Appletell

In a recent post, I talked about how a recipient of a refurbished iPhone was able to uncover sensitive data from the past user with a little searching.  I also talked about how there is currently no known way to actually clear the info on your iPhone.  Turns out I was wrong.  Read on to find out how to actually clear the memory.

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Facebook chat is a little awkward… it’s stuck in the browser, and even if popped out, it still runs in Safari. By closing the window, or moving to a new tab, you close your chat. Fortunately, Mac OS X makes it easy to run Facebook Chat separately from Safari. Here are the two easiest ways:

Web Clip in Dashboard
Simply navigate to Facebook, use the chat menu to pop out the chat in a new window, and choose “File > Open in Dashboard.” Then, arrange it as you please. I chose to make only my buddy list visible, so I can easily check who is online before starting to chat. When I wanted to chat, I either went to Facebook, or resized the widget to show the chat.

Fluid.app
This method is the better one for someone who wants to do heavier-duty chatting. First, download the free and awesome Fluid.app at http://fluidapp.com.  Then, launch Fluid, and type the following address into the field:

http://facebook.com/presence/popout.php

Give it a name like “Facebook Chat,” and save it. There you go! You now have a native Facebook Chat application.

Macworld has posted a great tip for users of the latest Safari 3.1 in Leopard. If you double-click in an empty space in the tab bar, Safari will create a new empty tab - it’s that simple. Prior to 3.1, you would have to use a third-party plugin like Saft for this to work - but in 3.1 it is included. This is a very useful trick that will save you time creating new tabs. I personally like using the keyboard shortcut: Command+T for creating new tabs, as it works in Firefox too, and is very similar on Windows (Control+T). Of course, for this trick to work, you’ll need to have the tab bar visible; you can do this by going to View>Show Tab Bar. Safari will now remember that you have the tab bar visible, even after you quit Safari. To hide it, just go to View>Hide Tab Bar.

Via [Macworld]

In this Appletell video, Adam shows you how to run any version of the Classic Mac OS (from System 1.1 all the way to 7.5) on an Intel or PowerPC Mac OS X-running Mac. It has never been difficult, but there is no easy to find place that teaches you how to do it, beginning to end. In this video, Adam will get you from start to finish emulating any Classic Mac System Software.

Video and links after the jump.

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A lot of people love the ”Back To My Mac” feature shipped with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Sadly, few people get to use this feature, as it is only available for .Mac subscribers. However, Lifehacker has put together an article describing, step by step, how to enable Faux Back To My Mac. Essentially, you’ll have to enable Screen Sharing and FTP file sharing in System Preferences, and then access these two features from other computers using a Static IP you assigned to your computer, and a domain name assigned to that IP (if you don’t like to remember numbers). The “hack” takes advantage of OS X’s built in FTP/ADP, and the Screen Sharing app found in /System/Library/CoreServices. Although the method they describe works fine, a VPN would also do the trick, such as Hamachi. Some people may prefer LogMeIn to the hack, and some people, like me, will save the time and hassle and take my computer with me.

Article [Lifehacker]

Apple has officially launched a “Find Out How” section of their website, seemingly aimed at Windows switchers. It is an expansion of the few video tutorials that were seen at the bottom of Apple.com’s Mac page. The page features video tutorials on basic Mac actions, such as “Moving to Mac,” the “Anatomy of Mac” in which the dock, menu bar, etc. are explained.

Tabs at the top of the webpage allow the visitor to choose tutorials related to Photos, Movies, Web, Music, and Documents, which basically collect the tutorials already available for iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, GarageBand, and iWork, respectively.

Unfortunately, as with the great “Switch 101” page detailing how to do things on a Mac vs. Windows, this page is a little bit hidden. With as many pages as apple.com has, it is impossible to make every page accessible, but some pages are inexplicably hard to find (for instance, finding the brick and mortar Apple Store directory page is nearly impossible unless you are looking for light grey size 2 text at the very bottom of the website.)

Macworld’s Jason Snell describes his experience with Migration Assistant on the MacBook Air. The Air is unique in that it has no FireWire port, and so the traditional method of using Migration Assistant, Target Disk Mode, is out of the question.

Apple, of course, has a solution for this too. When you get to Migration Assistant on the Air, it shows you a window telling you to go to your other Mac, open Migration assistant, choose “To another Mac” and type a passkey. What it doesn’t say is that you must first install an updated “Migration Assistant” onto your other computer by installing the Remote Disc software from the MacBook Air installation discs. Once you have installed that software, you can then use Migration Assistant wirelessly! It will be slower than FireWire, depending on your internet speed, but it does get the job done.

Read [Macworld]

DRM is still a major problem in the online music and video industry. I hate DRM, and I’m sure 99% of the people reading this agree with me - DRM sucks. The only benefit is for the record companies, so that their music cannot be shared on file sharing/BitTorrent websites. It brings the user absolutely no benefits, and many drawbacks - including limiting what you can do with your music/video in almost every way possible. Whether it’s putting the file on your mobile phone, or wanting to use it on more than five computers. Well, it looks like 5thirtyone has a stunningly simple solution to your DRM problems.

The method of removing DRM involves importing the DRM-protected song into iMovie, (so that iMovie thinks it is a soundtrack to it), then exporting it into iTunes and converting it to AAC. It is a simple process that does work - but I can see one major drawback: Sound quality. As you are re-compressing the song several times, the quality does decrease, even if the bit rate claims to be the same. So don’t expect it to sound quite as good as the original. A good tip, nonetheless.

Read [5ThirtyOne]

If you haven’t already seen the new features in iPhoto 08 in action then take a look at this brief but useful video from Glenn Wolsey. Events looks particularly useful, and the way in which you can quickly see how adjustments would effect your photograph is very cool.

While you are there check out his other stuff, and I am sure that we will see more on iLife 08 from Glenn soon. Glenn Wolsey is a very popular Apple blogger who has been around for a little while now, this jump to video is definitely interesting as we value his opinions as he has some good ones.

Updated: Glenn has also added a video on iWeb.

Watch [The Glenn Wolsey Show]

One of my biggest ‘issues’ with the iPhone is the limited disc space. 8GB just isn’t enough to get me remotely interested in one. If I had one though I would be looking at Blade Runner as a means of squeezing every last MB out it to.

Although it wont work with the DRM videos purchased through the iTunes store it will work with video you encode with applications such as Handbrake, Visual Hub etc and can be set to a number of options: 100, 200 and 350 Kbps and 480 pixels width, with varying levels of quality as you would expect. Is it worth it?

Well even at 100Kbps the claims are that the video is watch-able so “as the movie encoded at 1500 Kbps and full resolution weighs in around 1.5GB, but using these newer settings knocks the file down to around 190 MB (for the 100 Kbps file), 300 and 400 MB, respectively. That means you could easily fit anywhere from three or four movies (at the highest quality 350 Kbps setting) to as many as six movies (at the lowest 100 Kbps setting) in the same space as the original high-quality version.”

Via [TUAW]