MAC: ColorSync Utilities

Mac OS X contains a number of useful utilities that can enhance creative workflows. In the root-level folder /Library/Scripts/ColorSync are editable AppleScript utilities that perform various common design tasks.

Say, for example, you have a collection of images in a directory that you would like to prepare for the web by embedding the sRGB color profile. Rather than open the images individually to assign the profile, you could use the "Embed chosen profile" script instead by simply dragging-and-dropping your collection of images on that script's icon in the Colorsync folder. A real time-saver when dealing with hundreds of images. And, because these scripts are editable, you can customize them to be specific to your workflow needs.

MAC: The One-Click Trick to Moving the Dock

Okay, so you’re working in a program like Final Cut Pro or iMovie, which takes up every vertical inch of the screen, and when you go to adjust something near the bottom, the Dock keeps popping up. Oh sure, you could move the Dock to where it’s anchored on the left or right side of the screen, but that just feels weird. But what if you could move it temporarily to the left or right, and then get it back to the bottom when you close Final Cut Pro, in just one click?

Here’s how: Hold the shift key, click directly on the Dock’s divider line (on the far right side of the Dock), and drag the Dock to the left or right side of your screen. Bam! It moves over to the side. Then, once you quit Final Cut Pro, just shift-click on that divider line and slam it back to the bottom (okay, drag it back to the bottom). A draggable Dock — is that cool or what!

MAC: Checking for Bad Fonts

If there’s one thing that can bring a document (or your system) to its knees, it’s using a corrupt font (meaning a font that accepts bribes — sorry, that was lame). Anyway, finding out which fonts on your system might be corrupt was no easy task, but in Tiger, it just got a whole lot easier. Here’s how to search for rampant font corruption: Go to your Applications folder and launch Font Book. You can either click directly on any font that you might think is suspect (look to see if the font is sweating), or Command-click on the fonts you want interrogated, then go under Font Book’s File menu and choose Validate Fonts. This brings up a Font Validation window and if your fonts are on the up and up, you’ll get a little round checkbox beside them. If there’s reason to believe something may be wrong, you’ll get a yellow warning icon beside a font. If it’s corrupt, you’ll get a round icon with an X in it, telling you not to use this font. Click the checkbox beside that font, then click the Remove Checked button to remove this font from your system.

MAC: Changing the Order of the Results

Let’s say you realize that most of the time you find yourself searching for music, movies, and photos (you’re a creative type). Well, by default those result categories appear farther down the list (with stuff like documents and email and contacts appearing near the top of the list). And because of that, you’ve been spending a lot of time scrolling. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Go to the Spotlight Preferences (found at the bottom of the Spotlight menu), and when it appears, all the categories are listed in the order they will appear. To change their order, just click-and-drag them into the order you want (in this case, you’d drag Music, Movies, and Images to the top).

How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone!: * # 0 6 #, a 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless.

You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your mobile battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your mobile will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery.

This reserve will get charged when you charge your mobile next time.

Have you locked your keys in the car?

Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone:

If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone.

Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile

Emergency Number:
The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number can be dialed even if the keypad is locked.
Try it out.

MAC: Annotating PDFs in Preview

Under Preview’s Tools menu, you’ll find the options Mark Up and Annotate. Mark Up lets you highlight, strike through, or underline selected text within a PDF. Annotate allows you to draw circles and rectangles around parts of a PDF, append Stickies-style notes, and add hyperlinks.

To use Mark Up, choose the Text tool from Preview’s Toolbar. Select your target text with the cursor, and then choose a Mark Up option from the Tools menu (the choices are Highlight Text, Strike Through Text, and Underline Text).

To add shapes, links or comments, select a command from the Tools menu’s Annotate list (the options are Add Oval, Add Rectangle, Add Note, and Add Link).

If you’ve selected Add Note, simply click anywhere on the PDF. A colored tag appears in the left margin alongside the spot where you clicked. Its default text consists of your user name and the date, though you can alter or add to this by double-clicking on the note. To move notes, double-click their icons (those little cartoon-style balloons) and then drag them. When you double-click a note icon, you can also specify the note’s color and other attributes. To remove a note, double-click its icon and press Delete.

All Mark Up and Annotate tools can be summoned via key command. Also, if you use these tools frequently, you may want to add them to Preview’s Toolbar. (By default, they are not shown.) To add them, select the View menu’s Customize Toolbar command, then drag the tools you want from the pop-up onto the Toolbar.

MAC: Become a Spaces Cadet

Spaces, one of the coolest new features of Mac OS X Leopard, lets you switch among multiple desktops.

For example, you might create a communication workspace for Mail, iChat, and Address Book, another for media programs like iTunes and iPhoto, and a third for video games. Then, instead of hiding/showing programs or dragging them around onscreen, you’d simply switch desktops. If you’re the sort of user who tends to have many applications open at once, Spaces is a godsend.

In fact, Spaces and Expose share a control panel. To access it, select System Preferences from the Apple menu and choose Exposé & Spaces. Click the Spaces tab.

This is where you set the key commands for activating Spaces and switching between your desktops. You can also specify the number of desktops and how they’re arrayed in columns and rows. (If you check “Show Spaces in menu bar,” you can switch desktops using the menu bar icon as well as key commands.)

You also have the option of permanently assigning a program to a particular desktop. If, say, you always want iTunes to open in its own window, click the Add (+) button, navigate to the iTunes application, and click Add. Click-hold in the Spaces field to assign it to a desktop. Here, for example, whenever iTunes is opened, Space 4 will automatically be displayed.

Whenever you type your Spaces key commands, you’ll see a translucent overlay depicting the available desktops. Switch between them using the key commands you’ve assigned in the Preferences panel.

If you get confused about what’s assigned where, don’t panic — just press the Activate Spaces key command (the default assignment is F8). This opens a global view of all your desktops. Just click within any desktop to open it. You can also move items from one desktop to another simply by dragging them between windows.

MAC: Become the Ultimate Menu Master

Want to really speed things up? How about jumping right to the Apple menu without even clicking the mouse?

Just press Control-F2, press Return, and the Apple menu pops down (if you’re using a MacBook, press Function-Control-F2). Oh, but there’s more! Now that you’re in the Apple menu, press the Right Arrow key on your keyboard to move to the other menus (Finder, File, Edit, View, etc.) and the Left Arrow to move back.

Once you get to the menu you want, press Return, then type the first letter of the command you want in the menu and it jumps right there. Now press Return again to choose that command (and you did it all without ever touching the mouse).

MAC: Browse in Privacy with Safari

Under normal circumstances, Safari retains records of your web browsing activity. It remembers the pages you visit, the data you download, and your web searches. It may also store your personal data in order to automatically complete online forms.

While these features can save time and help you retrace your online steps, there are occasions when you might prefer to leave no footprints — for example, when browsing on a public computer.

The solution is simple: Before you begin browsing, go to the Safari menu and select Private Browsing. When the warning box appears, click OK. Now Safari stores none of the aforementioned info.

What if you decide you need privacy after you’ve been browsing? You have several options: You can remove individual pages from Safari’s page-view history, erase the entire history, or clear all traces of your activity, including any cookies and cache files you may have accumulated.

To review the pages you’ve visited and delete them as desired, go to the History menu and select Show All History. Here you can select pages and clear them with the Delete key. To wipe the entire Safari history, select Clear History from the History menu. For a completely clean slate, go to the Safari menu and select Reset Safari.

Note that the Private Browsing option does not prevent Safari from collecting cookies (the preference files automatically generated by many websites). The Reset Safari option clears all cookies. If you want to delete only certain ones, choose Preferences from the Safari menu, click the Security tab, and then click Show Cookies. You can select and delete individual cookies from the list that appears. Careful, though — if you’re a frequent web user, this list can be very, very long.

MAC: Burning Multiple Times to the Same CD

When you burn files to a CD once, you can’t burn to that CD again. Unless you use this little trick: First create a new folder and give it a descriptive name (something like “burn baby burn!” Kidding).

Now put the files you want to burn into that folder, then go to the Applications folder and open the Utilities folder. Double-click on Disk Utility. When it comes up, go under the File menu, under New, and choose Disk Image from Folder, and then when the Open dialog appears, find that folder with the stuff you want to burn and click the image button. A Save dialog appears in which you can leave the name as is or choose a new name (leave the other controls alone), and then click Save. In a few moments, a disk image of your folder’s contents will appear in the list on the left side of the Disk Utility dialog. Click on that icon, and then click the burn button at the top left of the Disk Utility dialog.

When you click the Burn button, a dialog will appear asking to insert a disc. Do so, and then click once the blue downward-facing triangle on the right side of this dialog to show more options. Click on the checkbox for Leave disc appendable, then click the Burn button. Your data will now be written to that CD. To add more files later, just insert that same CD and then you’ll use this same process all over again, but when you get to that final burn dialog, the button won’t say “Burn” this time, instead it will say “Append” because you’re adding these files to the same disc. By the way, don’t forget to remove the files you already burned to this disc from your “burn baby burn!” folder (and the DMG file it creates) before you make your next disc image.

Laptop Cooler with USB Hub and HDD Slot

This Slim and smart laptop cooler – probably one of the better looking ones out there today – is not only equipped with a 3-port USB hub, it also comes with a 2.5-inch SATA HDD slot.
This Notebook Cooling Pad has built-in 2 fans and together with 3 USB 2.0 ports. It is good for cooling down your laptops and convenient for you to connect any other USB devices. In addition, it designed with a 2.5″ SATA HDD slot. You can plug any 2.5″ SATA hard drive to extend your storage conveniently.

Features:
· Slim and smart design of the cooling pad system with large
· High-performance and extra quiet 2 Fans built-in which absolutely helps to dissipate the heat-air away from underneath the notebook computer for cooling down the overall temperature of your system
· Extremely heavy-duty construction of the cooling pad to afford any weight or pressure put-on
· Power source supported easily by the plug-and-play USB connection as a self-power mode
· Convenient, reliable and comfortable of carry
· No need of any installation
· Compatible with any notebook computers
· Caution: 2.5″ HDD to be used in paralleled inserted
· Hard Drive capacity support up to 250G
· Fan Size: 70 x 70 x 70mm (approx.)
· Dimension: 300 x 252 x 32mm (approx.)
· Weight: 504g

It is another one of mousepads with built-in USB hubs. This new roll-up model features four ports and a speaker that connects to portable audio players, laptops and other digital products using a standard 3.5mm stereo audio plug.

Product Specifications:
· USB 1.1, 4 ports hub
· Dual speaker, can be connected to iPods, MP3 or MP4 players
· Roll up mouse pad for convenience use
· On / Off button
· Volume control
· Size: 280*220*40mm
· Weight: 190g

Blueguard Self-opening Doors

Even before the recent Star Trek reboot, we were always fascinated by the technology from that science fiction franchise. It wasn’t just the warp drives, food synthesizers, and transporters, but something all too simple: self-opening doors.
Yes, for some reason, the United Federation of Planets outlawed the doorknob sometime before the 23rd century, and all doors must open with an odd swish sound effect, provided the user is in close proximity.
This is very similar to the Blueguard, which is able to open your garage door when you get 33 feet of it. It uses Bluetooth wireless technology on your cellular phone to detect when you are close. It has the capacity to obtain a signal from 10 cellular phones.
So you don’t have to hit a button or use RFID or access cards when you approach the garage. You can even set it to work as you walk up to the door, or make certain the user is in a vehicle before the garage opens up.

The Vibrating Bluetooth Bracelet with LCD Display

when you are driving in your car. The motor and loud music, and even in some cases noisy traffic can just drown out the sound of a cellphone. It especially doesn’t help if you’ve got on of those ringtones that doesn’t really stand out, which some phones seem like they only come with pitiful ringtones that you could only hear if the room is dead silent. Well to solve your problems, now there’s the Vibrating Bluetooth Bracelet.The bracelet will vibrate when you have a phone call, but not only that, it will actually display the caller id directly on the bracelet. Making it so that you don’t have to go searching for your phone before you discover who is on the line. This is one of those gadgets that I’m not sure I’d buy for myself right now, but I’m really hoping that it does well. That way they’ll start coming out with different designs that are a bit more aesthetically appealing. For now though, this design works, the look may be simplistic, but it’s not gaudy either. You can purchase.

Dell Wasabi PZ310 Mobile Printer

Who have digital photos stored on any mobile device, and want a mobile way of printing them, you might wish to purchase the Dell Wasabi, which measures in at 4.8 x 2.8 x 0.9 inches. The Wasabi might not be a green paste that makes your sushi more zesty, but it is the first Dell product that is ZINK-y.
The Wasabi PZ310 is an ultra mobile printer is Dell’s first ZINK-enabled product, and it is able to produce 2 x 3 inch prints. All the user has to do is send their digital image to the Wasabi PZ310 via Bluetooth, and they can have a scrapbook-quality photo in under a minute.ZINK technology doesn’t require the use of ink cartridges at all, instead, you use a special kind of paper that goes through the Wasabi, and it will come out on the other side as a full color photo. Hopefully ZINK technology will catch on so that landfills have one less problem to worry about, although I do hope that the special print paper it uses won’t be too expensive in the long run.Well, the price for the Dell Wasabi is about $99, in black, pink, and blue. The $99 is just the introductory price.

E-LEAD Bluetooth Lazy Pad

E-LEAD Bluetooth Lazy Pad is a terrific product for those who want a combination Bluetooth and mouse for their laptop or netbook.
For those who like wireless action, then you will enjoy the Bluetooth feature. Of course, some of you may have laptops or netbooks that don’t come with Bluetooth, Fortunately, you can connect to the keyboard via USB. The battery in this keyboard is a 500mAh that is capable of up to 8 hours of usage.

Polaroid Pogo bounces in June

Polaroid has announced a ship date for the Polaroid Pogo. Or should I say month? According to Like Cool, Polaroid will ship the Pogo Instant Digital Camera next month. If you recall, the Pogo was the merging of a digital camera with the Zink portable printer. The Zink, which stood for “zero ink” prints a smudge-proof, water-resistant, fade resistant print with a no ink, heat activated process.The Pogo will provide a 5 megapixel image. It will include a 3” color LCD screen and expanded SD memory. It will print a 2×3” digital print in about a minute.

Sony Ericsson Satio another 12.1MP

Sony Ericsson has announced another 12.1 megapixel phone, the Sony Ericsson Satio.
is a full 640 x 350 3.5-inch touchscreen phone comes with 12.1 megapixel camera, dual-band HSPA, microSD expansion (forget about the expensive memory stick), xenon flash. It will be available in three colors black, silver and Bordeaux. Will be out in October.
Sony Ericsson Satio specs:• 12.1 megapixel camera, video light, xenon flash, auto focus, face detection, bestpic, geotagging, image stabilizer.• red-eye reduction, smile detection, touch focus• Bluetooth stereo (A2DP)• WebKit web browser• On-screen QWERTY keyboard• Auto rotate• Gesture control• S60 5th edition Symbian OS• HD and 3D games• FM radio with RDS• Java• TV out• In-built WiFi• A-GPS• Size: 112 x 55 x 13.3 mm• Weight: 126 grams• Main screen: 16,777,216 colour nHD TFT• 16:9 widescreen• Resolution: 640 x 360 pixels• Size: 3.5 inches• Phone memory: 128 MB• Memory Card Support: SanDisk microSD

Nokia Locate Sensor

Something when you little gadgets missing, you just wish that you can call them. Doo… doo… Hello, home keys, car keys, where are you? I am under your office table, I’m under your bed, said home keys and car keys. Cool huh, well Nokia has something similar like this.

Nokia is showing of its Nokia Locate Sensor ,a prototype, a little gadget that keep track of you wallet, car keys and gadgets within a range of 100m by using a special application installed on your mobile phone. You will need to attach the Locate Sensor to the items and start the app on your phone. The application on the phone will automatically notify you and guided you to the lost object if it is within 100 m. The Nokia Locate Sensor was shown in the CES 2009, it is still under prototype at the moment.

All About Audio Chats

iChat is a great way to communicate and share files in real time with friends and colleagues, whether they’re across the hall or around the globe. With iChat, you can conduct text chats with anyone who has a MobileMe, AIM, Jabber, or Google Talk account. And if your Mac is equipped with a built-in iSight camera (or an external iSight or other FireWire camera) you can conduct video chats with up to three buddies at once.
But there’s another way to chat: via audio. You can invite as many as nine buddies to an audio chat, which makes it great for group communication. As with video chats, you can record audio chats with permission from the participants. Audio chats are especially useful for interviews, long-distance business meetings, family conferences, and other situations when you’d like to communicate verbally with more than a few people at once, or save an audio record of your conversation.
Audio chats require a built-in microphone or an external mic connected to the audio input port of your computer. If a telephone or camera icon appears beside a name in your buddy list, it means they too have the software and hardware needed for an audio chat. (A “stacked” telephone or camera icon indicates that your buddy’s computer has enough power to participate in a multiple-person chat.)


To start an audio chat, open iChat and select the buddy or buddies you want to chat with. To choose multiple buddies, hold down the Command key as you click on their names. Then click on the telephone icon at the bottom of your buddy list, or select Invite to Audio Chat under the Buddies menu.
When they receive your invitation, your buddies simply click the Accept button to join the audio chat. All audio chat participants are listed in the chat window along with their buddy pictures. Each participant also has an individual sound level meter, which makes it easier to tell who is talking.


To enable recording in an audio iChat, select Record Chat under the Video menu. A message is sent to all participants asking for their permission to record the chat. To grant audio recording rights for this chat, your buddies click on the Allow button. When participants want to leave the chat, they just close the chat window. Recording stops when the person who initiated the recording exits the chat.
Recorded audio chats are saved by default in the iChats folder in your user’s Documents folder. You can change this default location under the General tab of iChat Preferences, and search for saved chats by date or title using Spotlight. You can also play your saved audio (and video) iChats in iTunes.

See Which Groups Are In Address Book:

If you have a contact that appears in more than one Group, you can instantly see which of your Groups this individual appears in by simply clicking on his or her contact and holding the Option key. When you do this, every Group that they appear within will become highlighted.
This is handy if you want to clean up your Groups by deleting extra instances of people who appear in multiple Groups.

Adding Automation Through Folder Actions

This is a simple AppleScript (think of an AppleScript as a built-in automation for your Mac, just like Photoshop actions add automation to Adobe Photoshop). Mac OS X includes some cool sample scripts (actions), or you can download about a bazillion from the Web for free.

To assign a script to a folder, Control-click on that folder and choose Configure Folder Actions from the contextual menu that appears. This brings up the Folder Actions Setup dialog, where you toggle various scripts assigned to folders on and off, or even edit scripts (if you know how to write AppleScripts). Click the plus sign (+) button at the bottom left of the dialog to add your folder to the list (this actually brings up a standard Open dialog showing your folder, so click on your folder in the dialog and click Open). Once you do this, a window will pop down with a list of built-in sample scripts you can assign to this folder, and their names give a cryptic description of what they do. Pick the one that sounds like what you want to do (to replicate my Drop Box warning, choose “add — new item alert .scpt”) and click the Attach button (you’ll see your newly assigned script appear in the column on the right of the dialog). Now click the Enable Folder Actions checkbox at the top-left corner of the dialog.This is a global on/off switch, so any folder to which you’ve attached scripts is now “activated.”

By the way, once you’ve applied actions to a folder, you can turn Folder Actions on or off globally by Control-clicking on any folder and choosing Enable Folder Actions or Disable Folder Actions from the contextual menu.

Adding a Photo as Your Window’s Background

As long as your Finder window is in icon view, you can add a photo as its background. You do this by going under the View menu, under show View Options, and in the background section (at the bottom of the dialog) choose Picture. Click on the select button and the standard Open dialog will appear in which you can choose the image you’d like to appear as the background of your window. Click OK and that image will appear. Note: This works only when viewing the window in icon view. If you change to list view, the image will no longer be visible.

Adding a Photo as Your Window’s Background

As long as your Finder window is in icon view, you can add a photo as its background. You do this by going under the View menu, under show View Options, and in the background section (at the bottom of the dialog) choose Picture. Click on the select button and the standard Open dialog will appear in which you can choose the image you’d like to appear as the background of your window. Click OK and that image will appear. Note: This works only when viewing the window in icon view. if you change to list view, the image will no longer be visible.