Updated 5/9/2012: If you don’t have a credit card you can still create an iTunes account. Effectively this is creating a free iTunes account, with access to download all the great free apps and other free content from the App Store.

Setup iTunes Account Without a Credit Card

This is the process to create an iTunes account with no credit card for payment:

• Log out of any existing iTunes accounts
• Launch the App Store from iTunes or by clicking a link to a free app
• Find and select a free app (Remote is a free app from Apple, for example)
• Click on “Free App” to purchase the free app
• Click on “Create New Account”
• Click on Continue and create a new account as per the directions
• You’ll soon see a Payment Options menu, select “None”
• Verify the newly created account with the email address you provided
• Your new iTunes account has been created – with no credit card!

The process is the same from your iPhone or iPod/iPad too, just go through the processes of creating a new account and just be sure to select “None” as the payment option.

As stated before, the account can download any free content, but will be prompted for a credit card if an app costs money. This is a great iTunes solution to provide children with, giving them access to all of the freebies on the App Store, but avoiding any potentially high credit card bills.

Dota fans will be excited to hear this one; Dota 2 is coming as it’s own independent game on the Mac and PC platforms in 2011, and it will be distributed through Steam.

The press release from Valve is brief:

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Dota 2, a massive sequel for one of the most played games in the world.

Coming to the PC & Mac in 2011, Dota 2 promises to take the unique blend of online RTS and RPG action that has made Dota popular with tens of millions of gamers and expand upon it in every way.

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New and old technology rarely work well together. In this case, not just the old, but the real old, the Apple II is pre-Macintosh hardware at it’s finest. If the urge to geek around with old Apple hardware ever strikes your fancy, you can use an app called ADT Pro that lets you transfer disk images to an Apple II from a computer in the modern world:

Apple Disk Transfer ProDOS (ADTPro) transfers diskettes and disk images between Apple II-era computers and the modern world. If you’re familiar with the original ADT, ADTPro extends ADT’s reach by working with more disk formats, drive types, communications devices, and host operating systems.

There is a host (server) component that runs on modern computers with Java, and an Apple (client) component that runs on any Apple II or Apple /// compatible computer with at least 64k of memory

The data is transferred either through a serial card, the II’s modem port, the serial port, an ethernet card, or the cassette port (? didn’t know about this one).

ADT Pro is open source and can be downloaded freely at the ADT Pro project page

You can see ADT Pro in action with the above picture, where a MacBook Pro is transferring disk images to an Apple IIe. This picture was found on Flickr, and probably deserves it’s own post in our Mac Setups section.

What’s your machines record uptime? Uptime is the amount of days since the last reboot or boot up, and this can vary widely per user and per computer. I have an old MacBook that I use as a server of sorts, and as a third screen when working from home. I realized I hadn’t rebooted the machine in a while when I went to check Software Update, so like any geek I went to the Terminal to check system uptime.

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This is one awesome Mac setup: A 24″ iMac hooked up to an external monitor, alongside another 30″ external monitor being powered by a 15″ MacBook Pro… and don’t forget the two iPhone’s and iPad. Definitely an amazing workstation, I’d just be a little nervous with that iMac so close to the edge of the desk! All of this belongs to CS grad student Yutaka Tsutano, who had this to say about the setup:

This is my recent setup optimized for doing my research. I mainly use OS X, but I also run Windows for embedded system programming and Linux for running Simics VM. All of them are virtualized within VMWare Fusion.

In the photo, there are four screens but are actually only two Macs on the 72-inch wide desk. I found this setting to be useful because it’s portable and the load can be balanced between the two. There are several other computers in my room for server and simulation purposes.

All the computers are synchronized using Unison, and controlled by a single set of keyboard and mouse using Synergy. I modified the source code of Synergy so that it supports Magic Mouse perfectly (the original version uses some deprecated APIs which doesn’t support pixel-based scrolling).

[ via Flickr ]

You can easily convert any WAV file to MP3 format by using one of two free methods we’ll detail below, both are simple and fast. The first trick uses iTunes, and the second tip uses a utility called All2MP3 to handle the audio file conversion.

iTunes is ubiquitous and cross-platform with Windows and Mac OS X support, and will handle the conversions easily, or you can go with the free download called All2MP3 that will convert the audio too. We’ll cover the two methods of wav audio file conversion and you can choose whichever is most relevant to your situation.

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Did you know iTunes can find missing Album Artwork for you? If you have ripped your own CD’s or downloaded music from around the web, it’s not uncommon for songs to be missing album art.

But worry not, you can spruce up the appearance of your iTunes music collection by using an excellent feature that retrieves album art automatically. It’s quite simple and works the same in iTunes on Mac and Windows. Read on to discover how to get album art to fill in your iTunes music collection.

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AutoCAD for Mac is now available. AutoCAD brings powerful design and drafting tools to the Mac platform, and promises full compatibility with the Windows version as well.

Anyone can download a free 30 day trial of the software at AutoDesk’s Mac site, purchasing the software comes at the retail price of $3,995.

AutoCAD for Free

If you’re a student or educator, you can get AutoCAD for free. Visit the AutoDesk Student & Educator site to get the free download. This is extremely generous considering the high retail price, so if you can take advantage of this free version you should.

AutoCAD for Mac System Requirements

The Mac system requirements are as follows:

• 64-bit Intel® processor
• 3 GB of RAM (4 GB recommended)
• 2.5 GB free disk space for download and installation (3 GB recommended)
• All graphics cards on supported hardware
• 1,280 x 800 display with true color (1,600 x 1,200 with true color recommended)

As with most software, the better and newer your Mac the better the performance will be.

Logic Studio (formerly Logic or Logic Pro) is a professional award winning application suite that lets you write, record, edit, and mix music directly on a Mac. It’s incredibly powerful and is widely credited by many mainstream artists as helping them create music, and it has also lowered the barrier of entry for musicians to produce studio quality music without the huge studio bills. Think of it as GarageBand on super steroids.

Like any other powerful application, there’s typically a learning curve to come along with it, so wouldn’t it be nice to have some free tutorials for Logic to learn to use the app?
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Halloween is just around the corner, why not show your Apple love and carve an Apple pumpkin? You won’t need much except some patience and an Apple Logo to use as a stencil, but we’ve got you covered.

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Alright World of Warcraft fans, the latest expansion is coming very soon. Blizzard has announced that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be released on December 7 of this year. At a cost of $39.99, you will be able to download the game expansion through the Blizzard store or buy a DVD that is Windows and Mac compatible.

The Blizzard CEO had this to say on the upcoming expansion pack:

“Cataclysm includes the best content we’ve ever created for World of Warcraft. It’s not just an expansion, but a re-creation of much of the original Azeroth, complete with epic new high-level adventures for current players and a redesigned leveling experience for those just starting out,”

In other words, you’ll be glued to your computer for even longer than with previous expansions.

Blizzard makes great games, there’s no doubt about it. To top it off, I’m always thrilled that Blizzard has been so committed to offering a Mac release alongside Windows releases of their games. This has been the case since Warcraft 2 as far as I know. Most recently, the Starcraft 2 Mac client was released and, although it’s had some performance issues, it’s otherwise a great gaming experience. If you haven’t picked it up yet, you can buy Starcraft 2 for cheap through Amazon, which offers a 17% discount on the game.

Limera1n for Mac has just been released to download, making it the latest jailbreak for the Mac OS X platform. Limera1n works to jailbreak iOS 4.1 on the iPhone 4 iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 3G and 4G. It also works on the iPad running iOS 3.2.2.

You can get the Mac download of Limera1n right now by clicking here, the download link is directly from the developers website.

Using the Limera1n jailbreak is pretty easy, just follow the instructions in the app or learn how to jailbreak iPhone 4 with limera1n on our site. The process is practically identical for Mac OS X and Windows, and a Linux version is expected to be released soon.

Update: Apple provided a sneak peak and release date for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. It’ll be available Summer 2011, and many of the predictions below proved accurate. You can see screenshots and features of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or read on for our pre-preview speculation.

The tech world is abuzz about the “Back to the Mac” Apple event scheduled for next week. Apple’s lips are tight as usual, and all we know is that Apple will give us a look at the new version of Mac OS X.

11 Possibilities for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

In no particular order, here are a few ideas that are possible for Mac OS X 10.7:

• Mac OS X 10.7 Lion – the name is still pure speculation, but based on the Lion face peaking out from behind the logo, this is somewhat obvious. Plus, it has a better ring to it than Mac OS X Ceiling Cat.
• iChat + FaceTime – this is a no brainer update, since you can now use FaceTime on an iPod touch via email addresses to initiate a FaceTime call, it’s inevitable it will come to Mac OS X
• Mac App Store – with the success of the iOS App Store, why not bring one to Mac OS X apps? It would be a mistake to make the App Store the only way to install apps on a Mac, but having a central shopping and download location for all Mac software would be a big hit.
• Stronger Multi-Touch Integration – Between the Magic Trackpad and Apple’s wild success with the touch based iOS, we’ll likely get stronger multi-touch support in upcoming versions of Mac OS X. Whether or not this is full on iOS integration, who knows – but probably not yet.
• iOS replaces Dashboard – Dashboard is fun to check your local weather, but beyond that it doesn’t get a lot of use. Apple already filed for patents to incorporate iOS into Mac OS X in an iMac Touch, and replacing Dashboard with an iOS layer makes a lot of sense. It’s likely inevitable, but will we see it in the next version of Mac OS X?
• Cloud Support – whether this is storing media in the cloud, syncing data between your Mac and iOS device from anywhere, the aforementioned Mac App Store, or something entirely different, who knows. Based on the job listing posted earlier in the year about a ‘revolutionary feature’ though, Apple is almost certainly looking at incorporating cloud computing and storage into an upcoming Mac OS X version. Will it be in 10.7? Who knows.
• Updated Finder – perhaps we’ll see tabbed Finder windows, icons built for high resolution (retina for Mac?) displays, automatic file tagging and sorting, and other advanced file management features.
• Updated Dock – the Dock is a great feature of Mac OS X but it could use improvement, with things like Stacks Fan view becoming scrollable, and maybe better window management and previews.
• New GUI – we’ll likely see an updated (or at least unified) GUI, to what extent it will be different is anyones guess. My assumption is that it will be refinements but we’ll be keeping close to the existing Mac OS X interface
• Real NTFS Support – Yes, Snow Leopard can mount NTFS volumes with read/write support but it’s not enabled by default and not officially supported. Because of this, NTFS support in Mac OS X is relegated to third party developers and the open source community. True native NTFS read and write support is essential to Mac OS X behaving well in a Windows world, so this is pretty likely feature.
• Advanced AirPlay Support – AirPlay looks to have a very promising future for all of Apple’s products, it would make a lot of sense for stronger AirPlay support to exist in Mac OS X. Why limit the protocol to music and video? Why not let your Mac applications export to things like a projector, TV, or iOS device via AirPlay too

What we know about Mac OS X 10.7

So speculation is fine and dandy, but what do we know about Mac OS X 10.7 Lion? Update: Check out Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Features and Screenshots. Well, nothing really. It’s been showing up in server logs for well over a year, but beyond John Gruber saying the release was delayed, nobody knows anything. Anyone that tells you otherwise is full of it, Apple has an amazingly tight shroud of secrecy around the Mac OS update and virtually nothing has been leaked.

Stay tuned, we’ll know much more next week.

If you had any doubts that Apple and Verizon were working together, this should quiet them. Verizon will begin offering the iPad in their stores starting on October 28. The iPad model offered will be the WiFi model, but each iPad will be bundled with a Verizon MiFi mobile hotspot to insure wireless data coverage.

The Verizon iPad prices will be as follows:

• iPad 16GB with MiFi hotspot: $629.99
• iPad 32GB with MiFi hotspot: $729.99
• iPad 64GB with MiFi hotspot: $829.99

The MiFi hotspot plans will start at $20 a month for 1GB of data usage, there will be no contract required so you can effectively get the same month-to-month data use that you currently get with the iPad 3G data plans through AT&T.

This looks like another sign that the Verizon iPhone release date is approaching quickly, and perhaps the next iPad will be CDMA compatible as well, eliminating the need for the MiFi hotspot.

Verizon iPad release date: October 28 – confirmed through Verizon

Verizon iPhone release date: early 2011?

I recently discussed the Apple Store Pay scale for several positions within Apple’s retail stores. It is my opinion that if you are highly knowledgeable with Apple, to the point of being a developer, you should aim to be an engineer and skip the Apple Store completely.

Some of the best salaries working for Apple come from their software engineers. Being a developer for Apple Corporate has an average salary of $99,160, and the range is from $74,000 to $135,000 a year, as reported by Apple employees to GlassDoor.

The other thing to consider is that if you’re skilled enough to work for Apple directly as a software engineer, you might be skilled enough to work for yourself too. Independent iOS and Objective C Developers are in increasingly high demand which has led to high iPhone & iPad app development costs, which translates into a higher wage for yourself.

Working for Apple is no easy task as the company grows in popularity the demand for their jobs gains strength, and they reportedly have some of the more competitive hiring processes in the industry. Whether you aim to go corporate or go it alone, the high salaries and iPhone development rates make studying up on iOS development certainly pay off.

How’d you like to get notifications from your Android phone onto your desktop Mac or Windows PC?

This cool little utility will notify you of incoming SMS’s, phone calls, and battery notifications, right on your desktop. The app installs on your Android and also on your desktop PC and communicates through Bluetooth, it’s fully multi-platform compatible so it will work in Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

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Apple is holding a media event on Wednesday, October 20 titled “Back to the Mac.” The details are as vague as usual, but the image sent out is causing loads of speculation thanks to a lion peeking out from behind an Apple logo. Maybe this will be our first look at Mac OS X 10.7? Maybe we’ll get new Macs? Maybe both? We’ll find out in a week!

Updates: Speculation around the web continues to suggest this will be the official unveiling/preview of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which must be codenamed Lion at this point, judging by the lion in the picture (we’re all Sherlock Holmes at this point).

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: Touch Support and iOS Integration?

The lion and Apple logo appear to be on a Magic Touchpad or similar surface (see below image), suggesting that Mac OS X 10.7 will have touch-features that have been speculated to exist with future incarnations of an iMac touch, MacBook touch, both with Mac OS X + iOS integration.
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Did you know iPhone 4 and iOS 4 allows you to display white on black text, and reversing the on screen colors?

You can invert the display of the iPhone 4 much like you can on a Mac, which changes the text to be white on black for a much higher contrast viewing experience.

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