If you’ve ever wanted to document your reaction to an event, task, or specific command execution, now is your chance to get started. With the help of a fun little app called ImageSnap, you can snap pictures with the FaceTime or iSight cameras from the command line. That can be good enough on it’s own for some uses, but it’s much more entertaining when you tie it to the completion of another command, thereby snapping the reaction to whatever is going on.

This article will show you a fun trick to capture a new photo with a Mac FaceTime (front facing) camera, after a specific task has completed and finished in the MacOS Command Line.

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Surely you have noticed the default behavior for connecting any iOS device to a Mac is that either iTunes or iPhoto launches itself automatically. This happens when any iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad is connected to a computer, and which app opens depends on if the other one is already opened, or if one has been disabled from doing so. While the auto-launching feature is undeniably helpful to some users, it’s also quick to become a bother if you just want to connect an iOS device to your computer to just charge the battery or manually sync files to it.

If you’re annoyed with iPhoto opening itself automatically, here’s how to put an end to that the next time you connect an iOS device to your computer.

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By now you’re probably familiar with Quick Look, used in the Mac Finder and Open/Save Dialogs to view an instant preview of any file simply by selecting it and hitting the spacebar or a tap gesture in OS X. It works amazingly well to see what something is before you open it, but if you’ve attempted to use Quick Look on some text files that don’t have file extensions, you’ll notice nothing shows up except for an icon and modification date, which is not particularly helpful or informative.

You can change QuickLook to show the contents of all text files by installing the free QLStephen plugin, which allows a preview to be visible for all plain text files with or without recognized file extensions, including the all too common README, CHANGELOG, and install files, and even hidden documents like like .bash_profile and .history. All you need to do is download the plugin and install it, here’s how:

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Ever wanted to see not only every file in a given directory, but all files within that directories buried subdirectories? If you’re looking for what is basically a recursive listing of files in a given folder, we’ll show a great trick for the Mac OS Finder that allows you to do just that, and also demonstrate several more advanced approaches using the command line.

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You can now sync a Bluetooth keyboard with the Apple TV and use it to navigate and search on the device. This nice little bonus feature arrived along with the iOS 6.1 update, though it’s technically labeled for the Apple TV as 5.2 update, but regardless of the versioning and naming convention it’s an appreciated feature and finally brings the Apple TV in line with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad for supporting wireless keyboards. It’s not going to function as a workstation (yet at least), but it does offer another way to navigate Apple TV.

As we mentioned, you’ll need the newest Apple TV system software installed to sync keyboards. If you’ve never done that before, it’s not complicated.

Update to the Newest Apple TV OS

Updating Apple TV is done either by connecting it physically to iTunes, downloading the IPSW and manually updating, or, what is typically the fastest and certainly the easiest, by using Over-The-Air update:

• On the Apple TV, go to “Settings” and then “General”
• Choose “Update Software” then “Download and Install”
• Let the update install and the Apple TV reboot

Now that you’re on the appropriate OS version, here’s what you’ll need to do to sync a wireless keyboard with the Apple TV.

Connect a Wireless Keyboard to the Apple TV

We’ll use the Apple Wireless Keyboard as the example because it’s common, but this should work the same on any other compatible bluetooth keyboard:

• Open “Settings” again and then go to “General” followed by “Bluetooth”
• Place the wireless keyboard into pairing mode, on the Apple Wireless Keyboard this is done by holding the power button
• Wait for the Bluetooth keyboard to pop up on the Apple TV screen and go through the brief setup procedure, entering the pairing code to confirm the proper keyboard will be connected

With that done you can now use a bluetooth keyboard as the primary input device on the Apple TV, which can make searching media and entering text quite a bit easier.

Three cheers to Macgasm for pointing this out.

You can now buy movie tickets with the help of Siri, and use nothing but your iPhone (or iPad if you want to bring it with you) when you get to the theater to stroll in and enjoy the show. This is thanks to a new Siri feature that arrived in iOS 6.1, and it’s super easy to use.

Before you can get movie tickets just by speaking to Siri, be sure you have the following:

• iOS 6.1 (or later) installed on your iPhone or iPad
• Fandango app installed on your iPhone/iPad (free download from the App Store)

Note: because this feature relies on Fandango, it is currently limited to the USA. Not all movie theaters apply either, read on to learn more.

You also may want to register with Fandango for an account and put a credit card on file, the account is free and the credit card is obviously so that tickets can be billed to you once they are purchased. That isn’t required because there is a Guest Checkout mode, but it makes the process easier if you plan on using this service often to buy tickets. That’ll be up to you.

Believe it or not, the hard part is already over. Now you just have to summon Siri as usual by holding the home button and use natural language to ask for a movie at a theater.

The two general methods are as follows;

“Buy/get movie ticket to [movie name] at [theater or location]”

or

“[Movie name] at [theater name] for [showtime]”

For some practical examples:

• “Buy movie ticket to The Hobbit at AMC in San Francisco” – specify a specific movie theater
• “Get a movie ticket to Django Unchained in San Francisco” – specify a movie for any theaters in a general region
• “Zero Dark Thirty, AMC Bay Street at 7:00” – specify movie, theater, and show time

Once you see which showtime you want, tap on the “Buy Tickets” button to open up Fandango and complete the purchase.

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iOS 6.1 has been released to the public. The update consists of bug fixes and improvements, including wider LTE support for more carriers, the ability to purchase movie tickets with Siri, a new feature that lets iTunes Match subscribers download individual songs from iCloud, and a new button to reset the unique Advertising Identifier for each device. The release notes can be read below.

Devices that support iOS 6.1 are the same that were supported by beta versions, including iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad mini, iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 4th gen, and iPod touch 5th gen.

Download iOS 6.1 Update

There are a variety of ways to get iOS 6.1, including OTA updates, through iTunes, or the more advanced method of downloading IPSW files and performing a manual update. It’s always a good idea to back up any iOS device before installing a new update. Backups can be done manually with iCloud or with iTunes to your local computer.

Update to iOS 6.1 with OTA
The fastest way to get iOS 6.1 is to use OTA. This can be done by:

• Opening “Settings” and tapping “General”
• Choose “Software Update” and then “Download and Install”

The iOS 6.1 update weighs in around 107MB when downloaded with Over-the-Air.

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It’s extremely easy to make an image transparent with the help of Preview app, the built-in image editing app that comes along with all Macs with Mac OS X. Do note creating transparent PNG or GIF images this way works best on images with uniform colors in the area you want to become transparent. The more complicated the image and color variation, the more work you will need to do with the alpha tool to make a portion of the image transparent.

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iOS 6.1 beta 5 has been released and is available for all registered developers to download through the iOS Dev Center. Supported devices continue to be iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad mini, iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and the iPod touch 4th and 5th generations. The prior beta build of iOS 6.1 is set to expire today (January 27) and was pushed out to developers over a month ago, making todays release a timely update for developers.

For those not in the developer program, iOS 6.1 is expected to be an extraordinarily minor update on the user end of things, consisting primarily of bug fixes alongside some improvements to Apple Maps, Passbook, Siri, and Safari. Several small adjustments to user interface elements have also been observed in the 6.1 betas.

There is no known timeline for the public release of iOS 6.1, but it is likely due sooner than later.

Those interested can read about some of the minor changes at MacRumors forums

The latest versions of the iPhone can record high definition video, and as a result they’re getting a lot more widespread use as ways to capture memories in motion. But sometimes when you’re recording a movie, you also want to take a picture of what’s in focus too, and you can do exactly that on the iPhone.

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This weeks great Mac setup comes to us from Ivo P., a wedding and lifestyle photographer who uses the following hardware to handle the images and process his work:

• MacBook Pro 15″ (2011) – 2.2Ghz Intel i7 – 8GB DDR 1333 DDR3 – Matte Screen at 1680×1050
• Dell U2412M 24″ 1920×1080 (connected to the MBP)
• iPad Mini 16GB – black Wi-Fi
• iPhone 4S 16GB – black
• 2 x 2TB WD External HDD as a working drives + backup
• 1 x 1TB Samsung USB HDD for Time Maschine backup 
• 1 x 1TB Samsung USB HDD as a portable backup
• 5 x 1.5TB WD Green 64MB 5.25″ SATA HDD as a backup drives used with Thermaltake Black X double HDD adapter case
• Apple wired keyboard
• Logitech M-U0007 mouse
• 7 port USB Active Hub
• Datacolor Spyder4Pro monitor calibrator
• Cambridge Soundworks “Megaworks THX250D” speakers
• Griffin laptop stand for MacBook

That’s a serious amount of disk space, and the Thermaltake BlacX USB docking station is a really great way to be be able to juggle multiple SATA drives as if they were standard externals. PS: you’ll be forgiven if you initially thought the MacBook Pro was a MacBook Air too, but the matte screen option removes the black bezel in addition to the gloss.

Show us your Apple & Mac workstations and desk setups! Send us a good picture or two along with a brief description of the hardware and what you do with it over to osxdailycom@gmail.com

Dialing international phone numbers can be done by prefixing a phone number with the current countries exit code (011 for USA), the country code of the number you are calling, and then the phone number you are dialing. This ends up being a fairly long string of numbers that is infinitely confusing to those who don’t dial foreign numbers often, like 011 86 10 XXXX 5555. Another much simpler approach is to use the plus + prefix and the country code, skipping the exit code completely and leading to a shorter number and less dialing frustration.

There’s not much to this, it’s really just a matter of accessing the + key which is hidden by default on the iPhone’s number pad:

• Press and hold 0 for a second or two until a the + plus sign appears to replace the 0
• Enter the international phone number and call as usual

Much easier, right?

Taking the earlier example, drop the 011 and instead use: +86 10 XXXX 5555. That is usually how you’ll find international numbers written anyway, so it makes a lot more sense to use the plus sign than fiddling around with the unnecessary country codes which seem to trip people up frequently. If you intend to save an international number to your iPhone Contacts list, prefix it with a + and you’ll be able to dial it as any other number – and here’s the best part, it works even if you change the SIM card while you are traveling abroad.

Unless you have a generous international plan through your cellular provider, you probably won’t want to aimlessly test this one since you could wind up with a hefty long distance bill.

Heads up to MacWorld for the + dialing tip, they point out some US carriers won’t even accept the 011 exit codes with numbers which basically forces the usage of the plus number prefix anyway.

This LEGO build of the original Macintosh 128k is a thing of retro beauty, all that’s missing are some wild eeps to go along with it. Check out the full size version, but the LEGO rendition image resolution maxes out at 1024 x 683, so if you were hoping to use it as a wallpaper it won’t work that great for most displays. If you’re dedicated to using it with anything beyond a 13″ non-retina display you may want to throw some borders on it like I did, but that’s your call. You can check out the bigger version of the picture here, or grab the LEGO instructions to build your own micro-Macintosh below!
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A lot of things changed when the latest version of iTunes was released, much of which represented user interface and behavior changes that weren’t always popular. For many of us, the best solution of handling the new UI was to basically revert the changes to make iTunes look normal and familiar again, and we’re about to do the same thing with the Search feature.

First an explanation: in iTunes 11, searching brings up a nice looking pop-up window that let’s you interact with music and add songs to the Up Next. You’ll no longer get direct access to a simple list of songs that match the results, which is a view that is pretty much essential if you want to make a bulk edit of a group of songs, update album art, or even just make a simple playlist the old fashioned way. A fair amount of users experience this as a bug, assuming that search is broken or not working correctly, but it is, the results are just different looking. Before iTunes 11, searching would bring up a simple results list from the media library that would let you highlight multiple songs and easily make adjustments, and frankly that was useful enough that many people want that ability back.

Make iTunes Search Return Lists and Be Useful Again

In order for this to work across all future searches, the iTunes Search box must be cleared:

• Open iTunes and click the tiny magnifying glass icon within the “Search Music” box
• Uncheck ‘Search Entire Library’



• Test a new search and hit return to discover the classic results list style

The difference is night and day in presentation, and you regain the ability to select bulk songs in the results, plus you can now make group edits to songs again. If you’re not quite sure what we’re talking about here the screenshots below convey this fairly well.

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Many Mac users have noticed that the good old Invert Display keyboard shortcut disappeared from Mac OS some time ago. Well, it didn’t disappear completely, but Invert Display is now tucked into a submenu of Accessibility options via a keystroke on the Mac.

The change to the Invert Display keyboard shortcut first happened with Mac OS X Mavericks and Mountain Lion but it persists today with macOS High Sierra and Sierra too, where it was replaced with a different Command + Option + F5 keyboard shortcut that summons Accessibility Options, from which you now have to manually invert the screen by checking a box on or off.

If you want to get the good old fashioned Control + Command + Option + 8 inversion keystroke back on the Mac, here is how to enable it again in Mac OS and Mac OS X.

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Dictation is a feature of iOS and Mac OS X that lets you speak as you normally would, transforming your speech magically into text. It’s impressively accurate, letting you easily crank out notes, emails, diary entries, or just about anything else with it just by talking. To really get the most out of Dictation though you will want to learn a few extra commands, they will help with things like punctuation, creating paragraphs, jumping to new lines, and setting capitalization.

These commands will work in both OS X and iOS, so long as the Mac, iPad, or iPhone supports Dictation and has the featured turned on (here’s how to enable it in OS X and how to enable it for iOS, though it’s almost always turned on by default in the latest versions of both.)
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If you want maximum security with your iOS device, having a strong password is essential. Though you can extend password strength by using a phrase with mixed characters, another excellent option is to use special accent characters, making a password virtually impossible to guess. The idea is fairly straight forward: take a word, sequence, or phrase that you would normally use as the password, but then replace certain characters with accent letters or special characters. This will work the same on on any iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, and here’s what you’ll need to do.

Turn On Strong Password Support in iOS

We’ve discussed the strong passcodes feature before as a great way to secure iOS devices, and that’s where this tip begins. Here’s how to enable that if you haven’t done so yet:

• Open Settings then tap “General” followed by “Passcode Lock”
• Tap “Turn Passcode On” if you haven’t done so yet, then flip the “Simple Passcode” switch to OFF

For added security and easier testing, set ‘Require Password’ to “Immediately”, though that is optional.

Setting a Strong Password with Accent Characters

To type accent characters in iOS, you need to tap on a letter and hold for the accent menu to appear. An example of a password created this would would beFor example, a password like “tacobell” could be come “tãçōbęll”

• Now enter a new password, and replace some characters with accented versions to make it more secure

Once this has been set, you can see how it works by locking the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. You will now have the standard keyboard available rather than the simple numeric keys. As usual, the accent characters are accessible by tapping on holding on the letters that support them.
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Multitouch gestures are one of the best hidden features of iOS on the iPad, but a surprising amount of iPad users don’t seem to use them. Perhaps it’s because you just don’t know about them, or maybe you haven’t spent the time to learn what they are and why they’re useful. Take a few minutes to learn the gestures and you’ll be doing more with the iPad or iPad mini in no time, because they offer are the fastest way to close apps, get to the home screen, and switch between apps running in iOS.

Enable the Multitouch (Multitasking) Gestures for iPad

First things first, let’s be sure the multitouch gestures are enabled. These are usually turned on by default in the newer versions of iOS but it’s easy to check:

• Open Settings app and tap on “General”
• Scroll down to find “Multitasking Gestures” and flip to ON

With the multitasking gestures turned on, you can now use four or five fingers to perform various tasks that will greatly improve the iPads usability.

Here are the four multitouch gestures you should be using right now:

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