If you don’t want to deal with manually hiding and showing the desktop icons, showing hidden files, accessing the user library directory, and forcibly emptying the Trash, grab DesktopUtility for your menu bar. It’s a free and simple app that offers those four useful features directly in the menu bar, preventing you from using any command line tweaks or key combos to get these functions.

Download the app .dmg directly or check out the developer SweetPProductions page

The app runs in 10.6 too but it’s far more useful in 10.7 because of the new standard of hiding the ~/Library folder. I’m also getting a surprising amount of use out of quickly seeing hidden files, something that I don’t want enabled all the time.
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Do you miss the way Mail used to look, when you used to be able to see many more email messages all at once from the primary screen without scrolling around? As you probably know, Mail.app received a pretty significant makeover in Mac OS X Lion and that new default layout has stuck around in all versions of OS X ever since Mavericks and Yosemite included.

If you’re not a fan of the revised layout of Mail app, you can easily revert back to the classic Mail appearances original UI by doing the following.

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Apparently, you can do just about anything in an Apple Store and the employees don’t seem to mind.

To prove this point, a comedian set about pushing the limits of the Apple Stores unspoken “anything goes” policy, and goes about performing a variety of goofy endeavors within an Apple Store. Everything from hosting a date, ordering a pizza, dressing as Darth Vader, and finally, bringing a goat into the store.

Yes, you can bring a goat into the Apple store. Well, at least this guy did, and got away with it. Or it was allowed. Or nobody seemed to care.

Seriously, watch the video below. It’s quite amusing:

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Mac users can easily install and use the Lynx web browser in the Terminal. Lynx is a text based command line web browser, it’s relatively popular within unix communities but it also has a variety of general uses too; it’s great if you want to discretely browse the web and read articles at work or school, and developers use lynx frequently to test accessibility and to roughly estimate how spiders or crawlers view a website. Because it only loads text and avoids javascript and images, it’s also lightning fast.

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For those of you who aren’t running Mac OS X Lion yet, Apple has released a supplemental update to OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard that includes a variety of bug fixes for the OS and for moving to 10.7 Lion. Here are the brief release notes:

The Mac OS X 10.6.8 Supplemental Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and resolves issues with:

* Transferring personal data, settings, and compatible applications from a Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard to a new Mac running Mac OS X Lion

* Certain network printers that pause print jobs immediately and fail to complete

* System audio that stops working when using HDMI or optical audio out

You can get download the newest version through Software Update or from Apple’s website

iOS 4.3.5 has been released by Apple, the update includes a fix for a security vulnerability pertaining to certificate validations and is recommended for all iOS users – unless of course you rely on a jailbreak. iOS 4.3.5 is build 8L1 and supports iPhone 4 GSM, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen, a separate 4.2.10 release is available for iPhone 4 CDMA users.

You can get the latest iOS 4.3.5 update directly from software update within iTunes, or by downloading the firmware directly from Apple at the links below.
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The latest versions of Mac OS X bring a subtle new window animation, it’s so subtle that many people probably won’t even notice it, but it displays any time a new window is created. It’s better seen than described (the attached screenshot only captures so much), but basically the new window grows to full sized version out of a microscopic version of itself, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.
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Mac OS X includes many high quality voices for it’s text-to-speech abilities, they’re in a wide variety of languages and accents and are probably some of the best computer rendered voices out there.

But guess what? Many of these incredible voices are not installed by default on a Mac! Thankfully that’s easy to change, and we’ll show you exactly how to add new voices to the Mac.

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MacPorts 2.0 has been released, the new version includes full OS X 10.7 compatibility. For those who are unfamiliar, MacPorts is a popular package management utility used to easily install thousands of open-source applications and utilities for the command line, X11, and even some Aqua apps. Because MacPorts handles the retrieval and building of dependencies in addition to the bundle you are looking for, it’s easier than finding and compiling a variety of packages yourself.

To install MacPorts 2, you will also need to have downloaded XCode 4.1, which is now a free download from the Mac App Store for OS X Lion users.

Get MacPorts 2.0

You can read the 2.0 update page or just download the DMG directly. If you already have MacPorts installed you can just run the selfupdate command:
sudo port selfupdate
This will update whatever version you are currently running to 2.0.

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Apple has released a new iPad 2 commercial that follows closely in the same theme set by prior iPad 2 ads. The ad emphasizes the user and how they fit into the rapidly changing post-PC world that Apple has pioneered:

“We’ll never stop sharing our memories, or getting lost in a good book… We’ll always cook dinner and cheer for our favorite team… We’ll still go to meetings, make home movies, and learn new things… But how we do all this will never be the same.”

New Apple commercials seem to favor starting their airtime on Sunday nights and this one is no different. Be sure to note the minor reference to OS X Lion, courtesy of the Alphabet Fun app:
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The weekend is here, and there are quite a few people who haven’t installed Mac OS X Lion yet. Why wait? Now’s as good a time as any, so head over to the App Store and download Lion, and check out some of our recent OS X 10.7 info:

OS X Lion Upgrade and Installation Info

• Recommended steps when upgrading to OS X Lion – start here, but in summary you should check for system compatibility, backup your Mac, and then upgrade
• Install OS X Lion on more than one Mac – download Lion once and copy it to your other personal Macs, this is perfectly acceptable thanks to Lion’s generous personal licensing agreement
• Make an OS X Lion USB install drive – With an external USB drive you can perform a clean install or just upgrade with any compatible Mac. You can make a DVD too if that is your preference
• Check app compatibility with OS X Lion – PPC apps need not apply, here’s how to check your applications folder for any old apps that won’t work

Once you’re all up and running with the latest and greatest version of Mac OS X, don’t miss out on some general tricks and troubleshooting tips:
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If you need more storage capacity, these two top-rated Western Digital drives on sale from Amazon are great deals, they both have giant capacities of 3TB and 2TB respectively.

• 3 TB Western Digital WD Elements USB 2.0 External Hard Drive for $119.99
• 2 TB Western Digital WD Elements USB 2.0 External Hard Drive for $79.99

Free shipping is included from Amazon as usual.

These drives make for perfect Time Capsule expansions or Time Machine backups for any Mac, but are also great places to store your external media, iTunes library, and external iOS backups for anyone with constrained disk space like SSD users and MacBook Air owners.

Do you hate the way iCal looks in Mac OS X Lion? The leather interface of iCal looks like it’s right out of an iPad has definitely caused a split with users, people either love the way it looks or hate it with a passion. For the sake of this article, we’re going to assume you’re not a fan of the leather UI,

Replacing iCal’s Leather User Interface with Aluminum

To ditch the leather, you are going to replace the leather image files with aluminum versions:

• Download the iCal aluminum replacement files by clicking here and unzip them, place this directory in an easy to access location like your desktop
• Navigate to /Applications/ and find iCal
• Important: Make a copy of iCal by selecting the app and hitting Command+D to create “iCal Copy.app” – this is important because it allows you to revert the changes
• Right-click on the original iCal.app and select “Show Package Contents”
• Open “Contents” and then open “Resources”
• Drag all of the previously downloaded iCal aluminum UI replacement files into iCal’s “Resources” folder, replacing the contents (click ‘Apply to All’ and then select “Replace”)
• Launch iCal and enjoy your aluminum interface

I have tested this and it works flawlessly. Just remember to backup the original iCal app (it’s only 42mb) in case you ever want to change back to good old cowhide. Keep in mind that future iCal updates will probably overwrite your changes too.
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iOS 5 beta 4 was just released but the iPhone Dev Team works fast, already jailbreaking the latest beta. This continues to be a tethered jailbreak for all hardware, which includes the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen, and iPad 1. iPad 2 remains unsupported.

The jailbreak works like any other past version of redsn0w, and you’ll need to update to the iOS 5 beta IPSW through iTunes and not OTA.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.8b4

There are Mac OS X and Windows versions available:

• Download now (Mac)
• Download now (Windows)

Much like the other recent redsn0w releases, these iOS 5 beta jailbreaks are intended for use by Cydia developers and are not considered stable enough for wider use yet.

On the left is a MacBook Pro 15″ Core 2 Duo with an SSD, the center rotated Dell 22″ screen, and on the right is a Core i7 iMac 27″ decked out with 12GB of RAM. Maybe it’s could just Exposé but it looks like the menubar is still sideways on that vertically oriented Dell, doesn’t it? Nice Mac setup, regardless!

via Flickr

Apple has released iOS 5 beta 4 and is available for developers to download through the iOS Dev Center. The build comes in as 9A5274d and like the iOS 5 betas supports iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, and iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen.

Developers can grab the release on Dev Center, alongside iTunes 10.5 beta 4, and XCode 4.2 beta 4. As usual, the new iTunes beta is required to update to iOS 5 beta 4.

iOS 5 includes a ton of new and exciting features for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users, but won’t be released for public usage until Fall of this year.

Update: iOS 5 beta 4 can be received as an OTA (Over The Air) update from devices that are currently running iOS 5 beta 3. To access the OTA update, tap on Settings > General > Software Update

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion both hide the ~/Library directory by default, the reason likely being to prevent accidental deletion of critical files that are needed for apps to run. Since most Mac users don’t ever need to go into the Library folder, this isn’t terribly shocking, but for those of us who do require accessing our Library directories it can be a bit shocking to discover the directory is no longer instantly visible as it once was.

Fortunately, this is easy to reverse and if you wish you can switch the behavior and instead show Library all the time with a quick terminal command. This tutorial will detail four different ways to access the User Library folder in Mac OS X from Mt Lion and beyond.

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Updating to Mac OS X Lion for the vast majority of users is a painless experience and everything works great. But for others there can be trouble, there are various user reports in our comments and around the web on Apple’s Support forums and elsewhere, that suggest that wireless networking in OS X Lion is a bit more sensitive than Snow Leopard. This could be an issue that only occurs on some wireless cards, or some routers, or some combination of the two, but nonetheless we’ve found a few workarounds and fixes to resolve this annoyance.

Some of these tips are borrowed from our Mac wireless problems troubleshooting guide, which is an excellent resource with many more solutions and fixes if the following tips don’t work for you.

Basic WiFi Troubleshooting

First try out these tips, they’re basic but work in some cases:

• Turn wireless on & off – the first thing you should try, this alone fixes many cases of dropping wireless connections
• Reboot the Mac – this is the classic Windows troubleshooting tip, but if you haven’t rebooted since the first Lion boot, this can clear up some troubles too
• Reset the Router – just unplug the router for about 15 seconds and reconnect the power supply to cycle most routers, assuming it’s an issue with the router and how Lion is corresponding with it, this will fix the problem

More Advanced WiFi Troubleshooting Tips

Still dropping? The next set of tips pertain to the Network preferences, accessed through System Preferences > “Network”

Set a manual IP address with DHCP – if all else fails, use “DHCP with manual IP address” in Network > Advanced > TCP/IP settings. Pick an IP that is in range of the router, but out of range of conflict. For whatever reason, this has worked for years to resolve Mac OS X wireless problems with some routers
• Move Wi-Fi to the top of the Service Order list – This is an old tip that simply prioritizes WiFi as the primary method that your Mac should connect to the internet, and it seems to help maintain connections
• Move the primary router to the top of “Preferred Networks” list – this is accessed from the “Advanced” menu in Network settings. There is some speculation that if you are in range of multiple routers, the connection will juggle between the two causing WiFi to drop. Drag your primary router to the top of this list.
• Delete existing WiFi connections and re-add them – this is done by clicking on the ‘minus’ icon in the Network settings lower left corner, then just click on “+” and add a new WI-Fi connection
• Add an extra DNS entry – it’s not clear why this works, but many users report success with just adding an additional DNS address to the list. 8.8.8.8 is Google’s public DNS and is reliable
• Add a New Network Location – from the Network control panel, do the following:

• Pull down the ‘Location’ menu and navigate down to ‘Edit Locations’
• Click the + sign to add a new network Location
• Give it a name, click OK
• Select the “Network Name” (wireless router) and click Apply

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