The Apple TV is a great living room accessory, but many with media center and home theater PC experience prefer more powerful apps like Plex and XBMC for their additional features and broader video codec support. With XBMC you can play almost any video or audio format, access shared network drives for network playback, accept media streams from a LAN or the internet, install new user themes (skins), display weather and news information, and basically serve as a full fledged multimedia jukebox.

Thanks to the wonderful world of jailbreaking, you can now install the excellent free XBMC software on an Apple TV 2 running 5.2 (Apple TV 5.2 software shipped alongside iOS 6.1 for other idevices) and help to unleash the devices full potential as a home theater device. Getting it all up and running is slightly more complicated than your average jailbroken app installation process because there’s no Cydia, and you’ll be required to SSH into the ATV and then use a package manager to retrieve and install the appropriate XBMC files. But it’s really not too complicated, so follow along and you’ll be able to get it done in short order.

Requirements

• Apple TV 2nd generation
• Update the Apple TV 2 to version 5.2 (iOS 6.1) if you haven’t done so yet
• Download Seas0nPass (Mac OS X) (Windows)
• USB cable to connect the Apple TV to a computer to perform the jailbreak
• SSH client (Terminal for Mac OS X, PuTTY for Windows)

Unfortunately, the Apple TV 3rd generation is not yet jailbroken and thus can not accept an installation of XBMC. Jailbreaking an Apple TV with Seas0nPass is very easy and fairly similar to the Evasi0n tool for mobile iOS devices, you’ll need to physically connect the Apple TV to a computer to perform the jailbreak. With base requirements met, you are ready to proceed.

Read more »

This weeks great Mac workstation comes to us from Corey S., a professional videographer and photographer based out of Dallas, TX who uses a bunch of great Apple gear to get the job done. Studio hardware shown in this setup picture includes the following gear:

• iMac 27″ – 3.4GHz Core i7 CPU, 12GB RAM, 1TB HD, 2GB GPU, 2560×1440 resolution
• Apple Cinema Display 23″ – 1920×1200 resolution
• MacBook Pro 13″ – 2.5GHz Core i5, 8GB RAM
• iPad 4 64GB
• iPhone 4 32GB
• Apple Wired Keyboard
• Apple Magic Mouse
• Fostex PM0.4 Speakers with Infinity 10″ subwoofer
• Sans Digital RAID – drives 1 & 2 1.5TB to raid 0
• 3TB backup drive of RAID set
• Western Digital 1.5TB MyBook external hard drive
• Behringer UB502 Eurorack mixer
• Xbox controller for gaming

The Fostex speakers are used for full sound reproduction, and it looks like there’s a few other pieces of hardware mixed in there alongside a couple of NHL hockey pucks and a nifty Death Star coaster. Great setup!

Keep your great Apple & Mac setup shots coming! Send us your own workstation pictures to osxdailycom@gmail.com, include a good picture or two, a brief list of the hardware – both Apple and otherwise, and don’t forget to mention what you use the gear for. All are welcome!

Have you ever wanted to block ads from showing up in apps on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch like you can for web browsers on the desktop? Of course you have, and though you can block ads in Safari in iOS, you also can block ads from many apps by using a neat little network activity trick.

The type of ads this trick works to block within apps are those ads that hover over the display of many free apps and games, like what is shown at the top of this article.

Read more »

Longtime command line users are probably familiar with the text based web browser lynx, which strips down the web to text-only format and allows for super-fast web browsing. But lynx (links, technically) can be compiled to support graphics and run within x11, which creates a highly effective web browser for low-bandwidth situations because it strips all formatting, css, javascript, flash, java, ads, and ajax from web sites, all you get is standard html with images, with everything loading lightning fast. Here is what the Google home page looks like in Lynx running in X11 with image support:

Read more »

Apple has released the second developer beta of iOS 6.1.3, a minor point release to the mobile software suite that is said to include several bug fixes.

According to 9to5mac, the update features improvements to Apple Maps in Japan, and also addresses the lock screen bypass issue that was not resolved in the recently available iOS 6.1.2 update. The first beta of 6.1.3 only included the notes about Japan Maps enhancements, and thus the lock screen issue is a new addition to the developer build.

As usual with beta iOS software, the developer builds are only available to paying members of Apple’s official iOS Developer program at the Dev Center. Anyone can register for a free account, but beta releases are restricted to those paying yearly membership dues.

Adjusting the mouse pointer sizes on a Mac is a simple way to greatly improve accessibility for individuals with visual impairments. But it’s not the only reason to increase the size of the mouse pointer on the Mac screen, and there are other uses though, for example having a less dramatic difference with just a slightly larger cursor can be a nice way to ease locating the pointer on extra large screens or during presentations. Or you can go all the way and have a very large mouse cursor so that its’ extremely easy to find for anyone, which can be helpful for kids, some screen situations, and for users without perfect vision.

Read more »

The latest versions of iPhoto (11+) and OS X (Mountain Lion+) support Photo Stream screen savers, this means you can have your Mac display a screen saver show that automatically updates the stream of photos based on pictures that are taken on the go with an iPhone, without ever having to manually copy pictures over to the computer or set them into folders like the old fashioned way..

Read more »

Almost immediately after iOS 6.1.2 was released with a few bug fixes for the Microsoft Exchange data use problem, a new version of the Evasi0n jailbreak utility came out to handle any devices that were upgraded to 6.1.2. It’s still the same Evasi0n jailbreaking experience, untethered and all. Like prior versions of Evasion, the following devices running iOS 6.1.2 are supported: iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, and iPad mini, and the 4th and 5th generations of iPod touch.

Read more »

Reading List is a great feature of Safari that syncs saved web pages between Safari on all of your Macs and iOS devices. This lets you save web pages to read later and works a lot like Pocket and Instapaper, except that it doesn’t require any additional downloads, toolbars, plugins, or third party apps in order to use, because it’s all built right into Safari in Mac OS X and iOS.

Though it may seem to directly compete with the likes of third party apps like Pocket, Reading List often works best as a temporary bookmark sharing service, letting you send and share links from one of your own devices to another and from computer to computer, without the cluttering of the actual Bookmarks menus with links and web pages you may only need to access once or twice. That is really it’s strong suite for many users, so keep that in mind when using Reading List, and don’t necessarily think of it as a Pocket/Instapaper replacement.

Read more »

Fresh off the news that Macs at Apple’s corporate headquarters were hacked through (yet another) Java exploit, Apple has released an update for Java that closes that hole, and also disables Java on Macs that have not used the applet in over 30 days. The update is available to all OS X users running 10.7 or 10.8 who have either not manually uninstalled or disabled Java themselves.

Labeled as Java for OS X 2013-001, the update is available now through Software Update and is recommended for all Mac users to install as soon as possible:

• Open the  Apple menu and choose “Software Update”
• Locate and install “Java for OS X 2013-001”

The update is available through the Mac App Store for OS X Mountain Lion users.

Release notes accompanying the Java update are as follows:

Java for OS X 2013-001 delivers improved security, reliability, and compatibility by updating Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_41.

On systems that have not already installed Java for OS X 2012-006, this update disables the Java SE 6 applet plug-in. To use applets on a web page, click on the region labeled “Missing plug-in” to download the latest version of the Java applet plug-in from Oracle.

Please quit any web browsers and Java applications before installing this update.

The update is aimed to address the security exploit that was used against Apple, which was first reported by Reuters earlier today:

Apple Inc was recently attacked by hackers who infected the Macintosh computers of some employees, the company said on Tuesday in an unprecedented disclosure that described the widest known cyber attacks against Apple-made computers to date.

Unknown hackers infected the computers of some Apple workers when they visited a website for software developers that had been infected with malicious software. The malware had been designed to attack Mac computers, the company said in a statement provided to Reuters.

Other reports indicate the attack specifically created an open SSH connection on the targeted Macs, potentially allowing for remote access.

Java is frequently a source of malware and security problems on many computers, and it remains one of the few attack vectors that hackers can target Mac users through. Disabling Java system-wide and in web browsers is highly recommended for individuals who do not need it active either for development purposes or for access to certain banking websites. Those concerned about potential malware and trojans in OS X can read our article on some common sense tips to avoid infecting Macs.

iOS 6.1.2 has been released by Apple. The minor update to iOS includes a resolution for a battery drain bug that impacted users of Exchange servers which also caused excessive data usage, but does not fix the passcode bypass bug that exists in prior iOS 6 versions, which is instead targeted by an upcoming 6.1.3 update. The brief release notes mention only this for the 6.1.2 update:
Read more »

Activity Monitor and the traditional ‘kill’ command line tool are able to handle most process termination needs, but if you’ve ever needed to target and kill all processes belonging to a single user account, you know it can be a frustrating task. Though Activity Monitor allows you to sort “Other User Processes” and select multiple processes, it does not allow you to terminate multiple processes at the same time. Similarly, the standard kill and killall commands are generally aimed at specific processes, and not at every single task belonging to a specific user account. This is where the ‘pkill’ command comes in, which makes it simple to instantly kill every single process belonging to any user via the terminal.

Read more »

You can post status updates and tweets to Facebook and Twitter by using nothing more than Siri. Why this may seem like a mere novelty at first, it’s actually extremely useful for situations where you’re occupied or can’t fiddle much with an iPhone, like when driving or running. Because you can summon Siri from the ear phones that come with all iOS devices, this lets you post to your social accounts hands free.

Before being able to post status updates to either social service, you’ll have to add or configure the appropriate accounts to iOS first. Once this is done, you’ll have access to Twitter and Facebook from Siri, and also from Notification Center.
Read more »

Apple has started running a pair of new iPad advertisements on TV, both with a heavy emphasis on apps. Labeled “Together” and “Alive”, the television commercials both feature the full-sized regular iPad and smaller iPad Mini, with a stream of constantly changing words that stop on a descriptive word which is then yelled by a crowd of people, before an app comes into focus.

“Together”

“Alive”

The ads started to air on Sunday primetime TV, as usual with Apple.

We’ve heard these commercials described by multiple people as sounding similar to the introduction of the gameshow “Wheel of Fortune”, what do you think? Do you like the ads?

One of the best general iOS features is wifi syncing, which, just as the name implies, allows you to sync content, data, pictures, music, whatever, to and from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and a computer running iTunes, without ever connecting the device with a USB cable. Of course, this feature is only useful when it’s working, and a wide variety of users are encountering an issue where wi-fi syncing just stops working. Either the device refuses to show up iTunes, or it disappears immediately when attempting to sync content to it. The solution below will resolve either of those problems and is quite simple.

Before beginning the troubleshooting process, make sure you have already enabled the iOS wi-fi sync ability for the device. The primary reason wireless syncing doesn’t work is because it wasn’t set up in the first place! This only needs to be done once, but it must be enabled separately for each iOS device you intend to use it for. Meaning you’ll turn it on through iTunes for an iPad, iPhone, and whatever other hardware separately.
Read more »

Assuming you keep iTunes on the default setting and let the app manage your music files and songs, iTunes will store all of your media nicely in the Music directory of your home folder, with each song kept in a folder according to the album and album artist. Though you’ll usually never need to directly access those files directly, if you’re looking to move your iTunes library to another location or external hard drive, back up your music manually, or make edits to songs directly, you will need file system access to the iTunes music files on your computer.

We’ll point you to a super fast way to reveal and access any single song in Mac OS X or Windows, and also show you where all the iTunes music files, and entire iTunes library, is stored in both Mac OS and Windows too.

Read more »

This weeks Mac setup comes to us from photographer Paulo A., a recent PC-to-Mac switcher who uses an iMac to process images from his Nikon D600. Hardware used to get the job done includes:

• iMac 21″ – Core i3 3.2GHz, 16GB RAM, 1TB HD
• Wacom Bamboo tablet
• Apple Magic Mouse
• Apple wireless keyboard
• Creative External Sound Card connected to a 5.1 speakers
• 1TB Western Digital external drive for Time Machine
• 2TB Lacie Cloudbox as a network disk
• iPod Nano 8GB, 6th gen
• iPhone 4 16GB

Next up on the gear purchase list is an iPad, which would be another great addition to the lineup.

You’ll notice an ongoing theme of creative professionals with a lot of these Mac workstations we feature, it’s just something unique about Apple gear that helps translate concepts into reality.

Keep these great setups coming! Submit your own Apple and Mac gear desk and workstation pictures to osxdailycom@gmail.com, include a good picture or two, a brief list of the hardware, and don’t forget to mention what you use it for.

Have you ever wished there was a way to know who was sending you a text or giving you a phone call when your iPhone is on silent mode, resting in your pocket or purse? You hear the buzz, but by default you’ll have no way to differentiate that from anyone else.

It turns out there is a way to determine who is calling while the iPhone is on silent, and that’s achieved by creating and setting custom vibration alerts for contacts in a similar way as you can set different ringtones or text tones for contacts.

Read more »