The Apple Group

Sweet Mac/iPhone desktop Twitter/Friendfeed app.

If there's a more neglected or misunderstood Mac utility than the Terminal, OS X's built-in command-line app, we've yet to find it. In an age where Apple's $200 smart phone offers the most intuitive graphical user interface the world has ever seen, turning to a text-only command-line window can seem stubbornly retro, reminding us of audiophiles who vociferously insist that vinyl records sound better than music CDs. But there are plenty of reasons for using the command line beyond mere nostalgia: speed, flexibility, and familiarity with OS fundamentals, to name a few. We've collected 25 Terminal-based solutions for common desktop issues, because knowing these tricks is an invaluable addition to any Mac user's toolbox. And while there is no reason to abandon the Finder, think of mastering the Terminal as learning to drive a car with a manual transmission-once you can drive a stick, you can drive anything.

The Hit List is a simple, yet sophisticated application to manage the daily chaos of your modern life. Based on the simple concept of making lists, The Hit List lets you plan, forget, then act when the time is right. Your life is complicated enough as it is. The tool to manage your life shouldn't be. The Hit List keeps things simple by not forcing you to learn a system. It can be as simple as just keeping a list of things to do as you would on a piece of paper. However, if you do have a task management system such as Getting Things Done by David Allen, The Hit List is flexible enough to support you. Part of the $39 MacHeist bundle

About a year ago, we bought an Intel-based Xserve with a pair of 80 GB SATA drives to act as our primary Web server. When the boot drive went flaky on us in October 2008, we were able to recover from the backup on the second drive and off-site backups, if a little shakily (see "TidBITS Outage Causes Editors Outrage", 2008-10-07). But although we were able to bring the machine back online, we didn't trust the drive that had failed. Since the Xserve has three drive bays, the obvious solution was to purchase another drive. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Not so much.

As an iPod Classic or iPod nano user, you can download what are called Notecasts (free or paid titles are available), or you can develop your own rich media content, and post it to the Notecast site so others can see it.

Backing up the recent and impressive Mikogo Mac Beta release that sparked online enthusiasm across the globe, the free desktop sharing tool announces its upcoming remote control feature for Mac users. Such a release will provide both Mac and PC users with a combined online meeting and remote support tool free of charge for all to enjoy.

Here's a version of a script we use on all our machines in an attempt to reduce energy usage with a minimum of visible impact on users. Our machines are set to not sleep during the day. This script runs hourly, and if it's after 7pm and the machine has been idle for 20 minutes or more, it tries to sleep the machine if someone is logged in, or shut it down if no-one is logged in. The machine is also set to automatically startup or wake at 6am M-F. The net result is that most of our desktop machines go to sleep or shutdown a little after 7pm each weeknight and wake up at 6am each week morning, and our users are none the wiser.

Apple Ipod troubleshooting tips for how to transfer music from Ipod to itunes computer. Ipod nano Troubleshooting in details and how to reset Ipod nano and how to restore Ipod video to factory setting for Apple mini, video shuffle ipod frozen troubleshooting help.

Part of the $39 MacHeist bundle

Setup locations to represent the different environments in your life. Customize your Mac to suit each location, and let NetworkLocation do the rest.

Scribbles is a drawing tool for everyone. Whether you want to sketch a cartoon, draw a birthday card or jot down some design ideas, Scribbles can help bring your imagination to life.

Just need to figure out if the user just needs to get PhoneGap from the AppStore, or they have to get each PhoneGap application from the store, one by one. Distribution methods will be quite different in each case.

Suppose you want to change the permissions settings of most or all the items in a given folder. Perhaps you want to modify permissions so you can access the content of files you would normally be prevented from editing. Or perhaps the permissions of your own files have somehow gotten messed up so that you can no longer copy or move them.

When the Spanning Tree Protocol is enabled on an Ethernet bridge or switch port to which a Macintosh computer is directly connected the computer may be unable to use AppleTalk or NetInfo services. Appletalk issues observed range from no AppleTalk services, local (to this specific network) AppleTalk services, degraded performance, and intermittent network services. If the Spanning Tree protocol is enabled on the port to which a Macintosh computer is connected packets necessary for AppleTalk address assignment and network discovery can be dropped by the switch. This causes the Macintosh to acquire invalid or incomplete network information resulting in the behavior discussed above.