Lion / Leopard Tricks Tips and Tools

So you might have an iPhone 4. You might have the facetime app for OS X. Wouldn’t it be neat if your mac could auto-answer calls??

Picture this, your mac is at home/office, you are out and about, you facetime your mac and have an instance surveillance system!

open “terminal” and type:

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add +61410003111

(where the number at the end is your own cell number, inc area code)

You can also allow it to answer from other apple-ID’s instead of cell num’s, AND auto-answer everything..

written by James \\ tags: facetime, iphone 4, OS X, Snow Leopard, surveillance

from Klara:

Alt+Cmd+D hides the dock and pressing the same brings it back.

written by James \\ tags: dock, Finder, OS X

Ever get sick of the boring glass “3D” dock?

Try this simple trick to change it to 2D:

open “terminal” and type:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

written by James \\ tags: dock, Leopard, OS X, Snow Leopard, visual

The 10.6.2 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:

- an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly
- a graphics distortion in Safari Top Sites
- Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts
- a problem that prevented authenticating as an administrative user
- issues when using NTFS and WebDAV file servers
- the reliability of menu extras
- an issue with the 4-finger swipe gesture
- an issue that causes Mail to quit unexpectedly when setting up an Exchange server
- Address Book becoming unresponsive when editing
- a problem adding images to contacts in Address Book
- an issue that prevented opening files downloaded from the Internet
- Safari plug-in reliability
- general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk
- an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: About the Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update.
For information on the security content of this update, please visit: Apple security updates.

Combo Update: http://support.apple.com/downloads/D…ombo10.6.2.dmg

Update: http://support.apple.com/downloads/D…XUpd10.6.2.dmg

written by James \\ tags: 10.6.2, OS X, Snow Leopard, Update

Another small but new feature of Snow Leopard is minimising open application windows to their respective ‘application icon’ in the dock (instead of a new icon on the right hand side of the dock). Not bad!

click play above or Watch in HD

written by James \\ tags: dock, genie effect, Leopard, Mac, mac pro, macbook, macbook pro, minimise applications, OS X, Snow Leopard

Looks like when you take a screen cap / grab in Snow Leopard, you get really useful filenames, instead of just “Picture1.png” etc.

Check out this how-to video (done with the new Snow Leopard screen recording feature of Quicktime!)

(if you are struggling to see the text/screen in this video, please view it on youtube

written by James \\ tags: filenames, OS X, screen capture, screen dump, screen grab, Snow Leopard

A screenshot from the new build has been floating around featuring an updated version of the Address Book application with one big addition. A “social networking” menu is added showing both Twitter and Facebook icons. This could mean that Apple will allow you to keep (and possibly edit) your contacts pulled from social networks.

There’s no word yet if the screenshot is credible or not, but it does look pretty convincing and would make sense given recent news that Apple is likely to incorporate social media into other applications such as iTunes.

from: TUAW

written by James \\ tags: address book, facebook, Leopard, OS X, Snow Leopard, social networking, twitter

So Apple have published a new page to their site(s) titled Enhancements and Refinements (for Snow Leopard)

http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/enhancements-refinements.html

Here’s just some of the features I’ve picked out:

• Put Back from the Trash
• Better Disk Eject behaviour, including telling you what App has a disk Open
• Setting default search location to Current folder 
• Printer Driver Updates
• Split Pane terminal is back!
• Apparently some super file sharing energy saving magic:
  Quote:

  With Snow Leopard and a compatible AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule base station, a computer that acts as a file or media server can go to sleep yet continue to share its files with other computers and devices, saving energy.

• Date in the Menu bar. It seems small, but seeing todays date at a glance is very useful
• GPU acceleration for QuickTime X Video decoding
• Exchange support
• Data Detectors now identify fly details
• Multi-Touch for older laptops
• Grand Central Dispatch + OpenCL

Head on over to the Apple site and have a good read, it’s worth a look.

written by James \\ tags: Apple, enhancements, Mac, OS X, refinements, Snow Leopard, updates