Month: July 2012

By Rick Rouan, Columbus Business News – Local Columbus News | Business First of Columbus – July 26, 2012 at 02:14PM

Columbus City Health Commissioner Teresa Long and Mayor Michael Coleman might have the highest salaries in the city of Columbus, but a retired police commander collected the city’s biggest paycheck last year.

Commander Curtis Marcum’s pay totaled $245,434 last year, the highest in the city by a wide margin. Marcum’s “regular” pay was only about $4,400 (one single pay period), but he brought in more than $241,000 in the city payroll department’s “other” category, which includes longevity…

By Thorin Klosowski, Lifehacker – July 26, 2012 at 09:00AM

One of the more interesting features of OS X Mountain Lion is the ability to synchronize messages between iMessage on your iPhone and Messages on your Mac. This means you can start a conversation on your Mac and continue it on your iPhone.

Set up for this feature is pretty simple. First, you need to enable a few things on both your iPhone and your Mac. Here’s what you need to do.

Set Up iMessage on Your iPhone

First off, you need to setup iMessages on your iPhone and change your Caller ID.

1. Open Settings > Messages.
2. Make sure iMessage is turned on.
3. Tap “Receive At” and note your Apple ID email.
4. Make sure your Apple ID and email address listed below are the same.
5. Tap Caller ID and change it from your phone number to your email address (you will still receive messages at your phone number, but sending out will be from your email. This makes it so it syncs across devices).

That’s it for your iPhone (iPod Touch or iPad). Now it’s time to get it working with Messages on your Mac.

Set Up Messages in Mountain Lion

With iMessages enabled it’s time to get it syncing with Messages on your computer.

1. Open up the Messages app in your Applications folder.
2. Click Messages > Preferences.
3. Click the Account Tab.
4. Make sure your Apple ID matches the Apple ID email on your iPhone and the “Enable this account” box is checked.

That’s it, you’re done. Now, when Messages is open on your Mac you’ll automatically receive any iMessages you get from other iPhone users. However, if Messages isn’t opened, the conversations won’t synchronize. I also had trouble moving a conversation from my iPhone to the Mac seamlessly, but had no problems going the other way. The Messages and iMessage syncing still seems inconsistant, but hopefully it will smooth out over time.

By Kevin Purdy, Lifehacker – July 26, 2012 at 10:30AM

No system is immune to hangs and freeze-ups, and that includes even the most austere Linux desktop. What sets Linux apart is a key that can call out to the core kernel to un-freeze your desktkop, kill memory-hogging services, and cause a clean restart.

You’ll need a full-size keyboard with a SysRq key, of course, or a laptop with the key available through a Function option. If you have that key, check that it’s enabled as a “magic” system-level switch with this terminal command, which should return with a “1”:

cat /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq

Assuming that’s the case, you can then hold Alt+SysRq and tap certain keys to take semi-emergency actions—Alt+SysRq+r, for example, gives you back the keyboard if it’s stopped responding, and you can then restart your system, restart a graphical X server, and so on. The How-To Geek site has a full list of commands and setup instructions for empowering that little-used key. Photo by solylunafamilia.

Use the Magic SysRq Key on Linux to Fix Frozen X Servers, Cleanly Reboot, and Run Other Low-Level Commands | How-To Geek

By Melanie Pinola, Lifehacker – July 26, 2012 at 01:00PM

iCloud, Apple’s cloud syncing solution, is designed to keep your most important information on your iOS devices and Mac in sync. The thing is, it works so silently in the background that few of us give it any thought (or know what we can really do with it). Now that iCloud is more tightly integrated with Mountain Lion, let’s take a look at iCloud’s best features.

First, What The Heck Is iCloud??

If you’re wondering what iCloud even is, you’re not alone. Apple launched iCloud last fall with iOS5 and we’ve mentioned iCloud a few times, but overall the consensus is that iCloud, so far, has sucked. Many people, despite going through the steps to set up iCloud when they set up their iPad or iPhone, have no clue what it is. Photo via BuzzFeed

Basically, iCloud is a built-in syncing and backup service you automatically have if you bought an Apple device. It syncs and backs up to Apple’s online servers your calendars, contacts, email, music, photos, bookmarks, and documents across your devices, and it’s also available for Windows PC users. Make a change on your iPhone or iPad and pick up where you left off on your Mac. (Sound familiar? Yeah, Apple had a similar service, MobileMe, which iCloud has replaced.)

When you set up each of your Apple devices (and/or you install iCloud on a PC), you log in with your Apple ID and choose which content gets synced. (If you don’t remember, it’s under Settings > iCloud.) Then iCloud just works invisibly in the background until it has to warn you that you’ve synced too much and exceeded the free storage allotment.

Everyone gets 5GB of storage free, but Apple offers yearly pricing plans (starting at 10GB for $20 a year) if you need more.

Syncing through Google’s services or using other similar apps might be more attractive in many cases, but iCloud has the easiest, most seamless integration for iOS and Mac. And with Apple’s latest operating system, Mountain Lion, that’s truer than ever.

Using “Documents in the Cloud”

iCloud is more tightly integrated—and less hidden—with Mac apps now. Any apps that support the new “Documents In the Cloud” feature—such as TextEdit and Pages/other iWork apps—now automatically sync all your edits made to documents across iOS devices and Mountain Lion machines and you have quick access to your iCloud storage. It’s like working with Google Docs (via Google Drive) or editing a document on Dropbox on your computer, but there are a few cool things about this integration:

• Your iCloud drive appears as a location in your save or open dialogs. So you can easily choose to save stuff directly to iCloud and not your Mac.
• Dragging files from your Mac to iCloud is easy: From a Finder window, you just drag the file to your app’s iCloud window.
• Quickly share files (via email, Message, or Air Drop) from your iCloud account via the share icon/buttons.
• In your supported apps, you can Quick View docs saved in iCloud (via the spacebar), rename docs, organize them into folders, and so on.

As long as you have Documents & Data checked in the iCloud syncing settings, anything you create or edit within compatible apps will be uploaded to iCloud—whether it’s a text document, a presentation, or a drawing.

Other Things You Can Do with iCloud

But wait, there’s more! iCloud is trying to be your de facto syncing solution for iOS devices and Macs, so it syncs other things besides documents—and has some neat uses:

• Sync Reminders and Notes on your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and, now, Mountain Lion Macs.
• Remote SSH into your Mac through iCloud
• Locate a lost or stolen iDevice or MacBook with Find My Mac or Find My iPhone
• Stream photos to your TV (via Apple TV) or iOS devices over Wi-Fi
• Keep downloaded apps in sync across iOS devices
• Access your files on icloud.com (works with mail, contact, calendar entries, iWork, and Find My Phone)

Again, these features can be enabled or disabled under System Preferences > iCloud.

Coming Soon in iOS 6

Apple says iOS 6 will add even more iCloud features when it launches in the fall. Among the enhanced features are selective photo sharing, syncing tabs in Safari, and improved Find my iPhone and Find My Friends features.

iCloud still isn’t perfect and it isn’t the cheapest online storage/syncing solution, but it does a lot more than many of us probably realized. And it’s there for free anyway, so, hey, we might as well use it.

By (author unknown), Dilbert Daily Strip – July 26, 2012 at 01:00AM

By Craig Snyder, MakeUseOf – July 25, 2012 at 10:00PM

Software packagers like Ninite are at an uptick in popularity now that the old seek-and-download method is quickly drawing close towards extinction. Imagine what your kids will think when you tell them that you actually had to search for and manually update certain essential software in the future. Crazy, right?

iOS and other platforms come built around automatic updates to core functionality and additional software that you should install. That’s one huge benefit of having the App Store. Windows isn’t quite there yet. However, that hasn’t kept certain third-party developers from molding that sort of a feature for you. As mentioned before, Ninite makes that easy on you. Soft2Base makes it even easier, and I’ll show you how today.

Click here to check out Soft2Base!

Soft2Base is a software manager for Windows that scans for over 60 of the most popular applications and ensures that your computer is running the very latest version. If not, Soft2Base can silently download and automatically install them for you.

On launch, Soft2Base makes it easy for you by displaying all of their supported software. As you can see at the bottom left, there are display filters that will allow you to narrow down the listed software by installed or not, need to be updated, already up to date, and more recent than listed. In the next screenshot, you’ll see that I’ve filtered to only see software on my system that needs to be updated.

You can then check off the software you’d like to update and click Next. Here, you’ll notice more important options at the bottom left of the screen. You’re able to choose if you’d like to install without comparing, install silently, or download without installing. I never recommend running through silent installs, as that is how you can get toolbars and other bloatware stuffed onto your system.

Soft2Base will automatically begin downloading your software and the installation prompts will automatically pop up if you’ve chosen to install them manually.

I’ve yet to run into any issues on Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) and it’s worked like a charm thus far. Additional features include the ability to create and save a profile that consists of only certain software that you’d like to monitor and keep up to date. The software supports English, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, and is completely portable. You’re also able to view logs and downloaded files, all within the interface.

Simply put, Soft2Base does everything that we’d be doing manually in an automatic way. Running Soft2Base also means that you’ll be able to disable annoying system services, like iTunes’ auto-updater, Google Update, Java’s update process, and more. This could mean, if you’re on a less beefy system, a faster computer.

As Soft2Base grows, look forward to a larger base of software being supported. From what I’ve read, there are no plans to support Linux and Mac versions of applications yet. Let me know what you think of this neat little tool in the comments!

By Craig Snyder, MakeUseOf – July 25, 2012 at 10:00PM

Software packagers like Ninite are at an uptick in popularity now that the old seek-and-download method is quickly drawing close towards extinction. Imagine what your kids will think when you tell them that you actually had to search for and manually update certain essential software in the future. Crazy, right?

iOS and other platforms come built around automatic updates to core functionality and additional software that you should install. That’s one huge benefit of having the App Store. Windows isn’t quite there yet. However, that hasn’t kept certain third-party developers from molding that sort of a feature for you. As mentioned before, Ninite makes that easy on you. Soft2Base makes it even easier, and I’ll show you how today.

Click here to check out Soft2Base!

Soft2Base is a software manager for Windows that scans for over 60 of the most popular applications and ensures that your computer is running the very latest version. If not, Soft2Base can silently download and automatically install them for you.

On launch, Soft2Base makes it easy for you by displaying all of their supported software. As you can see at the bottom left, there are display filters that will allow you to narrow down the listed software by installed or not, need to be updated, already up to date, and more recent than listed. In the next screenshot, you’ll see that I’ve filtered to only see software on my system that needs to be updated.

You can then check off the software you’d like to update and click Next. Here, you’ll notice more important options at the bottom left of the screen. You’re able to choose if you’d like to install without comparing, install silently, or download without installing. I never recommend running through silent installs, as that is how you can get toolbars and other bloatware stuffed onto your system.

Soft2Base will automatically begin downloading your software and the installation prompts will automatically pop up if you’ve chosen to install them manually.

I’ve yet to run into any issues on Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) and it’s worked like a charm thus far. Additional features include the ability to create and save a profile that consists of only certain software that you’d like to monitor and keep up to date. The software supports English, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, and is completely portable. You’re also able to view logs and downloaded files, all within the interface.

Simply put, Soft2Base does everything that we’d be doing manually in an automatic way. Running Soft2Base also means that you’ll be able to disable annoying system services, like iTunes’ auto-updater, Google Update, Java’s update process, and more. This could mean, if you’re on a less beefy system, a faster computer.

As Soft2Base grows, look forward to a larger base of software being supported. From what I’ve read, there are no plans to support Linux and Mac versions of applications yet. Let me know what you think of this neat little tool in the comments!

By udijw, DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting – July 25, 2012 at 12:55PM

Who said that hi-end lighting equipment has to be expensive?

And who says the only way to shoot with fluorescent light is to use the flicker-free kino-flo lights that can cost you thousands of dollars?

I began using this fluorescent lighting technique nearly 10 years ago, long before kino-flo’s and Peter Hurley became popular. I have been asked to describe it so many times that I decided it was time to put together a few tutorials to show how to build it and how to use it.

In this article, I am going to deal with the “how-to use” the fluorescent studio lights. Jump to the end and you will find a video and parts list that will help you build your own set-up for less than four hundred dollars.

read more

By Thorin Klosowski, Lifehacker – July 25, 2012 at 08:45AM

With the release of any new operating system comes a list of annoyances for veteran users. OS X Mountain Lion is no different, and while a number of its new features are great, a few annoyances have popped up that are pretty easy to fix. Here’s how to do it.

De-iOS-ify the Interface

It’s no secret that Mountain Lion takes a lot of cues from iOS for its interface. Like Lion before it, Mountain Lion has tweaks that are a little annoying. These include reverse-scrolling on trackpads, hidden scroll bars, and more. The good news? If you disabled everything in Lion your settings will cross over to Mountain Lion. If you didn’t? Most everything is in the same place, even if it’s worded differently. Check out our guide to De-iOS-ifying OS X Lion for a rundown of doing the same thing on Mountain Lion.

For an additional set of options you can also check out the free software Lion Tweaks 2. Lion Tweaks was initially released to get rid of some of OS X Lion’s biggest annoyances, but has been updated with support for Mountain Lion. With Lion Tweaks you can quickly disable the resume feature for apps, get rid of the Calendar’s leather look, show hidden files, and more.

Take Control of Hyperactive Gatekeeper Settings

Gatekeeper is Mountain Lion’s new privacy system to keep you from installing apps that aren’t approved. It also alerts you when apps try to access private information. This is pretty handy for new users, but for anyone who wants to step outside the Mac App Store ecosystem it’s a bit of a pain.

To change your Gatekeeper settings open up System Preferences and click Security & Privacy. The big change here is under the General tab where the “Allow applications downloaded from” option exists. If you know what you’re doing and want to use software downloaded from outside the Mac App Store you can change this setting to either “Mac App Store and identified developers” or “Anywhere” in order to use your own software.

Gatekeeper also adds a few new customization options on the Privacy tab. Here you can select which apps have access to your location and address book. When you first start launching apps that access your address book you’ll get a lot of pop-ups from apps requesting that access. This is valuable information, but gets annoying over time. The Privacy tab is your one-stop shop to enabling and disabling access.

Integrate Growl Directly with Notification Center

Most of us have been using the system notification tool Growl for a long time, but the introduction of Mountain Lion’s own Notification Center means we now have a new option.

Not all of your apps are going to get updated to support Mountain Lion’s handy new Notification Center. Thankfully, you can integrate the two together with an app called Hiss. With Hiss installed, all of your apps that support Growl will push notifications into Notification Center for a relatively seamless integration between the two. Hiss is still in beta, but it has worked well for us so far. You can’t fine-tune the notification types like you can in Growl, but it works to make Growl and Notification Center play nice together. You can always, of course, disable Notification Center completely in the System Preferences under Notifications and use Growl exclusively.

Disable Annoying Notification Alerts Before They Start

By default, Notifications are set up for all the stock Apple apps. If you haven’t really been using these apps then the notifications—and their accompanying sounds—might come as a big surprise.

For instance, all Apple software has notifications enabled. This means Game Center, Face Time, Calendar, and every other app that comes packed in with Mountain Lion that can push notifications. It’s a bit surprising to get a notification from something like Game Center if you don’t really use it, so it’s wise to pop into the Notifications settings in System Preferences and tweak the setting accordingly.

Turn Off Automatic System Updates

With Mountain Lion, you can automatically install software updates when your computer is sleeping. By default, this setting is enabled. If you’re not comfortable getting silent updates for software without reading the list of changes it’s not hard to turn off.

In System Preferences, click on Software Update. Here you can disable automatic software updates, security updates, and automatic downloading of apps purchased on other Macs. We’d say most people would want to keep at least the security updates on, but software updates are entirely up to you.

Get AirPlay Mirroring on Nearly Any Mac

One of the major annoyances with Mountain Lion is that the AirPlay mirroring feature that sends your Mac desktop to your TV via Apple TV only works on Mac’s released after 2011.

The good news is that you can do this anyway with AirParrot, a $10 application that adds the same functionality to older Macs. We’re fans of AirParrot and if you don’t have a 2011 or newer Mac, it’s the easiest way around Mountain Lion’s AirPlay restrictions.

Install Mountain Lion on an Unsupported Older Mac

Apple dropped support for a few older models of Macs with Mountain Lion, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t check it out. Currently, the forum users in MacForums have put together a couple different guides for installing Mountain Lion on unsupported Macs. The only solutions require a lot of manual work to get your files in order, but if you’re dying to use Mountain Lion it’s an option. Just remember that Apple won’t support your computer if anything goes wrong.