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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Our Mac Setup posts are always popular and well liked by many users who are interested in seeing how other people configure their workstations and get things done. But we’re not the only one doing show-and-tell and Q&A or great interviews about setups and workstations!

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The developer of Sifter has a pretty sweet Mac setup, featuring a MacBook Pro and an iMac with an external vertically aligned Apple Cinema display (BTW, I didn’t know you could tilt the ACD’s). I can only imagine how useful it is to have a vertical display like that when coding, and it looks great too! Great setup.

[ via Flickr ]

Want to turn off all mobile data use on iPhone? The iPhone offers a feature that allows users to easily disable all iPhone data usage when on a cellular network. This means if you’re about to hit your bandwidth cap, you can simply toggle cellular data usage off and avoid any potential overage charges from your cellular carrier.

Turning off cell data does not impact wi-fi connections, so you’ll still be able to access the internet on the device as long as it’s connected to a local wireless network.

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Update 2: iOS 4.2 download is now available for iPad, get it now!

Update: iOS 4.2 for iPad has been confirmed by Apple to be available in November. This will be the unifying iOS 4 release across i-devices in Apple’s product lineup, and it will bring many new features to the iPad such as multitasking, folders, AirPlay, print support, and more.

If you own an iPad and you want to run the latest version of Apple’s mobile iOS, you’ll have to wait a few more months. A report from AppleInsider looks to confirm the release date of iOS 4 for iPad as November of 2010, this is in line with Apple’s statement during WWDC that OS4 will reach iPad in the Fall.

iPad & iPhone builds of iOS have different features

iPad owners have been left out of the recent release of iOS 4 with it’s new features, as Apple readies an iPad specific OS build for the device. Polls indicate that most iPad users want multitasking and folder support the most out of iOS 4, but due to Apple splitting the builds they’re not missing out on all of the features of the newer OS. The current version of iOS 3.2 supports the use of a bluetooth keyboard with iPad, which is a feature that otherwise is only in iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod touch. Reports indicate that when iOS 4 reaches the iPad, it will come as iOS 4.1 and it will finally combine the differing iPhone and iPad builds of iOS into a single unified operating system.

Updated iPad coming in Fall?

Could the release of iOS 4 for iPad coincide with the release of an updated iPad? That’s what some in the rumormill are suggesting, and it doesn’t seem too unlikely considering the current iPhone 4 has features that the iPad doesn’t; most notably twice the RAM at 512MB, dual cameras with FaceTime support, and the stunning PPI & screen resolution of the Retina display. With these prominent feature differences, an updated iPad alongside the update iOS would bridge the hardware and feature gaps of the two devices.

Update: Rumors continue to circulate about a new iPad with camera and FaceTime compatibility coming in the Fall.

If you have fond memories of Shel Silverstein and his famous childrens book “The Giving Tree”, you’ll immediately like this iPad decal, which plays on the cover of that classic book and adds the Apple logo as the fruit falling from the tree. Awesome!

If you need to adjust the brightness of a Mac display precisely, you can turn to two different tricks that offer precision control on just how bright a Macs screen is.

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Oh the rumor that never dies: iPhone is coming to Verizon. This has been speculated for years, but now the partnership of Apple and Verizon seems nearly certain, at least according to a report by Bloomberg. Citing two anonymous sources, Bloomberg claims that iPhone 4 will be available on the Verizon network starting in January of 2011.

If iPhone 4 became available on Verizon, it could produce a significant sales boost for Apple. AppleInsider cites an analyst saying that just having iPhone available on Verizon could sell an additional 12 million iPhones a year, which certainly wouldn’t help the current iPhone 4 availability difficulties, but it would be a very impressive feat considered Apple sold 11 million iPhone’s last year on AT&T alone. Having the iPhone on Verizon would also alleviate some of the network congestion that AT&T is dealing with as a result of the iPhone’s popularity.

I’m going to continue to treat this as a rumor because it’s been talked about so many times in the past, but supposedly this time it’s true… we’ll see come January!

You can easily adjust the search priorities in Spotlight so that other items are listed first in the Mac OS X Spotlight search results. For example, you could adjust the priorities so that files and documents are listed above apps, or so that images are shown above everything else.

There are a ton of options to choose from, and if you have ever wished you could customize your Spotlight results you’ll be happy to discover it’s quite easy to do.

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The first iPhone 4 commercial has started to air and it’s all about FaceTime, the new video chat feature of iPhone 4. Here’s what Apple has to say about it on their YouTube page:

People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality. With the tap of a button, you can wave hello to your kids, share a smile from across the globe, or watch your best friend laugh at your stories — iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi. No other phone makes staying in touch this much fun.

This is definitely a great commercial, don’t miss the video!

All the speculation about Hulu coming to the iPad and iPhone on a subscription model is proving true. Hulu announced that a subscription service called Hulu Plus will offer HD content on a variety of devices at a rate of $9.99/month.

Compatible devices for watching Hulu on iPad & iPhone

What you’re probably most interested in is what Hulu for iPad and iPhone will run on specifically, and here’s your answer:

• iPhone 4
• iPhone 3GS running iOS 4
• iPad
• iPod touch 3rd generation running iOS 4

This leaves the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and any pre-3rd gen iPod touches out of the new Hulu players abilities. If you have other electronics you might not be out of luck though, additional devices that will be able to run Hulu Plus include: internet-enabled Vizio, Samsung, and Sony TV’s, computers, select Blu-ray players, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.

Hulu Plus for iPad & iPhone preview mode

Currently the Hulu Plus service is in preview mode and only available to use by invitation, but anyone can download the iPhone and iPad apps and get a feel for the service. You can request an invite by going here and entering your email address. Thus far there is no word on how likely it is you’ll actually get an invite code, and whether the preview mode is paid or free.

What about free Hulu on the web?

When I first saw this announcement I couldn’t help but think the days of watching free Hulu via the web are over, especially since Hulu Plus has a Flash client aimed at Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux machines. The big question is whether or not people will pay $9.99 a month for something they can currently watch for free on their computers. We know the demand for Hulu on iPad and iPhone is there, but do people want to shell out additional money to watch TV when they already pay a cable bill?

For those that don’t want to pay, you can always just download the free ABC player and be limited to ABC shows, or try some of the creative workarounds like how to watch Hulu for iPad right now by recording a screencast (this works on the iPhone too).

So that’s it, Hulu is finally announced for iPhone and iPad – you just have to pay for it! Read more at the official home of Hulu Plus.

If you want to make reading a web page a bit easier on the Mac with Safari, you can issue some simple keyboard shortcuts to change the displayed font and text size on a page.

To increase the Safari web browsers readable text size, hit the Command key and + key (plus key, it’s located next to the delete key on a Mac keyboard), it will instantly make the font size larger. Or to make the font size on pages smaller, use the Command and the – (minus) key to make text smaller.

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Did you know that you can customize the backgrounds of any Finder windows in Mac OS X? This is a nnice way to customize the appearance of your Mac a bit, and you can either choose images or colors, or go with the default setting of a simple white background.

In the screenshot above, the Finder window background is using an image as a wallpaper, and in the screenshot below, the Finder windows are set to match the color of the Finder window sidebar. Changing the window background color is a somewhat unknown feature even to frequent Mac users, but setting the Finder window background to something else is easy once you learn how, and here’s how to do it:

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You know what’s really annoying? When you go to certain websites, copy some text from them, and go to paste elsewhere and it gives you something like this:

Basically, it’s an “iPhone without a screen,” is how Engadget hears it. Oh — and it will cost only $99, supposedly.

Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/28/new-apple-tv/#ixzz0pH6qJPa4

You wanted to just paste the top single sentence, but some company thought it would be a brilliant idea to include some link spam into your clipboard buffer as well. The company responsible for this is called Tynt (affectionately called Taint around the web), and they are generating a lot of bad press for themselves with this annoying ‘technology’ if you could even call it that.

Stopping the copy/paste link spam

There’s a few ways to stop the Tynt garbage from appearing in your copy and pasted web text, the first involves editing your /etc/hosts file. You may recall that you can edit your /etc/hosts file to block access to websites on your Mac, well that is exactly what we’re going to do, block Tynt’s Javascript from working.

• Using your favorite text editor, edit /etc/hosts (you will need admin privileges)
• Add a new line to the file and type this exactly:

127.0.0.1 tcr.tynt.com

• Save /etc/hosts

For changes to take effect, you need to flush your Mac DNS, so launch the Terminal and type the following:
dscacheutil -flushcache
Done, now your web browsing experience should be significantly improved as you don’t have to deal with the Tynt garbage filling up your clipboard anytime you copy and paste text from websites that use it. I came across this method on DaringFireball, who has an excellent summary of Tynt and its general annoying and hostile nature.

Block Tynt copy/paste spam with browser extensions

If mucking around in system files is not your thing, you can also block Tynt clipboard spam by installing extensions into your web browser of choice:

• Safari 5 Extension – TyntBlocker (installs automatically) – Developer home
• Chrome Extension – Tynt blocker for Chrome

If you install one of these browser extensions, you won’t need to use the above method of editing your hosts file. Oh and yes, these techniques work on either a Mac or a PC (Windows or Linux for that matter).

Copy/paste spam problem solved!

DeskLickr is a fun little app that sits in your menubar and pulls images from Flickr to set them as your desktop picture. Basically you just specify how often you want your wallpaper changed, and a couple search tags, and DeskLickr does it’s job quietly in the background. This is great for anyone who gets tired of having the same background picture constantly.

Beware that certain search tags on Flickr might bring you unanticipated results: in testing the app I selected ‘beach’ as one of my keywords and I was given a high resolution picture of a grandpa in a speedo!

Developer home
Download now

[ via SweetMacTips ]

I’m not sure what the Mac driving the monitors is but this is a pretty nice looking setup with dual screens. I particularly like the raised shelf where you can scoot the keyboard and mouse under to immediately clear off desk space.

[ via Flickr ]

All Macs have a microphone included in them, but if you want to disable the internal microphone on your Mac, you can do so through a variety of methods. We’ll cover the two easiest approaches to turning off the microphone; reducing the input volume so that no sound is picked up by the microphone, and also by selecting a different and nonexistent audio input source so that the Mac will not detect audio whatsoever. Both methods effectively disable the microphone on a Mac

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It seems the iPhone “Other” section always takes up at least 200mb, which suggests it’s system files: the iPhone OS, database files, contacts information, settings, SMS data, core data, pre-installed apps, etc. The “Other” portion grows from there, so as you install more apps, add more contacts, send more text messages, and generally just create more data and caches for your phone to store, the system section grows just like any other operating system.

There are known flukes where the “Other” capacity starts taking up huge amounts of space, up to 8gb of this “Other” space has been reported. In this case it’s possible that the iPhone OS is misreporting files and categorizing something like a Movie as Other, this is most likely to happen after a failed sync. This is a good time to backup and sync your iPhone and then format/restore the device so that you’ll have a clean start.

The only known way to clear the “Other” iPhone/iPod Touch usage is to completely restore the iPhone through iTunes. Remember to sync and backup your iPhone otherwise you will lose your contacts, settings, music, and other data.

What if iTunes “Other” is taking up huge amounts of space?

You can fix the iTunes “Other” huge space issue by simply unchecking and re-checking “Open iTunes when this device is connected” from iTunes itself. If you’re confused, read our guide here. Thanks for the tip Mike!