Subscribe to OSXDaily

Subscribe to RSS Subscribe to Twitter Feed Follow on Facebook Subscribe to eMail Updates

Shared on Facebook

Shop at Amazon

Ad

OSXDaily on Facebook

Search

Archive for September, 2010

The Worst iPad Car Mount Idea Ever

Sep 30, 2010 - 5 Comments

worst ipad car mount

This has to be the worst iPad car mount solution I have ever seen, which is exactly why it’s so funny. It’s actually a joke product called the iArm Forearm Mount, and the product itself doesn’t exist, but you can buy the box and fool your friends anyway if you feel like wasting $8 on some cardboard with amusing pictures.

If you actually do want an iPad car mount though there are several solutions out there, ranging from velcro to legitimate dashboard installations. Just don’t strap the iPad to your forearm and attempt to use it while driving, please.

New Apple TV Specs: 256MB RAM, 8GB Storage, A4 CPU

Sep 30, 2010 - 5 Comments

apple tv specs Apple told everyone that the new Apple TV had an A4 chip, HDMI out with 720p support, WiFI, etc, but what everyone wanted to know was what the actual device hardware specs were… how much RAM does it have, how much local storage, does it run iOS?

Now we know, here are the Apple TV 2010 hardware specs:

  • A4 Processor – identical to the CPU in the iPad and iPod Touch 4G
  • 256MB RAM – again the same as the iPad and 4th gen iPod touch
  • 8GB Flash Storage – similar to NAND module found in the iPad and iPod touch
  • Runs iOS – the Apple TV is running a modified version of iOS 4.1
  • 802.11n Wi-Fi + Ethernet
  • HDMI output
  • Optical audio
  • Mini-USB port – potential for external storage options, syncing to your Mac, and more
  • Infrared receiver for remote control

The new Apple TV is also really small, coming in slightly less than 4″x4″ and less than an inch high. You can see specifics about the dimensions and video and audio formats on Apple’s official specs page.

The new Apple TV is looking better and better for $99. The RAM and flash storage capacity were discovered by iFixIt during their teardown of the device, and indicate that the device is just as powerful as an iPad and iPod touch 4G, although slightly weaker than the iPhone 4 due to a slightly different A4 chip and half the RAM (iPhone 4 has 512MB RAM).

Since the new Apple TV runs iOS it means a Apple TV Jailbreak is just around the corner… 8GB of storage is enough room to store a fair amount of apps and still cache video and media through the AirPlay streaming service.

I am very excited to see where the Apple TV takes us!

Show or Hide Macintosh HD and other disk drives on the Desktop

Sep 30, 2010 - 4 Comments

show or hide hard drive on mac desktop

You can easily hide or show the “Macintosh HD” main hard drive and other removable drives by adjusting some Finder options.

  • Launch the Finder Preferences from the “Finder” menu, or hit Command+,
  • Under the ‘General’ tab, check or uncheck items you either want shown or hidden, respectively
  • Close Finder preferences

These changes take effect immediately. Through these preferences you can adjust the visibility of Macintosh HD and other internal hard disks, external drives, CD’s, DVD’s, iPods, and even connected servers. Macintosh HD is categorized under ‘Hard disks’ so if you leave it checked it will remain visible.

If you’re a minimalist or you just don’t like the desktop icons and the clutter they can cause, you can always hide all desktop icons in Mac OS X with a simple Terminal command.

Increase a songs volume in iTunes

Sep 30, 2010 - 4 Comments

boost song volume itunes
If you come across a song and it doesn’t play loud enough, you can increase the volume level of any song playing within iTunes by doing the following:

  • Right click on the song name and select “Get Info”
  • Click on the ‘Options’ tab
  • Slide the Volume Adjustment slider all the way to 100%
  • Click OK

The song will now play at twice the level it did before. In my experience this does not degrade the quality of the audio, so it’s a pretty safe choice. Boosting the song volume like this on a per song basis is a good way to fix the way a single song plays, but you can also set iTunes to automatically adjust song volume levels and iTunes will attempt to play all music files at the same volume level.

This works in the Mac OS and Windows versions of iTunes.

The Social Network movie trailer song

Sep 29, 2010 - 1 Comment

By now you’ve surely heard of the Facebook movie, the commercial has been playing constantly all over. Of course, if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve heard the song which plays in the trailers background and is now getting popular (much like the Apple commercial effect).

The prominent song from the movie “The Social Network” trailer is called “Creep” and it’s performed by Scala & Kolacny Brothers, which is a Belgian all girls choir. The song is actually a remake of a Radiohead song by the same name that was popular in 1992.

You can listen to the full version below, via YouTube embed:

Commercials are increasingly becoming popular sources for otherwise unknown music to go mainstream. Other recently popular commercial music includes: the iPod touch commercial song, the song from the new iPad commercial, and the iPod Nano commercial song, and also the iPhone 4.

Lock your Mac via iPhone and take an iSight picture with login attempts

Sep 29, 2010 - 11 Comments

red hand RedHand is a pretty powerful Mac security app with a creepy icon that locks your computer using a myriad of protection options and scripting support, but I think the two best features by far are these: Bluetooth detection locking & unlocking, and the ability to take iSight pictures on failed login attempts.

Read more »

Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac now available for pre-order

Sep 29, 2010 - 2 Comments

microsoft office 2011 for mac Microsoft officially announced that Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac will be released on October 26, and the office suite is now available for pre-order.

The new version of the popular office suite features Word 2011, Excel 2011, PowerPoint 2011, Outlook 2011, as well as Messenger 8 for Mac, and Remote Desktop for Mac 2, all apps are said to be fully compatible with their Windows counterparts.

All versions of Office 2011 for Mac are available for pre-order on Amazon, and include free shipping for the release date of October 26, 2010.

Pre-order Office 2011 for Mac now through Amazon.com

The iPhone 4 Commercial Song

Sep 29, 2010 - Leave a Comment

There are a bunch of new iPhone 4 commercials playing both in the USA and Europe, they are all without language which makes them able to play across the borders of most countries without any translation. The other thing to note is that all the new iPhone commercials feature the same pleasant and upbeat slow jazz song in the background.

What song is playing in the iPhone 4 Commercial?

The song playing is “When You’re Smiling” by Louis Armstrong, it’s a classic jazz melody that was recorded several times by the musician throughout his career, in 1929, 1932, and 1956. It’s definitely an appropriate song for the iPhone commercials, you can listen to the full version of the song below via the YouTube embed.

Read more »

iOS 4.2 beta 2 download available now

Sep 28, 2010 - Leave a Comment

ios 4-2 download available

Apple has just released iOS 4.2 beta 2 to download for iPad and iPhone developers, and it’s reported to be a lot less buggy than beta 1.

You’ll need a developer account, but you can head over to Apple’s Developer site to grab the latest download. iOS 4.2 beta 2 runs on iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, and the iPod touch 4th, 3rd, and 2nd generations.

The final version is hotly anticipated and due out in November, since iOS 4.2 for iPad will finally bring multitasking and folder support to the device.

Test a website on an iPad

Sep 28, 2010 - 9 Comments

test website on ipad

Do you need to test how your website will look on an iPad, but you don’t have an iPad?

Check out iPadPeek.com, which is a web-based iPad simulator. It’s limited to the web, but you can render a website in a virtual iPad in either horizontal or vertical orientation.

It’s definitely not perfect but it gives a pretty accurate if not rough representation of how the iPad views webpages (though Flash is still loaded), this is definitely worth a bookmark for web developers.

If you’re serious about developing for the iPad, you should just get an actual device and then download the iPad SDK, but until then this simulator might get you through web testing, even if it’s a bit limited.