It’s easy to be distracted by other open applications and windows while using a computer, and sometimes even the best of us need a bit of help to focus. Lion’s full screen mode can be helpful, but when that’s not enough or when you need access to other windows and apps, then Isolator is your friend.

Isolator is a free application that provides an easy way to focus on a single application at a time by applying various filters to everything in the background, these are fully customizable and even if you aren’t interested in the focus and productivity side of things, can make for a nice way to customize the appearance of Mac OS X.

• Download Isolator for free from willmore.eu

You can choose to tint the background, blur it, use a bloom effect, turn it into crystals, or make the background black and white while everything else is colorful. Both the tint opacity and filter strength are adjustable by a slider, leading to plenty of customization options. Screenshots and a video of some of these effects and filters are shown below.
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The OS X 10.7.3 update brought with it a variety of subtle changes, including a minor adjustment to how the Launchpad background image style is switched. In previous Mac OS X versions, Command+B would switch between the background effect styles, but this is now achieved with Control+Option+Command+B.

Try it yourself by opening Launchpad and then hitting the Control+Option+Command+B keys to alternate between backgrounds with blur, unblurred, black and white, and blurred black and white. You can see samples of these background style effects below.

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SHA hashing is frequently used with distribution control systems to determine revisions and to check data integrity by detecting file corruption or tampering. For common usage, a SHA checksum provides a string that can be used to verify a file been transferred as intended. If SHA checksums match, the files integrity has been maintained.

Checking SHA1 Hash in Mac OS X

Launch the Terminal, found within the Applications and Utilities folder, and use the following syntax:

shasum /path/to/file

To verify a file named “DownloadedFile.dmg” on the desktop, it would be:

shasum ~/Desktop/DownloadedFile.dmg

This will output something like this:

$ shasum ~/Desktop/CheckMe.zip
ddfdb3a7fc6fc7ca714c9e2930fa685136e90448 CheckMe.zip

That long hexadecimal string is the SHA1 hash.

An easy way to check SHA1 files buried deep in the file system without typing out the full path, is to type the first part of the command then drag and drop the file into the Terminal window. This automatically types the path for you:

shasum (drag and drop file here)

Remember to put a space after “shasum” for this to work properly.

The default for the shasum command is to use SHA1, the most common hash type, but this can be changed with the -a flag if necessary to 224, 256, 384, or 512. Also, though SHA1 is becoming more common than MD5, you can still easily check md5 hash in Mac OS X as well with the md5 command.

Examples of Using SHA1 to Verify Files

A practical use that Mac users may encounter is when downloading software updates directly from Apple, who lists the SHA1 hash of each file offered through their servers at the end of each downloads page. You can see such a string highlighted in the screenshot below. This string allows users to easily verify the integrity of their downloads either from Apple or when the file has been hosted on a third party mirror site.

This is also how it was discovered that OS X 10.7.3 had been quietly updated, and several questions about this spawned this post.

Using SHA1 hash strings are also an easy way to verify file transfers from peer to peer networks and to make sure a download has finished, or that a file was not tampered with somewhere along the line. By knowing the origin SHA1 checksum, you can verify your version of the file(s) in question matches, and determine if the file is indeed valid and has arrived as intended.

Did you know the split iPad keyboard in iOS 5 includes six hidden ‘phantom’ keys that make typing even easier?

The hidden keys are Y, H, B, T, G, and V, and technically they’re just duplicates of the keys directly across from each other while the touch keyboard is split in two. This makes some of our quirkier and habitual typing gestures still work despite the fact that the user is technically typing onto nothing. Try it out yourself.

I had no idea this existed, but this great find from Finer Things has made the rounds on the web and does a great job of emphasizing how Apple pays attention to even the littlest things in their quest to protect the user from their own error and frustration.

If you have tried to delete Safari, Mail, FaceTime, Chess, Photo Booth, Stickies, QuickTime, or any of the other default Mac OS X apps before, you’ll know the Finder prevents you from doing so. Try to move one of these apps to the trash to uninstall it and you’ll get a message saying: ‘”Safari.app” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by Mac OS X.’

That message is more to dissuade you than anything else, because there is a way to delete any of these default apps that are required by Mac OS X, it’s just generally not recommended to do so. For apps like Safari and QuickTime Player, this is particularly true, as other apps may use Safari or it’s elements to function properly (including other web browsers), but for apps like Stickies, Chess, FaceTime, and Photo Booth, you can safely delete them without any mal effects.

How to Delete Safari, Mail, FaceTime, Photo Booth, & Other Default Apps

Warning: There is no undoing the app deletion without reinstalling the individual application or Mac OS X. This will result in permanent removal of the specified applications and could result in abnormal system behavior or improper functionality. If you don’t know exactly what you’re doing and why, this is not recommended. Perform a backup beforehand, and proceed at your own risk.

• Launch the Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities/
• Type the following at the command line to change to the Applications directory:

cd /Applications/

Now that you are in the Applications folder, you can start deleting apps. You will not get a confirmation of the removal, the app will simply be deleted completely. The following commands will only work when used in the /Applications/ directory.

Delete Safari
sudo rm -rf Safari.app/

Delete Mail
sudo rm -rf Mail.app/

Delete FaceTime
sudo rm -rf FaceTime.app/

Delete QuickTime Player
sudo rm -rf QuickTime\ Player.app/

Delete Stickies
sudo rm -rf Stickies.app/

Delete Chess
sudo rm -rf Chess.app/

Delete Photo Booth
sudo rm -rf Photo\ Booth.app

If you’re comfortable enough with the command line, you could supply the full application path with /Applications/Appname.app but considering the potential for catastrophic error with sudo rm -rf we used the safer method.

For those of us up north battling the cold winter, this Mac setup at sunset is sure to inspire some envy. Reader Pavel G is spending his winter in balmy Goa, India, and set up a desk on the rooftop of a house near the beach. Here’s the hardware he’s using to be productive while beachside in the sunny tropics:

• MacBook Pro 15″
• iPhone 4
• Magic Trackpad
• German Maestro headphones

We post a lot of Mac setups with tons of fancy desks and great hardware, but some of my favorites are these untraditional workstations, ranging from tents in Australia, to boats in Germany, or motorcycles in the middle of the American southwest. Keep ‘em coming!

Thanks to Pavel for sending this in! Submit your own Mac setups to osxdailycom@gmail.com

Apple looks to have quietly updated the troubled Mac OS X 10.7.3 Updater, first noticed by several of our readers and confirmed by OSXDaily. No official change was announced and there is no revised version number provided by Apple’s Support page, but presumably the new build addresses any potential installation problems or CUI errors that occurred for some users with the original release of OS X 10.7.3 earlier this week.

The original OS X 10.7.3 Combo Updater .dmg has the SHA1 checksum of: 07dfce300f6801eb63d9ac13e0bec84e1862a16c

The revised OS X 10.7.3 Combo Updater .dmg has a SHA1 checksum of: b8322dbd1f7b55bf35aac4122ad2204c51307793

Apple has updated the SHA1 on the combo updaters support page to reflect the change, and they are also now redirecting download links from the original OS X 10.7.3 Client Updater to the revised OS X 10.7.3 Combo Updater.

The file size of the new update is also slightly larger, as shown by apprentice who compared the two in our comments (old version first, revised version second):

SHA1= 07dfce300f6801eb63d9ac13e0bec84e1862a16c
Version: 10.7.3
Post Date: February 01, 2012
Download ID: DL1484
License: Update
File Size: 1.2 GB

SHA1= b8322dbd1f7b55bf35aac4122ad2204c51307793
Version: 10.7.3
Post Date: February 01, 2012
Download ID: DL1484
License: Update
File Size: 1.26 GB

OS X 10.7.3 Build 11D50b vs 11D50
There are also mixed reports that installing from the new Combo Updater changes the OS X 10.7.3 build number fro 11D50 to 11D50b on some Macs. This does not appear to be the case on all Macs though, and some retain the 11D50 build even when the new update has been used, suggesting the original installation issues and CUI errors may have only impacted certain Mac models to begin with.

If you updated to 10.7.3 without any problems, you likely do not need to download the new version. If you held off on the OS X 10.7.3 Update due to the reported problems, you are probably safe to update now, although you should perform a Time Machine backup before proceeding just in case.

Thanks to all who sent this in

Apple has released an updated version of Security Update 2012-001 to v1.1, which resolves the Rosetta issues in the first release that caused many PPC based applications to either crash or not run at all. If you have been experiencing problems with apps like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Quicken, crashing after installing the security update, downloading version 1.1 will fix those problems.

Security Update 2012-001 v1.1 is now available for Mac OS X v10.6.8 systems to address a compatibility issue. Version 1.1 of this update removes the ImageIO security fixes released in Security Update 2012-001.

The revised update is recommended for all Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard users, even if you haven’t encountered problems with PowerPC application compatibility.

You can download the new version of Security Update 2012-001 from Software Update, or directly from Apple as a standalone installer.

All Macs with OS X Lion have a bootable Recovery partition that can be accessed in case of system problems, allowing you to troubleshoot, restore from Time Machine backups, and even reinstall Mac OS X.

Hold down Command+R keys during boot to access the Recovery HD partition.

You’ll know you’re in recovery mode because the standard desktop won’t be displayed, replaced with a limited Mac OS X Utilities window and a simple Mac OS X menu bar. Here you can use Disk Utility, Time Machine, and restore the OS.

From the Utilities menu you can access Network Utility, use the Firmware Password Utility, and launch the Terminal, which lets you repair user home permissions, launch other apps, and perform other diagnostic tests.

To reinstall Mac OS X Lion from the Recovery partition, you will need an active internet connection, although this isn’t necessary if you booted with a full Lion USB installer rather than the built-in Recovery HD partition or a disk made with the Lion Recovery Assistant tool.

Note that if you deleted the Recovery HD partition, you can not access these features.

Thanks for the tip idea @oldrobots

Bored with how your iPhone looks? If you have it jailbroken, you can install iPhone themes and make the device look a lot different than iOS by using an app called Dreamboard.

If you haven’t jailbroken yet, backup the iPhone and then proceed with Absinthe for iPhone 4S on iOS 5.0.1 or Redsn0w for iOS 5.0.1 on other iPhones and iPods. Dreamboard is then found as a free download in Cydia, so search for it and install.

Many Dreamboard themes are available via Cydia, here’s a handful:

• Endroid - Android HTC lookalike with updating weather widget and clock, this is the default Android theme
• OS7 – Makes iPhone look like Windows Phone 7, complete with tile animations
• WebOS – If you want your iPhone to look like a now extinct Palm device
• Kindle Fire for iPhone – Gives the iPhone an interface like the Kindle Fire
• OS X Lion Ultimatum – one of the fancier themes, makes iOS look like Mac OS X Lion
• Apple Desk – looks like an actual desk, complete with iMac and keyboard

There are plenty more, and while a lot of the themes are free, others cost a buck of two. Some paid themes have to be downloaded manually and then moved to the iPhone with SSH and SFTP from a Mac or PC, others can be installed directly on the phone.

Heads up to Lifehacker for the basic theme ideas, but if you’re serious about theming the iPhone don’t miss iDownloadBlogs theme page for tons of videos on the process.