I recently published a guide on how to disable the Apple Remote Control, and one of our readers wrote in with a good prank that demonstrates why you’d want to turn off the remote or at least pair one to your specific Mac:

Want to know why you should turn off the Apple Remote? Try this: grab an Apple Remote Control and head to a place with a lot of Macs in a single room, like a school library, coffee shop, etc. Now aim the Apple remote in the direction of the Macs and start pressing buttons. Since most users never disable the remote, you can basically hijack their computer as Mac OS X will begin to launch Front Row. Just keep hitting play and you’ll end up activating their iTunes media, start playing songs, videos, etc, all from the remote. People end up dumbfounded as their computer suddenly has a life of it’s own. The only defense against this prank? Pair or turn off the remote.

I tried this out with my MacBook Pro next to a few others, and without pairing the remote this does work exactly as suggested, all machines will launch Front Row in unison, which can then play your iTunes media library. If you repeatedly hit “play” you’ll access whatever movie is at the top of their Movies playlist or directory. This is definitely an amusing prank albeit a very annoying one if you’re on the receiving end of it.

Another one of our readers mentions that in his IT group they disable the feature because “anything that can launch programs without strict user approval needs to be turned off”, suggesting the remote could be a potential security risk.

So now that we’ve had our fun, unless you use the remote for a Mac media center (in which case you should pair it), you might want to disable the thing.

Any time that you are away from your computer, it’s a good idea to lock the screen. This provides a level of privacy and security to the Mac that is very easy to use and implement and it should be considered a must-use trick, particularly for anyone working in public spaces, offices, schools, or anywhere else that there is potential of an outside party accessing the computer. The fastest way to lock the screen of any Mac OS X computer is to use a simple keyboard shortcut.

We’ll walk through exactly how to set up the lock screen feature and show you the keystrokes to use to instantly lock the Mac, thereby requiring a password to be entered before the machine can be used again.

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If you’ve ever wondered what your spending habits and expenses on the iTunes App Store have been, check out this free app from iOS developer WetFish. Appropriately named App Store Expense Monitor keeps a tab on all your iTunes App Store downloads and purchases and gathers them in an easy to sort app, the expenses can then be exported as either a CSV file or XML file for use elsewhere.

The only flaw I’ve found is that it doesn’t accurately capture all app purchases, in particular if you got an app during a special promotion either at discount or free. The reason for this likely being that the Mac OS X app gathers iPhone purchase data from your iTunes folder rather than your iTunes account. For my iTunes purchases, it labeled some free apps as purchased, and some purchased apps as free, but I also have gone through several different Mac OS X installations with this iPhone so I’m not terribly surprised that not all of the data is accurate since it’s pulling the information from the local iTunes directory. App Store Expense Monitor does let you edit the price data manually though, so if you want to correct the information it’s easy to do.

Despite it’s few flaws, the app is still useful, so if you need a way to track your App Store purchases, the App Store Expense Monitor gets the job done. You can grab it for free from WetFish Software.

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs is going on medical leave for an undetermined amount of time. Here is the email that Steve sent to his fellow Apple employees regarding the matter:

Team,

At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.

I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.

Steve

It should be noted that Steve Jobs took a similar medical leave in January of 2009 before returning to Apple roughly 6 months later.

Get well soon Steve!

FaceTime is the video chat protocol available to Mac users in OS X as well as iOS for iPhone and iPad, and it works great to beam images from one camera to another device over the internet. One lesser known feature that is hidden from the general usage of the Mac FaceTime app however is the ability to set FaceTime to automatically accept FaceTime calls from a specific contact, which is what we’re going to cover here.

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When an update is available for any Mac app that has been installed through the Mac App Store, you will notice the App Store icon in Mac OS X gets a numerical badge on it, indicating the number of software updates available. Additionally, you will notice the the App Store entry within the  Apple menu will show an “Updates” note alongside it.

If the App Store is indicating there are updates available, that means it’s time to install those software updates on the Mac. This is an easy process, but if you’re new to the Mac it may be unfamiliar to you.

Let’s walk through how to update apps installed onto the Mac via the App Store.

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There are so many iPad 2 rumors floating around right now that they’re barely worth paying attention to, but here’s one that actually has a shred of evidence to back it up: the possible iPad 2 pricing structure.

Best Buy temporarily added, and has since removed, three unspecified iPad models and SKU placeholders into their inventory, with the prices ranging from $599 to $699. Everyone is speculating here, but it’s entirely possible that this will be the pricing structure of the next iPad, although having two $599 models does not make a lot of sense.

Perhaps Best Buy had a typo and intended to put $499 or even $799? Is $599 the new base model price for iPad 2? Maybe these SKU’s mean nothing? Whatever the case, I hope a $499 iPad sticks around, it’s a good price point.

If you forgot your iPhone passcode you can bypass the lock screen completely and reset the passcode by using iPhone recovery mode. This will get around a locked down iOS device that is stuck on the password screen, but there are some important considerations to take before proceeding.

We’ll cover the requirements, the considerations, and exactly how to reset a forgotten or lost passcode for any iOS device.

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The Apple Remote Control used to be bundled with all new Macs, but unless the remote is paired specifically to your Mac a single remote can control multiple Macs at the same time. This is annoying if you’re trying to control a single Mac with the remote and suddenly FrontRow is activated on all other infrared capable Mac OS X machines in the room.

There’s two solutions to this problem, one is to pair the remote to a machine, and the other is to disable the Apple Remote Control from activating a Mac completely.

Turn Off the Mac Remote Control

This will disable any remote control from working in Mac OS X:

• Launch System Preferences
• Click on the “Security” control panel
• Click on the lock icon in the lower left corner and enter your Admin password
• Select the checkbox next to “Disable remote control infrared receiver”
• Close System Preferences

As you can see in the screenshot below, you can also select to “Pair” the remote which will cause only the paired remote to work with its paired Mac, but I think it’s easier to just disable the IR receiver on Macs where you don’t use the remote. I get the feeling not many Mac users use the remote controls anyway, which is probably why Apple stopped bundling them with new Mac purchases.

Check out some more Mac tips and tricks too.

I just came across this picture on Flickr and I think it’s a cool tribute to all the years of the Apple mouse. It’s missing the latest creations like the Magic Trackpad and the Magic Mouse but it still shows the evolution of hardware pretty well. Great picture!

The Twitter for Mac client has a great feature that lets you send tweets from just about anywhere in Mac OS X, including the Finder. I’ve tested this out in the Mac OS X Finder, iTunes, Chrome, Safari, iChat, TextEdit, Terminal, and can confirm that this works all over the place.

To access the ‘Tweet’ from anywhere function:

• Highlight some text in Mac OS X
• Right-click on the highlighted text
• Select “Tweet” from the pop-up menu

This will automatically send the highlighted text to the Twitter app in Mac OS X.

I saw the headline on MacStories and low and behold, it works as advertised.

Twitter for Mac is a free download on the App Store (direct link), it’s arguably the best Twitter client for Mac and well worth installing.

You can turn off the internal MacBook Pro screen and still use the computer as long as it’s hooked up to an external display, and no you don’t have to use it in clamshell mode to achieve this.

Here are two ways to keep your Mac laptop with the lid open but the internal display turned off:

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Apple was recently awarded a patent for solar powered portable devices, which could pave the way for Macs, iPhones, and iPads running on a solar supplemented power source. The patent, which is Apple’s first to relate to solar powered portable devices, shows an unspecified “Portable Device” that has a standard battery which is augmented by an auxiliary power source, in this case solar power cells.

PatentlyApple says the patent “pertains to all portables from MacBooks to the iPhone” and “presents methods of adding solar power into the power mix of portables via a voltage converter”. They describe Apple’s patent and solution as follows:

Apple’s solution includes techniques for operating devices with solar power. In one aspect of the invention, apparatus for operating a portable electronic device with solar power includes, but is not limited to, a voltage converter and a controller coupled to the voltage converter. The voltage converter includes an input capable of being coupled to a solar power source and an output capable of being coupled to an electronic load, such as, for example, a portable electronic device. The voltage converter is configured to monitor or detect an amount of power drawn by the electronic load at the output of the voltage converter. In response to the monitored power drawn, the controller is configured to control the voltage converter to adjust further output power provided to the electronic load. As a result, the output voltage from the solar power source is maintained within a predetermined range.

The patent and it’s accompanying schematics were uncovered by PatentlyApple, which has a knack for digging up interesting Apple patents. You can check out their site for more technical details and additional schematics.

If you’re a fan of the retro picture apps that have invaded the iPhone, you’ll probably like this sticker which makes your iPhone look like an old Polaroid camera. Stick this on the back of your iPhone 4 and pair it with Instagram or Hipstamatic and you can pretend you’re in the 70’s while you upload pictures to Facebook all day long.

While this isn’t necessarily the funniest iPhone decal, it will certainly appeal to some.

You can get one of these on PhotoJoJo for $6 plus shipping and handling

If you can’t get enough of the Polaroid/retro picture trend, there’s also free Mac & Windows software that lets you make Polaroid pictures with a bunch of your existing images too.

Want to update Mac OS software from the Terminal? You can check for available updates, ignore packages, and install any or all Mac OS X Software Updates directly from the command line.

To see what updates are available for a Mac, or to install a software update from the Terminal of Mac OS X, amongst many other options including how to ignore particular updates, you’ll use the ‘softwareupdate’ command line tool as we’ll instruct below.

Read on to learn about using the command line software update utility on the Mac.

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iOS 4.3 beta 1 includes a software option to toggle the functionality of the iPad side switch from either a Mute button or to serve as an Orientation lock.

The adjustable option is found under “Settings” > “General” where you will find “Use Side Switch to:” which can now be set to either “Lock Rotation” or “Mute.”

This should be good news to many iPad users. The iPad orientation lock has become a heated issue for many users when they discovered that the iOS 4.2 update changed the orientation lock to a mute button, without jailbreaking there was no way to change it back until now.

The public release of iOS 4.3 is expected to arrive in March.

Apple has just released the first iOS 4.3 beta as build 8F5148b for the iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen, and Apple TV. Noticeably absent from the iOS 4.3 beta IPSW list are the iPhone 3G and iPod touch 1st and 2nd gen models, suggesting that Apple will no longer support the older iOS hardware.

iOS 4.3 is confirmed to bring the wireless Personal Hotspot to iPhone, although it is still unknown whether AT&T will support this feature.

If you are in the iOS development program, you can get immediate access to the iOS 4.3 beta by going to the iOS Dev Center .

Angry Birds for Mac has just been updated to include support for older MacBooks, iMacs, and Mac Minis with the Intel GMA 950 graphics card.

Users who already bought Angry Birds from the Mac App Store will find the new version in your Updates list, otherwise new users can buy the game from the App Store (direct link). If you do not need the fix, it will not appear in the App Store Updates list.

Prior to this Angry Birds update, anyone using the older GMA950 Intel video card was unable to launch the game, which led to a series of one-star ratings on the App Store from frustrated users. Hopefully this will resolve all those complaints, because Angry Birds is really fun and makes a great desktop game, I’d recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.