TekkieBob - All Things Tech!

Filemaker 13 - Hidden Labels

2013-12-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

Remember the days when a developer wanted to make one of those fancy fields with placeholder text? Conditional formatting, 500px text tricks, etc. Well, thanks to FileMaker 13's "Hide Object" calculation field, it is now a breeze! This method is especially useful for iPhone layouts as screen space is at a premium.

The topic was discussed some time ago in this thread on FMForums.com for earlier versions of FileMaker.

Here is an example if the solution:

Demo Field Labels

Demo file attached. Read on...
These labels are much like those seen on Web forms. The field label is a hint for the user to enter the data in the proper field. First name, middle, last etc.

Here is a partially filled in form:

Form with first, last and nickname added.

And here is with a field in focus:

Field in focus - label gone

With FileMaker's new "Hide Object When" calculation, it is now easy to just hide the label when the field has data.

Example: Hide object when… not IsEmpty ( Field Label Demo::nameMiddle )

The same can apply to other elements on the layout. For example when a field contains data, the letter indicators as to the data type could be displayed as shown here at the right of the field box.

The same principle applies to other elements such as navigation. As you can see in the example above the Left and Right arrow indicators for navigating the records disappear at first or last record depending on the found set. The sample file can be downloaded below.

Demo File FileMaker 13

EDIT: FM 14 makes this all obsolete with the new "Placeholder Text" calculation field! So good. There are many ways to take advantage of Filemaker's calculation engine using the "Hide when". For example, one can set a local or global variable to display custom text or calculations.

System Preferences - Under the Hood of Your Mac

2013-09-16T21:18:00.001-07:00

New to the Mac? Had a Mac for years? Either way you need to know the "in's and out's" of the System Preferences of your operating system. Getting under the "hood" of your Mac need not mean getting you hands dirty. Don't worry, you don't need to be a computer geek or even slightly nerdy to master your Mac's look and feel.1

What this series will cover

Putting stickers all over the outside of your laptop is not the only way to customize it. In the next several blog posts, we will discover many obvious and also some hidden treats in the System Preferences. Want to control how often pictures change in your screen saver? Or perhaps you type the same response to emails, over and over again? Or maybe the screen dims too quickly for your taste. All of this is can be under your control. Apple sets your Mac's settings out of the box to work in a generally easy manner. But you are you, why don't you make your Mac work the way you want to? Well you certainly can! Read on...

System Preferences - OK, Now What?

To get to all this Geeky Goodness, you have many options.

Click on the  icon in your Menu bar. (Look at the upper left side, yup, there it is!) Select System Preferences from the dropdown menu.
Click on the System Preferences on your dock.
Select System Preferences from Launchpad. This can be seen by tapping the F4 key on you keyboard or by pinching with five fingers on your trackpad. Try it. Is very cool. Start typing System Preferences and the icons will narrow down showing you relavant applications.2
Type System Preferences in Spotlight. This is the little magnifying glass icon at the upper right side of your menu bar.

Lesson One

For our first lesson let's check out the System Preferences Pane. You know, the window that pops up when you click the System Preferences icon. In the header you will see forward and back arrows, a "Show All" button and a search field.

Back and Forward Just like a Web Browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera...) as you move through the preferences you have to option to 'go back' or forward to the last preference setting. When you apply a setting, for example a desktop background, it is instantly applied. No need to restart your Mac or silly foolishness like that. The change is made, pure and simple.
Show All This button takes you back to this window from anywhere in the system preferences.
Search This is a great feature that will save you a lot of time! As most of us don't go to these settings very often, entering a search term in this field will help you to find the setting you are looking for. As you type, the icons that are relevant highlight so you can quickly navigate to the correct setting pane.

The Icons

The first row groups general settings together. Here you can change your screensaver, location and visibility of your dock or even control what is searchable on your Mac via Spotlight. The next row is for the Input and Output settings of your Mac. (I/O) This is for Input devices like mice and keyboards, and Output devices like the monitor, speakers and printers. The next row covers network related settings. Next are the administrative settings. They are not for the faint of heart, but not too difficult to learn and leverage though.

What's Next?

In the next article, we will examine the General settings icon. Lots of geeky goodness here!

Many of the settings mentioned in the upcoming blog posts may be advanced, but they can save you much time an effort as you use your Mac from day to day. Feel free to dig into them on your own. You may find some hidden gems not covered here. [^fn]:This is a great way to find any program on you Mac, by the way. For more information check out this article on Apple's Support Website.
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Many of the settings mentioned in the upcoming blog posts may be advanced, but they can save you much time an effort as you use your Mac from day to day. Feel free to dig into them on your own. You may find some hidden gems not covered here. [^fn]:This is a great way to find any program on you Mac, by the way. For more information check out this article on Apple's Support Website.
Written with StackEdit.
↩

FileMaker Custom Function: Calculate Years elapsed

2013-09-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

For you FileMaker Pro Advanced users out there...

If you have several date fields and would like to calculate years elapsed (for example a person's age) here is a custom function that will do it.

Of course it is a simple calculation and could be typed each time you need it in a calculation field, but this is designed to be used in several places where needed.

Examples:

Age
Years of service since hire date
Years married

You get the idea.

/**

* =====================================

* YearsElapsed ( startDate )

* PURPOSE:

* Convenience function for working with

* dates to calculate age or years elapsed to current date.

* RETURNS:

* (number)

* PARAMETERS:

* startDate = Field reference

* EXAMPLES:

* YearsElapsed ( dateBirth ) = 46.7

* YearsElapsed ( dateHired) = 2.7

* DEPENDENCIES:

* none

* NOTES:

* This is simply a helper function to avoid having excessive amounts of

* similar code within a FileMaker solution.

* HISTORY:

* MODIFIED on Monday, September 16, 2013 by Robert Kuivanen - added

* REFERENCES:

* (see YearsElapsed custom function)

* =====================================

Truncate ( ( Get ( CurrentDate ) - startDate ) / 365.2425; 1 )

Calculate Age or Years Elapsed in an Apple Numbers Sheet

2013-09-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

Often it is useful to show a person's age or years elapsed since a start date. For example:

Hire Date: 4/1/2012 - Years of service: 1.5

Here's a formula for Numbers that will do the trick:

=IF(ISBLANK(cellReference),"",DATEDIF(cellReference,TODAY(),"D")/365.2425)

Replace the cellReference with the actual cell reference. i.e.: (A1)

So here's the breakdown:

=IF(ISBLANK(cellReference),"" --- this checks to see if there is a start date in your referenced cell. For example say your spreadsheet has a cell (A1) that holds a date of birth, but it is not yet referenced, this will result in an empty string. (Blank cell)

Otherwise, it calculates the years: DATEDIF(cellReference,TODAY(),"D")/365.2425)

DATEDIF compares two dates.

The first date is your cell reference i.e.: (A1)

The second is the current date according to your computer, iOS device: TODAY() returning the Day - "D"

Then the difference is divided by 365.2425 to get the number of years. Set your cell to result in a number with one decimal place.

There you go!

Mac Tip - Free Up Some Hard Drive Space

2013-06-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

Fed Up - Full Hard Drive Syndrome

Getting the "Start-up disk is full" warning? Here are some tips that can help you reclaim some drive space.

Backup, Backup, Backup

Backup (as in save important stuff just-in-case) before you do anything that will significantly impact your computer's internal storage. If you have an external hard-drive with at least 2x the capacity of your internal drive, consider using Time Machine to create automatic backups of your data. Time Machine, built into your Mac, will automatically check your computer every hour for changes and back them up incrementally. This means it will only save changes, not re-copy all of you data over again. You can use an external drive physically attached to your machine (USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt) or storage on your network, often referred to as Network Attached Storage or NAS. One of the best and easiest solutions is to use an Apple Time Capsule. It is easy to configure and you can "set it and forget it." Anytime you are on the same network as your Time Capsule, Time Machine will back up your drive in the background. For more information you can read about it here.

Trash Full

Alternatively, you can backup certain files manually to any storage device. But the important thing is DO IT! Got it done? It's OK, I can wait.

Empty the Trash

You may have heard of hoarding. Your computer is notorious for it. It loves to hang on to old junk. Teach it some new habits by learning a few of your own. Does your trash bin look like this? If you are unsure what is in it, double click to open it and see its contents. Junk, right? Click "Empty Trash." Now. Depending on how long it has been since you took out the trash, you can reclaim a Gigabyte or two or even more.

iPhoto Trash

Actually, this is not the only trash can in your system. Did you know that all those pictures you "deleted" from iPhoto are probably still there? iPhoto has its own trash so you will need to review its contents and delete there too. Depending on the size of your photo library and what you have trashed over time, this could release a HUGE amount of disk space.

If you use iMovie to make those cute kitty-cat videos for posting on YouTube, the files can add up fast. Videos are the single most users of disk space in your computer. Consider purging them especially if you have them backed up elsewhere.

iMove Reclaim Space

Downloads Folder

Another place to check for bloat is your Downloads Folder. This folder is the place were all the photos, videos, PDF's and apps you have collected from Safari or your preferred Web browser are kept. Clean it out. You'll feel much better.

Apple Mail, the Hungry Hippo

Apple Mail stores every attachment of every email you have ever retrieved using it. If you are a mailbox packrat, then Apple mail (or any desktop email client you use) could be holding several gigabytes of space that you can free up. The easiest and first thing you can do is to make sure that your deleted mail items are indeed, well, deleted. Go to Mail preferences, (keyboard shortcut command+, (⌘,) and select the Accounts Tab. Look at the Trash settings for each account you use. Also, check the Junk Mail settings while you are at it.

Apple Mail Settings

Advanced (But not Difficult) Ways to Look for Old Files

Still need some space? Remember, you have backed up your stuff right? Right? OK, let's move on. Your Finder is a powerful tool. Did you know you can set up special searches that will be saved as "Smart Folders" that will always update? For example, suppose you want to see all PDF files on your Mac that have not been opened in the past year. Make a Smart Folder that always shows PDF's a year old or older. Here's how you do it:

Use the search bar on Finder to start a search for files of Kind PDF.
Click on the Plus icon for more filtering options such as "last opened date" or Name.
When you have added all the desired filters, click Save and name the folder.

You will now have a "Smart Folder" that is always up to date. There you can review and purge files you no longer need.

There's an App for That

Also, there are several third party applications available on the Mac App Store as well as online that you can use to see what is taking up all the space on your Mac and clean it up. The Utilities category on the App Store is a good place to start. DaisyDisk is one of my favorites. It is easy to use and gives you a visual representation of what your disk storage space looks like. It is not free, but at $9.99 it is cheaper than a arterial McDonalds attack and you get it forever.

Bottom Line...

With good housekeeping and regular backups of your data, you can keep your hard disk humming along for years. Well, I gotta go... Time to empty the trash. "Coming, Honey!!"

Tips: Delete duplicate entries in "Open With..." dialog in Finder

2013-05-21T09:49:00.001-07:00

Duplicates!!!

When you control+click (or right click if you have enabled that option) on Mountain Lion, and there seems to be several duplicate applications listed and/or apps you no longer use, here is a Terminal shell script that will fix that. Just copy and paste the code below in a Terminal window.

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain user

(Terminal can be found using Launchpad or Spotlight) After pasting, hit the Return key and allow time to run, then type "killAll Finder" without the quotes, and Return. This will rebuild the "Open With..." menu. ~~If you do not see an immediate effect on the lists, restart your Mac.~~ Should be no need to restart. (Thanks, JK)

Duplicates and old apps gone!

If you wish, you can make a Service that will do it using Automator as well:
Open Automator (Launch Pad or Applications folder)
Create Service (Gear Icon)

Make new Service using Automator

Next, add a Run Shell Script step and type in the code above. (Paste it in if you want to save typing and reduce errors.)
Then add another Run Shell Script with the killall Finder command.
Save as a service with a name you choose. Then Select from the Services menu when you need it.

Service Workflow

Change the Default Font of Notes App in OS X Mountain Lion

2012-08-08T11:48:00.001-07:00

Change the Default Font of Notes App in OS X Mountain Lion:

The new Notes app in OS X Mountain Lion features a default font that is hard to read and looks a bit goofy. If you want a more professional looking font that’s easier on the eyes, you can easily switch the default font from “Noteworthy” to the always classic Helvetica.

From the Notes app, pull down the “Format” menu
Open the “Font” submenu followed by “Default Font” and select “Helvetica” for the cleanest looking font, or choose “Marker Felt” to match the default Notes font in iOS

Changes take effect immediately. Helvetica is shown below:

Formatting can be lost as you’ll see in this video:

You can change it in the iOS Notes app too.

Google adding Siri, Google Now like functionality to its iOS Search app in a couple of days [Video]

2012-08-08T11:44:00.001-07:00

Google adding Siri, Google Now like functionality to its iOS Search app in a couple of days [Video]:

Today, Google has announced that it is rolling, in a few days, out a new version of its its Google Search application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The new version is notable in that it brings Siri and Google Now like voice search functionality to the App Store app. The Verge is on hand at the announcement, and they noted you can “ask for the weather in a natural way” and it will provide results.
Search Engine Land is also on hand at the event, and they provide some more details. Notably, you can search mapping info, theme songs, and information about people, and conduct math calculations.

This sounds just like Siri and Google Now, complete with contextual awareness. The app is not out yet: it’s coming in a few days. When it is, it will be available here in iTunes.
Read more at the Official Google Blog.

Mountain Lion 101: Silencing Notification Center alerts

2012-08-07T12:00:00.001-07:00

Mountain Lion 101: Silencing Notification Center alerts:
Mountain Lion's Notification Center is handy. It displays banners and alerts from notification-aware apps to keep you informed of changes, like a new Twitter mention, Calendar event or email message. That last one can get distracting, depending on how much email you receive. Here are some ways to tame email alerts:

Disable alerts and banners in System Preferences. Open System Preferences and click Notifications. Select Mail from the list on the right and then click None. You'll no longer see email notifications.
Quit Mail. Apple's Mail app won't push notifications if it isn't running.
Turn them all of at once. Open Notification Center on your Mac and swipe up to the very top. Move the slider labeled Show Alerts and Banners to the Off position to silence all pop-up alerts and banners (they still appear listed in Notification Center itself). Slide it back to On to restore alerts and banners.

If you're worried about a notification popping up when you're making a presentation, don't be. Notification Center is smart enough to recognize when you've got Keynote open and silences notifications on its own. Additionally, it won't display alerts or banners on a mirrored display.
Continue reading Mountain Lion 101: Silencing Notification Center alerts

Mountain Lion 101: Silencing Notification Center alerts originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filings detail Apple's plans to improve support for hearing impaired users

2012-07-22T20:04:00.001-07:00

Filings detail Apple's plans to improve support for hearing impaired users:

'via Blog this'

Mac OS X Tips

2012-07-18T20:43:00.000-07:00

Mac OS X Tips:

This guy is good.

If you want to tweak your login screen, make Automator workflows, or simply just learn some power Mac user tips, this is the website to go to!

For example:
Create your own EPUB ebook files using Automator
13 things you didn't know about Preview

Check it out!

'via Blog this'

Ubuntu Unveils New HUD Menu System, Dropping Traditional Menus (video)

2012-01-24T09:14:00.001-08:00

Pretty interesting idea. Hands on keyboard.

Ubuntu Unveils New HUD Menu System, Dropping Traditional Menus (video)

Geeky-Gadgets

Ubuntu has unveiled a new innovative user interface system called Head-Up-Display (HUD) today which it has been testing, and has designed to replace the traditional menu system used by nearly every computer software application to date.

The new user interface has been designed to provide a HUD that would search through all the possible commands to find the action you're looking for. Watch the video after the break to see the new user interface in action.

(...)
Original Story Ubuntu Unveils New HUD Menu System, Dropping Traditional Menus (video)

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How to Zip Files in Mac OS X

2012-01-10T07:49:00.001-08:00

How to Zip Files in Mac OS X

OS X Daily

Ever wondered how to make a zip file in Mac OS X? We recently demonstrated how to password protect zip archives, but in the comments a reader asked a more simple yet completely valid question: "what about just making a standard zip file?" Well, making zip files on a Mac is easy, and with compression tools built directly into OS X there is no need to download additional software or add-ons, here's how.

How to Make a Zip Archive in Mac OS X

You can use this to create zip files of files, folders, or both:

Right-click on a file, folder, or files you want to zip
Select "Compress Items"
Find the newly created .zip archive in the same directory

If a single file is being zipped, the zip archive will maintain the standard file name but append the .zip extension. If more than one file is being zipped, the archive will be named "Archive.zip", and if multiple archives are created, they will be named successively "Archive 2.zip" and so on.

Opening zip files is even easier, just double-click on the archive and it'll expand automatically with Archive Utility.

Zip archives can also be created from the command line by using the terminal command zip with the following syntax:
zip archive.zip file.txt

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Gorilla Glass 2 will allow same strength at 80 percent of size, likely to end up in iOS devices

2012-01-10T07:48:00.001-08:00

Gorilla Glass 2 will allow same strength at 80 percent of size, likely to end up in iOS devices

9 to 5 Mac - Apple Intelligence

Inside Apple writer Adam Lashinky at Fortune and Steve Jobs Biography writer Walter Isaacson recently discussed a great story of how Steve Jobs got Corning to (re)invent Gorilla Glass:

..a really great CEO in this country, Wendell Weeks, who runs Corning Glass. Steve Jobs when he does the iPhone decides he doesn't want plastic, he wants really tough glass on it, and they don't make a glass that can be tough like they want. And finally somebody says to him, because they were making all of the glass in China for the fronts of the stores, says, "You ought to check with the people at Corning. They're kind of smart there." So, he flies to Corning, New York, sits there in front of the CEO, Wendell Weeks, and says, "This is what I want, a glass that can do this." So, Wendell Weeks says, "We once created a type of process that created something called Gorilla Glass." And Steve said, "No, no, no. Here's how you make really strong glass." And Wendell says, "Wait a minute, I know how to make glass. Shut up and listen to me." And Steve, to his credit, shuts up and listens, and Wendell Weeks describes a process that makes Gorilla Glass. And Steve then says, "Fine. In six months I want enough of it to make–whatever it is–a million iPhones." And Wendell says, "I'm sorry, we've actually never made it. We don't have a factory to make it. This was a process we developed, but we never had a manufacturing plant to do it." And Steve looks at him and says what he said to Woz, 20, 30 years earlier: "Don't be afraid, you can do it." Wendell Weeks tells me… Because I flew to Corning, because I just wanted to hear this story. Wendell Weeks tells me, "I just sat there and looked at the guy. He kept saying, 'Don't be afraid. You can do this.'"

[audience laughter]

WI: Wendell Weeks said he called his plant in Kentucky that was making glass for LCD screens, and said, "Start the process now, and make Gorilla Glass." That's why every iPhone in your pocket and iPad has Gorilla Glass made by Corning. This is the reality distortion field that is, I submit, part and parcel of a guy who doesn't believe the rules apply to him, even the rule about never cut in line.

AL: And of course Corning uses this in their marketing now, they market Gorilla Glass for other customers.

Fast-forward to today where Corning introduced its Gorilla Glass 2 that is the same strength as the original but at 20 percent thinner to allow for better colors and touch that is more responsive. Alternatively, it is much stronger at the current thickness….

The Verge had a look at the testing of the strength at CES 2012 below.

There has been much discussion if Apple still uses Gorilla Glass but it would be surprising if they did not still use it in the bigger display products, especially the iPad.

The Full Press release is below:

Corning Unveils New Gorilla® Glass 2

With new glass composition, tough gets better – with device performance benefits for sophisticated user experiences

CORNING, N.Y., January 09, 2012 – Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW) introduces Corning® Gorilla® Glass 2, the next generation of the company's widely accepted, damage-resistant cover glass for consumer electronic devices, at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. The outstanding performance benefits of this new glass will be showcased through live demonstrations in the Corning booth, #12642 Central Hall, during show hours tomorrow, Jan. 10, through Friday, Jan. 13.

View Images:

Gorilla Glass Product Image

Gorilla Glass 2 Visual

View Videos:

A Day Made of Glass

Follow Corning:

RSS Feeds
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube

Follow Corning®
Gorilla® Glass:

Facebook

Corning Gorilla Glass 2 enables up to a 20 percent reduction in glass thickness, while maintaining the industry-leading damage resistance, toughness, and scratch resistance customers have come to expect from the world's most widely deployed cover glass. The thinner Gorilla Glass 2 enables slimmer and sleeker devices, brighter images, and greater touch sensitivity. These benefits can provide electronics manufacturers with superior design flexibility as they address consumer demand for increasingly high-performing, touch-sensitive, and durable mobile devices.

"Corning Gorilla Glass has enjoyed tremendous market adoption in the high-growth mobile handset and computing device market, providing a replacement for plastic and legacy soda-lime glass as a protective cover and elegant design solution," said James R. Steiner, senior vice president and general manager, Corning Specialty Materials.

"We knew Corning Gorilla Glass could get even better. So, in response to our customers' drive toward thinner form factors, we designed this new glass to enable meaningful reduction in thickness without sacrificing the outstanding glass performance for which Gorilla Glass has become highly recognized. This glass, along with Windows operating system innovations from Microsoft, will help deliver exceptional beauty, performance, and toughness for new Windows PCs. You will see this early this year with Windows-based PCs which we expect to be the first in-market laptops designed to leverage the performance of our new second-generation glass," Steiner remarked.

"We're very excited about the introduction of Corning's thin, high-performing Gorilla Glass 2," said Nick Parker, vice president, Worldwide OEM Marketing, Microsoft. "As Windows continues to bring new experiences to customers on new devices, we look to Corning to bring innovative, durable glass solutions that enable brighter images and greater touch sensitivity."

Product qualification and design implementation for Corning Gorilla Glass 2 are underway with Corning's global customers, a number of whom are expected to unveil new devices using Corning Gorilla Glass 2 during the coming months.

First introduced in 2007, Corning Gorilla Glass set the industry standard for damage-resistant cover glass. Today it is the most widely deployed cover glass, used by more than 30 major brands and designed into more than 575 product models, spanning more than 500 million units worldwide.

As one of the company's fastest growing businesses, Corning Gorilla Glass is expected to reach more than $700 million in 2011 sales, nearly triple 2010 results.

Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" (within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995), which are based on current expectations and assumptions about Corning's financial results and business operations, that involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include: the effect of global political, economic and business conditions; conditions in the financial and credit markets; currency fluctuations; tax rates; product demand and industry capacity; competition; reliance on a concentrated customer base; manufacturing efficiencies; cost reductions; availability of critical components and materials; new product commercialization; pricing fluctuations and changes in the mix of sales between premium and non-premium products; new plant start-up or restructuring costs; possible disruption in commercial activities due to terrorist activity, armed conflict, political or financial instability, natural disasters, adverse weather conditions, or major health concerns; adequacy of insurance; equity company activities; acquisition and divestiture activities; the level of excess or obsolete inventory; the rate of technology change; the ability to enforce patents; product and components performance issues; retention of key personnel; stock price fluctuations; and adverse litigation or regulatory developments. These and other risk factors are detailed in Corning's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the day that they are made, and Corning undertakes no obligation to update them in light of new information or future events.

About Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated (www.corning.com) is the world leader in specialty glass and ceramics. Drawing on more than 160 years of materials science and process engineering knowledge, Corning creates and makes keystone components that enable high-technology systems for consumer electronics, mobile emissions control, telecommunications and life sciences. Our products include glass substrates for LCD televisions, computer monitors and laptops; ceramic substrates and filters for mobile emission control systems; optical fiber, cable, hardware & equipment for telecommunications networks; optical biosensors for drug discovery; and other advanced optics and specialty glass solutions for a number of industries including semiconductor, aerospace, defense, astronomy, and metrology.

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iPad Apps for Starters

2012-01-08T13:15:00.000-08:00

Just got a new iPad and wondering where to start? Here's TekkieBob's quick list:

Of course, much depends on personal usage, but many apps that are must-haves are free. I'll do it by category:

Productivity:

Must haves:

Evernote
DropBox
iWork

Pages - for creating good docs that can be converted to Word and PDF
Numbers - the best spreadsheet app. Ever.
Keynote - blows away PowerPoint and works great with external displays

GoodReader - PDF annotation and password protected
ZipBrowser - to open and manage ziped files sent in emails

Good to have:

DukePen - note taking and handwriting
Skitch
Gmail app
Box - box.com
BE Write HD - blog posting, etc.

Photography/Video: (Remember, the iPad camera is not the greatest)

Must haves:

Photogene²
Color Effects
Snap Seed - Yep, is very good! Saw that Starbucks is featuring it this week as a give-away. Go. Get. It.

Good to have:

PS Express
TimeLapse
Shutterfly - unlimited photo storage
iMovie

News / Web:

*NEW* Chrome for iOS - Top of the list!!
River of news - works with Google Reader
Flipboard
Terra - alternative browser
Chromy - alternative browser

Games / Entertainment:

Netflix - if you have an account, it works great with iPad
Air Video - stream from your computer
Pandora
Osmos HD - puzzle game (physics)

Reference:

Wolfram Alpha
Google (app)
Bing (app)
Google Earth
NYPL Biblion - New York Public Library
iBooks - MUST HAVE for EPUB's

This is a good start!

Password Protect Zip Files in Mac OS X

2012-01-07T20:36:00.001-08:00

Creating a password protected zip file is easy in Mac OS X and does not require any add-ons or downloads. Instead, use the zip utility that is bundled with all Macs.

If you're familiar with the command line, the syntax of the encrypted zip command is as follows:
zip -e [archive] [file]

If you're not sure how to use that, read on to learn how to create zip archives encrypted with passwords. These encrypted zip files will maintain password protection across platforms, meaning you can send a protected zip file to a Windows user and they will still need to enter the password in order to view the contents.

Set a Zip Password in Mac OS X

You can create password protected archives of files and folders:

Launch the Terminal from the Applications > Utilities folder
Type the following command:

zip -e archivename.zip filetoprotect.txt

Enter and verify the password – don't forget this

The resulting archive, in this case named "archivename.zip", is now encrypted with the password provided. The file that was encrypted, "filetoprotect.txt", is now inaccessible without entering that password.

Example: Zipping a Folder and Setting a Password
Here is an example of what this will look like from the command line, in this case we are compressing and password protecting the entire 'Confidential' folder located within the users /Documents directory, and the password protected zip is being placed on the users desktop for easy access:
$ zip -e ~/Desktop/encrypted.zip ~/Documents/Confidential/ Enter password: Verify password: adding: ~/Documents/Confidential/ (deflated 13%)

Notice the password will not display, this is normal behavior for the Terminal.

Opening the Password Protected Zip

Despite being created at the command line, you do not need to unzip the file from the terminal, it can be expanded from the Mac OS X Finder or within Windows using standard unzipping apps. Just double click on the file, enter the password, and it will decompress. You can also decompress the zip archive from the command line with:
unzip filename.zip

Here are some use cases for password protected zip archives:

Password protecting an individual file or directory
Sending a sensitive and encrypted file over an unencrypted network
Emailing confidential data to a Windows user
Adding an additional layer of security to a hidden folder
Password protecting your own backups, outside of Time Machine

While this can provide some protection on a per-file or folder basis, it's always a good idea to password protect the Mac in general with a login requirement on system boot, wake from sleep, and waking from the screen saver.

Explore the Cosmos with the Wolfram Planets and Stars Reference Apps

2012-01-05T20:34:00.001-08:00

Explore the Cosmos with the Wolfram Planets and Stars Reference Apps

Wolfram|Alpha Blog

The next time you go stargazing, bring the power of computation along with the Wolfram Planets Reference App and Wolfram Stars Reference App for iOS. Both apps provide access to real-time data and the computational power of Wolfram|Alpha in order to perform advanced calculations and provide data on the planets and stars.

Exploring all of the planets in our solar system is easy with the Wolfram Planets Reference App. Using real-time data on the eight major planets, as well as dwarf planets and minor planets, the app can: compute a planet's orbital properties, including orbital period and distance from the Earth and Sun; provide physical properties like radius, rotation period, and number of moons; and show information about a planet's atmosphere, including atmospheric pressure, average temperature, and major constituents.

Impress your friends by finding out which planets are visible from your current—or from any—location, then perform advanced physical astronomy computations using stationary orbits, escape velocity, and Kepler's third law like it's no big deal, all from the same app!

It's impossible to count all of the stars, but with the Wolfram Stars Reference App, you'll have access to real-time data on over 100,000 of them. For easy browsing, stars are sorted into groups such as the Northern or Southern Sky stars; brightest stars; nearest stars; and giant, supergiant, and main sequence stars. The app also allows you to enter any star name to get information and to examine and compare properties for each star, such as its magnitude, spectral class, temperature, mass, lifetime, and distance from Earth.

Using the power of Wolfram|Alpha, compute a star's current sky position from your location, find out whether it is visible, learn the times of the star's next rise and set, and perform advanced astronomical calculations using the Stefan-Boltzmann law, Wien's displacement law, blackbody luminosity, and mass-luminosity relationship.

Both the Wolfram Planets Reference App and Wolfram Stars Reference App can be found on the iTunes App Store for $0.99.

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Do You Need to Defragment a Mac’s Hard Drive?

2012-01-05T10:03:00.001-08:00

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Do You Need to Defragment a Mac's Hard Drive?

About Focus on Macs

In my mailbag this week, I found a couple of questions about defragmenting a Mac's hard drive. This question usually comes from new Mac users, or individuals who switch to the Mac from the Windows environment, where disk defragmentation utilities abound. Some individuals want to know which third-party disk defragmentation app they should use, or wonder why there is no defrag tool in OS X.

Courtesy of Apple

OS X does have disk defragmentation capabilities, but they're built into the system rather than a separate tool. Since OS X 10.2, Apple has included automatic defragmentation in the Mac OS. In essence, the Mac OS has built-in safeguards that attempt to prevent file fragmentation from occurring; it's also able to repair fragmentation, should it occur.
This means that for the average Mac user, there really is no reason to worry about disk defragmentation, at least not as a housekeeping chore you need to perform yourself. There are a few exceptions to this, mainly if you use some high-end audio or video creation and editing software that requires pristine disk space for recording data without dropouts.
Unless you fall into that category, take a look at Do You Need to Defragment a Mac's Hard Drive? for details about how the built-in defragmentation system works.

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Analyze and Simulate Control Systems in Wolfram|Alpha

2012-01-05T10:00:00.001-08:00

Analyze and Simulate Control Systems in Wolfram|Alpha

Wolfram|Alpha Blog

What do your alarm clock, thermostat, coffeemaker, car radio, anti-lock brakes—and almost every other electrical and mechanical device you encounter in your daily life—all have in common? They are all examples of "control systems," one of the most ubiquitous yet unseen modern technologies. A control system is any system or device that controls or regulates the behavior of another system. Using various kinds of sensors and actuators, these systems automatically control most common appliances, industrial processes, and even your body's own biological processes!

Take your home's humble thermostat. The temperature of your home depends on many factors, especially how long and how recently the home's furnace was on. With a thermostat installed, the reverse is also true: the state of the furnace depends on the temperature of the house (it comes on if the temperature is too low, and turns off if the temperature is too high). There is a closed loop of causation formed between the home's temperature and the state of the furnace. By design, the thermostat creates a kind of closed loop called a "negative feedback loop," which tends to stabilize the temperature around a desired value. Most control systems are like this: sensors feed information back into the system, which is then used to decide on an action.

In Version 8 of Mathematica, we added lots of functions that analyze, design, and simulate a variety of systems, including control systems. We have now incorporated these capabilities into Wolfram|Alpha with the ability to understand some common systems by name.

A simple example is the integrator. An integrator is a system that accumulates the values of some input over time. For example, the amount of gas your car has used since you last filled up is basically an integral of the position of the gas pedal over that time. Put another way, gas is consumed at a rate proportional to how far the gas pedal is depressed. Typing "control system: integrator" into Wolfram|Alpha gives a list of properties, graphs, and an interactive response plot where you can see what happens to the output for several common inputs:

Another standard type of control system Wolfram|Alpha knows about is the PID controller. Usually in the form of a programmable microchip, a PID controller can electronically control something based on the value (or a proportion of the value), the total accumulation (integral), and the rate of change (derivative) of some quantity. Type "PID controller," and Wolfram|Alpha gives you a custom "calculator" that allows you to vary the strength of the proportional, integral, and derivative "gains" and shows how these variations affect the properties of the controller:

In addition to this repertoire of standard control systems, which we will be expanding in the near future, Wolfram|Alpha can also understand and analyze custom systems, specified using either state space or transfer function models. These models provide a general framework to mathematically describe the input-output behavior of systems and are commonly used to model a complex process, whether a natural phenomenon, a control system, or something else. Wolfram|Alpha is equipped to handle both continuous- and discrete-time systems modeled using this framework.

In a state space model representation, variables are related to each other using ordinary differential equations. Some of these variables are the "input," others are the "output," and some are just internal to the system, called "state" variables. Wolfram|Alpha uses the standard convention, in which input variables are denoted by u, output variables by y, and state variables by x. As of this writing, Wolfram|Alpha can only analyze linear state space models, which are expressible as a system of vector differential equations:

x′(t) = Ax(t) + Bu(t)
y(t) = Cx(t) + Du(t)

…where A, B, C, and D are matrices of complex numbers. For example, "A: {{1,0},{1,-1}} B: {{0.2},{1}} C: {{-1.3,1}} : response to the input u[t] = sin(8t)" shows what the state vector x does when this system is fed the input sin(8t):

The other way to represent a control system is with a transfer function. A transfer function is a ratio of U(s), the Laplace transform of the input u(t), over Y(s), the Laplace transform of the output y(t). In general, a transfer function is an n-by-m matrix of functions, where n is the number of outputs and m is the number of inputs.

Using either transfer function or state space inputs, you can specify a discrete model by entering a nonzero sampling period, such as 0.2:

You can also ask about specific properties or groups of properties. For example:

Experiment by creating your own control systems or just play around with a standard system like the PID controller. You now have all the tools you need to analyze and test them. Whether you are a engineering student or someone trying to solve the world's pressing problems, we hope this new feature will make controlling things a little easier.

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Clean Out and Customize Lion's Launchpad

2012-01-04T19:07:00.000-08:00

lifehacker has some good tips on using your Mac. This one is handy if you use Launchpad on Lion.

TekkieBob likes to use Alfred as an app launcher. (Hands on the keyboard)

What is your preference?

Clean Out and Customize Lion's Launchpad:

'via Blog this'

How to Monitor Your Mac's Memory Usage

2012-01-02T07:20:00.001-08:00

How to Monitor Your Mac's Memory Usage

Macinstruct

Imagine driving a vehicle with no gauges on the dashboard. You wouldn't know how fast the car was going, how much fuel it had left, or whether or not the engine was about to overheat. In short, you'd be driving blind - hoping, by chance, that everything would just work out okay.

As ludicrous as this scenario sounds, millions of Mac users do essentially the same thing every day. Most people have no idea how much RAM is installed in their Mac, or how much memory it is currently using. Of course, since RAM memory stores the code and instructions for OS X and any applications open on your Mac, running out of it can slow your Mac down, or worse. That's why it's important to monitor your Mac's memory usage in real time. You can see how much RAM is currently available on your Mac and stop potential problems before they start!

There are a couple different tools you can use to see how much memory your Mac is using. This tutorial covers three of them: Activity Monitor, iStat Pro, and iStat Menus. By the time you get to the end of the article, you'll be a memory-monitoring pro!

Using Activity Monitor

Activity Monitor is a free application that comes bundled with every Mac. You can use this application to see how much RAM is currently free, how much RAM is currently allocated, and a whole lot more. In fact, Activity Monitor presents so much information that it's easy to get overwhelmed when looking at it. Don't worry if you don't understand what it all means. Just follow these instructions to concentrate on the memory statistics.

Here's how to use Activity Monitor to monitor your Mac's memory usage:

Open the Activity Monitor application. (It's in Applications → Utilities.) The window shown below appears.

Click the Real Mem column header to sort the active processes by memory usage. This is a good way to see which applications are using the most memory on your Mac - the memory hogs are displayed at the top of the list.
Click the System Memory button. Now the bottom part of the window shows exactly how much free memory is currently available. If the free memory number looks too low, you should quit some applications to free up memory. (Ideally, your Mac should have 10% of the total memory available at any given time.)
To turn the Activity Monitor Dock icon in to a real time memory monitoring tool, right-click on the Dock icon and select Dock Icon → Show Memory Usage, as shown below. The Activity Monitor Dock icon turns into a pie chart which displays how your memory is allocated.

Now you have a way to monitor your Mac's memory usage in real time. Keep an eye on that Dock icon! You want there to be enough green (which represents free memory) to open other applications.

Using iStat Pro

iStat Pro is a free Dashboard widget that provides tons of system information about your Mac, including memory usage. If you're an avid Dashboard user, this is a good way to keep tabs on how much RAM is free and allocated. Just download and install iStat Pro and then open Dashboard. (To do so, you can press F4 on most Mac keyboards, or swipe left with four fingers on a trackpad.) The iStat Pro widget is shown below.

It's a good idea to check the widget a couple times a day, just to make sure you have enough free RAM available. Remember, if the free RAM is getting dangerously low, quit some applications to free up space.

Using iStat Menus

Using iStat Menus ($16, free trial available) is probably the best option for monitoring your Mac's memory. This application runs in the background and displays an icon on your menu bar that indicates how much RAM memory your Mac has available. And seriously, can you think of a better way to monitor memory than looking at your menu bar?

Here's how to use iStat Menus to monitor your Mac's memory usage:

Download and install iStat Menus.
Open the iStat Menus application.
On the sidebar, move the Memory slider to the On position. The window shown below appears.

Now you need to customize the menu bar icon. Drag an icon from the Inactive Items bar to the Active Items bar. You really only need one memory icon to be active, but you can make multiple icons active.

Now you've got a handy little icon in your menu bar, as shown below. All you have to do is look up to monitor your Mac's memory usage!

Help! My Mac is Always Out of Memory

If your Mac always seems to be running out of memory, you probably need to upgrade the RAM. You can never have enough! If you own a newer iMac, Mac Mini, or MacBook Pro that you purchased in 2011 or later, we recommend that you purchase these RAM modules for a total of 8 GB of RAM - enough memory for all but the most professional users. Users with other models of Macs can find inexpensive memory modules here.

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matthew Cone, the author of Master Your Mac and a freelance writer specializing in Apple hardware and software, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

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Learn To Code

2012-01-02T06:15:00.001-08:00

Even if just to get a better understanding of how computers work or learning how to customize your browsing experience, knowing the basics of coding opens ones eyes to possibilities once only known by a few.

Learn To Code

Planet Cocoa

If learning to program is even a minor goal for you, Code Year (via Brent Simmons) might be just the encouragement you need. They promise to email you on a weekly basis with coding lessons to help you achieve your goal.

I'm one of those computer programmers who downplays the difficulty of the profession, because "if I can do it, anybody can do it!" On the other hand, I have faced challenges that made me question whether I'm vaguely qualified for the job. What it boils down to is that programming is both incredibly simple and impossibly hard, like so many important things in life.

There was a time when nobody knew how to write literary prose. The geniuses who invented it shared their special tool with a few friends, and they relished in their private, elite communications. Eventually monks, politicians, and academics joined the club. Now, we judge a society's overall level of intellectual advancement by the literacy rate: the percentage of people who have learned to read and write.

Literacy isn't about becoming a Hemingway or a Chabon. It's about learning the basic tools to get a job done. I think programming — coding — is much the same. You don't have to be the world's best programmer to develop a means of expressing yourself, of solving a problem, of making something happen. If you're lucky, you'll be a genius, but you start out with the basics.

Long ago, it would have been ridiculous to assume a whole society could be judged by its ability to read and write prose. It feels ridiculous now, to assume that we might use computer programming as a similar benchmark. Yet it may happen.

Did you always mean to learn another language, but never did? By all means, learn Spanish, French, or Chinese. But learn to code, too.

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Year of the iPad 2

2011-12-31T17:47:00.001-08:00

Very interesting take. The truth is, generally people want something simple and easy to use. Only we who are "geeks" care about the technical stuff. Many people I assist with tech could never understand or care about processing power or RAM. Doses it work? Is it confusing? Please, manufacturers, make your engineers think like users, not look down their noses at them.

Year of the iPad 2

The late Steve Jobs called 2011 "the year of the iPad 2″ and almost a year after it was introduced, almost 2 years after the original iPad was introduced, it remains a product selling in the tens of millions with absolutely no competition in sight.

And that's a shame because, as a consumer, the one thing I want most is strong, meaningful competition for the iPad.

It's become a cliche to say "there's no tablet market, there's only an iPad market", but like most cliches there's more than a little truth to it. Very few people want a tablet. Not in the 10 years prior to the iPad when Microsoft sold Tablet PC to almost no one, and not care about in the almost two years since when Apple's competition has tried to differentiate themselves by being more like PCs.

The simple truth is, the iPad was never designed to be a tablet. It was never designed to be a PC crammed into a slate form factor. Like they did with command line on the Apple II, and graphical interfaces on the Mac, and multitouch on the iPhone, Apple strove to make something that was more mainstream, more accessible than what had come before. It just turned out to look like a tablet.

For many people, PCs — personal computers — are anything but. They're complicated, impenetrable stacks of boxes and webs of cables, with mice that never move right, buttons that never click right, windows that hide other windows, programs that make little sense, and files and folders that are as frustrating to find as they are to figure out how to use. They're like cars back in the days when you had to be a mechanic to own and operate one, and very few people did.

The iPad is the opposite of that. You turn it on. You click home. You tap an app. You click home. You tap another app. You know where you are and if you get lost you're always only a click away from getting back to some place familiar. It's more approachable. It's more understandable. It does 80% of the things 80% of the people need 80% of the time and that, it turns out, is a huge swathe more than most PCs could ever do for most people.

That's why Apple is selling a so many of them, and why their competitors aren't.

To compete with Apple, everything from RIM's PlayBook to Google's Android Honeycomb tablets offered more specs and more desktop-class power. To the exact people who wanted anything but.

Powerful multitasking metaphors don't help people who think their internet is gone because their browser is lost behind their word processor. Flash doesn't help mainstream consumers who have no idea what it is, even if their more obscure web video sites don't play without it. Tegra II processors don't help wives who just want to know whey their messages won't scroll without sticking and stammering. Bezel gestures and on-screen widgets don't help people who just, for once in their technology plagued lives, want simple controls, for a simple screen, that does one app at a time and does it very, very well. Copying the iPad's look won't help when the software running it doesn't work with anything approaching the same simplicity or feel.

Apple understood this back in 2005 when they started work on the Safari Pad concept, and while even they didn't full get it when they made it manifest in 2010, they got it enough to release the iPad, and they got it even more in 2011 with the iPad 2, iOS 5, and iCloud.

It's not about being thinner, or lighter, or faster. It's not about specs or about content. It's about experience. And now, as we enter 2012, as Apple is poised to release an iPad 3, not a single one of their competitors have gotten that yet.

Until they do, until Amazon or Google or someone else puts the mainstream customer first, every year for the foreseeable future will be the year of the iPad.

Press the Escape Key to Generate Spelling Suggestions in Mac OS X

2011-12-28T19:58:00.001-08:00

http://m.lifehacker.com/5871691/press-the-escape-key-to-generate-spelling-suggestions-in-mac-os-x

Great tip from Lifehacker. The esc is a great little key that is quite
forgotten.

Cocoa with Love: The differences between Core Data and a Database

2011-12-28T19:04:00.001-08:00

http://cocoawithlove.com/2010/02/differences-between-core-data-and.html

Great explanation for those who need to know whether to use core data
or MYSQL in an Objective-C project.

TekkieBob - All Things Tech!

Filemaker 13 - Hidden Labels

System Preferences - Under the Hood of Your Mac

What this series will cover

System Preferences - OK, Now What?

Lesson One

The Icons

What's Next?

FileMaker Custom Function: Calculate Years elapsed

Calculate Age or Years Elapsed in an Apple Numbers Sheet

Mac Tip - Free Up Some Hard Drive Space

Fed Up - Full Hard Drive Syndrome

Backup, Backup, Backup

Empty the Trash

Downloads Folder

Apple Mail, the Hungry Hippo

Advanced (But not Difficult) Ways to Look for Old Files

There's an App for That

Bottom Line...

Further Reading

Tips: Delete duplicate entries in "Open With..." dialog in Finder

Change the Default Font of Notes App in OS X Mountain Lion

Google adding Siri, Google Now like functionality to its iOS Search app in a couple of days [Video]

Mountain Lion 101: Silencing Notification Center alerts

Filings detail Apple's plans to improve support for hearing impaired users

Mac OS X Tips

Ubuntu Unveils New HUD Menu System, Dropping Traditional Menus (video)

How to Zip Files in Mac OS X

How to Make a Zip Archive in Mac OS X

Gorilla Glass 2 will allow same strength at 80 percent of size, likely to end up in iOS devices

Corning Unveils New Gorilla® Glass 2

View Images:

Gorilla Glass 2 Visual

View Videos:

Follow Corning:

Follow Corning® Gorilla® Glass:

iPad Apps for Starters

Password Protect Zip Files in Mac OS X

Set a Zip Password in Mac OS X

Opening the Password Protected Zip

Explore the Cosmos with the Wolfram Planets and Stars Reference Apps

Do You Need to Defragment a Mac’s Hard Drive?

Analyze and Simulate Control Systems in Wolfram|Alpha

Clean Out and Customize Lion's Launchpad

How to Monitor Your Mac's Memory Usage

Using Activity Monitor

Using iStat Pro

Using iStat Menus

Help! My Mac is Always Out of Memory

Related Articles

Learn To Code

Year of the iPad 2

Press the Escape Key to Generate Spelling Suggestions in Mac OS X

Cocoa with Love: The differences between Core Data and a Database

Follow Corning®
Gorilla® Glass: