Spotify, the extraordinarily popular streaming music service that took Europe by storm, has just launched in the USA. Currently it’s open by invite-only, but no big deal, we have a handful of invites to give away, so here’s how to get in the drawing.

Enter to Win a Spotify Invite from Us!

Here’s all you need to do to enter:

1. Follow @osxdaily on Twitter (if you don’t follow us we can’t direct message you an invite)
2. Tweet the following: “I want a @Spotify Invite from @osxdaily because ______” (give any reason you want a Spotify invite)

We will select winners at random and we’re going to give them all away today by 8pm PST, so hurry up if you want a chance. The drawing is only open to US residents, because the codes only work for US residents and EU residents already have Spotify anyway.

Update: Check your Direct Messages on Twitter, we’ve sent out a ton of invites. Stay tuned, if we have any more we’ll send those out too!

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Despite the fact that today is (was) the speculative launch day, OS X Lion has yet to appear. Nevermind that though, the good news is that Apple is rapidly accepting Lion-ready apps to the Mac App Store, indicating that a launch will be very soon.

If you’ve been following along here, we pointed out earlier in the week that Apple had just recently began accepting Lion apps to be reviewed for the Mac App Store, which cast some doubt on a launch this week. Additionally, we cited AppleInsider who suggested that Lion was pushed back to the “week of July 21st” due to some last minute security issues, and separately, we’d also been hearing that Lion would be launched next week, but the reliability of those sources has yet to be determined (no offense people) so just take that info with a grain of salt. Here’s what we said, which also touches on what “Lion-ready” means for OS X apps:

Independently, we have heard chatter of a July 19th or July 22 launch for Lion, but like all other claims on a specific launch date, they appear to be mostly speculative. The only certainty is that Apple appears to maintain a fluid timeline for the Lion release, but putting the launch off a week or two would give Apple plenty of time to approve Lion-compatible apps for the Mac App Store. Among other things, Lion compatibility means 64-bit architecture and also generally includes support for Lion-specific features like Versions and Full Screen apps.

As you can see in the screenshot above from the app WordCrasher, some of the Lion-ready apps on the Mac App Store specifically point out support for fullscreen mode, Resume, and Versions.

For it’s part, Apple has thus far announced simply that Lion will be released in July on the Mac App Store, but has yet to provide a specific day when 10.7 would be widely available.

Update: In addition to WordCrasher, BusyCal, Cruz, Pilot eLog, Harmony Worship, ShortCuts, SwordSoft Layout, and many more have also been added to the App Store with Lion support.

Need to know exactly when your Mac was last booted, put to sleep, or woke from sleep? You can get precise information about boot and sleep times directly from the command line, which can be invaluable for anything from troubleshooting various Mac problems to scheduling scripts, or even for your own forensic purposes to determine when a computer was last used.

Each of these command strings requires input into the Terminal, that application can be found in /Applications/Utilities/ or launched from Spotlight or Launchpad. We’ll assume you have some experience with the command line, though copying and pasting the command strings will work just fine.

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Clicking-and-holding on an app icon in Mac OS X LaunchPad activates the jiggle, but you can also hold down the Option key to immediately start the jiggle.

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Another method to install Mac OS X Lion on other personal machines is by using Target Disk Mode, this allows you to use one Mac as the installation drive to install OS X 10.7 directly to another Mac via Firewire or Thunderbolt. This is fast, prevents redownloading which saves bandwidth, and works flawlessly. This tip was sent in by Randy, so a huge thanks to him for the tip and accompanying screenshots.

Quick note: Personally I find it easier to create and use a Lion install USB drive or even a home-made Lion installation DVD, if you have access to a USB key or DVD burner those would be my recommended methods. That isn’t viable for everyone though, so this article will show you exactly how you would install OS X Lion on another Mac using Target Disk Mode only.

Requirements:
Before getting started, be sure to have the following.

• At least two Macs – one to serve as the installer, and the recipient Mac where Lion is going to be installed on
• All Macs must have FireWire and/or ThunderBolt and support Target Disk Mode, as well as the accompany cable to directly connect two Macs:

• FireWire to FireWire cable
• Thunderbolt cable

Confirm that you meet all the requirements, and then let’s begin partitioning a hard drive so it can serve as a Lion installer for other local Macs.

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If you just got a RAM upgrade and you want to test the memory, or if you just want a great free addition to a Mac troubleshooting toolbox, download Rember now.

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We showed you how to display the CPU temperature in your Mac OS X menu bar, but what about showing the real temperature outdoors? A little free app called Meteorologist does just that, sitting in your menubar and giving you weather updates on the locations you specify.

Meteorologist puts a tracked locations temperature along with a little icon to demonstrate the current weather right in the menu bar. When you click on the menu item, a full menu displays that allows you to track multiple locations weather, the forecast, highs and lows, humidity, pressure, UV index, visibility, humidity, wind speed and direction, and even the sun and moon rising and setting times. If you want to see radar information that’s available too, what you see and what you don’t is customizable.

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Apple has sent registered Mac OS X developers an email requesting submissions for Lion apps. In the email, Apple says that OS X Lion “will soon be available” and requests that developers use the newly released XCode 4.1 GM build to submit their Lion compatible apps:

OS X Lion, the eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system, will soon be available to millions of Mac users around the world. Submit your Lion apps for review now so they can be on the Mac App Store when Lion ships this month.

Be sure to build, test, and compile your apps using Mac OS X Lion GM Seed and Xcode 4.1 for Lion GM seed prior to uploading your binary to iTunes Connect.

If Apple is just now starting to accept Lion apps, that email could indicate that OS X Lion will not be released this Thursday as originally anticipated, but instead slightly later in the month.

Giving more weight to a later launch is AppleInsider. Indicating that a backlit keyboard equipped MacBook Air would be launched during the “week of July 21st” and that Lion may have been delayed due to some “last minute security issues”, AppleInsider also notes that Friday’s are a historically favored launch day for Mac OS X releases:
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If you present or create screen casts with any regularity, you probably know that being able to clearly show the cursor can make a huge difference in the audiences ability to follow what you are doing on screen. This is especially true for product demonstrations and high resolution screens shown by projectors, where a tiny cursor can easily get lost.

Whether you are using QuickTime’s Screen Recorder or demoing new software to a group, here are three ways to make the Mac OS X cursor more visible for a presentation, two are free and one is a paid but professional solution.

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The iPhone Dev Team has released a new version of redsn0w to properly jailbreak iOS 5 beta 3. Previous versions of redsn0w apparently worked to jailbreak the latest iOS beta, but caused a bug where all App Store apps would not launch, this is what Redsn0w 0.9.8b2 fixes.

If you already jailbroke iOS 5b3 with the prior version of redsn0w, you can just use this updated version to perform a tethered boot which resolves the problem. Otherwise, if you are new to jailbreaking iOS 5 beta 3, then just point this new version of redsn0w at the latest 5.0b3 IPSW file.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.8b2

Note: this does not activate an iPhone, you will still need a registered UDID with Apple.

• Download Now (Mac)
• Download Now (Windows)

This version of redsn0w only works on iOS 5 beta 3 on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 GSM & CDMA, iPod touch 3rd & 4th gen, and iPad 1. iPad 2 support is lacking. The jailbreak is tethered, meaning you must connect it to a computer on each reboot. This is not intended for wide consumption, but mostly for Cydia app developers.

iOS 5 will finally bring iPhone users the ability to customize their text message alert sounds. Yes, customize, as in your own user created text tones the same way the ringtone maker in iTunes 10 works. You’ll no longer be forced to select from the limited Apple default offerings or hear the barrage of Tri-Tone ever again, the world of audio is open to SMS alerts.

This may seem like a relatively minor feature, but it’s been long anticipated and highly desired by nearly everyone with an iPhone. Yet another reason for developers to download iOS 5 beta 3 now and for the rest of the world to be excited about the public fall release of iOS 5… just a few more months away.

Customized text tones were discovered in Beta 3 by TechCrunch, whose picture shows a generic custom .m4r ringtone file set as a text tone. Prior to this version of iOS 5, users were forced to use jailbreak tweaks to access custom SMS alert sounds.

If you want to keep an eye on your Mac’s CPU temperature, you can choose between two different apps to display the temperature right in your menu bar. If you’re running Mac OS X 10.6.8 or lower, both apps are free, but if you’re on Lion then you’ll have to pay for one of the options.

You’ll see that both of these apps do a lot more than just display CPU temperature, they detect and display all internal temperatures including battery, various locations on the enclosure, the heat sink, hard drive, and each CPU core. We’re going to mostly ignore that though and aim for CPU temps.

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Apple has a good sense of humor and doesn’t mind picking on themselves and their legendary secrecy. The t-shirt is available for purchase exclusively at Apple’s Company Store in Cupertino California, the message is:

“I visited the Apple campus.
But that’s all I’m allowed to say.”

You’ve always been able to buy Apple t-shirts and gear at the Company Store, but this looks like a new addition for 2011. The Apple Company Store is located at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino California, it even has its own website, but you can’t order anything online, so if you want one of these you’ll have to make the trip yourself.

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Apple has released iOS 5 beta 3 for developers to download, the build comes as 9A5259f and supports iPad 2, iPad, iPhone 4 GSM & CDMA, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch 3rd & 4th generations. Apple TV2 has received a separate update, however it is still not considered iOS 5.

Alongside the latest iOS 5 beta comes a new version of iTunes 10.5 at beta 3, which seems to be required to sync iTunes with your iOS 5 beta 3 devices.

You can download the latest beta directly from iOS Dev Center, as usual you will need an active developer ID to access the files.

Using GeekTool and lsof, you can display an automatically updated list of open network connections directly on a Mac OS X desktop. This is tip is a “safe” alternative to the previously mentioned open_ports utility.

The problem with installing and using open_ports is that it is a third party script running as root, and for many users that is unacceptable. Here is a method that is native to Mac OS X and doesn’t even require root access to watch network connections:

First, if you want to discard the GeekTool portion and just get a quick look at open connections, you can quickly list all open network connections with:
lsof -i | grep -E "(LISTEN|ESTABLISHED)"

You could also combine this with the ‘watch’ utility and just keep an eye on open connections in a terminal window.

That portion of the tip has been covered here before regarding lsof, but the next part is geared specifically for GeekTool because it allows a constantly refreshed list of active connections to overlay against your desktop background picture.
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You can watch all open network connections for both incoming and outgoing transfers using a free command line utility called open_ports.sh. Open_Ports is much more useful than using lsof to list open internet connectionsbecause it provides extensive network information in a very easy to read format, including what program or process is opening the connection, which port and user, the number of connections per process, the hostname being connected to, the country, and even the city.

Additionally, open_ports shows you all of your open ports listening for connections, again with information about the application, user, port number and name, and even the service IP range. All of the output is color coded, a red background signifies the process is owned by root, red text means the IP address doesn’t correspond to a domain name, blue means the IP matches several domain names, and green text means the protocol is encrypted.

Installation requires some experience with the command line, but chances are if you want an application like this then that won’t be an issue. Here we go…
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Most lefties have adapted to the righty-centric world of computing, but this isn’t necessary on a Mac. The Apple Magic Mouse, Apple wireless mouse, wired mouses, trackpad, and even most 3rd party mice have a symmetrical shape, so those that are left handed just need to adjust a few settings in Mac OS X to get the mouse on their dominant side.

We’ll show you how to change the mouse button to be left handed in Mac OS X, and also how to change the trackpad behavior to be for left handed people too.

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This Mac setup has all you need and is checking out none other than OSXDaily.com: a MacBook Pro 15″ with matte anti-glare display sits atop a Griffin Elevator Stand while connected to an Apple Cinema Display, an iPad sits to the right, and there are two iPhones rounding it out.

This is a nice clean desk setup, and the Magic Trackpad and MagicMouse ensure the MacBook Pro is ready for Lion and the new multitouch gestures.

Thanks for sending this in JW!