of the shortcut. I know I thought it was a mere illusion brought on by sleep deprivation when I first stumbled across this, but occasional attempts at troubleshooting revealed not only that I was seeing just fine, but that a solution or even the culprit were seemingly nowhere to be found. Fortunately, watching the latest MacBreak #63 in which Leo Laporte and Merlin Mann cover TextExpander taught me not one but two useful things about this typing tool (three, if you count that I now know that Merlin has a mind-boggling 700+ text snippets). First is a handy way to control where your cursor is positioned once a snippet is expanded. All you need to do is include a specific string - %| - in your snippet to dictate where you cursor is inserted after your snippet unfolds itself. This is great for creating snippets in which you still need to include something specific on the fly that can't be snipped, such as creating [a href] links. Once Merlin covered this hint, however, I was inspired to open TextExpander's Help file to see if there were any other hidden gems. While perusing their FAQs, I discovered an explanation to this aforementioned bizarre Dock hiding behavior (it's towards the bottom of the FAQ page if you're curious). As it turns out, the specific way TextExpander is designed to hook into Mac OS X has uncovered an alleged bug in the OS that causes this unfortunate drawback. SmileOnMyMac is pretty sure this is a bug in Mac OS X rather than TextExpander, and I hope they have alerted Apple, in which case we could hope to see a fix possibly in 10.4.9. For now, the easiest way to get around this quirk and hide/show the Dock is probably to right-click the Dock divider (the line between Applications and the Trash/docs/files sections) and use that contextual menu.
