If you’ve ever reset an iPhone to factory default settings or restored a device to set it up as new, you may have run into this “Activation Error” message when going to set up the iPhone again. The accompanying message is somewhat vague and not particularly helpful, saying “Activation request could not be completed. If the problem persists, please contact customer care.” If you happen to be near an Apple Store then sure you can contact Customer Support or stop in to the Genius Bar to get past the Activation Error screen, but that’s not always practical. Fortunately, there are at least two other ways to get past the activation alert message and continue setting up the iPhone as usual.

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The photo-centric social network of Instagram has no shortage of amazing and inspiring pictures, but something that has probably bugged more people than just me is the inability to zoom in on images posted to the service. Many first-time instagram users try to ‘double-tap’ to zoom, which of course just “hearts'” the picture rather than zooming, and eventually they learn there is no way to zoom into photos on Instagram… well, natively at least.

That’s why this little trick is so cool, it uses a feature built into iOS to allow zooming into Instagram photos anyway, letting you see more details on your iPhone with a quick tap gesture.

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The Maps app in Mac OS X is a useful tool to pre-plan routes, generate map files for offline usage, send directions to an iPhone, and much more, but one critical cartographic component that’s missing by default from all Maps views is any sort of scale indicator, making it difficult to get an idea of how far one thing is from another.

But not to worry, the Maps app in Mac OS has Scale as an option, you just have to toggle it on for the scale (in feet and miles, or meters and kilometers) to be visible.

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College students interested in buying a Mac, iPad, or iPhone now have an added incentive to make the purchase before the 2014 school year begins, thanks to Apple’s annual “Back to School” promotion.

This year, Apple is offering a $100 Apple Store Gift Card with the purchase of a Mac, and a $50 gift card with the purchase of an iPhone or iPad. Additionally, students will receive the standard educational discount on the qualifying purchases, which is usually in the realm of $100 off for a Mac computer, and $30 discounted from an iPad, while the iPhone is not discounted. The promotion runs from July 1, 2014, through September 9, 2014. Current model Macs and iPads are rarely discounted much by Apple or resellers, making the Back to School promo a reasonably good deal for students to take advantage of.

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The recently released iOS 7.1.2 update from Apple can already be jailbroken with the assistance of the Pangu jailbreak utility. The tool continues to work to jailbreak any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch capable of running iOS 7.1.2, without any modifications.

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Apple has released an update to OS X Mavericks, versioned as 10.9.4. The update brings several significant bug fixes and security updates, and is recommended to install for all Mac users running OS X Mavericks.

Notably, the OS X 10.9.4 update resolves a frustrating problem where a Mac would not automatically rejoin a trusted Wi-Fi network, despite being within signal range. A fix is also included to improve the reliability of waking from sleep, a problem that usually manifests itself by making a Mac feel unresponsive when the computer is asleep, frequently on MacBook laptops. The update also fixes an issue where the Apple logo would sometimes appear incorrectly during boot. Also included is Safari 7.0.5 and some other minor bug and security updates.

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iOS 7.1.2 has been released by Apple, available for all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices that are compatible with iOS 7. The update includes multiple bug fixes and security updates, and is recommended for all users to install. Additionally, an update to Apple TV versioned as 6.2 is available.

The official release notes accompanying the download are quite short, listed below:
“• Improves iBeacon connectivity and stability
• Fixes a bug with data transfer for some 3rd party accessories, including bar code scanners
• Corrects an issue with data protection class of Mail attachments”

There are multiple ways to update and install iOS 7.1.2, OTA is usually the easiest, but users can also choose to update through iTunes automatically or with IPSW files.

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Apple has released a new TV commercial for the iPhone 5S called “Parenthood”. The advertisement is about a minute long and features adults using the iPhone 5S for a variety of parenting tasks, ranging from functioning as a baby monitor, a tooth brush aid, drawing assistant, as a remote control for home automation tasks, to using the built-in Flashlight to check for monsters under a childs bed in a particularly great scene, amongst many other tasks. The commercial is soundtracked to a soft song called “Life of Dreams” by artist Julie Doiron.

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The weekend is here and that means it’s time for another featured Mac setup! This week we’re bring you the workstation of Waleed, a student and video editor who likes to keep his desk fairly minimalist. Let’s jump in and learn a bit more about the hardware and how it gets put to use:

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The 1.1.0 version of Pangu Jailbreak for iOS 7.1.1 is now available for users interested in jailbreaking their compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. Basically, if the device can run iOS 7.1.1, it can be jailbroken with the Pangu tool using a fairly straightforward process from a Windows PC or Mac, and that’s what this tutorial will demonstrate.

Jailbreaking is certainly not for everyone and there are legitimate reasons not to do it, leaving the activity best reserved for advanced users who have a strong reason to jailbreak their devices, and preferably with some experience with the process. Be sure to understand the risks before attempting to perform this action with your own iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch hardware. This is not something to take lightly, and we think the average user should not jailbreak their devices.

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A new version of the Pangu jailbreak for iOS 7.1.1 and iOS 7.1.2 is now available on both Mac OS X and Windows. Versioned as Pangu 1.1.0, the update includes a bug fix to resolve a boot loop issue, and now has a complete English translation, making the jailbreak process considerably easier for users who do not read Chinese. The jailbreak remains untethered, meaning users do not need the assistance of a computer or application to reboot their devices.

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If you have an iPhone sitting around collecting dust and out of use, you may want to sell it, or perhaps even more rewarding, give to a friend or family member. Regardless of who it’s going to, if you’re transferring an iPhone to a new owner, there are a variety of steps you’ll want to take to prepare the iPhone for new ownership.

Having been through this recently with an older iPhone that was sitting around in a drawer, I figured it was good to run through the steps again. This isn’t just for people selling an iPhone to someone else, it’s also great if you’re going to donate a device, or gift an iPhone (or iPad) to someone else and you just want to know the right steps to take in order to get it ready for the next owner. We’re going to cover getting your stuff off the device, cleaning it up, resetting it, taking out the SIM card, and more.

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If you have multiple PDF files that you want to combine into a single PDF file, you can rely on the Macs bundled Preview app to accomplish this. Not only can Preview combine a variety of single or multi-page PDF docs into a single file, you can even add images as pages, remove a page from an existing file if it’s unnecessary to have in the joined doc, or rearrange the pages of the joined files to be reordered according to your needs. The end result will be a single merged PDF document that contains every page and input file that you need.

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You may know that Google keeps caches of web sites and pages on a somewhat routine basis, storing them in an accessible Google repository of webcaches. These caches can be extremely useful for a wide variety of reasons, but one particularly common usage of them is if a site is slow to load or suffering from temporary downtime, you can usually still access the page or site in question by going to Google’s cached version of the page. This is because that alternate version is stored on Google servers and not on the domains web servers, making the page retrievable regardless of the origin site being up or down. Of course, the big question becomes how relevant that cache is, and that comes down to cache age, since it’s not too useful to look at old cache of a site that is too outdated to be relevant for something like a news site. That’s what we’re going to cover here, quickly finding the Google Web Cache snapshot age of any URL stored on their servers.

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The Autofill feature of Safari makes logging in to websites much easier in iOS, not having to remember and type in every single password for every website under the sun that you come across. While saving passwords with autofill is undoubtedly helpful, it can also mean it’s easier to forget what a password is, since you’re not typing it as often.

Fortunately iOS makes retrieving and viewing saved web passwords easy, allowing users to quickly see a password from their iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This is handled through Safari Settings, and is protected by the same passcode that protects the device in general (yet another reason to always use an iOS passcode!).

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Apple has released a new $199 entry-level iPod touch in a variety of colors. Perhaps most notable about the updated iPod touch is the addition of a 5 megapixel rear camera, which can capture 1080p video. Apple also reduced the price of the other 32GB and 64GB iPod touch devices.

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One of the major changes that came along with the iOS visual overhaul was the removal of obvious buttons across the operating system and apps found on the iPhone and iPad. While the result is a cleaner, flatter, and more streamlined appearance in iOS, many users have found the removal of obvious buttons to be detrimental to usability, making it difficult to determine what is a tappable target and what is simply text on screen.

That hiccup is exactly what the optional Button Shapes feature aims to resolve, by bringing more obvious button shapes and tap targets back to iOS by using shading and underlining of buttons and actionable text elements.

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Note: This is an advanced topic aimed at expert Mac users. Macs are generally thought of as secure, certainly at least compared to the alternative world of Windows. But the reality is that while Macs are generally more secure than Windows, there is still legitimate potential for malware getting through to Mac OS X, despite GateKeeper, XProtect, sandboxing, and code signing.

That’s what this excellent presentation from Patrick Wardle, the Director of Research at Synack, a cyber security solutions provider, explains quite well, offering a thoughtful and detailed look of the current security implementations built into Mac OS X, and how they could be circumvented by malicious intent to attack a Mac.

Additionally, the Synack overview goes further and provides an open source script called KnockKnock, which displays all Mac OS X binaries that are set to execute upon system boot, potentially helping advanced users to examine and verify if anything shady is running on a Mac.

The excellent document, titled “METHODS of MALWARE PERSISTENCE on OS X”, is broken into five major parts:

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