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loves to show their artsy and imagination fueled designs whenever they can from Ads, subliminal messages and all the way into the en user experience. Some of Apple’s creative side always leaks into their assortment of wallpapers which surely have made your Windows lovin’ friends jealous so why not spread the desktop glorifying love by making a ZIP Archive of OS X’s wallpaper set to email your Mac-less buddies.
Go on down to your main Hard Drive and navigate into “Library > Desktop Pictures.” In there you’ll find the current assortment of wallpapers available for selection in System Preferences. Of course you can import these into iPhoto to resize and edit for your iPhone as well, just make sure the resolution is set to 480 x 320.
Written by Tanner Godarzi on December 15th, 2008
Posted in: Tip Stash
One of the cooler features in Firmware 2.2 is Over The Air Podcast downloading makin it easier to get your daily fix of The Onion, TWiT and other obscure, niche Video Podcasts. It’s only made easier since the iTunes App on the iPhone now allows you to queue up downloads but if your bits be bigger than 83,886,080 (10 Megabytes) then you’ll be forced to download your content off WiFi. Common sense would then say “Since my iPhone is restricting me to WiFi for this download, it would be irrational for iTunes to continue again over the Cellular network.”
However, the download doesn’t actually continue. The mobile iTunes Store continues the download only to be met with a denial. You’ve surely seen the pop up saying “This item is too big to download” within the App but it rarely shows up outside. This is the cause of a few network slowdowns so be sure to remember that if you leave a WiFi connection and have a download running in the queue, be sure to pause it and it will prevent a lot of headache.
Written by Tanner Godarzi on November 25th, 2008
Posted in: Tip Stash
Apple’s 2.2 Firmware update for the iPhone came and went leaving for us Over The Air Podcast downloads, Google Street View and a streamlined Safari interface. Amongst the major additions and bug fixes, Apple included a minor, although useful feature that will help you traverse the many Homescreens that populate your iPhone.
It’s great to see Apple is starting to use the Home Button as a shortcut method for Applications but still has room to grow. This tip will make using your iPhone a bit more productive. While away from the default Home Screen which is indicated by the row of dots above the Dock, tap the Home Button once and you’ll be taken back to the default screen containing either the ore chosen Apple Apps or varied with your selection.
Written by Tanner Godarzi on November 23rd, 2008
Posted in: Tip Stash
Releases of OS X have always had the default user Wallpaper adorn the login screen and all user accounts. Only the latter can have its Wallpaper changed from whatever Apple chose to plaster over the screen leaving those with automatic login disabled out in the cold. Fortunately, with a little knowledge of where you Mac stores system files, you can swap out the Outer Space inspired abstract piece for any of your choosing.
By navigating through Finder into “YourHardDriveName/System/Library/CoreServices” and scroll down until you find an image titled “DefaultDesktop.jpg” which is what OS X designates as the image display behind the Login Window. You’ll need Admin privileges to delete the original (don’t worry, you can change it back to the default anytime) and place a new image with the same file name.
If you need some inspiration, look in “YourHardDriveName/Library/DesktopPictures” for the included selection of Wallpapers bundled with OS X.
Written by Tanner Godarzi on October 21st, 2008
Posted in: Tip Stash
A new browsing mode has been added to iTunes 8 allowing for a more visual experience. Sorting can be applied that narrows down your selection to Artists, Albums, Genres and Composers. However, a default picture is automatically generated for what’s bundled in that category. Luckily, you can switch out the preselected grid artwork.
The only downside is you can’t choose a new picture but at least you can make your music look a bit better visually. Drag your mouse around until you find an album cover you like then hover your mouse and right click. Under the pop up menu select “Set Default Grid Artwork”. Alternatively you can view all album covers, right click, then select the same thing and achieve a new cover when in album, genre or composer view.
Written by Tanner Godarzi on October 13th, 2008
Posted in: Tip Stash
Previous iPhone Firmware updates have brought many improvements to Mobile Safari. While Web Apps were the pinnacle use of the browser, attention shifted to native third party Apps. But the latest update to the iPhone streamlines functionality of Web Apps by bringing full screen support.
Clancy, an Apple Insider reader first discovered the useful feature after updating to Firmware 2.1, but full screen support is only available to Apps that can utilize the feature. A demo App has been created to demonstrate the functionality and forgoes the URL and browser button bars. Hit up this link for the demo App then add it to the Home Screen by clicking the “+” button and select “Add To Home Screen.” It’ll look like a native third party App but function slower as it must be transmitted from a server and isn’t installed locally on the phone.
Via: Apple Insider
Written by Tanner Godarzi on October 6th, 2008
Posted in: Tip Stash
Before the arrival of iTunes 8, tagging multiple videos and songs as a TV show, Movie or Music Video had to be done one by one for each individual file which made it a daunting task. Sure Apple Scripts and dedicated Apps came to the rescue but in the end it was a job that iTunes should have handled. Luckily version 8 brings mass tagging support for different types of Media and a few more goodies.
You’re already familiar with the ‘Get Info’ pane, if you aren’t (and shame on you) then please get off this Blog post and Right Click or Control Click the heck out of your screen. Had fun? Good, give it a shot in iTunes to a batch of Battlestar Galatica episodes that were wrongly tagged as Movies (even though it’s really your favorites from season 3). Under ‘Options’ you’ll see a get info bar for ‘Media Kind’ and it’ll give you the usual 3 suspects; Movie, TV Show and Music Video. If you’ve selected more than one (Shift + select) item, this will be applied to all of those, something that was severely lacking in iTunes 7.
Written by Tanner Godarzi on September 21st, 2008
Posted in: Tip Stash
Sure Apple may have introduced a fancy batch of new earphones last week but that doesn’t mean they forgot about us much cooler iPhone users.
The greatest thing about the ‘buds bundled with an iPhone was that the microphone’s enclosure acted a single, massive button that allowed a listener to pause (1 click) their music and answer a call or skip (2 clicks) a song and hang up a call. Apple has generously tossed us a bone in the new 2.1 Firmware update for the iPhone and now allows a triple click to go the previously played song. Who knows, maybe four clicks will play random John Mayer songs.
Via: TUAW
Written by Tanner Godarzi on September 18th, 2008
Posted in: Tip Stash
Ever needed to bookmark that quick TV Show link or direct your buddy to the newest bargain bin movie before next week’s discounted flick engulfs it? Luckily there is a clear cut way to do all of that within iTunes.
Unbeknownst to some, the iTMS (iTunes Music Store) is nothing more than a very fancy Web page that scales perfectly with the interface which of course means iTunes is running a browser with the sole task of rendering all the underlying HTML and CSS that makes up what you see when you buy a song, download a Podcast or just window shop. Technicalities aside, if all you want to do is let a friend know that NBC finally got their act together and returned to iTunes with season 4 of The Office, but you’re kind and want to save him the trouble of typing that in a search bar. Merely right clicking on a link as shown above will bring up a small pop up prompting to copy the URL. If you paste it on a sticky note or wherever, you’ll notice it comes out as a very odd link, something like phobos.apple.com. Type that into your browser and you’ll be directed to the iTunes Store and be taken back to the linked page. You can send a few links to your buddies with iPhones but sadly some spit out errors, mainly links to content you can’t grab on the mobile version of iTunes.
Written by Tanner Godarzi on September 17th, 2008
Posted in: Tip Stash
