This time in Ask TUAW we have questions on Mac anti-virus options, upgrading RAM in a white iMac, syncing a laptop and a desktop, emulating Windows file management and more.
As always, your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
For this edition of Ask TUAW we'll have a look at problems with Mail.app, mocking-up GUIs, replacing a broken iPhone, visualizing disk space, copying Time Machine backups and much more.
As always, your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
Recently, a friend asked me to create an AppleScript that would allow him to automate To-Dos with a Mail.app mail rule. I immediately rose to the occasion because this was a cool idea: Mail.app could run the script when you get an ebill, for instance, for your car payment. The script would then create an iCal To-Do for "Pay your car payment, now!"
The script set theSumm to "Pay My Bill Soon!" set dueDate to (current date) + 10 * days set theUrl to "http://www.paymybillexample.com" set thepriority to 1
tell application "iCal" make todo at end of events of (item 1 of every calendar) with properties {summary:theSumm, due date:dueDate, url:theUrl, priority:thepriority} end tell
Customizing the script To customize the To-Do's title, fill in the text you want, within the parenthesis on line 1. To Change the due date, change the "10" in line 2 to the number of days until it is due. If you want to change to weeks or months, use the appropriate wordage instead of "days" at the end of line 2. To change the URL, paste a URL in the parenthesis on line 3.
By default, the script will set the newly created To-Do to have a priority of 1, however, you can change this to your priority preference.
Continue reading to learn how to integrate the To-Dos with a Mail.app mail rule.
Everybody needs to sleep, and more than just a few hours each night. It's not just a matter of being in a foul mood all day; there are some pretty serious physiological effects of sleep deprivation. Since you tend to learn the most when you do things incorrectly, I know plenty about lost sleep. Anything that helps my insomnia is worth checking into, so I've spent some time looking at ways my Mac and my iPhone might help me lay down, and stay down. I took a look at the iPhone first; there are more than a few apps available which make me drowsy, but only two that I could find which do it intentionally: aSleep and Ambiance. Fluff your pillow and read on to see how they stack up against each other and a few desktop applications.
Square Enix dropped a huge bomb at E3 a few weeks ago with the fact that their latest Final Fantasy title, number 13, was coming to Microsoft's Xbox 360. But a week before, they dropped another piece of surprise news on iPod owners: that they had released a game for the music player, and that not only was it an RPG, but it was actually a tactical RPG that used the iPod's own songs as characters.
If you're a Squeenix fanboy, your mind is probably just blown by the idea, and as we reported last time, our Nintendo-biased friends were thrilled to hear about the game. But how does it actually play -- is it worth picking up if you're not a Square fan, and/or you just want to hear music on your iPod?
Short answer: Probably not. While Square Enix's Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes is a pretty amazing game for the iPod, the iPod is meant to be a music player, not a game platform, and a few hardware drawbacks keep Song Summoner from shining as a game just for iPod owners. Square fans will enjoy it very much, RPG gamers will probably get their money's worth (the game is only $5, cheap by any estimation), but anyone looking for a pick-up-and-play iPod game will likely get mired in the slow pace.
This time in Ask TUAW we'll be considering the future of Quicksilver, cross-platform keyboard and mouse sharing, controlling iTunes on a remote Mac, fixing messed up Album metadata in iTunes, cross-platform password storage and more.
As always, your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
For this edition of Ask TUAW we've got questions on password management software, writing to a NTFS external drive in OS X, autofilling an iPhone with smart playlists, mighty mouse problems, using Lingon, and more.
As always, your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
This liveblog will be relaying and discussing Apple's Q3 financial results. Apple's third fiscal quarter encompassed sales between April 1, 2008 and June 30, 2008. Apple reported a record-breaking quarter, with revenue up 38% year over year and Mac sales at an all time high!
You can listen in live here. Please join me in the blog to discuss the results, speculate
Welcome to the latest installment of TUAW's best of the week, where we gather up our favorite posts for your easy clicking enjoyment.
Mac Mix Promo gives you deals on Mac apps, starts today The software bundle biz has a new player! Mac Mix Promo allows you to make your own software bundle and receive a discount based on how many applications you choose, the more you add, the bigger the discount!
Mystery Apple box This week wasn't just about reviewing iPhone software, we also did some detective work to figure out the origins of a mysterious Apple box. The consensus in the comments is that it's a wine box given to Apple resellers in the 1980s.
Turn your iPhone into a wireless drive with DataCase The ultimate phone, iPod, application, and development platform is also a cool way to carry around your files? When Apple squeezes a 200 GB drive in there, I'm totally ditching my notebook!
Resurrecting Apple I BASIC Ever wondered what Apple I BASIC sounded like? Sure you did! ... no? The BASIC cassette for the Apple I has been digitized and made available on MP3. Even better, that audio has been converted to 1s and 0s so you can examine the 6502 assembly language for yourself!
iPod touch 1.1.5 software also available For users uninterested in the 2.0 firmware (or paying for it, anyway), Apple has released a 1.1.5 update to keep you secure. See, Apple still loves you!
Apple prepping iPhone 2.1 software BGR reports that Apple is prepping iPhone 2.1 software. Let's hope this includes the laundry list of features that everyone wants ... salt and pepper shaker anyone?
This time in Ask TUAW we're looking at DJ software, catenated RAIDs, Spaces, Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection Client, tab options in Safari, Spaces, and more.
As always, your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
Once again, TUAW is pleased to present you with a selection of free songs and videos from around the world. Many of these iTMS items won't be free for long, so grab your copies before the week is up. And don't forget: If you want to buy these on your iPhone or iPod touch, make sure to sign into your account in iTunes before you sync.
Follow the jump for all the iTune freebie goodness -- and don't forget. It's Dr. Horrible time! (Thanks Eric G.) Not free -- but it's Whedon!
Welcome to the latest installment of TUAW's best of the week, where we gather up our favorite posts for your easy clicking enjoyment. Apparently, there was some phone released this week, but we didn't get the memo on it.
Apple and Rogers falling out? Apparently Apple is a little mad after the charges Rogers would be putting on the iPhone customers. So what does Apple do? They divert shipments of iPhones. Brilliant! Now all of Canada is mad about not getting a 3G, eh?
Apple, Amazon offer boxed versions of MobileMe Both Apple and Amazon started selling/shipping boxed version of MobileMe this week. Even though you probably weren't able to use MobileMe until after the 48 hour maintenance was cleared up. However, Amazon is giving MobileMe hopefuls a small discount.
WWDC '08: Charlie Wood (Spanning Sync) Brett finished up his latest awesome interview video from WWDC. In this video, he talks with Charlie Wood from Spanning Sync about the newest version.
Why you shouldn't buy the iPhone 3G on Friday In the midst of everyone hurrying to by the latest iPhone, Erica would like to take a moment to share this public service message with you.
Saying "goodbye" to .Mac This week ushered in the .Mac replacement we had all been waiting for. Too bad we had to wait even longer once the maintenance had started.
Five ways the App Store will change the world Mike gives us five reasons of how the App Store will change the world. Not mentioned? World domination -- I was always hoping for this one for some reason.
iPod touch 2.0 update now for sale, for real If you've heard about the iPhone 2.0 firmware and have an iPod touch, chances are you totally wanted it! Well, iPod touch users, your dream has finally come true.
Once again, TUAW is pleased to present you with a selection of free songs and videos from around the world. Many of these iTMS items won't be free for long, so grab your copies before the week is up. And don't forget: If you want to buy these on your iPhone or iPod touch, make sure to sign into your account in iTunes before you sync.
Follow the jump for this week's free iTunes offerings.
Last week, Dave mentioned that you can change the file type used system-wide for screenshots. However, some people are afraid of using Terminal.app to muck around with their Mac. In this week's AppleScript article, I am going to show you how to take screenshots and change their file type using an AppleScript.
The AppleScript property N : 0 set N to N + 1 set picPath to ((POSIX path of (path to desktop)) & "Picture_" & N & ".png") as string do shell script "screencapture -tjpg " & quoted form of picPath
Using the AppleScript Open the ScriptEditor (/Applications/AppleScript/ScriptEditor.app). Copy/paste the AppleScript into the script edtitor and click the run button at the top. You will hear the camera shutter sound and a picture will be taken and saved to your desktop.
This script comes in handy when you want to take a screenshot in a different format. To do this, just change the ".png" file type to whatever you might want (say, .jpg, .tiff, etc.). When you re-run the script, the new file type will be associated with the capture image.
Continue reading to learn how to save this script.
In this edition of Ask TUAW we've got questions about using an iPod without iTunes, hotkey managers, iTunes locking up, getting rid of persistent iCal calendars, Open Firmware passwords and much more.
As always, your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
This time in Ask TUAW we have questions on Mac anti-virus options, upgrading RAM in a white iMac, syncing a laptop and a desktop, emulating Windows file management and more.
Everybody needs to sleep, and more than just a few hours each night. It's not just a matter of being in a foul mood all day; there are some pretty serious 
This liveblog will be relaying and discussing 
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Apple sues Psystar for license violations, copyright infringement
iTunes: Free Tuesday
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iPod touch 2.0 update now for sale, for real
