Handy IPad Apps and Iphone Apps

Find Duplicate Files On Your Mac

January 26, 2012 by Terry · Leave a Comment

Hey,

When you use your Mac you generate files and folders worth of content. Unless you have a keen sense of keeping things in perfect order, once in a while you will find duplicates and copies of the same file. This wont just be the same file name, but the exact same file repeated in different places. It is acceptable to have one or two duplicates of the same file, but sometimes an entire folder or directory full of duplicate files can be a bit of a problem. Hence, I am going to demonstrate to your Araxis neat little app, Find Duplicate Files.

Lets assume you have a folder with 10,000 files in it, to make matters worse you know there are duplicates and you want to get rid of them to shrink the size of the folder. To make matters even more complicated the file names have no order to them (so you can’t quickly scan the list to find files with a one appended on them to indicate a duplicate file). So you have a massive folder with random file names and you want to remove the duplicates. To do this manually would take you a long time, as luck would have it someone developed an application to do this for you.

Comparing files to see if they are the same can be tricky. You would obviously start with comparing the file names, this only gets you so far. The next step would be to compare file sizes, this would probably work on very large files where the probability of the file size being exactly the same would be small, however you would being to have problems with smaller files. The final option, which Find Duplicate Files uses, is to produce a hash of the file. Wikipedia has a good article on the subject. In essence the program will use a certain algorithm to computer a number for the file, known as a hash. This takes into account the size of the file but the order of the 1′s and 0′s in the file. This hash value (which is unique to the order of the 1′s and 0′s) can then be compared to other files. Only if the files are exactly the same on the bit level, will the has function be the same. Therefore, it is a quick and accurate way in finding exactly the same files.

Find Duplicate File app, is really simple to use. Using either the button on the toolbar or by dragging folders in to the scanning area at the top of the app, you can select the files you want to search. Then you simply press the go button. Based on your preferences it will scan every file, compute a hash function, and then compare these hash functions to other hash function in the hopes that it will find a duplicate file. Depending on your needs you can restrict the files it looks for, so it can be useful if you want to compare images, videos or text documents.

When the app has done its thing, which is rather quick, but will slow down with large files, the application will then display all of the duplicates. At this point you can either go investigate the files by revealing them in Finder, or let the application do the hard work and select and delete the duplicates. The handy colour coding of the results box allows for easy differentiation between the types of files.

This app costs £10.49 (or equivalent) which is a good buy if you have to do this sort of thing frequently. It does have a 7 day trial which allows you to try it out and see if it right for you. I found it easy to use, although the buttons on the toolbar could have been more clearly labeled.

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Mac 101: Part 2, Organizing OS X

January 26, 2012 by Terry · Leave a Comment

Having discussed the very basics and some of the apps which come bundled with OS X Lion in part one of Mac 101, let’s now delve in a little deeper with the aim of getting a better idea of how to properly tweak and organise the latest and arguably greatest of Apple’s OS X. We’re going to get to grips with how one navigates the OS X file system using Finder, in addition to minor tweaks like setting up a custom background, or wallpaper.

Relatively speaking, this early part of Mac 101 will still cater toward the inexperienced Mac user but, with luck, even experienced users of Apple computers will learn something new!

Navigating The OS X File System

Rather than skirting around the issue, let’s start off this second part of Mac 101 by tackling the one aspect of computing which many computer users struggle to come to grips with fully: Correctly organizing, managing and searching the file system.

Without wanting to get too bogged down in the finer details, Mac OS X is based on a system of computing called Unix and thus, like Linux which is also based on Unix, OS X enjoys a very robust and secure file system which will behave in a predictable manner. All you need to do is learn the the basic rules behind the OS X file system and you’ll find it forever easy to travel around any properly organized Mac’s hard drive to find whatever you need.

Finder

Lion's Finder is your window into the Mac OS X filesystem

We’ve already alluded to the Finder, so it’s about time we discussed what it actually is. Put simply, Finder is the application that one uses to navigate through OS X, and owing to its status as a very important core application, it can neither be deleted nor removed from the Dock and always has the small light beneath its icon to denote that the application is running.

To access the OS X file system, click on Finder’s icon and you should see a window very similar to the one shown above. First, make sure to notice the ‘All Files’ tab on the left hand pane, clicking on this will bring up, quite literally, all the files you have created, modified or downloaded recently.

Below ‘All Files’ you should see relevant folders for keeping Documents, Pictures, Music, Downloads and Movies within. For convenience, you may add other folders into or out of the left hand side pane.

It is important to refrain from any attempts to rename or delete OS X’s default folders, such as Documents and Downloads and so forth, as it can cause potential instability issues if they are successfully removed.

Clicking on the Applications pane will present OS X’s Applications folder and it is here where your applications actually reside, rather than the Dock or Launchpad, which are merely shortcuts.

No need to 'uninstall' with OS X Lion, just deleting will suffice

To add an application to the Dock for quick launching, simply click on an application’s icon once and drag it into the Dock. To delete the application, one must merely drag it into the Trash, also located on the Dock, or right click and select ‘Move To Trash’ – though beware that it is unwise to delete OS X’s default applications like iCal and Mail as re-installing them can prove to be a serious hassle.

While it may seem pedantic, getting into the habit of always storing your movie files in Lion’s Movies folder, documents in the corresponding Documents folder and so forth, will go some way to ensure that your files are easily found.

Spotlight

Spotlight is perhaps the quickest way to find what you want

As mentioned in part one, Spotlight is located in the top right corner of your screen, sat atop the Menubar and accessible by either clicking on the Spotlight icon or hitting the keyboard combination of Command and Spacebar at once. Once one has brought up the Spotlight search prompt in this manner, beginning to type will bring up instant results.

For example, if I type ‘App’ (without quotes) into Spotlight, OS X presents results which include the Mac App Store and the Applications folder, in addition to several folders and documents concerned with my writing for AppStorm and elsewhere. Spotlight also finds some assorted songs with ‘App’ in the titles and there’s a whole host of files which are intelligently listed in order of what OS X thinks you’re looking for.

There are several alternatives to Spotlight and some, like Alfred, are beloved by many of us here at Mac.AppStorm, but Spotlight nonetheless remains a compelling OS X feature and one which is well worth you spending some time getting to know.

Personalizing OS X Lion

We can change many aspects of OS X Lion's appearance with System Preferences

I think that most Mac users would agree that OS X Lion looks pretty great right out of the box, but that said, it can be nice to make some small changes in order to make it suit your own tastes more fully. With this in mind, let’s take a look at some tweaks that we can make in order to customize Lion’s appearance. All of the following tweaks can be made in Lion’s System Preferences, found in the Applications folder.

Colour Scheme

If blue is really not your colour, then why not try gold, or graphite, or…

Within System Preferences, clicking on the ‘General’ preference pane will bring up choices for Appearance and Highlight color, in addition to options for changing the behaviour of the scroll bars. These can all be altered without worry, so feel free to experiment and find a look you like.

Dock

Lion's Dock can be moved to the left or right if desired

While the default placement of Lion’s Dock is on the bottom of your Mac’s screen, it can be easily changed to reside on the left or right side of the screen, vertically. Simply click the ‘Dock’ preference pane within System Preferences to get started making changes.

In addition, one can set the Dock to auto-hide, turn on Dock Magnification and adjust the size of the Dock, plus some other smaller tweaks like the type of animation which Lion uses when opening apps.

Background

Lion comes with a good selection of alternative wallpapers, or you can just use a picture of your own

There are several ways to change your Desktop background, or wallpaper. A right click (or option click) anywhere on the Desktop should provide a prompt which directs one to the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane, or alternatively it can be navigated to via the System Preferences panel. From here, a series of alternative OS X wallpapers can be chosen, or if desired, a folder can be added and any pictures from that folder can be used. Each Desktop background in Lion can be changed, so feel free to customise heavily!

There are many great websites where one can find backgrounds on the Internet, but one of the better resources is Simple Desktops

Launch Apps On Login

Take control of what Lion allows to open on login

Almost all OS X Lion applications are well-behaved and give you the option of whether you’d like them to launch automatically on switching on your Mac, but it’s still useful to know how to control this behavior, if only so that you can get rid of any pesky self-starting apps, should they appear.

To gain control over which applications launch when Lion itself loads, head over to Users & Groups (within System Preferences) and then the preference pane titled ‘Login Items’. From here, one can use the – button to remove an application or hit the + button and then navigate to an app you’d like to be launched.

Conclusion

That’s it for part two of our OS X Lion themed Mac 101. I hope that some new Mac users have gained additional knowledge of how the OS X file system works and that you’ve also had the chance to successfully tweak Lion to look just how you’d like it to.

In the next Mac 101 we’re going to delve right into the Apple ecosystem and all that it entails, including setting up an Apple ID and using that ID to purchase apps from the Mac App Store, music from iTunes, iCloud and more.

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20 Copies of MailTab Pro for Gmail Up for Grabs

January 26, 2012 by Terry · Leave a Comment

MailTab Pro for Gmail is an awesome app that allows you to enjoy the complete Gmail experience right from your menu bar. With MailTab Pro you can check your email, send and receive messages, and anything else that you would do from your browser. You can also choose between the full and mobile versions of Gmail and even activate a stealth mode that reduces the opacity of the window so you can sneakily check your email without catching anyone’s attention.

We’re super excited to announce that we have 20 MailTab Pro for Gmail codes to give away!

20 MailTab Pro for Gmail

Tweet to Enter

Entering is simple, all you have to do is click the link below and send out the resulting tweet (or just copy and paste), then leave a comment below with a link to your tweet. That’s it!

Win a Free Copy of MailTab Pro for Gmail from @MacAppStorm: 20 Copies Up for Grabs!http://goo.gl/6NkAp

We’ll announce the winners on Wednesday, February 1st. Good luck to everyone who enters and thanks for reading Mac.AppStorm!

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Motorola (Along With Google) Sues Apple On Patent Infringement

January 26, 2012 by Terry · Leave a Comment

It seemed like 2011 was the year of lawsuits both for and against Apple however 2012 is looking to be no different. In a fresh wave of legal attacks against Apple from its restless competitors, it’s now Motorola that is suing the Cupertino-based company on 6 counts of patent infringement in a Florida-based court.

Apple has fought many legal battles (mostly against makers of Android devices) last year and it seems that this year is going to be no different

According to the resubmitted claim filed by Motorola (the original claim was filed back in October of last year for 18 counts of copyright infringement), in which Motorola claims that they have “suffered irreparable harm and will continue to do so”, Apple have infringed 6 of their US-filed patents, specifically:

U.S. Patent No. 5,710,987: Receiver having concealed external antenna
U.S. Patent No. 5,754,119: Multiple pager status synchronisation system and method
U.S. Patent No. 5,958,006: Method and apparatus for communicating summarised data
U.S. Patent No. 6,008,737: Apparatus for controlling utilisation of software added to a portable communication device
U.S. Patent No. 6,101,531: System for communicating user-selected criteria filter prepared at wireless client to communication server for filtering data transferred from host to said wireless client
U.S. Patent No. 6,377,161: Method and apparatus in a wireless messaging system for facilitating an exchange of address information.

This recent action on Motorola’s behalf has been brought about due to the fact that the court in Florida originally conceded not to extend the original complaint to the 6 patents named above. Motorola’s filing is targeted specifically towards two of Apple’s products: the iPhone and the iCloud service, released in October of last year along with iOS 5.

An Action with Google’s Blessing

According to the British newspaper The Guardian, Google specifically gave permission for Motorola Mobility to file this new lawsuit against Apple after an analysis of the two companies takeover agreement, in which Google plans to purchase the struggling mobile manufacturer for an estimated $12.5 billion. Part of the takeover agreement includes a clause which states that Motorola Mobility cannot instigate any new lawsuits over intellectual property (i.e. exclusive rights) without prior approval from the “parent” company – which is Google of course.

According to an analysis of the takeover agreement, it seems that Google has instigated this legal action against Apple (Image courtesy of The Guardian)

Motorola also has pending litigation in the European Union (specifically in Mannheim, Germany) against Apple for the European patent equivalent to U.S. Patent No. 5,754,119, with a decision due next Friday. And it’s not only them that are having a legal spat with Apple. Samsung and HTC are also involved in similar lawsuits, again mostly due to copyright infringement. Back in August last year, Apple accused Samsung of copying the physical design of the iPad 2 for their new tablet device, the Galaxy Tab 10.1. The accusation even caused the temporary banning of select Samsung products in the European Union and in Australia, until the ban was uplifted owing to suspect evidence.

We’ll keep you up-to-date with this story as things progress. For more information, head over to Florian Müller’s (an independent patents analyst) blog, Foss Patents.

In the meantime, feel free to share your comments about what you think about this lawsuit. Is Motorola taking it too far? Or are they just upholding their creative assertion? All comments, views and thoughts are most welcome.

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iBooks Author: Multi-Touch Book Creation With a Big Catch

January 26, 2012 by Terry · Leave a Comment

While it’s no secret that iBooks hasn’t been a runaway success as Apple had hoped, the company is trying their hand at revolutionizing the book industry once more -but this time they’ve shifted their efforts towards the education market. Along with the new iBooks 2, Apple introduced iBooks Author, their simplistic, yet feature-rich solution for creating textbooks, cookbooks, and just about any other kind of book, for the iPad.

In making the app both user-friendly and free, Apple is clearly striving to make publishing available “for the rest of us”. Although the app is free, many will argue that the price of staying within the Apple ecosystem is too high for the budding author. So do the benefits outweigh the negatives? Read on.

Interface

The iBooks Author interface should be familiar to most Mac users.

Anyone familiar with the look and feel of the iWork suite of apps should feel right at home in iBooks Author. It shares the same user customizable toolbar, inspector based toolkit, and menu options as iWork, with functions custom tailored to ebook publishing. The standard sidebar seen in iWork is replaced with an outline function which works well as a solution to quickly skim the contents of your book.

Much of the new iBooks Author interface is based on drag and drop functionality: you are able to drag in pages of text, images, videos, Keynote presentations, and even widgets. This approach works seamlessly, especially if you already have parts of your book drafted in another app such as text in Microsoft Word or images in Adobe’s Photoshop. The included rulers and sizing guides are a welcome translation of a stellar iWork feature which allows for precision alignment of all objects on a page. Anyone comfortable working on a Mac should really feel quite at home in iBooks Author; Apple has managed to really simplify the difficult process of ebook publishing, all while adding a selection of killer features.

Writing your Book

Historically, publishing an ebook was no easy task. The ePub format is not for the faint-hearted, and as a result, it turned many people away from ebook publishing. Luckily, iBooks Author changes all that. The app gives you the option to compose your book in two ways, the first being within the app itself and the second is by importing .doc and .pages files directly into your book.

While composition within the app works great, iBooks Author really shines in its ability to import and restyle .doc and .pages files to the look of your book. For many people this feature is indispensable, as they likely have their books already composed in a standalone word processor. The auto-formatting capability is obviously not flawless, but for the most part, it eliminates the hassle of styling your book by hand. Once you’ve imported your files into iBooks Author, you can fool around with the fonts, colors, etc. and edit it as you would any other text.

Other elements such as pictures and widgets can be added to your book with your text dynamically reflowing to accommodate it. This creates a professional style that would be near-impossible to replicate in the ePub format. I don’t think it’s any stretch to say that composing a book in iBooks Author is simply delightful. Its feature set and formatting capabilities make it a best in class solution for authors.

Designing your Book

Apple products are nothing if not for their paramount style, and luckily, iBooks Author is no exception. Admittedly, the built in templates are bland at best, being created almost exclusively for textbooks, but since the program is so flexible, creating a beautiful design should be the easiest part of the publishing process. As with many products, iBooks Author won’t make a beautiful book for you, but Apple has included a plethora of features such as the “Styles” menu which go a long way towards streamlining the formatting process in general.

As mentioned before, the built in templates are really meant just for textbooks, so while you could repurpose them, if you want to make the next great digital cookbook, you’re going to need to invest some time into the design process.

Even though iBooks Author doesn’t have much included in the way of styles, you can still paste in your favorite elements from iWork apps seamlessly. Try mixing and matching to create a style that’s truly unique.

Lastly, iBooks Author has a few nice tricks up its sleeve that should help add a bit of flare to your book such as the ability to add an intro movie and some creative snap tools. If you’ve finished designing your book and you’d like to test it out on an actual iPad, hitting the “Preview” button will do just that. The iPad will need to be connect via USB, but the book will appear almost instantly in its full-featured form.

Adding Widgets

Using a widget to conduct a chapter quiz within the book.

If iBooks Author was to have a single killer feature, it would most definitely be widgets. These bite-sized bits of content allow you add unprecedented interactivity to your book in seconds. Their functionality spans a wide range, from a simple interactive image to a full-fledged HTML web snippet. In addition to being immensely useful to the reader, they are also extremely easy to implement within iBooks Author.

When inserting a widget you are given the ability to choose between a Gallery, Chapter Review, Interactive Image, HTML Snippet, 3D Object, Keynote presentation, or a more general media player. While some of these options are decidedly simple, the ability to add a Keynote presentation or an HTML snippet can go a large way towards ensuring that your book can really fulfill the full potential of the iPad. Finally, as with all other elements of your book, the widgets can be dragged, dropped, and formed are text, allowing it to flow around the widgetized area, creating a rather professional aesthetic.

Publishing your Book

Sadly, publishing is where the dream of iBooks Author can fall apart. If you plan on charging for the book you have created, the iBooks Author terms of service strictly prohibit you from distributing your work in any way except through Apple. Quite frankly this is a huge drawback to the app as a whole, as it means that you really can’t use it to create books for the Kindle, Nook, or anything else Apple hasn’t ordained. For many, though, this is a null point, as the interactive features in the book would be iPad specific anyway, regardless of Apple’s terms of service.

In any case, if you plan on using iBooks Author to sculpt your next masterpiece, you’ve got to be content to essentially sign away its publishing rights to Apple, but that’s the price you pay for such an amazing app. If you are content to have an iPad specific book, getting it published really isn’t as easy as it could be. While the app begins the process for you, you’ll still have to wait through a long approval process with no guarantee or guidelines for success from Apple. Without a doubt, publishing is iBooks Author’s fatal flaw.

Conclusion

The appeal of creating your book inside of iBooks Author is undeniable. Beautiful animations, customizable widgets, and a powerful feature set are all available free of charge, packaged in an amazingly user-friendly app. In the long run, though, what you get in features might not be worth what you’ll undoubtably lose in freedom as an author. You’ll be unable to publish your book outside of the Apple ecosystem, and there is no guarantee that it will even be approved in the first place. Make no mistake, iBooks Author is a powerful tool, but until Apple loosens their restrictions on your publishing rights, you might want to look elsewhere.

For only $20, Pages for the Mac offers the same user-centric UI, albeit without the multimedia functionality, and the ability to export in standards compliant ePub and PDF, making it much easier to recommend to the budding author. Still, iBooks Author is a compelling experience that could be taken as a serious threat to both the ebook and textbook establishments.

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iPhone 4S helped Apple inch past Android last quarter

January 26, 2012 by Russell · Leave a Comment

(Credit:
Apple)

Apple gained a slight edge over Android in the U.S. smartphone market last quarter, courtesy of the 37 million iPhones sold.

Eyeing the U.S. smartphone market for the December quarter, research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech pegged Apple’s share at 44.9 percent, double the percentage from a year ago. That narrowly beat Android’s market share, which fell to 44.8 percent from 50 percent.

Across the world, Android still retained its smartphone lead, but Apple’s iPhone is growing at a faster rate over its rival, according to Kantar. In the U.K., for example, Apple’s share of the smartphone market jumped to 34 percent last quarter from 22 percent a year ago.

Spider-Man: Total Mayhem HD – Save New York from the worst breakout of Super Villains

November 13, 2010 by bb7400 · Leave a Comment

You must use your spidey skills to save New York from a breakout of bad guys in Spider-Man: Total Mayhem HD.

Features:

Over 20 fighting combos
Play in a storyline inspired by the Ultimate Spider-Man comics
Battle against Sandman, Rhino, Electro, Venom, Dr Octopus, and Green Goblin
12 levels in unique New York City locations

Trailer:

Check out Spider-Man: Total Mayhem HD on the iPad for $6.99 from iTunes.

* Price subject to change without notice.

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Cut the Grass HD – Grass cutting finally comes to the iPad

February 22, 2011 by bb7400 · Leave a Comment

Can’t get enough summer chores? You’re in luck because grass cutting comes to the iPad in Cut the Grass HD.

The object of the game is to cut all the grass patches without going over the same patch twice. The game comes with 70 levels and 4 different challenges.

Video Demo:

Check out Cut the Grass HD on the iPad for $0.99 from iTunes.

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Colligo Networks Launches Enterprise-Class SharePoint App for iPad

January 6, 2012 by bb7400 · Leave a Comment

Colligo Briefcase Lite
Developer: Colligo Networks, Inc.
Price: free
Download from the App Store
User Ratings:

Colligo Networks, the leader in email and document management solutions for Microsoft SharePoint, recently announced the availability of Colligo Briefcase Enterprise which provides enterprise-class security features for browsing, viewing, and storing SharePoint content on iPads. With Colligo Briefcase Enterprise, organizations can confidently support the rapidly-growing number of users accessing corporate data from personal devices.

According to a recent study by Citrix on consumer-oriented device use in the workplace, 57% of organizations cited the security implications of allowing remote access as their top concern. 62% of participants lack processes or tools to manage the use of personal devices. Organizations that allow both personal and business device use reported productivity gains of up to 36%.Colligo Briefcase Enterprise for iPad is designed to meet the needs of both end-users and IT professionals in an enterprise SharePoint environment. (more…)