After several years of trying to figure out what task manager for Mac and iPhone worked best with my peculiar style of organization, I finally settled on Things from Cultured Code. The Mac application is easy to use, uncluttered, and can take advantage of many keyboard shortcuts, while the iPhone app [iTunes Link] gives me a portable version of the Things database to take on the road. While the iPhone app can do a local sync to a Mac, it still doesn't do over-the-air syncing, which I hope Cultured Code will add in a future release.

When I made Things my task manager, I needed to make sure that I could use the same database on both my desktop Mac and my MacBook Air, since the Mac version doesn't do syncing either. It turns out that one of the easiest ways to do this is to use the wonderful cloud storage application Dropbox to hold my Things database, and then point Things on both Macs to use the shared database.

Fortunately, a Brit by the name of Bradley Wright had already done all of the hard work and had written up some command-line instructions on how to do this. Brad does all the work in the Terminal; here, I'll describe how to do most of the work in the Finder with the exception of creating a symbolic link at one point.

Quick Look is such an awesome feature of Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, making it really fun and easy to view files and folders from anywhere on your Mac. But what happens when you have a folder with multiple items and want to get a better idea of what's inside? Well, you could always just open the folder in Finder, but there's a cool modification you can make to get an even quicker view.


You can get this working on your Mac in a few simple steps:

1. Quit/Relaunch Finder using the Force Quit menu
2. Open Terminal
3. Paste (or type) the following command: defaults write com.apple.Finder QLEnableXRayFolders 1
4. Relaunch Finder

The contents of the folder will now be shown when you use Quick Look. In true Apple elegance, the files will even fade and cycle through the contents.

[via Mac OS X Hints]

Dear Auntie TUAW,

With all the shiny goodness of iTunes 9 and a way to finally organise iPhone/iPod Touch apps without getting a friction burn on my thumb, I settled in for some music lovin'.

Now I don't know how everyone else in the world likes their iTunes experience, but personally I'm quite fond of using the miniplayer. I love having it floating atop everything else for quick track skipping without having to resort to any kind of ghastly menu bar or dashboard trickery (I'm a purist maybe?).

To my dismay the zoom button now... actually... zooms the iTunes window rather than presenting me with my favoured miniplayer. It's no great loss (considering the hot key is only shift+cmd+M) but I liked the simplicity of "The green one gives me small happy player."

Love and kisses,

Your Nephew James



Dearest James,

Auntie TUAW wanted me to answer for her; she's in the process of baking some cakes for the annual church social at Our Lady of Perpetual Motion, so she's a bit tied up right now.

I'm sorry to hear that you're having trouble with the new functions of iTunes 9. I have hope! Apple didn't change the functionality too much. In fact, they made it more consistent with the rest of the operating system. The green "+" button now acts as a proper zoom button like every other app out there -- BUT -- if you hold the option key while pressing it you still get the mini player like the previous versions of iTunes. Sure, you can use the shift+command+M hot key if you'd like, but there's a still a mouse click solution that will hopefully help you and the rest of our readers out.

With best regards,

Cousin Josh

Snow Leopard has brought a host of improvements to OS X, but Safari has been changed in one way that could ruin your day if you're used to using third-party plugins. Support for Input Managers has been removed in 64-bit Safari, which means that popular Safari plugins like Saft won't work.

Getting these plugins to work again in Safari is easy, but there is one tradeoff to keep in mind.

Re-enabling plugin support for Safari is as simple as forcing Safari to start up in 32-bit mode. When you choose "Get Info" on Safari, you'll notice a checkbox in the window that says "Open in 32-bit mode." Check this box.

That's it. Safari will now open in 32-bit mode, and any Input Manager plugins you were using before upgrading to Snow Leopard, like Saft or PithHelmet, should work just fine. Additionally, running Safari in 32-bit mode allows Multiclutch's custom trackpad gestures to work; these weren't working for me when I ran Safari in 64-bit mode, probably because Multiclutch is a 32-bit prefpane.

There's one caveat to running Safari in 32-bit mode: there's a tradeoff in stability. One of the features you gain by running Safari in 64-bit mode is that Safari will "sandbox" plugins like Flash, so if (when) Flash Player crashes, it doesn't take all of Safari down with it. This is because when Safari runs in 64-bit mode, plugins actually run as their own separate processes rather than being bundled up with Safari. But when Safari is run in 32-bit mode, Flash and other plugins work the old way, which means if (when) Flash crashes, so will Safari.



If you can't live without your plugins (and I can't – Safari without Multiclutch or PithHelmet is like a day without sunshine), then the small sacrifice in stability you'll suffer by running Safari in 32-bit mode is probably going to be worth it to you.

Note: if you're running anything that runs off the SIMBL input manager plugin like Saft or PithHelmet, you might have to take a few extra steps to get things running properly in Safari on Snow Leopard. This procedure is specifically tailored toward getting PithHelmet running, but the steps for Saft should be similar (Procedure courtesy of versiontracker.com user tech.bear).

Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of posts aimed at novice Mac users and veterans who like the occasional refresher.

Mac OS X is equipped with a dictionary application that does pretty much what you'd expect, and a few things you might not. Here's how you can get the most out of Dictionary.

Most people use a dictionary to look up a word's definition. Doing so in Dictionary is pretty straightforward: Just launch the app, type your target term into the search field and hit return. That's all well and good, but not very interesting.

Here's what is. Click any word in the definition to find the meaning of that word. Do this just once, and an orange "Snap Back" icon appears in the search field. When clicked, it brings you back to your original search term.

Here's another cool trick. Let's say you looked up "Surname." Dictionary displays it broken up by syllable: "sur•name." If you highlight and copy it, it will paste as it should be written: "surname."

But wait, there's more! Highlight or position the cursor over a word in any Cocoa application (Safari, for example) and hit Control-Command-D. A small window appears that displays that word's definition and thesaurus alternative(s). If the term in question is the name of an Apple product, you'll see that product's official description from Apple. Clicking "More" at the bottom of this tiny window launches Dictionary.

Let's say you typically misspell a word that you have to type often (my Achilles' heel is "Twitterrific"). Simply right- or Control-click that word and select "Learn Spelling" to add it to Dictionary.

Dictionary is also more than a collection of definitions. You can quickly switch between a thesaurus, official descriptions of Apple products and Wikipedia. Additionally, select "Font/Back Matter" from the Go menu to access a slew of great information, like

• Proofreader's Marks
• The History of English
• Countries of the World
• Chemical Elements

Of course, every single word you find there can be clicked to reveal its definition. Finally, here's a bit of eye candy that isn't useful but still fun. You can browse every photo in Dictionary by navigating to

/Library/Dictionaries/New Oxford American Dictionary.dictionary/Contents/Images

and switching to Cover Flow view.

Keeping up with the Leopard-centric changes to managed preferences and mobile accounts is crucial if you're responsible for a labful or campus-ful of Macs, and you want to gracefully control what permissions or resources your wanton users have when they log in. One great resource for Mac admins diving into MCX (managed clients for OS X) for the first (or hundredth) time is Apple engineer John DeTroye's Tips & Tricks documentation.

We mentioned John's Tiger edition of the T&T docs last year, and now that he's updated the handbook for Mac OS X 10.5 and Server 10.5, you'll want to bring your library up to date. Gone is most of the material specific to machine imaging techniques (I strongly recommend NetInstall [PDF], which is working better under Leopard than it ever did before), making room for more discussion of MCX settings and portable home directories. Download your free copy of the T&T file today and it'll make your life easier tomorrow.

Much like Nigel's amp that goes to 11, making it "...one louder," your Mac has a super-quiet mode. Macworld explains how to find it.

First, use your keyboard's volume keys to turn the volume all the way down (using the menu bar slider won't work). Next, press the "Mute" key. The speaker graphic will appear on screen and display the familiar "sound waves." Listen closely (or plug in your headphones) - your Mac is in super-quiet mode.

We're not sure when you'd want to do this, but now you can.

[Via Lifehacker]

It is 6pm (on the East Coast) so you should have your iPhone now (there wasn't a big wait, right?). The question is, what the heck CAN you do with it? Sure, you can make a phone call or two (and even conference people in. Sweet.). You can pick up the iPhone missing manual in August, or you can head on over to iPhoneHints right now and learn some tips and tricks. There isn't much there right now, but soon that will all change I am sure.

I know your Mac is really cool, and you know it's really cool, but do all of your friends (especially those using Windows)? One of the things I really enjoy is gloating showing off some of my Mac's more interesting tricks, a job made easier by this cool list at Silver Mac. They describe one of my favorite tricks right off the bat: If you highlight at word in any cocoa app (like Safari) and hit Command-Control-D, a small window will appear with the dictionary definition and part of speech of that particular word. Move the cursor from word to word, and see their respective definitions.

The article also describes how to invert your screen's colors, create a quick text clipping and more. Check it out, and really "wow" your friends.

Sure, you can repair your iPod's battery when you need to, but wouldn't you rather just avoid the issue in the first place? Chris Breen thinks so, and he's offering several tips for keeping your battery healthy and strong for as long as possible. A few of  his suggestions I already do, like flicking the "Hold" button to avoid accidental activation, keeping the backlight duration to a minimum and keeping up with software updates.

Other rules I don't follow so religiously, like keeping it charged (I'll go several days without plugging it in) and keeping it warm (it sits in my car sometimes, and here in New England, it's still pretty chilly at night). It's a good list of suggestions. Check it out.

Photo from iPod's Dirty Secret.

You love to podcast, but you just don't have the time to spend tweaking settings and trying out new tricks. I'm right, aren't I? We're all very busy people with lots of things to do (and lots of media to create). That's whereOne Minute Tip comes in. The whole blog is just a series of short tips and tricks for you podcasters out there.

[via CommandN]