Mountain Lion 101: Notification Center in a hot corner

Apple’s Mountain Lion introduced Notification Center to the Mac. This handy feature lets notification-aware apps display pop-up style alerts when something changes, like an incoming email message, Twitter mention, Calendar appointment and more.

Apple notes that you can access Mountain Lion’s Notification Center by swiping your trackpad or Magic Trackpad from left to right. Alternatively, you can click the Notification Center icon in your Mac’s menu bar (here’s a more thorough look at Notification Center options). Those are great, but I use a third option.

Specifically, I’ve assigned Notification Center to a hot corner by following these steps:

1. Launch System Preferences and click Desktop & Screen Saver.
2. Click the Screen Saver tab, then click Hot Corners.
3. Click the drop-down menu at your corner of choice, choose Notification Center and then click OK.

Now the Notification Center will appear every time you move your cursor into that corner. I suspect you’re wondering why, so I’ll tell you. First, I run my MacBook Air connected to an external display with the lid closed. Also, I don’t have a Magic Trackpad and finally, I’ve been using Hot Corners for years to trigger Exposé and Spaces, so it’s an action I’m used to performing.

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Mountain Lion 101: Notification Center in a hot corner originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Use Eve to learn Mac OS X shortcuts

Eve is a brilliant little program that I just installed on my MacBook — it’s got one function only, and that is simply to pop up on the screen whenever you do something with your mouse, and remind you that there’s a way to do it with your keyboard.

I am a huge fan of keyboard shortcuts, but I have a terrible memory for them, and Eve is designed to fix exactly that problem. Most people know Command-X, Command-C, and Command-V for cut, copy and paste, but I often forget about other shortcuts for common tasks, so I’m hoping Eve can help me build up some muscle memory for them.

Eve is an open source project, so it’s being added to all the time (and it looks like a “learned button” is one of the first features on the list, which makes a lot of sense — you wouldn’t want a warning to keep showing up after you’ve learned the shortcut). It’s free to download. This kind of instant feedback could be just what you’re looking for if you want to increase your keyboard-fu.

[via OTW & Lifehacker]

Use Eve to learn Mac OS X shortcuts originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Getting ready for Mountain Lion: Backups

For many new Mac owners, the move to Mountain Lion represents your first major upgrade. To help users prepare to make the jump, Erica Sadun and I wrote Getting Ready for Mountain Lion, an Amazon/iBooks eBook. It’s aimed at first-time upgraders and people looking for hints and tips about smoothing the transition. We’re sharing some of our tips on TUAW in a series of posts about the 10.8 upgrade.

Although most Mac OS X upgrades go smoothly, there’s always a chance that something can go wrong. Hundreds of thousands of files are changed during an upgrade, so there’s a possibility that one or more of those changes can cause your Mac to decide to not boot up properly. Without a backup, your data might be gone forever.

Before you purchase Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store in July and begin the process of upgrading, make sure you back up your Mac! To begin with, you’ll need an external disk drive that is at least twice the capacity of the drive that’s built into your Mac. USB drives are surprisingly affordable; a glance at Amazon.com today showed a number of 2 TB drives for US$120 or less.

Backups don’t have to be difficult, thanks to Apple’s Time Machine app. Just plug your external drive into your Mac and OS X will ask if you wish to use that drive for Time Machine backups. Answer in the affirmative, and backups begin immediately.

I’m personally a fan of bootable backups, meaning that if the primary hard drive in your Mac fails, you can boot right off of the backup copy. To create these backups, I use SuperDuper! ($27.95). Every night, the app performs some file maintenance, then adds changed or new files to a full backup (SuperDuper! includes a scheduling tool for setting up backups at regular intervals). To make sure that the backup is indeed bootable, I test it once a month. Another amazing app for bootable backups is Carbon Copy Cloner (Free, but $20 recommended).

To test your bootable backup, go to System Preferences and click on “Startup Disk”. Click on the backup drive icon to select it, and then click the Restart button. If all is well, your Mac should boot from the backup drive.

Doing daily backups should be part of your Mac OS X routine already, but if it isn’t, then the move to Mountain Lion should be your impetus to start backing up now.

OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 will be offered for sale in July 2012 for $19.99.

Getting ready for Mountain Lion: Backups originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Getting ready for Mountain Lion: checking for compatibility

For many new Mac owners, your move to Mountain Lion represents your first major upgrade. To help users prepare to make the jump, Steve Sande and I wrote Getting Ready for Mountain Lion, an Amazon/iBooks eBook. It’s aimed at first-time upgraders and people looking for hints and tips about smoothing the transition. We’re sharing some of our tips on TUAW in a series of posts about the 10.8 upgrade.

Does your Mac qualify for Mountain Lion? Not every system does, although if you’re already running OS X Lion, chances are good that you’ll be able to upgrade. Still, you’ll want to check. The following hardware models will support Mountain Lion:

• iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)

Mountain Lion requires 2GB RAM or more (we recommend putting in as much RAM as your computer can hold; it’s probably the most cost effective high-value upgrade you can give your system) and 8GB of free hard drive space (we recommend 15-20 GB at least, preferably more).

You can upgrade from OS X Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) as well as Lion (OS X 10.7). Make sure you update to OS X 10.6.8 first, the latest Snow Leopard release. From there, you can purchase Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store and install it to your computer.

Upgrading will not wipe away any user accounts or user data you have installed on your computer. For the most part, you can upgrade, and then pick up working wherever you left off. You may find that some apps won’t make the leap, but most will — although that’s a topic for another post.

Not all Mountain Lion features work out-of-the-box on all systems. To use AirDrop, the feature that lets you share files between computers using configuration-free drag-and-drop, you need a fairly recent system: MacBook Pro (Late 2008 or newer), MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer), MacBook (Late 2008 or newer), iMac (Early 2009 or newer), Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer), Mac Pro (Early 2009 with AirPort Extreme card, or Mid 2010). My personal 2009 Mac mini doesn’t support AirDrop.

AirPlay Mirroring, which lets you transmit your computer’s screen to Apple TV, requires mid-2011 hardware or newer for the most part.

You can work around both of these limitations, if you have a mind to. We posted directions on how to enable AirDrop on older systems. You can use a third party solution like AirParrot to add your own screen mirroring to nearly any Mac, including those running older operating systems.

OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 will be offered for sale in July 2012 for $19.99.

Getting ready for Mountain Lion: checking for compatibility originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Adobe updates Photoshop Express iOS app to 2.5

Adobe has updated it’s iOS-only Photoshop Express app (free) to offer in-app purchases of pre-set effects a la Instagram and others, editing enhancements, a new Border Pack and additional sharing options. The new version, v2.5, also offers previews of effects new borders and support for the new iPad’s Retina Display. The program allows users to use an array of basic editing tools to crop, rotate, enhance and store photos….

Daily iPad App: Algoriddim's vjay brings real-time video mixing to the iPad

If your creative expressions include mixing and cutting videos, then you’re going to love vjay, the latest app from the folks at Algoriddim. The company’s known for its popular djay app, and it has brought a similar experience to video with vjay.

The vjay app leverages the processing power of the iPad (current or previous-gen; it does not work on the iPad 1) and lets you mix two video clips on the fly. The app ties into iTunes and lets you select videos and audio clips from your library. You can also record your own source video using the camera on the iPad. If you don’t want to bother with all that, Algoriddim includes a handful of stock clips for you to use.

Once you select your video and audio, all the mixing is done in real-time, so there’s no worrying about splicing at the right frame or picking the perfect transition. The app uses two scratch pads, one for each video, and has a center mixing window where all the action happens.

Each scratch pad has a variety of effects that you can add to your videos on the fly. You can add a strobe, twirl, fisheye, and crush. Moving your finger on each video scratch pad will adjust the effect as well as let you speed up or slow down the clip. You can also run the clip in reverse.

The mixing window also has several transitions that control how the final, mixed video appears. You can blend the two videos and use a slider to adjust the blend from one video to the other. There’s also cube, grid, swap, push and mosaic transitions that let’s you get creative with the your final clip.

While mixing, you can record the video and save it to your camera roll. For live VJ sessions, you can output the app’s mix to a TV using an HDMI cable or stream it to an Apple TV using AirPlay.

You’ll spend $9.99 to get vjay; it is available now in the iOS App Store. If you have even the slightest inclination towards playing with video, you’re going to love vjay. Not only is it a blast to be able to mix videos on the fly, the performance is amazingly smooth on the iPad 3. I didn’t see any perceptible lag and any stuttering was from user error. More than once in the middle of a mix, I clicked on the wrong effect or slide the mixing slider too far to the left or right, but that’s all part of the fun.

You can see how vjay works in the video below and read more about it on Algoriddim’s website.

Daily iPad App: Algoriddim’s vjay brings real-time video mixing to the iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 07 Jun 2012 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

See an Apple II get torn down, cleaned up, and put back in working order

So you decided to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Apple II by picking up one of the computers online, but now what? There’s a good chance that the machine won’t be in proper working condition, but thankfully Todd Harrison is here to help. Over on his blog, Harrison has posted two lengthy videos in which he tears down an Apple II Plus, cleans it up, and puts it back together, before finally setting up and demonstrating the computer in action. He even provides some historical tidbits along the way. It’s a lengthy watch — both videos combined clock in at close to an hour — but for enthusiasts and new Apple II owners it’s also a great, in-depth look at the inner workings of an iconic machine.

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