Convert a Movie to iPad Format for Free with QuickTime

Apr 3, 2013 - 4 Comments

Videos app icon for iOS Want to watch a video that is sitting on your computer on an iPad instead? That’s simple, and for most video files you can just copy them right over and watch instantly through the Videos app. On the other hand, if you’ve ever tried to copy a movie over to an iPad and discovered an error message like this, it’s almost always because the existing video format is incompatible with playback on the iPad:

“Movie name” was not copied to the iPad because it cannot be played on this iPad

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By Paul Horowitz - iPad, iPhone, Tips & Tricks - 4 Comments

iPhone 5S Production to Start Soon, Release Set for Summer?

Apr 2, 2013 - 8 Comments

iPhone 5S Apple is set to start production of the next iPhone soon, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. The new iPhone is said to be “similar in size and shape to its current one”, which is consistent with rumors that have indicated the next iPhone release will be a “5S” model rather than a complete ground-up redesign.

Summer Release Possible

The report from the Wall Street Journal suggests the next iPhone may launch as soon as this summer. Summer 2013 officially begins on June 21 and ends on September 21, providing a fairly wide range for a possible release that is consistent with several past iPhone launches.
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By Paul Horowitz - iPhone, News, Rumor - 8 Comments

Include Attachments with Reply in Mail App for Mac OS X

Apr 2, 2013 - 2 Comments

Mail icon Mail app in recent versions of Mac OS X defaults to not include the original attachments of an email when that email is replied to. While that can be fine for many cases, if you cc or bcc another person to an email it can be very frustrating to discover the originally attached document or file is no longer visible, and thus the new recipient of the email won’t have access to the original attachment. Likewise, the lack of reply attachments can complicate email chains that go on over lengthy periods of time, since it makes it more difficult to retrieve the original document that was part of the initial correspondence.

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By Paul Horowitz - Mac OS, Tips & Tricks - 2 Comments

Rickroll the Terminal with curl

Apr 1, 2013 - 10 Comments

retro-terminal-mac-screenshots-5

Ever wished you could find a new creative way to rickroll your particularly tech savvy friends? Just about nobody is fooled by the random YouTube links anymore, and URL shorteners alone aren’t always enough, but now you can bring the persistently annoying rickrolling to the Terminal of OS X and Linux by running a simple fairly innocuous looking command. What happens when you or the suspect runs it? You’ll get a full ASCII rendition of the infamous Rick Astley video but best of all it’s complete with audio, so be sure they have their speakers turned up or headphones on.
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By William Pearson - Command Line, Fun - 10 Comments

3 Harmless Pranks to Play on iPhone & iPad Users for April Fools Day

Apr 1, 2013 - 2 Comments

iOS Pranks Being April Fools Day, the internet is largely useless, news is a mess, and much of what you’ll read today is inaccurate rubbish. But don’t worry, we’re not going to fall into that trap, and instead for April Fools we’ll offer up a few pranks that you can play on anyone that has an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. All you’ll need to do is get ahold of the individuals iOS device and each prank only takes a few seconds to implement, so plot accordingly and have some fun.
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By Paul Horowitz - Fun, iPad, iPhone - 2 Comments

Easily Install Foreign Apps Onto the iPhone & iPad

Mar 31, 2013 - 11 Comments

Install foreign apps from other App Stores on iOS devices If you’ve ever wanted to get a foreign app that isn’t named in your native language, let alone native alphabet, onto your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you’ve probably noticed it’s not the easiest thing in the world. For one, App Stores can be separated, so for example some apps available on the US App Store may not be available in China, or vice versa. As we’ve discussed before, it’s fairly simple to download apps from the US App Store from outside the USA, but going the other direction can be challenging, and finding some of those foreign apps can be particularly difficult when an apps default alphabet is completely different, and that’s what we’ll cover here.

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By Paul Horowitz - iPad, iPhone, Tips & Tricks - 11 Comments

How to Get Bokeh Light Effects with the iPhone Camera

Mar 31, 2013 - 7 Comments

iOS Camera icon Bokeh is a photography effect that creates strong light blurs on any out of focus light, frequently rendered as circular blurry elements where a point of light is visible in the image. You’ll see it often in professional photography as well as more abstract artistically oriented photography, and it can help to create a depth of field and also add some very unique character to photos. But bokeh isn’t just for professionals with expensive lenses and DSLR cameras, you can get that same effect shooting with an iPhone as well. We’ll cover two easy ways to do it, one uses nothing but your iPhone, and the second uses the excellent third party lens attachment known as Olloclip.

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By Paul Horowitz - iPhone, Tips & Tricks - 7 Comments

Delete App Data from iCloud via Mac OS X

Mar 29, 2013 - 2 Comments

iCloud Many apps for both iOS and OS X store documents and app data directly in iCloud, this allows easy syncing between devices and also provides a certain extra level of backup for some apps, since it’s all stored in the cloud. On the other hand, you may want to remove some of those documents and app data from iCloud, and that’s what we’ll show you how to do easily directly from Mac OS X. This is done through the iCloud preference panel similar to how you can manage and delete iCloud backups for iOS devices from OS X, though obviously rather than deleting a device backup it’ll only be application data or specific documents that is being removed.

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By Paul Horowitz - Mac OS, Tips & Tricks - 2 Comments

Access AirPlay from the Lock Screen of iOS Devices to Stream Music

Mar 29, 2013 - Leave a Comment

You can quickly access AirPlay streaming right from the lock screen of any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The only requirement is that you have some form of audio (or video) playing with the lock screen active, and that can be playing from a default app like Music or from something like Pandora or Spotify.

AirPlay from Lock Screen on the iPhone
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By Paul Horowitz - iPad, iPhone - Leave a Comment

Kim Jong Un Uses an iMac

Mar 29, 2013 - 36 Comments

Kim Jong Un and his iMac

We all know that Apple products are quite popular around the world, but would you ever have guessed that the North Korean “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un is a Mac user? Well, he is, and in a recently released press photo from the North Korean state media you can see Kim Jong Un sitting at his desk reviewing plans to nuke America – yes, seriously that is the theme of the photo set – alongside a 21.5″ iMac. Specifically, the iMac is prior generation model with a side-loading SuperDrive, not the recent super-sleek thin revision, and NKNews says the photo can be “confirming long-held rumors of the Kim family’s passion for Apple Macs.

Quite peculiar, indeed. Though perhaps it shouldn’t be too shocking considering that Kim Jong Un’s legendary father, Kim Jong Il, also had a favorite computer from our favorite fruit company too, and that was a MacBook Pro 15″.

Anyway… it’s Friday, so uh, yea, most interesting Mac setup post ever maybe?

By Paul Horowitz - Fun - 36 Comments

How to Hide Apps on the iPhone & iPad

Mar 28, 2013 - 21 Comments

How to Hide Apps on iPhone & iPad

Want to hide an app or two from appearing on the iOS home screen? Maybe you want to hide all apps downloaded from the App Store, but keep the defaults visible? Or maybe you just want to hide a stock app that shipped with your iPhone or iPad like Safari or iTunes? You can do all of the above or any of the above, and none of it requires any funky tweaks or downloads to perform. It turns out that hiding any type of app is really easy in iOS.

We’ll cover three different ways to hide apps, including hiding Apple’s default apps that ship with iOS devices which can’t be deleted, hiding downloaded apps from the App Store, and another approach that will hide anything from immediate view while still retaining the apps accessibility in iOS.
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By Paul Horowitz - iPad, iPhone, Tips & Tricks - 21 Comments

How to Sync Safari Bookmarks Between Mac OS X, Windows, iPhone, & iPad

Mar 28, 2013 - 4 Comments

Safari Bookmarks saved within Safari will sync between all of your other iCloud equipped devices, assuming you have iCloud configured correctly do so. This means a website you bookmark on your Mac will sync over to an iPad, and something bookmarked on your iPhone will sync back to your Mac, iPad, and Windows PC, and vice versa. Bookmarking syncing is incredibly useful, and if you haven’t enabled it yet be sure to take a minute or two to do so.
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By Paul Horowitz - iPad, iPhone, Mac OS, Tips & Tricks - 4 Comments

Create an Instant Notepad in Any Web Browser Window

Mar 27, 2013 - 15 Comments

Instant Notepad from any web browser

Ever needed a quick place to paste some text or make a quick note while you’re doing web work? Using a neat trick, you can turn any web browser window or tab into an instant notepad that you can write in, copy and paste out of, and even adjust the font sizes within. There really isn’t much to this trick, and it works in just about web browser on just about every platform, whether you’re currently in OS X, Windows, Linux, or whatever else.
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By Paul Horowitz - Tips & Tricks - 15 Comments

Convert Fahrenheit to Celsius & Other Temperatures on the iPhone with Siri

Mar 27, 2013 - 6 Comments

Siri logo Some countries use fahrenheit, others use celsius, and if you’re an alien on an unusually extreme planet maybe you even use kelvin… whatever the case we’ve all run into the situation where someone from elsewhere is referring to a temperature in a scale you’re unfamiliar with. Obviously if someone in the USA says “wow it was 10 degrees!” that means it’s really cold weather, but if a native German said the same thing, that’s quite mild weather. Rather than trying to do the funky math in your head, just ask Siri. No, she won’t report the weather back directly in another temperature scale (we’ll cover that through a Settings adjustment, however), but she will perform temperature conversions from celsius to fahrenheit and vice versa.
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By Paul Horowitz - iPhone, Tips & Tricks - 6 Comments

Nmap for Mac OS X Explores Networks, Scans Ports, and More

Mar 26, 2013 - 9 Comments

nmap for Mac OS X

Nmap is a powerful command line network discovery utility that lets you review network inventory, host response and uptime, and perform security auditing through port scans, OS and firewall detection, and more. Though it’s free (and open source) and ships along with many versions of linux, it doesn’t come standard with Mac OS X installations, and thus must be installed separately. Nmap is generally fairly advanced, but it has plenty of useful applications even for those of us who are not network administrators and security professionals, and it can also be helpful for simple network setup tasks and troubleshooting.

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iPhone Comes to T-Mobile, Priced at $100 with No Contract

Mar 26, 2013 - 5 Comments

iPhone 5 T-Mobile will begin to offer the iPhone on their USA network starting April 12. Unlike other US carriers, the iPhone comes to T-Mobile without the annual contract obligation, and instead includes a financing plan that usually brings the total cost of ownership down when compared to most other competing networks. T-Mobile also becomes the first US carrier to offer high definition voice calling with iPhone 5, dubbed “HD Voice”, a technology that is offered in other countries.
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By Matt Chan - iPhone, News - 5 Comments

Turn Off the iPhone Camera Shutter Sound Effect to Take Photos Silenty

Mar 25, 2013 - 45 Comments

Take a silent picture with the iOS Camera As we all know, any time a photo is taken with the iPhone camera, a little shutter sound accompanies the snapping of the picture. That sound effect is all software, and so though you might expect there to be a simple settings change to toggle that sound effect off, well, you may be disappointed to learn there just isn’t such a setting.

But not to worry, you can take photos with the iPhone camera in silence, without hearing that shutter sound effect when you snap a picture. There’s a few tricks to take silent pictures with iPhone camera, let’s learn each:

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By Paul Horowitz - iPad, iPhone, Tips & Tricks - 45 Comments

How to Set the Equalizer for Specific Genres, Songs, & Albums in iTunes

Mar 25, 2013 - 3 Comments

Unless an entire music library consists of only a single genre of music, it’s fairly rare to have find one equalizer setting for your iTunes collection to rule every single song or album. Sure there are some pretty good general settings, and the preset options are great too, but for the best experience with diverse playlists and music collections, consider setting individual equalizer settings for specific albums, artists, genres, or even songs on a per-song basis.

equalizer settings in iTunes
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By Paul Horowitz - iTunes, Mac OS, Tips & Tricks - 3 Comments

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