If you want to see the difference between two folders on a Mac, or compare two directories contents, you can easily do so with the help of the powerful diff command.

This tutorial will show you how to compare two directories, and the contents of those directories, by using the Terminal. This command line approach will output a file containing the precise differences shown between two target folders.

To achieve this comparison, we’ll use the command line tool ‘diff’, diff is available on all Macs, along with linux and other unix operating systems, so this is effectively a cross-platform solution for comparing directories. Diff is quite simple to use for easily comparing the contents of any two directories, just follow along by using syntax detailed below.

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Taking screenshots from the command line is made easy, thanks to a utility included in Mac OS X called screencapture. Here’s how to use it:

screencapture test.jpg

The screen capture will then appear in the directory that the command was executed.

There are more advanced features to the screencapture utility though, here’s a few examples.

Open the screencapture in Preview immediately after being taken:
screencapture -P test.jpg

Take screenshots silently, with no sound playing:
screencapture -x silentscreenshot.jpg

Delay when the screenshot is taken by using the -T flag followed by seconds:
screencapture -T 3 delayedpic.jpg

Specify a file type for the screenshot (most major image formats are supported: JPG, PNG, PDF, etc):
screencapture -t pdf pdfshot.pdf

Like most other terminal commands, you can combine the flags together and do all of the above at once:
screencapture -xt pdf -T 4 pic.jpg

To see a full list of screencapture options, use the -h flag:
screencapture -h

These instructions appeared on our screen capture in Mac OS article.

You can easily transfer Photos from your iPhone to your computer, and the process is very similar whether you are on a Mac or PC. The Mac treats the iPhone like a digital camera, and Windows can treat the iPhone as either a digital camera or a file system, depending on how the photos are accessed. Regardless of what OS you are using, to get started you will need your iPhone, the included USB cable, and a computer to plug the device into.

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How’s this for the ultimate telecommuting setup: a MacBook Pro with a cellular modem… on a boat! This picture was sent in by one of our readers, unfortunately I don’t know where this is or what they do for work but I can certainly say I’m envious of this telecommuters office!

Updated with a quick blurb from the owner of this great Mac setup:

I am a student and I am living in Germany. The lake you see is the Glindow Lake in the eastern part of the country, near Berlin.

Working on the lake was not very good (as you can imagine). Especially because of the boat which is actually very small with around 12 feet (it is a Crescent 381 Free Time). But video-skyping with my girlfriend was quite nice .

Want to use your iPad, iPhone, or iPod as a mounted USB flash disk? No sweat, thanks to this nifty program from MacroPlant. It’s called Phone Disk, and it’s actually free to download until September 1st, so get it sooner than later. Here are the features of the app:

• Open, copy, and save files directly from the iPad, iPhone, or iPod
• Access the device from other applications
• Browse the iPhone, iPad, or iPod through the Finder
• Mount multiple iPhones, iPods, or iPads at the same time
• Convenient menubar item to mount and unmount the devices
• Works without Jailbreak!

This is a screenshot of Phone Disk in action within the Finder:

Pretty awesome right? Even more awesome is that the developer is giving it away for free for a few months, here’s the announcement:

For a limited time Phone Disk is 100% Free!!

Until September 1st 2010, we’re giving away Phone Disk to everyone for free! If you unlock the software before that date, you get free upgrades and can enjoy the full version of the software on that computer with no expiration (just make sure you enter the code before September 1st)! Use the following registration code to unlock the full version Phone Disk:

You can download PhoneDisk here then use the following registration number to unlock the app for free:
2H96A-QK7MX-8GEYK1V-ZR6S8

Using the app is beyond simple to mount any iPhone, iPad, or iPod (touch included) as a hard drive, just launch the app and mount your device – the Finder doesn’t know that it isn’t a ‘real’ external hard drive or USB drive.

Free is obviously a great price. Using your iPhone or iPad as a true USB disk drive is a pretty great feature that honestly I think Apple should just allow by default, it would completely eliminate the need for things like USB thumb drives (unless you’re looking to install Mac OS X from a USB drive, then you will still want a thumbdrive because as far as I know this is not possible with an iPhone/iPod/iPad).

Anyway, download the app, it’s well worth the price: free!

Want to disable iPhone GPS geotagging of photos and the camera? Many users may wish to turn off geotagging on iPhone photos for privacy reasons. In case you didn’t know, the iPhone Camera defaults to storing GPS and geographic tagging information in the EXIF data of your iPhone images. If you don’t want this type of location information stored in a pictures EXIF meta data, you can disable the feature easily in iOS settings, which essentially prevents the image from keeping location details within the file and can help to increase privacy. We’ll cover how to make this settings adjustment on all versions of iOS so you can disable the location feature of the camera and snapped photos.

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I’ve had multiple people ask me “How much does it cost to get an iPhone 4 without the attached two year contract?”, and I always tell them the same thing: it’s not cheap. Here is the pricing structure for iPhone 4 without contract:

• iPhone 4 16GB without contract: $599
• iPhone 4 32GB without contract: $699

This price data is directly from AT&T and applies to both the White iPhone 4 and the Black iPhone 4. Interestingly enough, you can actually still buy the iPhone 3GS without a contract too, but it comes at a cost of $499 which makes the iPhone 4 seem like a much better deal for $100 more considering all the additional new features. Here is the cost chart from AT&T, you can see the price of iPhone 4 without contract in the highlighted “NO COMMITMENT” column on the right hand side.

The reason the iPhone 4 is so expensive without the two year contract commitment is that it isn’t subsidized by the carrier (in this case, AT&T), so you have to pay the full premium price to get the phone. The iPhone 4 price goes down dramatically when you do sign onto the two year commitment, at $199 and $299 for the 16GB and 32GB models respectively.

The “no commitment/no contract” price does not mean the iPhone 4 comes unlocked, that just means it is without the two year service agreement from AT&T. This only applies to iPhones sold in the USA though, and many other countries will offer contract-free and unlocked iPhones for sale.

More information on iPhone 4:

• iPhone 4 Price Guide – everything there is to know about the costs of buying an iPhone 4, including the cost of data plans
• Check iPhone Upgrade Eligibility – see if your current AT&T contract allows you to upgrade and at what cost
• iPhone 4 Availability – updated information on where to buy the iPhone

If you want to access and read the iPhone SMS backup file, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll walk you through how to access this text message file, which contains all of an iPhones text messages, SMS, MMS, and iMessages, and also show you how to read the files contents. This trick works for both Mac OS X and Windows.

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Safari for Mac includes the ability to manually restore your last web browsing session, this is helpful if you want to get back to where you were before a session ended or closed. Unlike Firefox and Chrome, Safari won’t prompt you with the little “restore” button though. While modern versions of OS X will attempt to restore the last browsing session if the Safari app was quit or crashed, old versions of the Mac do not do that, but whether old or new versions of Safari and OS X are in use, you can always manually choose to restore the last browsing session and windows that were closed even without a crash or quit.

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A report published on AppleInsider with data from NPD and Piper Jaffray shows Mac sales are up 35% year-over-year. Responding to initial analysts fears that the release of the iPad would hurt Mac sales, the report shows minimal cannibalization of the Mac product line from the iPad:

“We believe in the long run Mac cannibalization will exist, but will be minimal, Apple has successfully limited the iPad functionality to primarily content consumption vs. content creation on a Mac. And relative to the iPod, the physical size of an iPad provides a meaningfully different value proposition (portability vs. screen size).”

This is important to note because there has been widespread worry that the growth of the iPhone and iPad would ultimately lead to the death of the Mac, which Steve Jobs himself has publicly refuted. You can read more of the report on AppleInsider.

Skype launches itself automatically on either user login or system boot of Mac OS X. This is either helpful or annoying, depending on your needs. If you wish to stop Skype from opening itself automatically in OS X, you can do so easily using the methods outlined below.

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iPhone 5 has been spotted, and here is the first known picture:

So much for reception problems! Ok not really, but it’s pretty funny. This picture was sent to us from Flickr, and it got a good laugh. Check out more iPhone 4 reception humor here (and yes, we realize this whole reception thing is totally overblown).

If you’re trying to tweak a wireless router to get the best signal, being able to continuously measure the wi-fi signal strength while you toy with the antennas, placement, and whatever else on the network is really valuable. While most users are best served by using the Mac Wi-Fi Diagnostics app to monitor signal strength and performance, another option is to turn to the command line of Mac OS X, and that’s what we’re going to cover here.

This trick is based entirely from the command line using the somewhat secretive airport wireless tool, and it’s available on all Macs with all versions of Mac OS X. Yes the airport tool is still around and as useful as ever, even though wireless networking is now called Wi-Fi on the Mac.

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Some users who have upgraded to iPhone OS 4.0 (iOS 4) have noted that the proximity sensor behaves differently, sometimes it’s just less sensitive, a bit slow or lagged, and other times it’s just not as responsive. In the worst case scenario, the iPhone is up to your ear and the device doesn’t detect that it is close, so your ear or face will actually tap on buttons on the screen and either mute the call or even hang it up! This is obviously a software problem and an official fix is expected soon, but for the time being we have a few options that help to remedy the situation.

Here are two solutions to fix the iPhone proximity sensor problems that have been reported:

Reset your Network Settings:
* Tap on the Settings icon
* Tap General then tap on Reset
* Tap on “Reset Network Settings”

Try making a few phone calls and holding the iPhone up to your ear, if the proximity sensor is still behaving strangely, try the following:

Reset All Settings on the iPhone:
* Tap on Settings
* Tap General
* Tap Reset
* Tap “Reset All Settings”

After both you should restart your iPhone. These are the solutions offered at the moment, as mentioned before there is expected to be a software update to resolve the proximity sensors sensitivity so that it will detect when it is near your ear.

The iPhone 4 has been a huge hit for Apple, sales are through the roof as they struggle to maintain iPhone 4 availability with the huge demand for the device. That’s not to say their haven’t been some hiccups with the launch, users have reported some issues with the reception as well as the aforementioned proximity sensor issue. These problems will be sorted out soon with a fix from Apple.

Of course it’s good to have a sense of humor about things, so if you want a good laugh check out some iPhone 4 humor

If you want to know exactly where a photo was taken with an iPhone, the actual image file can often tell you that thanks to it’s embedded GPS and geolocation data. This is often referred to as Geotagging, and it’s a little known feature that is used on almost all smartphone cameras by default, including the iPhone and most Android phones.

We’re going to focus primarily on viewing location and GPS data with iPhone pictures, but this works the same for any photo taken that embeds geolocation details.

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You can easily turn OS X’s wonderful Spotlight search engine into only an application launcher for Mac apps by adjusting the Spotlight search settings that are found within System Preferences.

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We’ve all heard about the supposed iPhone 4 reception problems by now, so why not poke fun at the issue? Here’s a collection of some of the best iPhone 4 humor we’ve come across, have a laugh and enjoy!

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There are times when you will find a windows sizing controls have been rendered inaccessible, the most likely cause is from changing the Mac’s resolution by hooking it up and then disconnecting it from an external display, however I have also seen poorly written javascripts resize windows to outrageous proportions as well. Additionally, sometimes a window just opens largely off screen, making it impossible to access without some creative attempts to moving the window back onto the primary display in Mac OS X.

If you encounter a window on your Mac that is too big to manually drag or resize, try one of these techniques, and you will be able to move it back onto the screen again.

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