Using the familiar pinch and spread gesture in OS X Lion, you can adjust the thumbnail size of desktop wallpaper previews within System Preferences. A spread gesture will increase the thumbnail size, and a pinch gesture will shrink the wallpaper thumbnails.

Try it yourself, just open System Preferences, and from the Desktop control panel use a two-fingered spread, the same you’d use on an iPhone or iPad to zoom into an image or text, or that you’d use in Safari or Preview in Mac OS X to zoom on the content.

The smallest size will show a 5×4 grid, and the largest thumbnails will show 2×2.

Thanks for the tip Jimmy

Ultrasn0w 1.2.5 has been released and it allows for unlocking some iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 models with older modem firmware versions. Compatible baseband is as follows:

• iPhone 4: 01.59.00
• iPhone 3GS: 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.13.04, 06.15.00

You can check baseband on the iPhone by tapping on Settings > General > About and looking for “Modem Firmware” near the bottom of the About screen.

If your iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 has eligible baseband and is already jailbroken, then you can just search Cydia for “ultrasn0w” and download and install the latest version. Reboot the iPhone and you’ll be able to use the new unofficial network. If you’re not sure what to do, follow the instructions below:

How to Unlock iPhone 3GS & iPhone 4 on iOS 5.0.1 with Ultrasn0w

Be sure to confirm baseband firmware before proceeding:

• Jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 with redsn0w 0.9.9b9 and then boot the iPhone tethered
• Open Cydia and search for ultrasn0w, installing the ultrasn0w 1.2.5 package onto the iPhone
• Shut off the iPhone and insert the new SIM card from another carrier
• Boot the iPhone tethered using redsn0w again
• Wait for the iPhone to join the new network

Most iPhones won’t be eligible to use this version of ultrasn0w due to the baseband limitation. Keep in mind you can now buy the iPhone 4S unlocked directly from Apple, they aren’t cheap but you won’t have to bother with jailbreaks, software unlocks, or preserving baseband versions between iOS upgrades, and will always be free to use the iPhone on whatever compatible network you have a SIM card for.

Want to give someone an iOS app as a gift this holiday season? You can gift apps directly from the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, without ever touching a computer and without the need for purchasing an iTunes gift card. This makes for a perfect last minute Christmas shopping or birthday present, since you can literally buy someone a present on the car ride over to their house Christmas morning. Gifting apps is very simple:

Gift an iOS App from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from the App Store

This process is done directly on the iOS device within the App Store, but it can be repeated in iTunes as well.

• Launch the App Store
• Find the app you want to gift and tap on it
• Scroll down below the screenshots of the app and tap on “Gift This App”, then sign into the iTunes Store
• Tap “Next” on the app summary screen
• Fill in your name, the recipients name, and the recipients email address, as well as a note to attach to the gifted app (note: including several recipients email addresses will buy the app for each person)
• On the purchase summary screen, tap on “Buy Gift” in the lower right corner

The app will immediately be sent to the gift recipient, who receives an email with a link to download the iOS app to their iTunes library.

If you’d rather wrap the app as a physical gift, you can do so with iTunes by choosing to print a redeemable code instead of emailing the app. Gifted apps will appear in your purchase history, so if you or the recipient loses the redemption email, it can easily be retrieved again.

Note that you can not use redeemed credit from iTunes gift cards to purchase gifted apps, and the recipients iPhone, iPod, or iPad must be compatible with the app you are sending, which most are.

The developer betas of Mac OS X 10.7.3 show new evidence of retina display Macs, according to a recent find by MacRumors. The discovery points to some applications “Get Info” dialog box displaying an option to “Open in HIDPI mode”, although checking the box doesn’t appear to do anything yet, and the reference seems to have been removed from the most recent 10.7.3 11D36 build.

HiDPI display modes are roughly double the existing resolutions available to Mac displays, references to these resolutions have been found separately in past versions of OS X Lion. Other evidence of retina Macs are high resolution icons and massive 3200×2000 pixel wallpapers being the default in Mac OS X 10.7.

Currently, no Mac exists with a screen that would qualify for a HIDPI display mode. Some rumors suggest that a MacBook Pro with a 2880×1800 retina display could debut sometime in 2012, and may be the first Mac equipped with such a display.

Go2Shell is a free Finder toolbar add-on that creates a new Terminal window from the current directory of any desktop folder in Mac OS X with a click of a button. This is similar to the services option that can be added to the right-click contextual menu, but Go2Shell is faster due to resting in the Finder toolbar and being accessible with a single click.

• Download Go2Shell free on the Mac App Store

Installation is easy, download Go2Shell from the Mac App Store and then drag Go2Shell into any Finder window toolbar. The app works with OS X Lion and Snow Leopard, although the icon needs updating to fit Lion’s UI. Removing Go2Shell from the toolbar is achieved by holding down the command key and dragging it out.

If you favor iTerm2 or another terminal application other than the OS X default Terminal.app, you can select that as the default by accessing the Go2Shell configuration window. Just type the following at the command line:

open -a Go2Shell --args config

Here you’ll be able to change the terminal application and adjust the command/message that appears anytime Go2Shell is used (default is cd %PATH%; clear; pwd).

This was recommended in our comments instead of the Services option. Outside of being quicker, the other added benefit is Mac OS X 10.6 support, which is lacking with the services menu addition. Snow Leopard users can also follow the drag and drop to print the path approach.

A new developer build of Mac OS X 10.7.3 has been released by Apple as build 11D36. This is the third developer version of OS X 10.7.3 and is available for registered Mac Developers to download through the dev center with no known issues.

Listing no known issues could suggest public availability in the near future. According to MacRumors, the release notes from Apple tells developers to focus on and test app compatibility with iCloud document storage, Address Book, Mail, iCal, Spotlight, and Safari, which may also indicate the extent of the next OS X system update.

The last public software update for Mac OS X Lion was 10.7.2, released in October.

Need to resize a ton of pictures on a Mac? Instead of downloading a third party application or using Preview, you can use Automator to handle the entire operation, even renaming the images to indicate they have been resized to a new resolution.

Automator is included in every Mac OS X installation’s /Applications/ folder and is simple to use, making it an excellent tool for repetitive tasks like this. If you’ve never used Automator before, don’t worry, we will walk through the entire process to get it working, and the result will be a simple app that resizes any images that are dragged and dropped onto it.

Read more »

If you have a lot of app windows open in Mission Control, and you are grouping items in Mission Control by application, you can use a neat little trick to zoom into any Mission Control thumbnail on the Mac.

Read more »

Firefox 9 has just been released for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. The latest version brings some significant boosts to javascript performance, some theme fixes, and a variety of other under-the-hood enhancements. Probably the most noticeable addition will be for OS X Lion users though, with the addition of two-fingered swipe gesture navigation.

Download Firefox 9

• Mac OS X
• Windows
• Linux

For those with Mac OS X Lion and a trackpad or Magic Mouse, the new two-finger gestures are:

• Swipe left to go forward a page
• Swipe right to go back a page

These are the same gestures that exist in Chrome, although Firefox is missing the hovering arrow which tells you the direction of your swipe.

The official “what’s new” release notes for Firefox 9 are:

• Added Type Inference, significantly improving JavaScript performance
• Improved theme integration for Mac OS X Lion
• Added two finger swipe navigation for Mac OS X Lion
• Added support for querying Do Not Track status via JavaScript
• Added support for CSS font-stretch
• Improved support for text-overflow
• Improved standards support for HTML5, MathML, and CSS
• Fixed several stability issues

Firefox 9 still does not include native Full Screen support for Lion, and although you can enter its own fullscreen mode with Command-Shift-F, it’s not as fluid and the arrow buttons aren’t there for those who are keystroke shy. Also missing is embedded PDF support, forcing you to download and open PDF’s with Preview. With how fast Firefox is pushing out releases, you’d think they would bring it up to par with the expectations of a Lion app already, but maybe some of these features will come in version 10. All in all these are relatively minor complaints though, and if you use Firefox as your web browser of choice, it’s very much a worthwhile update for the speed and javascript improvements alone.

Growl is a popular notification system for Mac OS X that throws up those fading pop-up windows in the upper right corner of the screen. It’s a nice add on to OS X, and tons of other applications use Growl as their notification system.

Then Mac OS X 10.7 came out, and Growl went from being open source to closed, and now it costs $2 to get the newest features in addition to Lion compatibility. Right? Wrong. Growl Fork, as the name implies, is a fork of Growl from the last open sourced version, and best of all, it includes Mac OS X Lion compatibility. If you don’t need the newer features in the official version and just want compatibility with Lion and your apps to continue receiving notifications, Growl Fork works just fine.

• You can download Growl Fork from here for free

Install Growl Fork and it’ll appear in your System Preferences as usual, ready for configuration and with all of the settings that you had before in Snow Leopard. Again, it doesn’t have the newest features from the newest App Store version, but it works great and is completely free.

Thanks for sending this in Jacob

If you’re a last minute shopper like me, the next few days are when everything gets done. We’re quickly closing in on the final eligible days to receive free shipping by Christmas Eve from Amazon, so with that in mind we’ve compiled a list of some great Mac gift ideas and deals, whether you are shopping for a loved one or just getting yourself something nice for the holidays.

RAM and SSD upgrades, external monitors and hard drives, USB keys, iPod touches, Kindles, Books about Apple, software downloads, and more:

Steve Jobs, Apple History, and Mac Books

• Steve Jobs, Official Biography – $17.49 – Free shipping eligible
• I, Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Words – $7.43 – Eligible for free shipping
• Revolution in the Valley: How the Mac Was Made – $16.12 – eligible for free shipping
• iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon – $10.85 – eligible for free shipping
• Mac Kung Fu: 300+ Tips for OS X Lion – $22.63 – eligible for free shipping

Mac RAM Upgrades

• Crucial 8GB Memory Kit (1067MHz) – $36.95 – FREE Shipping
• Corsair Apple 8 GB Dual Channel Memory Kit (1067MHz) – $37.99 – FREE Shipping
• Kingston ValueRAM 8 GB Memory Kit (1333Mhz) – $39.99 – FREE Shipping

SSD Drive Upgrades

• 60 GB OCZ Technology Vertex 2 SSD – $96.84 – FREE Shipping
• 64 GB Kingston SSDNow SSD – $104.99 – FREE Shipping
• 120 GB SanDisk SSD – $129.95 – FREE Shipping
• 120 GB Intel 320 Series SSD – $189.95 – FREE Shipping
• 240 GB OCZ Technology Vertex 2 SSD – $304.99 – FREE Shipping

Software

• MacUpdate Bundle: 12 Mac Apps for $49 – digital distribution
• Parallels Desktop 7 – $55.93 with free shipping
• Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium Student and Teacher Edition – $369.99 with free shipping

Macbook Air

• Macbook Air 11.6″ 2GB/64GB – $939.94 – FREE Super Saver Shipping

iPod Touch and iPod Nano

• 8 GB iPod Touch 4th Gen – $184.99 – FREE Super Saver Shipping
• 32 GB iPod Touch 4th Gen – $274.99 – FREE Super Saver Shipping
• 64 GB iPod Touch 4th Gen – $359.99 – FREE Super Saver Shipping
• 8 GB iPod Nano 6th Gen – $118.99 – FREE Super Saver Shipping
• 16 GB iPod Nano 6th Gen – $139 – FREE Super Saver Shipping

External Hard Drives

• 1.5 TB Western Digital Elements External Hard Drive – $129.99 – FREE Shipping
• 2 TB Western Digital Elements External Hard Drive – $138.33 – FREE Shipping
• 2 TB Western Digital My Book Essential External Hard Drive – $154 – FREE Shipping
• 3 TB Western Digital Elements External Hard Drive – $197.95 – FREE Shipping

USB Flash Drives

• 8 GB Kingston DataTraveler Flash Drive – $7.99 – FREE Standard Shipping (3-5 days)
• 8 GB Kingston Digital Flash Drive – $8.99 – FREE Standard Shipping (3-5 days)
• 16 GB SanDisk Cruzer Flash Drive – $14.99 – FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25
• 16 GB SanDisk Cruzer Blade Flash Drive – $15.47 – FREE shipping
• 32 GB Transcend JetFlash Flash Drive – $29.99 – FREE Shipping
• 32 GB SanDisk Cruzer Flash Drive – $32.18 including shipping

External Monitors

• 24″ Viewsonic Widescreen LED Monitor 1080p – $179.99 – FREE Super Saver Shipping
• 22″ ViewSonic Widescreen 1080p LED Monitor – $149.99 – FREE Super Saver Shipping
• 19″ Acer Widescreen LCD Monitor – $95.87 – FREE Shipping
• 20″ HP LED Monitor – $109.99 – FREE Super Saver Shipping

Kindle

• Kindle Fire – $199 – FREE Super Saver Shipping
• Kindle Touch – $99 – FREE Super Saver Shipping
• Kindle Touch 3G – $149 – FREE Super Saver Shipping
• Kindle – $79 – FREE Super Saver Shipping

Happy Holidays!

Update: An untethered version is now available, here is our guide: How to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 untethered with redsn0w.

Redsn0w 0.9.9b9 isn’t the first jailbreak for iOS 5.0,1, but it’s certainly much easier to use thanks to native 5.0.1 support. This basically means you don’t have to point it at older firmware to perform the jailbreak, but it does still require a tether boot.

Requirements:

• iOS 5.0.1 installed
• iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 1, or iPod touch 3rd & 4th generations

If you already have iOS 5.01 installed you do not need to download any IPSW files.

Jailbreaking iOS 5.0.1 using Redsn0w 0.9.9b9

These instructions are the same for all compatible iOS devices and from running redsnow in Mac OS X or Windows:

1. Download redsn0w 0.9.9b9d: Mac OS X or Windows
2. Launch Redsn0w and click on “Jailbreak”
3. Put the iOS device into DFU mode by holding down the power button for 3 seconds, then start holding the Home button as well for an additional 10 seconds, then release the Power button but continue to hold the Home button for another 15 seconds
4. Wait while the jailbreak is installed, this will take a few minutes. When finished you will see a “Tethered Jailbreak” popup window reminding you of the tethered status and the iPhone screen will no longer display gibberish text
5. Still in Redsn0w, click back to the first screen and click on the “Extras” button
6. Click on “Just Boot” and put the device back into DFU mode again the same way as before, or follow on screen, then let the iOS device boot tethered

Your iOS device will now boot jailbroken and is free to use Cydia.

Remember that if the battery dies or if you reboot the device manually, you’ll need to perform the tethered boot with redsn0w assistance again. This is the difference between a tethered vs untethered jailbreak and why people prefer untether solutions, the untether is in the works for iOS 5 but not yet available to the public. We’ll keep you posted when we learn more.

Update: Links to redsn0w 0.9.9b9d have been updated.

Update 2: You can now untether existing iOS 5.0.1 jailbreaks with Corona

Update 3: Redsn0w 0.9.10b1 is an untethered jailbreak now available, here is how to use it

Macs don’t have a “Print Screen” button like their Windows PC keyboard counterparts, but taking screenshots from a Mac that is booted into Windows by way of Boot Camp is easy with a few keyboard shortcuts. The secret is remembering which keys to press, and beyond that the process of printing screen captures in Boot Camp is simple.

Let’s review the primary screen capture options for Boot Camp.

Read more »

The Emoji keyboard and all emoji characters are now included directly in iOS for all iPhone (and iPad / iPod touch) users to access, it just needs to be enabled first. Adding the Emoji symbols to your keyboard is simple and only takes a moment, and because virtually every Apple device supports the icon graphics display, those you interact with will be able to see the emoji icons on their iPhones and iPads too, even if they don’t have the keyboard enabled themselves (though they will probably quickly want to turn Emoji on once they see yours!). After it’s enabled, you will gain access to literally hundreds of Emoji icons, which can be inserted anywhere that typing is allowed.

Ready to have fun with Emoji? Here is how to add the special keyboard to any iOS device including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
Read more »

Redsn0w 0.9.9b9 has been released by the iPhone DevTeam to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1. It is still a tethered jailbreak and the process is mostly the same as before, except users no longer have to point the redsn0w application at older 5.0 IPSW.

Supported hardware continues to be iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 1, iPod touch 3rd or 4th gen. The iPad 2 and iPhone 4S are yet to work, but the upcoming untethered iOS 5 jailbreak should bring those two devices as well.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.9b9d

Mac and Windows versions are available:

• Download now (Mac OS X)
• Download now (Windows)

If you’re already jailbroken on iOS 5.0.1, this version of redsn0w won’t be of much use to you, although the updated version includes a variety of bug fixes and minor changes to supported hardware.

Update: Here is a guide on how to use redsn0w 0.99b9 to jailbreak iOS 5.01

Update 2: Updated links to latest version, Redsn0w 0.9.9b9d

Apple has started to air a new Christmas themed TV ad for the iPhone 4S and Siri featuring none other than Santa Claus. The commercial is the most entertaining iPhone 4S ad yet and features Santa asking Siri for directions, what kind of weather to expect at various locations around the country, requesting an email from Mrs Claus, and finally asking about his schedule, which Siri responds is filled with 3.7 billion appointments.

The ad has the same background music as past iPhone 4S commercials, which actually sounds a bit like Christmas music at this point. It’s also worth pointing out that the ad doesn’t even mention either the iPhone 4S or Siri by name, it just shows an Apple logo at the end.

You can watch the video below, or just wait for it to show on TV.

The recently aired BBC documentary Steve Jobs: Billion Dollar Hippy may have a dumb name, but the show itself is worth a watch for anyone interested in the subject matter. About an hour long, it features classic footage of Steve Jobs, in addition to interviews with a variety of Apple execs and industry leaders, including Steve Wozniak, John Sculley, Andy Hertzfeld, Tim Berners-Lee, Avie Tevanian, and many more names that will be familiar if you follow Apple history or have read the Steve Jobs biography.

The video looks to have been posted to YouTube unofficially, so watch it while you can.

A helpful command line tool called hdiutil is included in Mac OS X that allows disk image files (.dmg extension) to be mounted directly from the Terminal, without the need of using the GUI. Using hdiutil for such a task is helpful for scripting or remote connections through SSH.

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