Traveling abroad can quickly become frustrating when you attempt a search on Google.com and discover you are redirected to the local countries variant of Google, with the local language and all. This language redirect can happen when using a VPN or proxy as well. While this is convenient for things like local search and Maps, if you’re trying to find results in English while you’re in a non-english speaking country or on a non-english Google site, the redirect is annoying and can end up being outright confusing.

Fortunately, there’s a simple and quick solution to the automatic Google country redirect, insuring that you’ll always visit the one-and-only Google.com regardless of your current location on the globe.

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Letters to Steve: Inside the E-mail Inbox of Apple’s Steve Jobs is a new e-book from Mark Milian that catalogues the late CEO’s direct engagements with customers and fans through email.

This book is based on interviews with many of the customers and fans Jobs communicated with. These tales reveal the intricacies of how Jobs portrayed himself as likable and accessible through direct interaction with fans. He handled customer-service inquiries himself and carefully revealed hints about upcoming Apple products, guaranteeing headlines on blogs. However, some of these letters, when analyzed, provide a glimpse into his “reality distortion field,” in which he lobs insults, bends the truth and uses misdirection in order to manipulate anyone on the receiving end.

Some of the emails have been seen before on various forums and websites, but the book compiles them into an easily digestible format. It’s probably not going to be as compelling as the official biography, but for just a couple bucks it sounds enjoyable enough.

• Letters to Steve: Inside the E-mail Inbox of Apple’s Steve Jobs for $2.99

The book is offered exclusively through Amazon as a Kindle title, but you can read it on just about any hardware with the free Kindle app that works with iPhone, iPad, Mac OS X, Windows, Android, Windows Phone 7, Kindle Fire, and even Blackberry.

iCloud and iOS includes the ability to sync some iCloud data directly over a 4G, LTE, and 3G cellular connection when a wireless network isn’t available, assuming the iPhone or iPad has a cellular capability anyway.

We’ll show you how to toggle iCloud syncing over cellular in modern iOS as well as older iOS versions.

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Apple will release an iPad 3 with a retina display running at 2048×1536 resolution next year, and the production of the IPS QXGA display is already underway by Samsung, Sharp, and LGD, according to a new report. Citing a confident analyst from DisplaySearch, CNET quotes “It’s happening–QXGA, 2048×1536. Panel production has started“.

Talk of an iPad 3 with a retina display isn’t anything new, theoretical discussion of such hardware started before the iPad 2 was even announced in 2011, with various pieces of evidence and conjecture surfacing early on.

Current iPad 3 rumors indicate the following possibilities:

• Retina Display – persistent rumors and reports suggest a high resolution display is all but guaranteed
• Quad Core CPU – references to a quad-core ARM CPU were found and quickly removed from Xcode earlier in the year, igniting speculation that a quad core chip could make it to the next generation of iOS hardware
• Siri – the hit AI assistant agent from iPhone 4S is likely to make it to other Apple hardware in the future, perhaps starting with iPad 3
• Dual Mode CDMA/GSM Support – it’s very likely the next iPad will include the same dual mode GSM and CDMA chip from the iPhone 4S, allowing Apple to produce a single 3G equipped iPad rather than separate CDMA and GSM devices
• Release Date – presumably the iPad 3 release will follow past iPad footsteps, with a release sometime around March or April of 2012

There are also some rumors suggesting the iPad 2 may stick around as a lower cost model, with the iPad 3 becoming a “Pro” addition that would turn the iPad into more of a product family. Apple offering a lower cost iPad may very well depend on the success of competing lower priced tablets, which thus far have struggled to gain traction in the marketplace.

iPad Mini with a 7.85″ Display to Debut Later in 2012?

Later in the aforementioned CNET report is a reference to an “mini iPad” that would include a 7.85″ display. Such a device would supposedly come in the second half of 2012, but only if there’s adequate market interest:

“If there’s demand there. There’s no reason they wouldn’t build a 7.85-inch iPad,” Shim said.

Demand for smaller screened tablets may end up depending on the success of the low priced Amazon Kindle Fire. A recent report indicated that Apple’s iPad maintains a dominating lead in tablet market share, but suggested the newly released Kindle Fire will place direct pressure on the iPad. Amazon’s tablet could be a motivating factor for Apple to be exploring an iPad with a smaller display.

While rumors are fascinating to ponder, it’s wise to take all Apple rumors with a grain of salt, especially considering how incredibly inaccurate and imaginative the iPhone 5 speculation ended up being. In other words, don’t believe it until it’s announced by Apple.

If you signed up for iTunes Match and you’re seeing some peculiar icons in your music library alongside track names, don’t miss this chart put together by Apple that explains what each icon means, helping you troubleshoot the problem.

The icons include:

• Cloud with a slash through it – ineligible for iTunes Match
• X’ed out cloud – removed from iCloud
• Cloud with an exclamation point – error uploading the song
• Double cloud with a slash through it – duplicate song exists
• Empty cloud – song is waiting to be processed

Why the cloud icons anyway? Because iTunes Match is part of iCloud, of course.

Apple started airing a new iPad 2 commercial titled “Love” last night, it follows the same theme set by past iPad 2 ads closely, and shows a variety of people using the device in different ways. Here’s the text:

For some, it’s a lifelong passion. For others, it’s something discovered yesterday. We all have things that speak to us. They drive us to get up early, and stay up late. Getting lost in the things we love, has never felt quite like this.

It’s another great iPad 2 ad, especially the ending shot of a kid using an iPad inside a homemade fort surrounded by plenty of dinosaurs. The full video is embedded below.

Quick Look is one of the better little features of Mac OS X, but a new hidden option in OS X makes QuickLook even better by allowing you to select, highlight, and copy text directly from the windows.

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Apple will overtake HP as the worlds top PC vendor by mid-2012, thanks to tremendous iPad growth and increasingly strong Mac sales.

Currently, HP holds the top spot at 16% of the PC market, but Apple is already sitting very closely behind at 15%, and the anticipated release of iPad 3 early next year could very well be the product that pushes Apple into the lead. This data comes from research firm Canalys, who paints a rosy picture for Apple but does caution the newly released Kindle Fire from Amazon will place some pressure on future iPad sales.

Related, the Washington Post reports that Mac market share is at a 15 year high of 5.2%, growing 24.6% in a year, while the general PC market had comparatively slower growth of just 5.3% in the same period. Also, while the iPad controls more than 60% of the tablet market officially, real-world usage statistics show the iPad accounts for a dominating 97% of web traffic from tablets, suggesting competing tablets are

For the music lovers out there, DockArt takes the “Now Playing” notification concept a step further and actually replaces the iTunes Dock icon on the Mac with the currently playing albums cover art.

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You can hide unwanted System Preferences from appearing in the control panel without actually removing them.

This is a helpful distinction for setting up other user accounts or just for hiding System Prefs you never access and no longer need:

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The iPhone can be set to always hide the dialing phones number from the recipients caller ID’s. That means that if you turn off the “Show My Caller ID” feature, every call you make will not show up on the phone number you are calling, offering additional privacy to phone calls made from your iPhone.

How this works is by initiating every phone call with the prefix *67 to force the number to appear as “Blocked” or “Unknown” on the receiving caller ID, which in iOS is handled by a little toggle that automatically appends phone calls made from the iPhone with the blocking prefix. This is helpful for many reasons, whether you’re making anonymous phone calls, or even if you just want to be sent to someones voicemail, since most people don’t answer a blocked call these days.

Turning this feature on with your iPhone is quite simple, here’s what you’ll want to do:
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Ever set a desktop background picture on the Mac and have no idea where the original wallpaper image is stored in OS X? Maybe you set an image from the web and lost it, or maybe you’ve wondered where that default background image is stored so you can share it with your iOS device or another Mac? Me too, and there’s a way to quickly find the original file location of what is set as the desktop wallpaper on a Mac.

By using a defaults write debug command, you can display the full path to the currently active desktop image, directly printed on the wallpaper itself.

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Greg Joswiak is a Vice President of Marketing at Apple who focuses on promoting the iOS lineup. After working at Apple for 20 years, he has come up with four lessons that can help explain Apple’s incredible success. Shared at a recent speech in Cambridge, they are quoted below from Wall Street Journal:

Focus—”It means saying no, not saying yes. We do very few things at Apple. We are $100bn in revenue with very few products. There are only so many grade A players. If you spread yourself out over too many things, none of them will be great.”

Simplicity—”Make complex things simple. A lot of people think it means take something simple and leave it at its core essence. But it isn’t that. When you start to build something, it quickly becomes really complex. But that is when a lot of people stop. If you really know your product and the problems, then you can take something that is complex and then make it simple.”

Courage—”Courage drives a lot of decisions in business. Don’t hang on to ideas from the past even if they have been successful for you. You don’t build a product just because everyone else has one. ”

Best—”If you can’t enter the market and try and be the best in it, don’t enter it. You need that differentiation. At Apple if we can’t be the best then we are not interested in it.

Sounds like the spirit and influence of Steve Jobs to me.

Using a defaults write command, the iTunes Dock icon can be set to display a “Now Playing” song and artist pop-up that transitions in and out and music starts. It’s a nice addition, particularly if you’re playing songs from a shared network playlist and have iTunes hidden in the background.

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Stanford University is on a roll lately offering a wide variety of free online courses to anyone, either through iTunes U on topics like iOS 5 Development, or through self-contained courses conducted entirely from the web that are free to enroll in. The latter is the case here, with Stanford offering 10 new online courses that are completely free to the public. Each class is taught by a renowned Stanford professor and is focused on technology and computer science, although two concentrate on the entrepreneurial side of things as well.

All classes start January 2012, so enroll now if you want to start learning from one of the best universities in the world:

• CS 101 – Essentials of Computer Science for a zero experience audience
• Cryptography – Protecting information in computer systems
• Game Theory – Mathematical modeling of strategic interaction among rational agents
• Human-Computer Interaction – Designing technologies and interfaces that bring people joy rather than frustration
• Lean Launchpad – Turning an idea into a company
• Machine Learning – Getting computers to act without explicit direction
• Natural Language Processing – Algorithms and technology for dealing with human language data
• Probabilistic Graphical Models – Practical and theoretical methods of manipulating probability distributions
• Software as a Service – Engineering fundamentals for Agile SaaS development using Ruby on Rails
• Technology Entrepreneurship – Creating a successful startup

You won’t get college credit for completing the courses unless you’re a Stanford student, but they will provide you with a statement of accomplishment and a performance rating compared to other online students, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to learn something.

Free courses from Stanford University is a freakishly good deal, where undergrad tuition alone is about $40,000 a year!

Stanford has offered this style of online learning in the past, recently offering a free online “Intro to Databases” course conducted on the web. That class is wrapping up so if you enrolled in that one, these classes are a great opportunity to further relevant knowledge.

Our readers have some of the best setups and workstations out there. Case in point, this drool-worthy Mac setup is heavy on the Apple gear but crosses platforms for testing purposes.

From left to right there is: MacBook Pro 15″, iMac 27″ connected to a center Dell 22″ display but switches to a Dell Optiplex GX520 Windows machine, a 20″ Vuescape display connected to the white MacBook 13″, docked iPad 1, Dell Mini 1012, and a handful of peripherals including a Time Machine connected to a 1TB external drive, AirPort Extreme Base Station, Apple Remote, Apple Wireless Keyboard, and two Magic Trackpads. Plus the picture was taken with an iPhone 4S!

What an awesome setup, thanks for sending this to us Bryn!

You can send in your own to setup shots to osxdailycom@gmail.com – we get a load of entries but we’ll try to post them all eventually

Using iOS folders and some bookmarks, anyone can mimic the quick iOS Settings access of the popular jailbreak tweak SBSettings – minus the jailbreak. It’s simple and you don’t have to install anything but a few shortcuts:

• Launch Safari on iOS
• Go here and scroll until you see a list of settings names and click on them to create icon shortcuts to the settings you want quick access to
• Drag the shortcuts into each other to create a folder to then add more

Some of the most useful shortcuts to add are: Network, Brightness, Software Update, Bluetooth, WiFi, HotSpot, etc. Going to the bottom of the page will show the ‘old’ method of creating bookmarks through Safari rather than using profiles, you can go with whatever method you’re comfortable with. Most of the choices should behave on all iOS 5 hardware, but some are going to be limited to iPhone or 3G equipped iPads.

This is a great alternative for anyone wary of jailbreaking, or if you just don’t like the current tethered solutions. Found via MacStories

With iCloud and the “Find My iPhone” feature, you can send messages to your remote Apple gear. These come through in the form of a pop-up window in Mac OS X and a notification in iOS 5, and while there’s a variety of uses for this, it’s also a fun way to send a quick message to someone using your hardware, be it a loved one or a thief. You can also choose to play a pinging sound with the notification, it will repeatedly play at full volume until someone acknowledges the notification, guaranteeing that it can’t be ignored.

You’ll need iCloud enabled and have iOS 5+ on the iPad or iPhone, and OS X 10.7.2+ on the Mac, and all hardware must be sharing the same iCloud ID.

Send a Message to Your Apple Hardware from iCloud

We’re going to send a message to a MacBook Air for the purpose of this walkthrough, but it’s identical on an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch too:

• Go to iCloud.com and login
• Click on the “Find My iPhone” button – it will say iPhone even if you want to send a message to a Mac, iPad, or iPod



• A list of compatible devices will load in the left menu titled “My Devices” and the location of the device will appear on a map
• Click on the blue “i” button to bring up a the “Find My Mac” (or iPhone/iPad) control panel for that machine, select the “Play Sound or Send Message” button



• Type your message and click on “Send” , keep the ON switch for “Play Sound” if you want the loud pinging sound to repeat until the notification is acknowledged

Messages are delivered practically instantaneous. From the users end they look like the pop-up at the top of the screen, and the sender will get a confirmation in the email that is attached to their iCloud account:

Bonus points if you send a nice message to a significant other or loved one, or if you gently nudge your iPad hogging roommate who is addicted to Temple Run.