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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.
Mac 101: Additional tips for OS X Lion's Mission Control
TUAW's Dave Caolo did an in-depth look at OS X Lion's new window/application manager, Mission Control, the day of OS X Lion's launch. If you're completely confused about Mission Control's features, Dave's post is a good place to get a baseline of knowledge on this new feature. In this post, I'll be covering two additional features of Mission Control that will help alleviate some of the confusion associated with it, especially if you're used to the way Spaces worked in earlier versions of Mac OS X. Tip 1: Assigning applications to a specific Desktop Mac OS X Snow Leopard had a preference pane in System Preferences that allowed you to assign applications to a particular Space. Unfortunately, Mission Control's preference pane in OS X Lion has no such feature, which has led to a lot of confusion amongst users who were comfortable with Snow Leopard's method of assigning apps to Spaces. It turns out this feature hasn't vanished altogether in OS X Lion, but it has been moved to a somewhat less "discoverable" location. It's also less configurable than the preference pane setup Spaces had in Snow Leopard, but that may actually be of benefit to novice users. First, use Mission Control to navigate to the Desktop you want your application to be assigned to. Once there, right click the Dock icon for the application you want to assign -- if the application isn't one you normally keep in the Dock, you'll need to launch the app first. After right clicking the app's icon, you'll see a contextual menu pop up. On this menu, under Options, you'll see a submenu called "Assign To" with three different options: All Desktops, This Desktop, or None. "All Desktops" is just that; the app will follow you around no matter which Desktop you're using. "This Desktop" will "pin" the app and its windows to your current Desktop, both now and for all future launches of the application. You can still move windows between Desktops manually if you desire, but by default they'll open in the assigned Desktop. The third option, "None," is the default; applications aren't assigned to any particular Desktop, will simply launch in whichever one you're currently using, and will stay there when you navigate to a different Desktop. Assigning applications to a particular Desktop can help a lot in keeping things organized. I'll offer my own setup as an example: Desktop 1: Safari, Echofon, Mail, iChat -- My main Desktop gets all my communication tools assigned together. Desktop 2: Aperture, Photoshop -- All my photo editing apps in one spot. Desktop 3: Pages, Keynote, Numbers -- I have this desktop set aside for "Productivity" apps. Desktop 4: iMovie, Handbrake -- This Desktop is devoted to video editing/transcoding apps. All Desktops: Finder -- Obviously I don't want to move to a different Desktop every time I need to dive into the file system. This may not be true for all users migrating from Snow Leopard, but my Spaces preferences from Snow Leopard carried over to Lion, so I didn't have to re-assign any applications after upgrading. Tip 2: Assign a different wallpaper to each Desktop A feature I always wanted to see in Snow Leopard's Spaces was the ability to assign different background pictures to each Space in order to make them visually distinctive. Without that, it was sometimes difficult to tell which Space I was in. This feature has found its way into OS X Lion, and it's quite simple to set up, especially if you already know how to change your desktop background (easy to find in System Preferences under "Desktop & Screen Saver"). To simplify things, first assign System Preferences to "All Desktops" using the tip above -- this will save you some headaches if you're changing multiple Desktop backgrounds at once. Then, navigate to the Desktop whose background you want to change. Once there, change the background in System Preferences. Simple. Using different backgrounds for each of your Desktops will make navigating between them in Mission Control much easier -- especially since Apple hasn't yet implemented any way to rename Desktops. Hopefully these two tips will help you get more out of Mission Control than you would otherwise. The feature is above all meant to help you organize things and make them easier to navigate, but it does take some tweaking to get Mission Control to realize its full potential.
New OS X 10.7.2 build and iCloud beta 7 released to developers
Another seed of OS X Lion 10.7.2 has been released to developers, this time with a build number of 11C37. The first 10.7.2 build was released just a few days after OS X Lion's public launch, and Apple still has not provided any developer seeds of 10.7.1. Apple has also pushed out the seventh version of the iCloud developer beta. iCloud is due for public release in the fall, alongside iOS 5 and, likely, the 10.7.2 release of OS X Lion. Meanwhile, based on historical Mac OS X releases, a 10.7.1 bugfix update for Lion should be released any day now. Between Mac OS X Jaguar and Snow Leopard the average time between the 10.x release and a 10.x.1 update has been just over 18 days; as of this writing it's been 23 days since Lion's launch. The longest gap between a 10.x release and the 10.x.1 update was 25 days, back in 2002 (though 10.1's gap was much longer, 10.2 was really the first version of Mac OS X that was in widespread use, so I haven't included it in this analysis). Both 10.7.2 and the iCloud beta are available to download now from Apple's developer center.
OS X Lion wallpaper missing a few astronomical bodies
Just like the default iPad wallpaper comes from a real lake called Pyramid Lake (which is supposed to be in Nevada, though I'm sure I pass signs for it every time I drive up to San Fran from here in LA), so too is the default Lion wallpaper based on a real picture of a real galaxy, specifically the Andromeda Galaxy. Boing Boing found a real image of the galaxy taken by astrophotographer Robert Gendler, and when it lined up the Lion image with the real thing, it found that Apple actually deleted a few stars and galaxies from the sky, just for Lion. Don't worry -- Apple didn't actually delete the real stars (though with its market value, it could probably at least put a dent in them). Obviously, it was just a Photoshop job to make the wallpaper a little smoother and more pleasing to the eye. But it is interesting that someone at Apple said, "You know, if that star weren't there, the universe would actually look a lot better!" What if we did have a universe designed by Cupertino? [via MacStories]
Daily Mac App: WhatSize
Getting to grips with the files and folders on your hard drive can be a chore, but the right tool makes it easier. WhatSize is a tool that combines the best of several disk visualisers into one package. WhatSize scans your disk(s) and reports on the size of your files and folders with a straightforward, color coded, Finder-esque presentation. From there you can click through folders, drilling down to large problem areas, identifying files and folders was you go. WhatSize can also give you a pie chart representation of your data with labels and concentric folder display. For instance, your home directory is held within the "Users" folder on the root of the drive, so the Users folder is displayed in the innermost ring, while your home directory is displayed on the next ring out. You can drill down by double clicking folders, or zoom out by double clicking on white space. It's simple and intuitive. There's also a table view that you can sort by file size, or you can scan for duplicates, which scans and compares your files, which takes a while (read: hours) if you have lots of files, but then allows you to easily see what's doubled up. WhatSize will also let you scan files and folders with Administrator status, allowing you to scan other users data on your drive. If you're looking for a comprehensive, simple disk space visualiser, WhatSize does the job admirably for US$12.99 and is available from whatsizemac.com. But don't take our word for it, download the free trial and give it a whirl. Thanks to Klajd Deda for the suggestion.
Build your own Lion install USB thumb drive for cheap
Why pay Apple $69.99 when you can build your own Lion install drive for the App Store purchase price of $29.99 -- plus the cost of an inexpensive thumb drive. Here's how to create a full install on a drive, not just the recovery disk that we recently posted about. You'll need a copy of the OS X Lion installer. If you saved a copy when you first installed Lion, great. If not, you'll need to re-download it from the Mac App Store. To do so, launch the App Store and option-click the Purchases tab. An "Install" button should appear next to Lion. Click it to re-download the installer. You can use this option-click-Purchases trick to re-download any purchase, not just Lion. Once the 3.74-GB installer finishes downloading, go to your Applications folder to find the installer itself. It is called Install Mac OS X Lion. Right-click (or Control-click) the installer and choose Show Package Contents from the contextual pop-up. A new Finder browser window opens, showing the normally hidden material inside the installer bundle. Navigate to Contents > SharedSupport. There you'll find a disk image called InstallESD.dmg. Open a new Finder window with Command-N (File > New Finder Window). Navigate to /Applications/Utilities and launch DiskUtility. Attach a thumb drive to your Mac that is at least 4GB 8GB in size. (Update: some readers say 4GB isn't enough. As you can see, I used a 16GB drive) Prepare it for use by creating a single HFS+ partition. Select the drive (e.g. SanDisk Ultra) in the left hand column. Drives are listed first with their partitions listed after them, each partition indented slightly. With this drive selected, click the Partition tab and choose Partition Layout > 1 Partition. Choose Format > Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click the Options button at the bottom-right of the partition layout. Select GUID Partition Table. Click Apply. Disk Utility asks you to confirm. Click Partition. Wait as it unmounts, partitions, and remounts your disk. Next, select the new partition (Untitled 1 by default). Click the Restore tab. Click Install next to the source field. Drag InstallESD.dmg into the file-open window and click Open. Drag Untitled 1 from the left column to the destination field. Click Restore and agree to Erase the drive and replace it with the contents of InstallESD.dmg. You may have to authenticate as an administrator. Wait. It will take some time for the drive to be written. Once it's done, eject it, label it clearly, and put it away for a rainy day. Meanwhile, go out and spend the $40 you just saved wisely.
Apple starts selling Lion USB sticks
As promised, Apple has begun selling Mac OS X Lion on flash USB sticks in its retail stores. The US$69 drives (seventy dollars?!) contain a full install of the operating system and look much like the recovery drives that ship with MacBook Airs. You can use the little doohickey to install Lion (or reinstall it), attempt a repair with Disk Utility or run Time Machine. They're not yet available online, so stop by your local Apple Store to buy one. Happy recovery!
Mac 101: Capture your signature using OS X Lion's Preview app
OS X Lion has made signing PDFs easier than ever before. It's been possible to scan in your handwritten signature and sign documents in earlier versions of Mac OS X, but it was a complex process and one most people probably never trifled with. More often than not, I found it easier to simply print out the document, sign it the normal way, and scan the whole document back into Preview using my flatbed scanner. Lion's version of Preview comes with a built-in signature scanner that makes signing documents far simpler. In the Annotations toolbar you now have an option to create a signature from your Mac's built-in iSight camera. All you need to do is use black ink to sign a piece of white paper, align your signature toward the camera using the onscreen guides, and take a snapshot of the signature. (I haven't used my real signature here, obviously.) Preview can store multiple signatures, so if you need to both sign and initial documents, you're able to do so easily using Preview's annotation functions. It's a great feature, and one that ensures my printer will be gathering even more dust than it already has. [Just to be clear, this process only applies a graphical representation of your signature; it does not cryptographically 'sign' the PDF document to ensure that it has remained unmodified. Adobe's Acrobat application can sign PDFs with both a graphic and a digital signature; NitroPDF also has this feature, as does the DocQ web service. The DocuSign web service provides 'electronic signatures,' which are not exactly the same thing either. –Ed.] One step closer to a truly paperless office
Apple updates Migration Assistant for Leopard-to-Lion compatibility
Apple previously updated its Migration Assistant app for compatibility between Lion and Snow Leopard, and now here's the original Leopard update. The Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Leopard smooths out the transfer from a Leopard Mac to one running with the newest Lion OS, making sure your data, settings, and apps all make the trip over. Yes, it's not exactly groundbreaking. But if you've got a Leopard Mac sitting around and have been planning on picking up a new one complete with a Lion install, this will definitely be helpful in the transition. The update is of course free, and can be picked up from Apple's site. [via MacRumors]
How saving changed in Lion - Infographic
You can check out the full-size images in the gallery below, but clearly Lion thinks about saving documents differently. Read more about versions and locking documents in this post. %Gallery-130270% Note: If you're having an issue with the image loading in the gallery, click one of the thumbnails and it should load. There's an issue with our CMS which we're still trying to fix. Our apologies. Another note: Once the thumbnail loads, right-click the image and choose View Image to get to the full-sized image. Final note: Or download or view the full sizes here: Before Lion saving After Lion saving
Lion's iOS-like Automatic Termination not ideal for some users
Matt Neuberg over at Tidbits has noticed an interesting behavior in Lion: Occasionally, apps running without an active window on will disappear from the Command-Tab application switcher, and sometimes disappear from Activity Monitor completely. The culprit is a new "feature" in Lion called Automatic Termination, which will shut down and quit any (compatible) apps that aren't active and don't have any visible windows. Of course, most official Apple apps support Automatic Termination. As Neuberg notes, this is obviously a hat tip to iOS and its background processes, in which you "close" an app simply by navigating away from it, leaving the system to shut it down when additional memory is needed. Neuberg suggests, however, that this implementation isn't so much a feature as a problem. Obviously, a desktop computer has many more resources to run processes than a mobile device, and there several scenarios in which a user might need to access an app that's been inactive for a while. Granted, with Lion's Auto Save and Resume features, you could argue that there's no real difference to an app or a user between "inactive" and "closed," but Neuberg says that there is, and he doesn't like it. The feature is designed to keep the decision of which apps are open and closed away from the user, and while that might be a help on iOS, it's a hindrance on the Mac. I agree -- I'm perfectly capable of dealing with app management on my desktop, and it's lame of Apple to take that away from me. Of course you can't opt out of Automatic Termination, short of simply avoiding compatible apps. There are certainly good reasons on both sides for having or not having this feature running, but in this case, it seems like bringing over this certain aspect of iOS app management might not be ideal for all Lion users.
Apple releases Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
While OS X Lion automatically creates a recovery partition on your existing hard drive, many people have correctly pointed out that this does you no good if the hard drive itself fails. While many third-party solutions for creating a Lion recovery disk on an external drive have sprouted up over the past few weeks, there's now an official solution from Apple: Lion Recovery Disk Assistant. According to Apple, "Lion Recovery Disk Assistant lets you create Lion Recovery on an external drive that has all of the same capabilities as the built-in Lion Recovery: reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari." The program will walk you through the process of creating a recovery disk on an external USB drive. The assistant notes that the external disk will be erased in the process of creating a recovery disk, however, so if you were hoping to use this solution to create a recovery disk on a drive that's already loaded with other information, you might want to explore other options or find a dedicated drive that you can use instead. Lion Recovery Disk Assistant is just over 1 megabyte and available for download now.
Skype for Mac updates to 5.3, adds Lion and HD video call support
The good folks over at Skype have been mighty busy recently. In the last month (give or take a day) the company has announced integration with Facebook, launched a new version of its Windows client to support the social network, released an iPad-optimized version, and expanded Android support to an additional 17 handsets. Now the video-chat stalwart has update its Mac app with support for Lion and HD video calls -- something Microsoft fans have been enjoying since 2010. You can check out the full announcement and download Skype 5.3 for Max OS X at the source link.
Discount education-only iMac appears, makes you wish you'd opened that institute of higher learning
A new $999 iMac popped up on Apple's site this week -- great news if you or someone you love owns an educational establishment. The cheap education-only all-in-one boasts a 21.5 inch display, a 3.1GHz Intel Core i3 processor, and 250GB of storage. As MacRumors points out, however, there's no mention of a Thunderbolt port amongst the specs listed, so maybe this whole running a school thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Talkcast tonight, 10pm ET: Living with Lion
It's a summer Sunday, and we're in the heart of the dog days; no better time to talk about the newest big cat, and the adjustments and improvements we've found over a few weeks of using Lion. Come on down for the Talkcast, at the usual time (10 pm ET), and share your experiences. To participate, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for +5 Interactivity, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (viva free weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Blink or X-Lite SIP clients, basic instructions are here. Talk to you tonight!
Track packages automatically in Lion Mail
Mail in Lion has added a "data detector" for tracking packages. When you get an email with a tracking number in it, you can hover over the number and click the arrow to select Track Shipment... This should open a window in Mail that shows you shipping details for that package.
Debunk: Lion USB sticks are not yet available
Apple clearly considers its new App Store-based distribution model one of the biggest advances in Lion, and to the company's credit, we found the whole thing to be quite painless. But physical media devotees needn't worry too much -- the company quietly announced at launch that the latest version of OS X will also be available on a USB key, for the lofty price of $69 -- which, incidentally, still requires Snow Leopard, unlike what has been previously reported. Word hit today that the company has finally issued the flash drive version of the software, information gleaned from an internal document reportedly leaked by AppleCare. We have it on good authority, however, that the drives mentioned in the document are not, in fact, the aforementioned sticks. Rather, the "recovery media" discussed is actually a restoration tool for AppleCare employees, used to fix faulty systems. We hate to be the burster of bubbles, but it seems that the App Store-impaired will still have to wait until later this month to get their hands on the $70 Apple dongle.
Apple offers Find My Mac for beta testing, wants to play Cops and Robbers
Ever misplaced your hard earned MacBook Air or had an entire project vanish at the hands of a dirty thief, only to be gone forever? Well friends, the time is coming soon for the Find My Mac feature to provide a highly sought after sigh of relief, Find My iPhone-style. Apple has released the software into the wild for registered iOS devs, with the only other requirements being OS X Lion and an iCloud subscription. Using WiFi networks to locate your missing appendage via a web browser or iOS device, the location tool offers you a number of anti-theft options -- send a threatening message, lock down the machine remotely, or even wipe the machine's drive clean. Perhaps we will see this security detail launch with iCloud in fall, which was also released in beta form earlier this week.
Apple opens Find My Mac to beta testing
Apple has enabled beta testing of Find My Mac to registered OS X developers, according to MacRumors. Just like Find My iPhone, Find My Mac allows users to locate their Macs from any web browser or iOS device. When found, you can choose to play a sound or send a message on the Mac; you can also remote lock or remote wipe the Mac. However, remote locking and wiping will prevent you from locating the Mac again. The Find My Mac feature will be free. All you'll need to use it will be OS X Lion and a free iCloud membership. iCloud is expected to debut this fall, and we'll likely start hearing the first Find My Mac success stories soon afterward.
Apple's training site back online, Lion certifications due this fall
For the past couple of weeks (since shortly before the Lion introduction, I believe) Apple's professional training and certification site at training.apple.com has been under renovation. Today it's back with a new Lion-esque look and previews of new training courses and certifications for Apple-centric IT professionals. The three new tracks/certs are for Lion (no surprise), Final Cut Pro X and Mac Integration Basics 10.7. None of the certification exams for those tracks are ready yet, nor are most of the course materials -- only the MIB class has full documentation available right now. Lion certification testing is due to start up in the fall, and FCP X certifications are "coming soon." The Snow Leopard 10.6 certification courses/testing suite is still available, and according to Apple's internal sales web site it will remain on offer until January 2012. Snow Leopard certification will not expire when the Lion exams come online, so if you get certified now you're still considered up to date well into 2012. Thanks, Wheat!
