Do you know you’re looking for a JPEG but don’t want to search every other document type on your Mac? Speed up your search thanks to Spotlight search operators, just type:
kind:jpeg filename With this the only documents searched will be jpeg. You can specify just about any kind of document, from pdf, to doc, txt, etc.
There’s a whole post on search operators within Spotlight if you’re interested.
You know you’re an Apple addict when you start measuring time by the iPhone release cycles. I found this comic pretty funny, it looks like something out of a newspaper but I am unsure of it’s original source. Thanks to Daniel for sending this in!
Scrolling with momentum is a feature that is included with some MacBook Pro trackpads (and MacBooks thanks to a recent software update from Apple). The behavior is very much like the iPad or iPhone, when you are scrolling through anything you can give the trackpad a swipe and the speed of your gesture will determine the length of the scroll. I like this feature and keep it enabled on my MacBook Pro, but some people are bothered by it.
* Open System Preferences
* Click on ‘Trackpad’
* Under “Two Finger” gestures, look for ‘Scrolling’
* Click on the pulldown menu and select ‘Scrolling without momentum”
* Close System Preferences
Changes will take effect immediately. You can enable the momentum scrolling by simply reversing the setting to ‘with momentum’ and your setting will be back to the default. Some people call this feature ‘intertia scrolling’ or ‘inertial scrolling’ but Apple calls it ‘scrolling with momentum’ within the System Preferences, making it the proper description.
Apple is working on a “revolutionary” new Mac OS X 10.7 feature, according to a new job posting on Apple.com:
We are looking for a senior software engineer to help us create a revolutionary new feature in the very foundations of Mac OS X. We have something truly revolutionary and really exciting in progress and it is going to require your most creative and focused efforts ever.
The posting was originally discovered by AppleInsider and since then speculation has swarmed about what the feature is. Based on evidence within the posting itself and some other recent Apple news, it looks to be related to cloud computing.
The biggest hint in the job posting is the favoring of candidates who have experience developing with “internet technologies and services” and more tellingly “participated in or lead the architecture of large web scale systems” with HTTP protocol experience. This naturally leads to the assumption that Mac OS X 10.7 will indeed have Cloud features built into the foundation of the operating system. HTTP and XHTML5 are core elements in the Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) spec and are integral parts in most existing cloud computing services and platforms. When you combine this knowledge with recent news that Apple is building a massive 500,000 square foot data center, there is little room left to wonder what Apple is up to.
Of course the question remains on how exactly cloud computing will be integrated with future versions of Mac OS X, iOS, and even iTunes, so let the speculation run wild! I’ll go first. Assuming this all pans out, the name Mac OS X 10.7 Clouded Leopard would certainly be fittingly appropriate and along the existing feline naming conventions as the first iteration of Mac OS X to directly integrate cloud computing features.
Here’s the entire job posting:
Are you looking to help create something totally new? Something that has never been done before and will truly amaze everyone? Are you excited by the prospect that what you helped create would be used every day by millions of Apple customers? Then come and work on with the Mac OS X software engineering team to help build a new and revolutionary feature for Mac OS X.
We are looking for a senior software engineer to help us create a revolutionary new feature in the very foundations of Mac OS X. We have something truly revolutionary and really exciting in progress and it is going to require your most creative and focused efforts ever.
An ideal candidate will have a degree in Computer Science (or equivalent), five years of professional experience developing C / C++ / Objective-C libraries or frameworks for use on end user systems, experience with developing for Internet technologies and services, and a passion for doing “really hard” things that have never been done before.
An exceptional candidate will also have up close and personal experience with the HTTP protocol as well as other protocols layered atop it, have participated in or lead the architecture of large web scale systems, have shipped multiple “platforms” for use by millions of users.
Additional Desired Skills and Experience:
- Mac OS X platform development experience
- Knowledge of Objective-C
- UNIX development experience
- BS in Computer Science or equivalent; 5+ years experience
You can see the job posting or even apply for it yourself at jobs.apple.com.
President Obama uses a MacBook Pro 15″ with antiglare screen, and it looks like the entire White House staff uses Macs too.
The top picture is from a White House video and the other of White House staff is from Fortune. It’s not just Macs that the White House is crazy over, the iPad has also become very popular in the current administration, according to CBS News:
Practically everyone has an iPad — or will have one very soon.
Emanuel just got his, as did senior adviser David Axelrod and deputy press secretary Bill Burton. Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer and press wrangler Ben Finkenbinder each have one on order. Economic adviser Larry Summers takes his to staff meetings.
The device is the hot, new White House toy, a gizmo that is popping up around Washington but seems to be particularly in vogue at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The irony in all of this of course is that President Obama recently made the following comment about iPods and iPads being distracting:
“With iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”
I’m sure members of the White House just uses their Macs and iPads for work though… no Facebook, Angry Birds, or StarCraft 2 in those long West Wing meetings… suuuuuuuure.
Excellent news for iPhone 3G owners who have been plagued by the iOS 4 update, an Apple spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that they are investigating various complaints about iOS 4 running slow on iPhone 3G.
Rumors continue to circulate that iOS 4.1 causes the iPhone 3G to run faster, but this has not shown true in our experience. If you are looking to retain the functionality of your iPhone 3G, we still recommend you do not upgrade to iOS 4 until Apple has worked out the kinks. While boasting some nice new features, the operating system update renders the 3G phone practically unusable at times, with immense slowdowns for everything from launching applications to just typing text messages and emails.
If you already installed the latest update, there’s a few tips to speed up iPhone 3G with iOS 4 but they are hardly a permanent solution and you’ll still have a slower OS than prior versions. Either an update from Apple is needed or any easy path to downgrade to 3.1.3, until then the 3G is really suffering.
Prior to Mac OS X, there used to be a Trash icon on the Desktop. You can replicate this functionality by creating a symbolic link of the Trash to a folder named Trash on your desktop, here’s how to do this.
Launch the Terminal and type the following:
ln -s ~/.Trash ~/Desktop/Trash
A folder named ‘Trash’ will appear on your desktop, and it has direct access to the Trash in the Dock. You can assign any icon you’d like to this folder to make it look like a Trash can. Any files or folders you drag here will be sent to the Trash as usual, but it lacks the ability to eject disks. If you want to remove the desktop Trash icon, just drag it to the Trash!
Starcraft 2 is out and it’s pretty much eating all my free time at the moment. I’m still in the process of tweaking my graphics settings for optimum performance, and the easiest way to benchmark Starcraft 2 performance on machines is to check the FPS (frames per second). Here’s how to do that on both a Mac and Windows SC2 install:
To check the frame rate on a Mac, while you are in a game hit: Control+Option+F
Checking FPS in Windows is basically the same key command, in SC2 hit: Control+Alt+F
On either operating system, once you hit the command to display frame rate, the FPS counter will show in the upper left corner and look like so:
If you’re wondering how well SC2 will run on your machine, check out the Starcraft 2 system requirements for Mac. Later I will post some preliminary findings on how well the game runs on a few different Mac setups.
If you’re a fan of Blizzard and real time strategy games and you haven’t gotten this one yet, you can order Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty on Amazon.com and get free shipping
Apple has launched their official Safari Extensions Gallery, at this time it features 100 extensions out of the roughly 300 out in the wild. All of the extensions on Apple’s gallery have been digitally signed and sandboxed so you don’t have to worry about security problems like some of the Firefox extensions have had in the past. You will need to have Safari 5 to be able to use the extension feature.
Apple: Safari Extensions Gallery
If you’re feeling inspired, it’s not too difficult to create your own Safari extension. You’ll need knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript and to sign up for Apple’s Safari Development program (it’s free) to get started.
The next natural question is… when do we get Safari extensions for iOS? While the iPhone screen might be a little small, some of these extensions would be great on an iPad.
You can find out what the manufacturer, model number, and type of LCD panel you have in your MacBook or MacBook Pro by executing a command in the Terminal.
Paste the following into a single line in the command line:
ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6
You will see something similar to this:
LTN154BT
Color LCD
With the first line being the LCD panel model and the second line being the color profile you are using (same as set in your Display preferences). You can then find out what the manufacturer and specs of the display are by googling for the model number, for instance LTN154BT turns up this page indicating it is a Samsung 15″ display running at 1440×900 and capable of displaying a maximum of 262,000 colors.
This is particularly helpful information to know if your MacBook screen has been cracked and you want to do the installation yourself. Official repairs are often very expensive, but with a little patience and the right tools it can be done by anyone. You can typically pick up an LCD panel through Amazon or eBay for rather cheap and the installation takes about 30 minutes if you follow a guide.
