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How to autoimport your iPhone photos using OS X's Image Capture
Image Capture for OS X has been around for a long time, but many new Mac users are not aware of the photo importing tool. The handy utility sits in the "Other" folder in Launch Pad or in the Applications folder and can be used to import your iPhone photos. It bypasses other photo apps like Aperture or iPhoto and can be used to manually copy photos from your iPhone to a folder on your Mac's hard drive. By default, Image Capture will open and prompt you to choose the photos and the folder location for that session. If you want to automate the process, you can change the import options for Image Capture. This is useful for folks who want a minimal effort way to backup their iPhone photos. Connect your iPhone to your Mac via USB Make sure the iPhone is selected in Image Capture On the bottom left corner of Image Capture, there is a drop down list with the label "Connecting this iPhone opens:" Select this list and choose "Autoimporter" from the list of applications Close Image Capture and disconnect your iPhone The next time you connect your iPhone, the Image Capture app will send your files immediately to a folder within "/Pictures" on your Mac. You then can use Finder to sort those images and move them to their final destination.
How to permanently remove Notification Center from OS X
Some OS X users have a love-hate relationship with Notification Center. They appreciate the occasional alert, but don't enjoy the continuous stream when they are busy and don't want to be disturbed. These OSX users can easily disable Notifications by turning on "Do Not Disturb manually or using a shortcut by option-clicking on the Notification Center icon at the far right end of the menu bar. The icon turns grey to indicate that those banners, sounds and alerts are silenced temporarily. If you can't stand Notification Center, you can permanently remove it using the following terminal commands: launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist killall NotificationCenter Use these with caution as they will completely disable Notification Center -- it will disappear from the menu bar and OS X won't send along any alerts. If you change your mind, you can easily restore your alerts by reversing your steps as follows: launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist If Notification does not automatically appear, then you must manually launch it by opening "/System/Library/CoreServices/" in Finder Locate"Notification Center" and double-click it to restore it to your menu bar
How to create an animated GIF from your existing burst mode photos
Burst mode shooting in iOS 7 captures a series of quick-fire photos, allowing you to grab that perfect shot that you likely would have missed if you were taking photos one at a time. When you are done shooting, you are left with a single entry in your Photos app that contains all the photos in that burst. In just a few steps, you can convert that series of shots into a delightful animated GIF. The first thing you need to do is to select all the photos in the burst shot and extract them to your camera roll as individual shots as follows: Open the Photos app and find your burst mode shot Tap a thumbnail then tap "Choose Favorites" Swipe through each shot and tap the circle at the bottom right of a photo to mark each one that you want to keep Tap Done and choose to keep everything if prompted After this step, all your burst mode photos should appear in the camera roll as individual shots. These photos then can be imported into your favorite animated GIF app and tweaked as needed. For animated GIFs, I use Giffer because it allows you to quickly and easily import photos into the app and has options to create reverse and looping yo-yo GIFs as shown below. Giffer is available as a $2.99 app with basic features and a $3.99 Pro version that supports bigger and longer GIF sequences.
Dropbox has a new "Fix Permissions" feature
I consider myself fairly savvy when it comes to Dropbox, but I learned a new tip from Mac OS X Hints. If you get "Permission Denied" errors, you can try to "Fix Permissions" in Dropbox. This is not repairing disk permissions in Disk Utility, it's within the Dropbox app itself. To get to it, open Dropbox preferences, then click "Account" and you'll see this: Make sure that "Unlink This Computer" is highlighted (if it isn't, press Tab until it is). Hold down the alt/option key and it will change to this: I assume this is a new feature in Dropbox version 2. If you're not reading Mac OS X Hints already, you really should start.
Mac 101: Creating a recovery disk using Recovery Disk Assistant
Lion's recovery partition is a wonderful idea, but doesn't really help out if your hard drive fails. That's why yesterday's announcement of the Recovery Disk Assistant from Apple was welcome news to a lot of people who were trying to figure out how they could easily create a recovery disk on external media. Here's how you can do make your own recovery disk using the assistant. First, you'll need to download the Recovery Disk Assistant app. It's a small file -- a little over a megabyte in size -- and once it was downloaded I opened the disk image and dragged the Recovery Disk Assistant app into my Utilities folder. Next, you'll need media. The "disk" part of Recovery Disk Assistant is a bit misleading, since you can't actually use a blank DVD. I'd recommend going to your local OfficeMax / OfficeDepot / Staples / Walmart / Target to pick up a 4 GB flash drive. They're cheap -- most outlets are selling them for less than US$10. If you already have one, realize that the Recovery Disk Assistant is going to reformat it, so make sure you take all of your files off of it. Now fire up the Recovery Disk Assistant app. You'll be required to agree to a software license agreement, so be sure to take some time and read every last word in the agreement (I am kidding). Click the Agree button, and now you'll be asked to plug the flash drive into an available USB port. After noting that your disk is going to be erased, click Continue. The process takes less than a minute, after which you'll be instructed on how to use the recovery disk in the event of an emergency (below). Basically, if your boot drive is toast, connect the flash drive to your machine, restart while holding down the Option key, and then select the Recovery Disk. You'll have four options available to you -- restore from a Time Machine backup, Reinstall Mac OS X, Get Help Online, or Repair or Erase a disk using Disk Utility. Under the Utilities menu are three more options -- the Firmware Password Utility, the Network Utility, and everyone's favorite, Terminal. It's so easy and inexpensive to create a recovery disk for your OS X Lion installation that you should not only create one, but seriously think about carrying it on your keychain for those emergencies you encounter while away from home.
Removing Flash from your Mac
Back in October, Apple shipped its first MacBook Air models without the Adobe Flash plug-in pre-installed. In the ensuing brouhaha, Ars Technica discovered Flash cut battery life by up to 33 percent on the MacBook Air and possibly other MacBook models. Personally, my MacBook often sounds like it's preparing for space flight when I visit pages that use Adobe's plug-in. Whether you wish to conserve electricity, silence overactive cooling fans, boost the security of your browsing experience or protest against the use of media plug-ins, you can easily remove Adobe Flash from your Mac. Most often, the Flash plug-in can be found in the "Internet Plug-Ins" folder on your system's hard drive. To get there, switch to the Finder and select "Go to Folder..." from the "Go" menu. When prompted, enter "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/" and click "Go" to switch to the appropriate location on your system. Once you are in the "Internet Plug-Ins" directory, make a new folder called "Disabled Plug-Ins." Move the "Flash Player.plugin," "flashplayer.xpt" and "NP-PPC-Dir-Shockwave" files into your new "Disabled Plug-Ins" folder. Or if you really want to kill Flash, toss these files into the Trash. (Note: if you don't find these three files in "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/" they may be hiding in "~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/".) The next time you relaunch Safari or Firefox, Flash will no longer be enabled. If you need to view a Flash-enabled page in a pinch, you can install and launch Chrome. This Safari-alternative ships with a Flash plug-in embedded in the browser. You can also install OmniWeb or iCab and copy the Flash plug-in into the browser's plug-in folder. For OmniWeb, right-click on the OmniWeb application and choose "Show Package Contents" to reveal the PlugIns folder. Copy the Flash plug-in to the folder, and you should be good to go. iCab does not contain a PlugIns folder, but you can create one yourself and copy over the Flash plug-in manually.
AddOns for the complete noob
[Note: Hopefully this will be a valuable resource for new players. If you know any, feel free to send them here. If you already know how to use AddOns, there is probably very little in this post that will interest you.]You just got WoW, or maybe you've had it for a while. You heard about these neat things called "AddOns" and you want to try them out. How do you do it?
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Adventures in Beta: Blood Elf Paladin, 6-10
When I returned to my blood elf, she was ready to go kill some Wretched and arcane patrollers in the wreckage of the Blood Elf starting area. The whole Ruins of Silvermoon area is very confusing. It's a city, but half of it is overrun by enemies, so you can't really figure out where most of the questgivers are supposed to be. As I swung away at magic-zombies and machines, I discovered that I was sort of enjoying playing a paladin. The whole system of seals and judgments was pretty cool, and my big problem with my long-dead human pally - the lack of a viable pulling spell - was solved by mana tap. I was going out of mana a lot less than with my shaman, too. I had to keep reminding myself, "You can't play one of these in the expansion - you'll get bored around 30-40 like with all your other alts, and you'll have to deal with other blood elves like 'Onmyknees' and 'Sefhirotth.'"
