If you’ve sent emails out with Siri before, you have probably noticed that Siri will often respond to the initial email request with an inquiry about what the mail subject or body should contain, making you respond with another phrase and continue a back-and-forth dialog with Siri until the to, subject, and message fields are completed. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that approach, but you can write complete emails with Siri much faster by using certain keywords in your speech commands.

The important keywords to use for complete mail messages are: “to”, “about”, and “and say”, and they must be used in a command format like so:

send email to [recipient] about [subject] and say [email body]

For example, to send a complete email addressed to “Danny DeVito” with the subject of “Taco Carts” and the body message of “I found the best taco cart ever” you would use a complete phrase with Siri like that shown below. The important keywords have been placed in bold to emphasize their placement in relation to the command:

Send an email to Danny Devito about Taco Carts, and say I found the best taco cart ever

Siri will write out the email as usual, but rather than requesting a body or subject from you again, it will fill everything in automatically, with the mail message immediately ready to send out. Siri will finish by asking if the message is ready to send, you can simply say “Yes” or tap the “Send” command on screen yourself.

This is significantly faster than the question and answer method that goes along with the standard “email name” command, give it a try with Siri yourself.

Siri is impressively useful in more ways than you may initially realize, don’t miss our other Siri tips to get more use out of the virtual voice assistant.

Thanks for the tip idea Greg

This weeks Mac setup comes to us from Dean K., a musician who uses his Mac setup for listening to music and editing.

• MacBook Pro Retina 15″ 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 – 16GB RAM – 256GB SSD
• MacBook Air 1.6GHz Core i5 – 4GB RAM – 128GB SSD
• iPad 3 – 16GB LTE
• MacBook Black 13″ 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo – 4GB RAM – 250GB HDD
• Belkin stand for MacBook
• Bose SoundDock Portable
• Apple Wireless Keyboard
• Apple Magic Mouse
• Apple Magic Trackpad
• Sennheister HD598 Headphones
• LaCie 4TB Thunderbolt external hard drive
• Lacie 1TB USB 3 external hard drive

Finding the black MacBook is a bit like playing Where’s Waldo, it’s barely visible under the MacBook Pro stand. The photo was taken with an iPhone 5 32GB.

Send us your Mac & Apple setup shots! Email a good picture or two, along with a brief description of hardware and what the hardware is used for to osxdailycom@gmail.com

Minimally styled clock screen savers are fairly popular and we’ve shared a variety of them here before, but it’s hard to get more minimal than a binary clock. The aptly named BinaryClock is just that, a free and simple binary clock screen saver for OS X that has some nice color effects that change with the time. Binary clocks are also fun because the average person may look at it with utter confusion, while you’ll be able to read the time (and don’t worry, if you don’t know how to read binary clocks, we explain it simply below).

• Get BinaryClock free from GitHub

To install the quartz file as a screen saver, download the “BinaryClock.qtz” file from GitHub and save it to ~/Downloads or the desktop. Now launch System Preferences from the  Apple menu and choose Desktop & Screen Saver. Locate the BinaryClock.qtz file and then drag and drop it into the preview pane of the Screen Saver preference panel to install it. Alternatively, but perhaps better for most advanced users, you can just toss the .qtz file into ~/Library/Screen Savers/ to install it manually.

BinaryClock has a few configuration options regarding the screen savers color schemes, and you can choose to hide or show the numbers on the clock itself. Speaking of showing numbers, if you’re new to reading binary clocks it’s best to keep them shown until you get the hang of reading the time.

How Do I Read a Binary Clock Anyway?

Though it may look foreign, it’s actually easier to read than you may think at first glance. This screen saver makes it even more simple because it doesn’t include the time in seconds as well, but the basic idea is just a matter of adding the highlighted numbers in the top row to get the hour, and adding the highlighted numbers in the bottom row to get the minutes. The screenshot below demonstrates this with the numbers shown, and once you remember the positions of the numbers you can hide them and the method remains the same.

You’ll find that not all binary clocks are positioned exactly the same way, but the method of telling the time is the same whether the numbers are shown in columns or rows.

Update: Right after publishing this, we discovered a minor albeit important typo in the BinaryClock screen saver, where in the minutes the 4 is duplicated twice, the 2nd of which should be the number 2. Basically, if you show the numbers but don’t correct that in your head, then the time will be off by two minutes. Presumably that bug will be fixed by the developer quickly, but anyone with knowledge of Quartz Composer can also do it themselves easily.

Update 2: The aforementioned typo has been fixed, that was quick!

Did someone send an Emoji to your iPhone, iPod, or iPad and you have not the faintest of clues as to what it’s supposed to mean? With the vast array of emoji icons out there, you’re not alone, but there’s an excellent little-known feature that uses iOS text-to-speech to give a precise definition of the emoji icon in question, spoken right to you. We’ll show you exactly how to use the Speak function to define any Emoji character on iOS.

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Snapchat is a very popular quirky picture messaging client for Android and iPhone that allows people to share pictures and have conversations that disappear after a very short time interval, after which the shared content is gone forever. The spontaneous and fleeting nature of the messages has given the app an interesting reputation that you can now enjoy on the desktop, despite not having an official client for Mac or Windows. Instead, with the help of Bluestacks (basically an Android app emulator), you can install and run Snapchat on a Mac or PC right now.

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Some OS X apps are so great and so universally useful that they earn the title of “must-have” on just about any Mac, and we’re bringing you an essential list of these must-have apps that also happen to be completely free.

Whether you have a brand new Mac that needs some new apps and utilities to get it going, or you just want to expand your app collection to get more done and have some great new tools at your disposal, don’t miss this collection of some of the best free Mac apps out there. We’re covering eleven essential apps here, but don’t forget to add your own must-have recommendations to the comments!

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External wireless keyboards can be connected to and used with iPhones and iPod touches through Bluetooth. This can help when typing anything of length, particularly if you’re not as fast a typer with the virtual keyboard, and it allows you to create an immediate (albeit tiny) workstation just about anywhere. There’s also a very nice software-side bonus to using an external keyboard with iOS too; the virtual keyboard disappears when an external keyboard is paired, letting you see the entire screen unobstructed while you type.

We’ll use an official and generic Apple Wireless Keyboard with an iPhone for the purpose of this walkthrough, but you can use any compatible Bluetooth keyboard and any other iOS device, whether it’s an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

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If you’re anything like me, you waited until the absolute last minute to get Christmas shopping done and you’ve probably already raided the gift card rack at a grocery store to stock up on last minute presents. But don’t forget to take advantage go email-friendly gift cards from Apple’s iTunes Stores, Amazon, and if you’re shopping for an iOS user, just sending a whole slew of specific apps or media as gifts, even a gift card, right from the iTunes Stores on either a Mac/PC or iOS device – yes the latter means you can buy someone a gift as you are sitting on the couch watching them open other presents, the ultimate savior for last second shoppers.

Sending Apps, Movies, & Gift Cards from iTunes & App Store

You can also send anything from the App Store and iTunes Store as a gift, including apps, games, music, movies, TV shows, and books, and they will be billed to your iTunes account.

• Send iOS apps as gifts and set a delivery time by going to any app, movie, or song, tapping Share > Gift > Set the recipient and delivery time – or send right away – and you’re good to go
• Send iTunes Gift cards by launching iTunes, going to the iTunes Store, choosing “Buy iTunes Gifts” > select email or print delivery > enter the recipient and amount, and confirming the purchase

Amazon Printable & Emailable Gift Cards

Amazon sells just about anything imaginable which makes gift cards from there appropriate for just about anyone.

• Send Amazon gift cards with email delivery
• Amazon gift cards with print, mail, and Facebook delivery

If you want to have something physical to wrap and put under a tree or into a stocking, both Apple and Amazon also let you print out gift cards in any dollar amount that can be redeemed online easily just as if it was bought from a store.

The emailable solutions are particularly helpful if you find yourself at a holiday event with an extra person or two you weren’t expecting, or if you’re just feeling a little more generous at the last minute and want to add another something to a present.

Merry Christmas, my fellow shopping slackers!

Christmas Eve is upon us, and that means it’s Santa tracking season! Whether you’re keeping an eye on Santa’s yearly world journey for yourself or just the little ones in your life, tracking Santa is now easier than ever.

You can track Santa directly from your iPhone with an official NORAD app, use the official NORAD Santa Tracking website which uses Bing Maps, or go with Google Maps Santa Tracker. Believe it or not, NORAD Santa even maintains it’s own Twitter account which posts updates on where Santa is flying around to at the moment (while you’re on Twitter give us a follow too).

• NORAD Official Santa Tracker
• Google Santa tracker
• NORAD Santa Tracking app

There’a also a dedicated Santa NORAD Android app for the Android users out there.

My personal favorite is either the official NORAD page or Google’s World Tracker, since they both show live-updating world maps with Santa’s current location, alongside gift totals, and where he has already visited and dropped off presents. Google even counts down the next location and gives Santa some cute animations as he scoots across the globe at lightning speed, hucking gifts off his slay as he flies from destination to destination. They’re all fun for kids and kids at heart, so pick one to keep an eye on Saint Nick and have a Merry Christmas!

Apple has started running their Christmas ad for this year, and it shows off the iPad and iPad Mini with a girl playing a ukelele while singing the classic “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” song to a relative over FaceTime.

The video is embedded below, and you’re likely to catch the ad airing the next few days if you watch TV, and Apple has a knack for airing these advertisements during prime time in particular.

This is a good Apple commercial that follows their traditional lead of showing off features that can improve lives, though it’s more is less humorous than the last two years. In 2011, Apple’s Christmas ad showed Santa using Siri for directions and to retrieve information while eating cookies, and in 2010 they focused on Santa using FaceTime to speak with a child while the Christmas Song played in the background.

Update: 12/24/2012 – Wondering what the “I’ll Be Home” commercial might be like had the girl had used the iPad Mini as the ukelele rather than a real one? Probably something like the video below, which shows a nice variation of the official Apple commercial with the help of the Futulele app (iTunes Store link) for iPad. Cool idea!

This weeks Apple setup comes to us from Pierre C., who uses his Mac for amateur photography and personal use. Pierre moved back to the Mac platform after a significant hiatus with Windows, and prior to this iMac his last Apple desktop was a Mac SE! As it often goes these days, his transition was initially to an iPad, and the jump to a Mac desktop was the next logical step for further integration.

• iMac 27″ 3.1GHz Core i5 – 16GB RAM – 1TB HD
• iPad 3
• Twelve South Hover Bar for iPad
• Magic Trackpad
• Magic Mouse
• Apple Keyboard (French layout)
• Twelve South Magic Wand linking the keyboard and trackpad
• LaCie 4TB & 3TB external hard drives for photographs and backups
• Apple Time Capsule 3TB for Wi-Fi backups
• JustMobile Mtable (stand for the iMac)
• Espon 837 Wi-Fi Printer
• Cable modem

The TwelveSouth Hover Bar holding the iPad looks incredible as always, if I ever had an iMac that’d be one of the first accessory purchases for it, whether for using with AirDisplay or just sticking with iOS.

Send us your Mac & Apple setup shots and it could be featured here on OSXDaily! Email us a good picture or two, along with a brief description of hardware and what you use it for to osxdailycom@gmail.com

Have you ever wished you could visit certain websites faster while you’re on the go? Maybe you know a specific website you want to get to, but you don’t visit the site enough to have a bookmark for it on the home screen. Or maybe you’d rather just type as little as possible on the touch screen. Rather than typing out the full URL, and perhaps most annoyingly, the TLD (TLD stands for top-level domain, that is the .com, .net, .org suffixes across the web), use these two super simple tricks that will help you visit websites faster on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

1: Forget the full URL: Typing “www” and “.com” are not necessary

If the domain you’re trying to get to is a .com, you don’t actually have to type the .com suffix! Likewise, if the site is standardized with the www prefix, you don’t need to type that either. Instead, in the iOS Safari URL bar, just type the domain minus both and tap the big blue “GO” button. Safari will instantly fill in the rest, and off you go to that site.

The example above will take you directly to OSXDaily.com just by tapping GO, despite not having the full URL entered.

2: Show more TLD’s: Tap and hold the “.com” button for more

What if the domain is a .net, edu, us, or .org? No sweat, in Safari you can quickly access the 5 most common domain TLD’s by just tapping and holding the “.com” button until the sub-menu of TLD’s appears. Tap what you’re looking for, and you’re good to go.

Note: the list of TLD’s shown is slightly different per country, and the country code at the end should vary widely depending on which keyboard you are using and where the device is localized to.

The Fastest Way? Bookmark Frequently Visited Sites

If you end up visiting a particular site often (like OSXDaily.com!), just bookmark it onto your home screen. Then you just have to tap the icon, there just isn’t a faster way to visit websites in iOS. All you need to do is visit the site in question, tap the share arrow, and choose “Add to Home Screen” and it’ll be there like any other app.

Knowing which wireless networks a Mac has been connected to in the past be can be helpful for a variety of reasons, including network troubleshooting, determining where a Mac has been, if a specific wifi password is recoverable, and a myriad of other technical reasons. Searching for past networks is completely different from finding currently available networks, and you won’t recover historical data from the menu bar item or otherwise excellent Mac OS X wi-fi scanner tool.

We’ll cover two simple ways to find past wi-fi network connections on a Mac, the first is the easy route through System Preferences, and the second approach uses a lengthy command line string to read the wireless networks from a plist file.

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iPhone ringtones and text tones – both of which are .m4r files – are stored in the same location in the file system, whether they were made with iTunes, bought from the iTunes Store, converted from another format with QuickTime, created from within Garageband, or whether you downloaded them from elsewhere.

You can quickly locate the ringtone and text tone files locally on a computer, whether it’s a Mac or Windows PC, as long as you have synced the iPhone to that to iTunes before. We’ll show you where to look to find the files, and how to access them.

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Many of us juggle multiple email accounts these days, one for work, one for personal, one for various web signups, and whatever else. While you can easily configure the default iOS Mail app to manage multiple accounts and inboxes and flip between them yourself, another approach is to separate the mail accounts completely by using different apps for each account, and launching them only when needed.
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Are you seeing a “Waiting for activation” error when trying to use iMessage on iPhone or iPad? Despite setting up iMessage properly, some users occasionally encounter a “Waiting for Activation” error with iMessage, usually either upon updating to a new version of iOS or getting a new device and configuring iMessage for the first time. This can be a pretty annoying error since so much of modern communication and dialog is reliant on messaging these days, but not to worry, as it’s usually an easy remedy to fix the waiting for activation error encountered on an iPhone or iPad.

We’ll run through a series of troubleshooting tips to fix the “waiting for activation” problem in iOS once and for all. These troubleshooting tricks will help to fix the “Waiting for activation” iMessage error on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, running any version of iOS. Let’s begin.

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The next time you want to see a live preview of what a Font might look like without actually implementing it, use this great little trick to reveal a precise font preview anywhere in Mac OS X where the Fonts panel exists. All you need to do is open the Fonts window as usual, but grab the little • dot directly under fonts and pull down with the cursor to reveal the font preview section of the control panel. From here you can make adjustments to the font family, type face, and size, and see immediate live previews of the appearance.
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If you accidentally permitted a Mac app to gain access to things like your personal contacts list or location, or you’d just like to start over again and have granular control over which applications can access certain data, you can use the command line tool tccutil to change this and reset Mac app access to personal data.

Think of the tccutil command as a kind of command line interface to the Security & Privacy control panel, which let’s you control apps access to things like contacts, location services, usage statics, and more. This is separate from GateKeeper, which controls the ability of certain applications to launch.

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