If you’re bored of the Mac command line this is both cool and geeky and should keep you entertained for a bit. JSLinux is a fully functioning version of Linux running entirely in a web browser, meaning if you have almost any modern web browser suddenly you can run a basic version of linux on any computer.
You don’t need to install anything, just load the JS PC emulator page. It’s quite limited but it does show a great job of showing off the power of modern Javascript engines and the diverse capabilities of linux.
A friend of mine claims this even works on the iPhone and iPad and I don’t see much reason why it shouldn’t. Unfortunately I tried running this on my neolithic iPhone 3G and Mobile Safari had trouble rendering JSLinux (screen below), sometimes it even crashed, but YMMV and this could be a problem with the stone age 3G and iOS 4.2.1 more than JSLinux itself.
When the iPad first came out, some critics accused the device of being just a big iPhone that couldn’t make phone calls. Two years later, that phone call thing has been addressed by a new app that claims to turn any iPad 3G into basically a giant iPhone. The app is called PhoneItiPad and it’s capable of making phone calls, sending SMS, using FaceTime by phone numbers, and achieving everything else you’d expect to perform on an iPhone.
Although there is no release date set, the developers at iPhoneIslam say it will be available soon from the Cydia store, meaning you will have to jailbreak your iPad to download the app.
Is this useful? You’ll have to decide that, but I can imagine situations where you’d want to send a text or make a quick phone call from an iPad instead of whipping out a phone. Even if you don’t think this has any practical use, you have to admit it’s an impressive hack, and this is exactly why Apple won’t ever completely kill jailbreaking even if they match many of the other benefits.
The release of Mac OS X 10.6.8 looks to be right around the corner with another developer build being issued for beta testing. Incremental OS updates are generally just bug fixes, but the developer notes of this build show there’s more to this one than usual, indicating that 10.6.8 will include the MacDefender Removal tool that Apple mentioned last week and also prepare users for installing Mac OS X 10.7Lion by distribution through the Mac App Store, seemingly confirming that a public release is soon.
Apple has previously stated that Lion will be released in “summer 2011”, with increasing speculation suggesting that a Lion GM build may be released to developers as soon as next week at WWDC 2011. This would put a public release several weeks later, but again, this is just speculation.
For years there was an undeserved assumption that the Mac platform was unfit for gaming, but not anymore! Thanks to the Mac App Store, the Mac platform is amassing a wide library of amazing games that must be played.
If you’re a gamer, check out this list of some of the best RPG’s, shooters, platformers, and strategy games the Mac App Store has to offer, all on sale for this weekend! Because what better way to pass a long weekend than with some new games?
If you don’t want to bother with defaults write commands or the terminal, an alternate method to show hidden files in Mac OS X is to simply use the Chrome web browser.
Just hit Command+L and enter / into the address bar (alternatively, you can enter file:/// as the address), and you’ll be presented with the root directory showing all hidden files and folders as well as the typically visible files.
Files that are invisible are prefaced by a period in Mac OS X so looking at the screenshot you’ll see .fseventsd, .Spotlight-V100, .Trashes, and .Vol are all typically invisible to the user. Once you’re looking at the root directory you can drill down to more specific directories like file:///Applications/ or you could go to your home folder right away by accessing file:///Users/Username
If you grew up in the 80’s and you had an interest in video games plus a computer, you probably played Kings Quest. Now, you can relive the past for free thanks to AGD Interactive, who has remade and redrawn Kings Quest 1: Quest for the Crown, Kings Quest 2: Romancing the Stones, and Kings Quest 3: To Heir is Human, and released the three versions as a free download from their website.
Alaska Airlines has just announced that everyones favorite tablet computer is going to replace paper flight manuals for pilots operating their aircraft.
The move to the 1.5lbs iPad is intended to improve efficiency and reduce environmental waste by replacing up to 25lbs of paper flight manuals.
You can give your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch a custom name easily, or change it from its current name to something else if someone else happened to give it a name that you don’t like. This is helpful for when an iOS device transfers ownership, or if the name is perhaps just no longer appropriate for the device. Whatever the reason to change the devices name, it’s easy to rename any device either directly in Settings or from a computer with iTunes. Here we will cover the latter, showing you how to change the iPhone or iPad name on iTunes on either a Mac or Windows PC in just a few moments.
This works the same with any iOS device running any version of iOS and with any version of iTunes. So whether it’s an iPhone, iPad, or iPod, it’s all the same. Let’s get right to it.
This is a nice Mac desk featuring a MacBook Pro 15″ atop a Griffin Elevator Laptop Stand hooked up to an external 20″ Apple Cinema Display and an iPad sits alongside them both. Under the desk is a Mac Pro, but I don’t know if it’s in use… thanks for noticing that Randy!
Is Apple going to kill the jailbreak community as we know it with iOS 5? If this sounds crazy, consider some of the tweaks, rumors, and expected features in iOS 5 and iPhone 5:
Cheaper & Pay-Go iPhones – a common reason to jailbreak an iPhone abroad is so that you can use it as a pay-go phone, Apple is reportedly interested in expanding directly into this market
More iPhone Carriers – one of the many reasons people jailbreak and unlock their phones is so they can use them on networks unsupported by Apple, but Apple is rumored to be planning to expand the iPhone to many more carriers
Over-the-Air automatic iOS updates – each new iOS update breaks existing jailbreaks, if Apple can push updates to your phone remotely, your jailbreak will become unusable anyway
Newer Hardware is Harder to Jailbreak – jailbreaking is getting harder on newer hardware, proof of this is the iPad 2, which still isn’t jailbroken despite being out for months. The next iPhone is expected to have the same internal hardware as the iPad 2, meaning it will be just as difficult to jailbreak
Remember, some of these features were once only possible with jailbroken hardware, but if Apple offers them natively through iOS 5 and new iPhones, what’s the point of jailbreaking and unlocking? If Apple is going to provide in iOS 5 and iPhone 5 what you now jailbreak for, why bother with the headaches of jailbreaking?
More evidence comes from an anonymous tipster sent a message to iDB that indicated that Apple is going to shake up the jailbreak community:
bad timing for jailbreak developers especially those working on notification. im not working on that but i know we are about to take the jb community by surprise
This was prior to TechCrunch publishing their report on the notification changes, but more interesting is that there’s an obvious hint of a broader agenda in that message.
This was followed quickly by another post at iDB that mentions a renowned jailbreaker just now giving up on the development of his revamped iOS notification system, they go on to speculate that he may have even been offered a job at Apple to develop the notifications for them directly.
Furthermore, there could be an economic incentive behind all of this, as iDB reminds us that nearly 10% of iPhones are jailbroken and buy apps through the Cydia store, that’s a lot of money left on the table by Apple. Jailbreaking is particularly popular in countries like China, where Apple is experiencing huge growth, but if Apple can offer the same features so many users are jailbreaking for, they’ll lose the incentive to jailbreak plus funnel that money into Apple’s App Store rather than a third party source.
Remember, jailbreaking isn’t illegal, but Apple has always frowned upon it for various reasons, and now Apple may have found a solution to squash the jailbreak community once and for all by essentially offering all the incentives natively. So will it happen? Is jailbreaking dead? We’ll soon find out.
A revamped notification system and the addition of widgets are expected to be two major new features of iOS 5, according to a recent report on TechCrunch.
If you don’t feel like reading the 551 word long TechCrunch article, here is the only part that actually mentions these two new expected iOS 5 features:
The other big news for iOS5 — and yes, I’ve completely buried the lede here, thanks for reading! — two things: completely revamped notifications and widgets.
This isn’t particularly ground breaking news, since Apple filed for a patent for a redesigned notification system all the way back in 2008, but confirmation from a site like TechCrunch does suggest that Apple is finally going to update the long criticized iOS notification system. Widgets would also be a useful addition to iOS, particularly on the lock screen where there is definitely a feeling of underutilized screen space.
Currently, the only solution to add widgets and modify notifications involve jailbreak apps like Intelliscreen, shown in the screenshot above. Whether or not the new iOS 5 notification and widget system will resemble this or something completely different remains to be seen, but the aforementioned patent from 2008 does share similarities in concept. Here is the redesigned notification system as seen in that patent:
Tired of the lengthy digital clock showing in the Mac OS X menu bar? You can go for a minimalist approach by setting the clock to display as an analog (that is, the old fashioned clocks with a face and hands), which will take up much less space and helps to clean up an otherwise cluttered menu bar. Read more »
Famous comedian (and fellow Mac user) Conan O’Brien is impersonating none other than Apple’s Steve Jobs on the front cover of this months Fast Company magazine. The Apple CEO, referred to as “Apple’s Software Lion,” is one of a handful of other popular figures that O’Brien parodies for the June 2011 issue featuring a list of 100 Most Creative People in Business.
Now here’s the odd part: while Conan dresses as Steve is on the front cover, Steve Jobs doesn’t even appear in the Top 100 list. Instead it’s Scott Forstall, Apple’s Senior Vice President of IOS Software, who is high up at #2 on the Fast Company 2011 rankings.
Amazon has just launched an official Amazon Mac Downloads Store where you can instantly buy and download a variety of Mac software and games directly from Amazon servers. The purchased Mac software is then stored on your Amazon account and you can then download as many copies for your own personal use as you want.
This is an interesting move since Amazon is obviously competing directly against Apple here. While Apple may offer more titles in all, the Amazon Mac Download Store is carrying some software products that the Apple App Store doesn’t, like Microsoft Office 2011 and Adobe Photoshop Elements, both sold as heavily discounted downloads from Amazon.
Free $5 Off Coupon Code for Any Mac Game & Software
To celebrate the launch the the Amazon Mac Downloads Store, Amazon is including a free $5 off coupon code that can be used on any Mac game or software until June 1, 2011. To make use of the $5 off coupon, enter the code SAVE5MAC in the “Gift Cards and Promotions” box when you go to check out.
The popular tower defense game TowerMadness is free to download today for iPhone, as well as the high-def iPad version TowerMadness HD. I’ve had TowerDefense for iPhone for well over a year and I can confirm it’s one of the most fun tower defense games on the iOS platform, so the chance to download this game for free is great.
Prototypes is a new Mac app that lets anyone quickly create functional iOS application prototypes and share them with other people, no coding is required.
The prototypes can be created from any Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, PSD, JPG, or any image file at all, just drag a few images into the app, define hotspots (touch locations), setup some transitions, and quickly preview or publish a prototype. These touch-responsive prototypes will run directly from Safari on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, making it very easy to test a functional iOS interface.
How well do these published prototypes function? The developers provide a sample working prototype that has been exported from the app, here is how you can try it out yourself: Read more »
Distracted by your menu bar? If you want a stylish iOS-like black menu bar in Mac OS X but don’t want to go all out with an iOS / Mac desktop, you should grab Nocturne, it’s free and adds some pizazz to your Mac desktop.
Nocturne actually serves several other purposes intended to make the Mac display more usable at night, but we’re going to skip those features and just use it to turn the menu bar black so it looks like iOS. This should take you about 2 minutes total, so here’s how to do it:
Launch Nocturne, ignore “Switch to night” and everything else. From the apps preferences, disable every option except for “Invert menu bar” near the bottom of the preferences
Optional if you use a very colorful background: Disable the “Translucent menu bar” in System Preferences > Desktop & Screensaver, this keeps the menu bar text white on black, and the menu bar black without any funky inverted coloration
You probably noticed by now that the black menu bar is achieved just by inverting the screen. Depending on what your background wallpaper is you may want to tweak some of the other settings to maintain a true black menu bar rather than just having an inverted version of whatever colors are shown through the transparency.
When it’s all said and done, this is what it looks like:
hooked up to an external 20″ Apple Cinema Display and an iPad sits alongside them both. Under the desk is a Mac Pro, but I don’t know if it’s in use… thanks for noticing that Randy!
A revamped notification system and the addition of widgets are expected to be two major new features of 
