If you frequently access a file server from a Mac it’s pretty helpful to map the network drive to your desktop. There’s two ways to do this, one method is just mapped for one time use and will reset after a reboot, and another method is a more permanent route that allows the mapped network drive to always appear and mount on your desktop after system reboots and user logins.
Here’s something you might not know. Your Mac will periodically send out anonymized data to Apple with location specific information, the intended use is for providing location based services to it’s customers with Apple products. Here’s the part of the Apple Privacy Policy regarding this:
“To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services.”
To stop the sending of the location data to Apple, you need to disable Location Services.
Now Safari (and other applications) will no longer send out anonymized location services. It’s unclear what exactly is contained in the location services data transfer and what apps or ‘partners’ use the service, but just the thought of location sensitive information being sent out to 3rd parties makes some people uneasy. Thankfully, this is a very easy feature to disable. Be aware that disabling Location Services on your Mac will effect the ability of Mac OS to automatically determine what time zone you are in, so you will have to adjust that manually.
This sounds actually pretty similar to the functionality of Apple’s iAds platform, which runs on iOS devices. You can also opt out of iAds data tracking if you’re interested.
Solitaire is one of those great card games that has passed countless hours over the course of it’s existence. Eventually it involved from just a card game to a computer card game, and it became a staple of the Windows gaming environment. But now you’re on a Mac, what do you do for your solitaire fix? Get a great free Solitaire app, of course!
McSolitaire is great, it automatically saves and resumes games, offer tons of customization and theming options, and best of all is totally free to download, which puts it right as my #1 Mac Solitaire client. There are some other pretty junky solitiare apps for Mac out there but this one is the best that I’ve used by far. The screenshots don’t really do it justice, thanks to the theming it’s about as attractive as a solitaire app can get.
You can grab the free Solitaire client over at PCV Soft, the developer also has a free Solitaire app for iPhone and iPad too which are equally as feature rich and fun to play. Enjoy!
Read more »
This is a rather strange error message, you’ll get the notification “Another device on the network is using your computer’s IP address” and then you’ll lose internet access with the dialog box telling you to try connecting again later. No thanks, we need internet access now! So what causes this and how do we fix it?
It looks to be a problem with the DHCP server, which mistakenly assigns the same IP address to two devices, but don’t blame your router quite yet. For whatever reason it seems that the iPod touch, iPad, and iPhone is often the culprit, it seems these iOS devices like to maintain the same IP address and will attempt to force themselves onto the same IP that they had previously been assigned.
The easiest solution is to just reset the router, but that can be a pain depending on your access to the router itself. If resetting the router is a no go, you can renew your DHCP lease in Mac OS X either through the command line (as the linked article shows) or through the Network settings System Preferences. The other option is to manually set an IP address and have the IP range be far enough apart so that the devices do not conflict.
I assume this is just a bug with how iOS interacts with certain routers DHCP management, it happen to Apple’s own Airport too so perhaps that will spur a patch sooner than later. In the meantime, try one of the fixes, they should get your Mac back online in no time.
Another possibility (although much less likely) is that someone has managed to spoof your MAC address and IP and is attempting to gain access to your network. I say this is much less likely because assuming you have some reasonable wireless security precautions in place this is very unlikely, there simply aren’t that many people out there with the knowhow to crack into a secured wireless network. The other reason this is less likely is because this problem can be semi-reliably reproduced by simply rebooting an iOS device on a network with only 1 IP assigned (usually 192.168.0.1 or similar). Bottom line: if you see the ‘Another device has your IP’ error message, don’t freak out, it’s probably not a security breach.
The Internet Explorer 9 beta is out now for testing, and a reader sent in this picture which is sure to disappoint Mac users all over: Internet Explorer 9 is not available to download for Mac, its for Windows Vista and 7 only. OK so sarcasm aside, I hear it’s actually pretty decent (for IE at least), and so what do you do if you want it on your Mac?
Let’s discuss how you can get Internet Explorer 9 on your Mac, there’s three main options:
The first approach is to use virtualization software, and then you can run IE in addition to just about anything else through a fully functioning Windows VM. The upside to this is that it’s generally very stable and assuming your Mac is reasonably powerful the virtual machine usually performs quite well, certainly well enough to run IE and core Windows apps. The downside to this approach is that you need to buy a Windows license so that you can install it in the VM.
Bootcamp is another option but then you’ll have to reboot between Mac OS X and Windows, and this isn’t really acceptable for quick testing in my view, plus you still have to buy Windows. This is without a doubt the best performing option though, since there is no virtualization or hack required, it just turns your Mac into a Windows PC.
If you don’t want to bother with bootcamp or a virtual machine, you can actually run Internet Explorer on the Mac using a third party tool called WineBottler, and while this works for IE6, IE7, and IE8, as of yet IE9 is not supported with this method. This is the method that I usually choose to just run IE for quick tests, but it can be prone to crashes and it’s also the slowest of the three options.
As far as I know, most Mac users generally need IE only for dreaded compatibility testing that web developers always have to endure, and this is why having a VM or WineBottled installation is legitimately helpful. The Windows version is available at Microsoft, if you need it for that purpose or any other.
People are doing all sorts of cool things with iPads, but this must be one of the more interesting projects I’ve seen. Using videos playing on an iPad and stop-frame photography, Dentsu London moved the device around in dark environments to create 3-dimensional words and animations.
Instead of trying to explain it any further, you should just watch the video below: Read more »
I really like computer setups where beyond the monitor is a window, and this MacBook setup is lucky enough to be surrounded by large windows looking out into some tropical foliage.
[ via Flickr ]
Update: The iPhone text tone can be changed to anything after iOS 5.
Tired of hearing the same text message alert tone on your iPhone despite who the incoming SMS arrives from? Would you like to set a custom SMS tone to individual contacts? In either case you’ll be excited to learn you can do both of these with the newer iPhone iOS updates.
To set a custom text tone for a specific contact, you’ll just go into the contact, tap on ‘Edit’ and looking underneath ringtone you’ll see “text tone” where the sound can be adjusted from the default tri-tone to other alert tones.
I use custom ringtones all the time for contacts so being able to set a custom text tone is a great feature. There is no word yet on whether or not you’ll be able to create your own custom text tones like you can with custom made ringtones, but if I had to guess I’d say they are probably going to be playing the same .m4r filetype suggesting the creation of unique tones is a possibility.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley have concluded that the iPad is now consuming 25% of PC laptop sales, and that sales of PC laptops have been steadily declining since the release of the iPad. The iPad is also slightly eating into Apple’s own laptop and iPod touch marketshare, as buyers are satisfied enough with the iPad to not see the need to purchase additional hardware.
Here are some of the more interesting iPad sales statistics from Morgan Stanley:
The following chart, found by AppleInsider, offers pretty compelling evidence of the iPad effect on PC laptop sales:
This is fresh off the news that Best Buy has found the iPad to reduce some PC notebook sales by as much as 50%, an incredible feat of sales but unsurprising considering the strong demand for the iPad.
A new iPad is expected to be released soon that will feature a FaceTime compatible camera, larger memory, and other feature improvements. Rumors suggest the device may be announced at the same time iOS 4.2 for iPad becomes available in November in order to catch the holiday shopping season, while others look at a January 2011 timeframe.
Update: Apple has confirmed that the White iPhone 4 will be released in Spring 2011.
The claim below regarding ship date was proven to be false information, but is maintained for posterity:
Just as the black iPhone 4 is becoming more steadily available, a supposed email exchange between Steve Jobs and a high schooler has provided a rough release date for the long awaited White iPhone 4 model. According to the unconfirmed exchange, the white iPhone 4 will ship near Christmas of this year.
Here’s the email thread:
Hello Steve, My name is Nathan, I’m a high school student from San Bernardino. I also happen to be one of your biggest fan and a total Apple fanboy and proud to be.
I’ve been saving up money to buy the new iphone 4. I want the white one but Apple said it won’t be available until later this year. I know you must be asked this question hundreds of times a day but do you think we can expect to get the white iphone for xmas?
I hope you can answer. Thank you Steve.
To which Steve Jobs replies:
Christmas is later this year.
The biggest issue with the supposed email exchanges between Steve Jobs and, well, everyone, is that they are practically impossible to verify. This latest exchange was reported by the iPhone-centric iDB who points out that it’s always a possibility it’s a fake exchange.
Releasing the White iPhone 4 near Christmas would certainly provide for a white christmas for the Apple fans that have been holding out until the white model is available.
Update: Well as we mentioned, it’s always a possibility that these emails are fake, and iPhoneDownloadBlog.com came forward today stating that the email exchange was in fact a fake.
