Pushing ever closer to a GM and the final release date in the near future, iOS 5 beta 7 has just been seeded to developers. The newest iOS 5 beta can be downloaded as IPSW from the iOS Dev Center, or more easily, as an Over-the-Air (OTA) update, which can be accessed from iOS 5 beta 6 to download via tapping onto Settings > General > Software Update.

Just as prior updates, Apple recommends you use the “Erase all Contents and Settings” under Settings > General > Reset in order to install the latest beta.

The brief note attached to the OTA update says simply “This beta version of iOS 5 contains bug fixes and improvements.” and refers to the release notes on the iOS Developer Center.

Update: In addition to a new iOS 5 beta, iTunes 10.5 beta 7 and Xcode 4.2 beta 7 were also released.

If you’re one of the many Mac users who uses multiple Macs, say an iMac at home or work, and a MacBook on the go, you should get DropboxAppSync.

This free utility syncs your ~/Library/Application Support/ folder across multiple Macs via the free Dropbox service, allowing you to have the exact same app setups, like preferences, plugins, bookmarks, game files, cache, etc, on all of your Macs, regardless of where you are, as long as you have internet access.

To use DropboxAppSync, you need:

• Have a Dropbox account (2GB is free)
• Download DropboxAppSync (direct download or visit the devs homepage) on all Macs you want to havesync

Setup is very simple. Once you have Dropbox configured, quit your open applications, and then just launch DropboxAppSync on the first Mac that you want to be the primary /Application Support/ folder to be synced.

Approve the following message, which informs you that ~/Library/Application Support/ is about to head over to DropBox (via a symbolic link):

This utility will relocate your Application’s support folder to Dropbox. This may be unsupported by the developer! A backup copy of your application’s data will be saved to your desktop just in case…

This utility will save your data to:
Dropbox/Application Support/ApplicationName

If this utility finds your Application data on Dropbox already, it will simply link to the data on Dropbox instead of copying the data over. However, a backup copy will still be saved to your desktop.

Then you run DropboxAppSync on the other Macs, and the app is smart enough to already detect the app data exists so it will simply link to it, syncing your Macs apps.

The developer reminds us that not all apps may support being synced like this, but from user testing there haven’t been many reported issues.

The 2GB free Dropbox account should be adequate for this service with the vast majority of Macs and Mac apps – unless you have Steam games installed like TF2, which store all of their application data in your /Application Support/ folder and causes it to take up a lot of space. For example, without Steam my Application Support folder is about 700MB and I have tons of apps installed, but with Steam it’s well over 25GB. In that case, you’d want to pay for a larger Dropbox account, or just exclude Steam apps from being synced, but it would be an easy way to have all your game data the same on all your Macs rather than manually moving the Steam folder yourself.

Syncing app data across multiple Macs is something that iCloud should do, and hopefully it will in future versions, but in the meantime this is a great free solution.

The middle of the Amazon Rainforest is probably the last place you’d expect to see a brand new MacBook Air, but that’s exactly what Chief Almir of the Surui people is using in his fight to protect the Amazon. The internet, a partnership with Google, and Apple’s flagship ultraportable MacBook Air, have enabled the chief to track the tribes territory and report illegal logging of their homelands:

His partnership with Google, which began in 2007, has enabled the tribe to create an online “cultural map” of the Surui with stories from the tribe’s elders that are uploaded onto YouTube, as well as a geographical map of their territory created with GPS — equipped smartphones from Google. In 2009, Google employees taught the Surui to use cell phones to record illegal logging on their land. Tribal members can now take photos and videos that are geo-tagged and immediately upload the images to Google Earth. Law-enforcement officials can no longer claim ignorance of the problem when evidence of the deforestation is publicly available online.

You can see a great video below showing more Mac use in the jungle, and the full photo, which was taken by Ivan Kashinsky and used in the story on FastCompany about some of the most creative people in business for 2011.

I find this interesting and impressive for a number of reasons, but focusing on the Apple aspect, it’s remarkable in and of itself that a MacBook Air has ended up in the depths of the Amazon jungle, let alone in the midst of the immense tropical heat, moisture, and humidity, and has become a tribes computer of choice.

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If there’s only one keyboard shortcut you should remember in Mac OS X it’s this: Go To Folder. We refer to this keyboard command so frequently here on OSXDaily that we just sort of assume everyone knows it, but it’s so useful and powerful that it’s worth making an individual post about it.

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I would be convinced this was an April Fools joke out of Redmond were it not August, but no, it’s the new Windows 8 Explorer default interface.

While Apple is busy reducing clutter and creating minimalist interfaces, streamlining OS X and iOS, Microsoft is busy moving in the opposite direction. Believe it or not, these pictures show what, somehow, Microsoft has determined is the future of the user interface and file system; adding even more buttons, icons, actions, tabs, and whatever else they could stuff onto the already cluttered Windows Explorer interface.

Microsoft is proudly displaying this new UI to the world on a MSDN blog post titled “Improvements to Windows Explorer” (seriously).

Everything imaginable is jammed into your brand new ultra-cluttered window toolbar, and you thought Microsoft Office had a mess of an interface? I suppose once you get below the disastrous ‘home tab’ eating the top half of the window, it just looks like Windows 7:
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iPhoto is a great picture management app, but you may still occasionally want to access the original picture files for a variety of purposes, either to import them into another app or for backup purposes. This is easily done in Mac OS X, but what exactly you are looking for depends on which version of iPhoto you are using. Whether you’re using the latest iPhoto or an earlier version, we’ll show you exactly how to access your raw photos out of the iPhoto app, stored locally on your Mac.

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If opening up Activity Monitor is confusing or intimidating to you, or you just find it hard to track down that errant Chrome Worker process, try sorting the list by “All Processes, Hierarchically”.

Sorting by hierarchy breaks the processes down into apps and their child processes, grouping together things like all of the “Google Chrome Renderer” processes under Google Chrome, “Safari Web Content” under Safari, Terminal tasks and shells under Terminal, etc. This makes it very easy to kill process groups all at once, and also allows for easy parent and group sampling and management.

The other advantage is that you can now expand and collapse groups of child processes to clean up the process list, which I find to be much more organized and logical. Give it a try.

The default OS X Lion galaxy wallpaper is gorgeous, but there’s something fun about this pixelated version of it that makes it a joy on a desktop too.

This is quite literally the default Lion wallpaper for Mac OS X Lion but it’s run through a pixel tool so that it is very pixelated, looking a bit 8 bit yet still modern. It looks great as a wallpaper on any Mac (or Windows too).

Click the image above or the link below for a full sized version of the background.

Click here to download the full version (2560×1600)

There’s a similar 8-bit Aurora image from Mac OS X Snow Leopard too if you’re on a pixel craze.

Thanks for sending this in Reg

The first beta version of iTunes Match has been released for developers to subscribe to. The service stores an entire music library within iCloud and allows you to stream or download your music from anywhere, including iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, a Mac, or even Windows PC. This is done without uploading files, instead iTunes Match scans your library and matches it within the iCloud service, even providing the music at a higher bit rate in the process.

To use iTunes Match beta, developers need the latest version of iOS 5 beta and iTunes 10.5 beta 6.1. Despite being a beta release, iTunes Match service costs $24.99 per year, but dev users will receive an additional 3 months of free service in addition to their 12 month plan. The cloud storage capacity of an iTunes Match library is separate from whats included in the iCloud plans, which makes the price even more competitive.

Those who aren’t developers will have to wait for iCloud and iTunes Match to be released alongside iOS 5 this fall.

You can watch two video walkthroughs below of iTunes Match beta in action:
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You’ll soon be able to run Linux on a select few iOS devices via a jailbreak hack. The port is being worked on by German iOS developer Patrick Wildt, and while it’s not entirely clear when Linux for iOS will be released, he is expected to unveil it publicly at MyGreatFest, a jailbreaking convention that is being held on September 17th.

Supported hardware is said to include the original iPad, iPhone 4, and iPod touch 4th generation, but the iPad 2 with it’s A5 CPU is currently left out due to complications with the hardware.

Pretty geeky but cool find from iDownload Blog.

An upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.6.9 may bring iCloud support to Mac users who haven’t made the jump to Lion and remain on Snow Leopard, at least that’s what a screen shot provided to MacRumors suggests. Sent in by a developer, the screenshot of the .Mac/MobileMe preference pane includes the text:

“iCloud requires a computer running Mac OS X Snow Leopard v10.6.9 or later for Contacts, Calendars, and Bookmarks.”

The extent of iCloud support in Mac OS X 10.6 remains to be seen, but from the latter part of that text it suggests it will be limited to basic syncing relevant to iOS devices rather than the full iCloud feature set.

iCloud is expected to be released this fall alongside iOS 5, and the pricing plans range from a free 5GB package to $100 a year for 55GB of cloud storage.

Mac OS X Lion has changed how several helpful troubleshooting tools function, one being the reset password tool, and another is how Apple Hardware Test (AHT) mode works. Gone is AHT’s independent boot mode in favor of an internet based version that is dependent on Lion’s Internet Recovery instead. If you always have access to the internet, this isn’t a big deal, but if you can’t get online that’s not particularly useful.

There’s a solution, for some Macs at least, and that is to copy the old Apple Hardware Test utility over to the Mac OS X Lion boot drive, which enables you to boot up from AHT by holding down the “D” key as usual. The catch? You’ll need a pre-Lion Mac that came with the Mac OS X Installation and Application install disks, yes, the DVD, from 10.6 or otherwise. This obviously rules out some of the newest Macs like the 2011 MacBook Air and Mac Mini from restoring onboard AHT, but it will work to restore the functionality to Macs that did ship with OS X install and app restore disks.
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Here’s a 15″ MacBook Pro connected to an external display, and of course an iPad and iPhone complete the setup. MacBook Pro’s with external displays always make a great desktop workstation, the best part of course is that you can disconnect from the external screen and be fully mobile.

The iPad stand looks like the elago P2 Stand, which makes an iPad look like a miniature iMac.

Just another great Mac setup from Flickr

Mac OS X Lion’s App Resume feature is both loved and hated. Most people seem to love the feature for most of their apps, but don’t want it enabled for others. Up until now, you’ve had to issue either app-specific defaults write commands or lock saved states folders, or just disable Resume completely.

These are all effective methods, but what if you want to easily manage OS X Lion’s Resume feature on a per application basis from a GUI? Resuminator does just that. It’s an easy to use and free app for Mac OS X 10.7 that lets you individually select applications and whether or not they will use Resume. Want it enabled for Chrome but not Safari? No problem.

Download Resuminator free from Erica Sadun (direct link)

The app is extremely simple. Select an app, and uncheck the box next to “Should Resume” if you don’t want that app to Resume it’s windows and states. The “Global Resume” checkbox turns control back over to the general System Preference that disables the feature.

Resuminator was created by Mac developer and occasional TUAW contributor Erica Sadun. It likely just serves as a GUI front end to the aforementioned defaults write commands, but it’s in a much easier to use format.

Mac OS X and iTunes has been slowly going the way of minimalism with subdued grey interface elements and icons, some people like the change and others don’t. We just showed you how to get color icons back in the OS X Lion Finder sidebars, and in the comments, Prescott Perez-Fox posted a resource file that works to bring the color sidebar icons back to the latest version of iTunes in Mac OS X Lion too. Here’s how to use that file.

Bringing Back Color iTunes Icons to OS X Lion

The best thing about this tip is that it doesn’t require SIMBL or any additional installations, making it very simple. This has been verified to work with the latest version of iTunes 10.4.1 in Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1.

First things first, you need to download a new color iTunes icons resource file and rename it:

• Download iTunes colorized resource file
• Unzip this file and rename it to iTunes.rsrc, place it somewhere easy to find like the Desktop

Now that you have that ready to go, you can proceed with the actual resource file change:

• Hit Command+Shift+G and enter the following path:

/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/

• Locate the file “iTunes.rsrc” and rename it to “iTunes-backup.rsrc” – you will need to authenticate renaming the file, and this is important because you want to be able to revert the changes
• Now drag the newly downloaded version of iTunes.rsrc into the open /Resources/ folder – you will again need to authenticate
• Relaunch iTunes and enjoy your new color icons again

A big thanks to Prescott for pointing this out in the comments.

Don’t forget you can change the sidebar icons to color in Mac OS X Lion too.
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Motion FX is a very cool real-time video effects tool that uses your Macs built-in camera to detect movement and render a slew of special effects ranging from fire to smoke and any variation of colors or distortion in between.

Using the apps Motion Detect or Effect Paint mode, you can literally paint with fire (or a psychedelic blend of colors) by using your hands or mouse, and create some really wild looking videos. Motion FX also utilizes OS X Lion’s facial recognition tools, so you can set any of the 80 different preset special effect modes to your head and face as well. It’s a bunch of fun and well worth playing around with.

The best part about Motion FX? It’s completely free on the Mac App Store:

Download Motion FX for OS X Lion for free (App Store link)

Describing the app only does so much, it’s best to download and play around with, or check out the video below for Motion FX in action:
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Safari in OS X allows you to have greater control over cookie settings as stored in the Mac web browser. There are now options to block all cookies, allow all cookies, or to selectively block third party and advertiser tracking cookies. Each of these choices are easily set or changed within Safaris’ preferences, and if you want to adjust the cookie blocking setting yourself in Safari on the Mac, here is exactly how to do that:
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You may have noticed that when you log out or reboot Mac OS X, you get a dialog window with a checkbox next to “Reopen windows when logging back in” that restores all of your currently open applications and windows.

If you don’t like it and you’re tired of unchecking the box to no longer reopen the windows, you can use a third party script to render the feature useless. To clarify, what this does is disable the feature completely on a constant basis, regardless of whether that checkbox to preserve windows is checked or not, the windows will not restore.

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