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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AirPort Base Station Agent runs in the background of Mac OS X whether or not you use an AirPort Base Station. It’s a part of Mac OS X, and as the name implies it handles Airport Base Station connections as well as connections to Time Capsule. If you use either of these Apple products you’ll want to keep the agent running in the background.

Let’s assume you want to stop the agent running. You probably noticed the agent using something like LittleSnitch or lsof when it tries to access an outside server (typically Akamai) when it checks for software updates. With this in mind, you can disable the Airport Base Station Agent by stopping it from looking for updates, and also disabling the agents ability to monitor AirPort. Here’s how to do this:
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Microsoft has announced that Windows Phone 7 will sync to Macs, but Mac users will have to wait until later in the year for software to perform the task.

The following short statement is currently all that Microsoft has said on the matter:

Later in 2010 Microsoft will make a public beta available of a tool that allows Windows Phone 7 to sync select content with Mac computers.

What could make this syncing ability even more interesting would be if Microsoft built a tool to export data, contacts, and media from an iPhone and import them into a Windows Phone 7 device. Whether or not that will be a feature offered to Mac users remains to be seen, but even with this ability would it pull Mac users away from the iPhone? I have my doubts.

Apple has just released iOS 4.2 beta 3 for download at the iOS Dev Center. The latest beta version of iOS 4.2 works for iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, iPod touch 4g, iPod touch 3g, and iPod touch 2g. Alongside the iOS 4.2 beta 3 is the newly released Xcode and iOS SDK (Mac only) as well as iTunes 10.1 beta 2 (Mac/Windows).

Head over to Apple.com: iOS Dev Center with your developer login to grab the latest versions of the iOS software.

The final version of iOS 4.2 is slated for release in November. The devices listed above will all be supported, but nobody looks forward to the update more than iPad owners, since this will be the first version of iOS 4 for iPad that will bring multitasking, folders, and much more to the device.

The hackers that made the greenpois0n jailbreak have delayed the Mac release due to ‘technical difficulties’, but the Mac version is coming soon.

According ChronicDevTeam on Twitter:

“We have no ETA for the Mac release besides “soon”. Bad things seem to happen when we give ETAs.”

And as you can see in the above screenshot, the Mac jailbreak app is “being worked on.” In the meantime, if you have a Windows installation handy you can jailbreak your iPhone or iOS 4.1 device using greenpois0n right now.

Patience is a virtue right? Yea I don’t like waiting either. While the release date is unknown, check back periodically on the greenpois0n download page for the latest news.

Don’t want to wait for the Mac release of Greenpois0n? You can get limera1n for Mac right now instead.

The greenpois0n download was just released and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It’s a pretty straightforward jailbreak that will work on iOS 4.1 with the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 3g, and iPod touch 4g. The procedure is identical on the Mac and Windows so this guide is the same regardless of the platform.

How to jailbreak your iPhone using greenpois0n

Basically just follow the instructions within the greenpoison app, which are:

• Download greenpois0n
• Launch the app
• Turn off your iPhone (or iPod touch, etc)
• Connect the iPhone to your computer
• Click on “Prepare to Jailbreak (DFU)” and follow the steps to enter into iPhone DFU mode
• Once in DFU mode, click on ‘Jailbreak!’ to start the jailbreak process
• Wait for the jailbreak to complete, the status bar indicates what’s going on and the iPhone will reboot itself
• From the home screen, tap on the newly installed “Loader” icon
• Tap on Cydia and then tap on Install Cydia
• Once Cydia is installed you can remove the Loader app, tap on “Remove” and your iPhone will reboot itself once more
• Jailbroken!

That’s all there is to it, it’s a slightly cleaner and easier to follow install process than limera1n but otherwise not much different. If you’re looking to jailbreak your iPad too it’s basically the same.

Update: A new version has been made available, Download GreenPois0n Untethered Jailbreak for iOS 4.2.1

The greenpois0n Jailbreak is now available to download. The release is available for Mac, Windows, & Linux (much like the earlier launched limera1n jailbreak).

If you’re into jailbreaking and held off from limera1n, greenpoison is probably why.

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Pretty interesting comparison of Apple’s main product now vs 10 years ago. Where will Apple be 10 years from now? Will some variation of an iMac Touch be their main desktop product? What will the iPhone be?

Picture from Flickr

Ever wanted to know where exactly a specific file came from? Perhaps some document that appeared in the Downloads folder of a Mac, or maybe a weird file that’s laying on your desktop, what is the origin of that file? Maybe it’s an archive file, maybe its an mp3 or m4a file that you want to know it’s origin server or download URL, maybe a text document or PDF that you absolutely must recall where it originated from, a dmg for installing, whatever the document or file was, if it was downloaded from somewhere on the internet, you can probably get the details of origin right in Mac OS X with this little-known but incredibly useful trick.

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This is the first commercial for Windows Phone 7, which was announced on 10/4/10 at a press conference from Microsoft.

In case you didn’t know or don’t care, Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft’s new foray into the mobile world. They’re getting a bit of a late start, but Windows Phone is hoping to compete directly with Apple’s popular iPhone/iOS and Google’s Android (yea, Palm WebOS and Blackberry OS are somewhere in this race too, but I don’t care for either).

Here is the commercial, embedded for easy watching:

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Worried about the security of your MacBook or MacBook Pro? Reduce the chances of theft by slapping a cheap PC sticker over the Apple logo!

This is pretty funny but there’s actually an element of truth to the joke, since Apple logos are easy indicators of high priced goods. I knew someone who plastered stickers all over his MacBook Pro for the sole intention on making it look cheap as they traveled around the developing world, it sort of worked. Obviously nothing beats insuring your Apple hardware though, so if you expect any theft risk just pay the couple extra bucks a year to add the MacBook Pro to a theft and damage insurance plan.

I’m not sure of the original source but this is hilarious, thanks for sending it in Jesse.

You don’t need to download any apps to send group text messages with your iPhone. Hidden away in iOS 4 is the ability to send group text messages, now this may not seem that exciting by default but here’s why it’s great: using group messaging, you can send 100 people a text message but it only counts as ONE sent text!

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If you’ve used a tool like DaisyDisk to analyze your Mac’s disk space usage, you may have come across a file named ‘sleepimage’ that is rather large.

What is sleepimage in Mac OS X?

The ‘sleepimage’ file is just what it sounds like, it’s what your Mac had in it’s memory when the machine went to sleep, creating an image of your Mac’s previous memory state. When your Mac wakes from sleep, the content of sleepimage is read again and placed back into active memory, and your Mac is returned to the state that it was in prior to sleeping. Think of it like a swapfile of sorts, but for sleep and wake functionality only.

Why is sleepimage taking up so much space? 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, etc?

The sleepimage file is generally the exact same size as the amount of physical RAM your Mac has. If your Mac has 2GB of RAM, the sleepimage file will also be 2GB because there are 2GB of data that need to be stored when your Mac is put to sleep. You can check the size of your sleepimage file by typing the following command into the Terminal:

ls -lh /private/var/vm/sleepimage

You will then see data like:

-rw------T 1 root wheel 4.0G Oct 7 15:46 /private/var/vm/sleepimage

And the number between ‘wheel’ and the date is the sleepimage file size, in this case it is 4 GB.

There are cases where the sleepimage file is significantly larger than your physical RAM and this can be due to the file becoming corrupted.

Can I safely delete sleepimage from my Mac?

Yes, you can remove sleepimage and it will just be created again automatically the next time your Mac is put to sleep. To delete sleepimage, type the following command into the Terminal:

sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage

You’ll be asked for the administrator password to gain access to remove the file, this is normal.

Where is sleepimage located?

If it wasn’t obvious from the previous commands, sleepimage is located alongside your Mac swapfiles at:

/private/var/vm/sleepimage

Hopefully that helps to explain sleepimage a bit and now you’ll understand what this mysteriously large file is on your Mac hard drive.