Macgasm

Sometimes the best photos you can take are the ones where you’re not actually holding the camera. Those shaky and often blurry snaps can ruin a fantastic photo in a hurry. Tapping the screen to snap a photo doesn’t exactly help the cause either, often unframing that perfectly framed shot you’ve managed to stumble backwards into with your eyes closed.

So, you’re probably wondering how exactly you’re going to snap that picture with your iPhone if you’re no longer holding it. It turns out that your iPhone headphones act in much the same way as your volume button on the device. Your iPhone headphones, the one with the built in microphone, can act as a quick release for your photos. You can now trigger your phone camera while it’s attached to a GLIF and a Joby Gorillapod. This nifty little trick comes courtesy of iOS 5, so you have to be up to snuff with your software patches to make this work.

Say goodbye to blur forever, unless, you know, you’re trying to be all artsy.

Source: Mac OS X Tips

Getting live updates of what song is playing in iTunes isn’t difficult these days with the dozen or so applications that provide the feature. But, the problem with these applications is that, well, they’re applications, eating up your valuable system resources. An excellent tip has surfaced on Macworld’s Mac OS X Hints page that solves the problem, and puts your track information directly in your dock, courtesy of iTunes.

If you’re comfortable with the terminal and typing in commands (or copying and pasting them) you can get artist and track information directly from your iTunes icon.

(more…)

Okay, what gives? I just spent the last five minutes trying to remember how to get my screen saver to lock my desktop in Lion (OS X 10.7). It’s usually on by default, but obviously in some drunken induced stupidness I turned it off.

Here’s how you turn it on:

Instead of hitting up the Desktop & Screen Saver section in your System Preferences, head directly to the Security & Privacy section instead. It seems like Captain Obvious-like stuff here, but if I can’t remember how to do it, there’s probably a good chance a lot of other people can’t either.

Right under the General tab there’s a checkbox that reads “Require password [interveral drop down] after sleep or screen saver begins.” That’s exactly what you’re looking for, so check it, and carry on with your daily activities.

This is mostly a note for me, but I hope you can use it as a reference when you’re all WTF is going on about locking your desktop with your screen saver.

I’m sure you’ve all noticed it at some point, but Siri is pretty dang cool. She’s not quite as good at listening as, say, Apple’s Friend Bar, but she’s good at it.

There are times, however, when she’s not so good at it. The other day, walking out of Home Depot, I wanted to find the number for Graybar, a wire and electrical equipment vendor, so I asked her. I should have been more conscious of how she’d take this, but what she ended up searching for:

Yeah. Not helpful.

Now, I’m the kind of guy that likes to contribute to the cause. I let Apple take my diagnostics and usage data. When my Google Voice transcriptions come back all garbled and stuff, I often take the time to donate the recording to improve the service.

Now, we’ll come back to this in a second. Let’s get sidetracked and talk for a minute about Siri and her seductive blue underwear underline.

(more…)

Did you know that you can preview a link in Mail.app before actually clicking on it? Me neither. Today I stumbled on the fact that Quick Look is built into Mail.app links.

When in an email, you can hover over a text link, and an icon appears that, if clicked, will launch a preview of the website you would be visiting without actually requiring you to visit it. It’s a great way to to see if you’re going to be sent to a new level of phishing-hell or if you’re being redirected to a legitimate website.

Pretty nifty and super useful.

Some people have been noticing that the iPhone 4S battery isn’t performing better than the iPhone 4 at this point, despite the face that the iPhone 4S battery is supposed to be better. Everyone seems to be talking about it, and for what it’s worth, there are reports that Apple has begun contacting people to find out what exactly is going on with their phones according to The Guardian.

There are a number of things you can do to ensure that your phone, both iPhone 4S and the iPhones preceding it, get the most out its battery. The short answer is turning things off that you’re not using.

(more…)

Apple’s been known to sneak functionality into applications by adding basic keyboard shortcuts like holding down the option key to provide alternative information. They’ve done it again in Launchpad. Instead of holding down the mouse button on an application to engage the ability to move or delete applications, all you have to do is press and hold the option key.

It may not save you a lot of time, but it’ll certainly come in handy when you need to delete something quickly and move on. Pushing and releasing the option key will toggle the delete and move functionality on and off again. Push and it’s on. Release and it’s off.

Note: Keep in mind that you can only delete applications that have been purchased in the Mac App Store from Launchpad

In our child-like excitement to try out Siri on iPhone 4S release day, most of us missed the fact that you can launch Siri, compose an email, and send it, all without ever having to input your passcode credentials. The ramifications could be huge no matter how unlikely it may be that someone can get their hands on your phone and nefariously send out a potentially-damaging email on your behalf.

Thankfully you can make sure that Siri is comfortably behind your passcode with a simple flick of a switch:

• Open your Settings App,
• Go to General
• Select the Passcode Lock
• Make sure the Siri switch is set to OFF.

This will comfortably place Siri behind your passcode. iOS will force you to unlock your phone before using the sexy voice activated assistant, should you actually want that to happen.

I’m going to take my chances and leave Siri accessible without having to put in my passcode. It seems more useful to me that way. I’d much prefer having Siri ask me for a passcode that I can dictate rather than having to enter it in with the iOS keyboard. Hopefully that’s something we see in the near future.