corewerkz

MacDailyNews reported today that the iPhone Passcode Lock screen on the iPhone can be easily bypassed, allowing access to your Contacts, E-mail, Texts, etc. The problem is only introduced if you have the Home Button Double-Click setting set to Favorites (Settings > General > Home Button). So if you use the Passcode Lock (below, left) and you have the Home button set to Favorites, change it to iPod or Home (below, right) until Apple releases a fix.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Although Teleport has been serving my mouse and keyboard sharing needs wonderfully for my networked Macs, I’ve been bothered lately that I have no remote control over my PC.

The solution to this problem is Synergy, which lets you share a “server” keyboard and mouse between several “client” Macs and PCs on your network. I’ve tried installing and setting up Synergy years ago, but for some reason, it never worked and I gave up.

Now-a-days there are tons of guides for setting up Synergy. I found a posting on Scott Vandehey’s blog with a great little guide to get Synergy installed and setup, including links for downloading the software.

Not sure if it was Scott’s guide, Synergy updates, my local network, or what, but unlike a few years back, it worked almost effortlessly.

Notes/Additions to Scott’s Guide
- I entered a “screen alias” for each computer — where Scott says just do it for the PC(s).
- I used static IPs to identify each computer (which will need to be setup if you don’t already have in place).
- I get a “Warning: Could not map hotkey” when starting up synergy, but seems to be no problem — this happens even if you don’t remap “control” and “command” as Scott suggests.
- Here’s a look at my server configuration (“server” in the middle):

** Synergy bonus feature: PC & Mac screen saver syncronization! :)

Popularity: 8% [?]

Here’s an excerpt from a macosxhints.com hint about optimizing Leopard Mail for accounts that support “push” (like me.com and gmail):

…this is a great way to keep your mailboxes up-to-the-second current without having Mail.app hog the bandwidth, checking every minute or five minutes.

(This is the fun part) Again go into Mail » Preferences » General and set Check for new Mail to Manually.

And robg adds an important note:

If you have a mix of accounts some of which include IDLE support and some which don’t (as I do), here’s another way to set this up. For the IDLE-enabled accounts, uncheck the box next to ‘Include when automatically checking for new mail’ on the Advanced tab of that account’s settings pages. For the non-IDLE accounts, leave this box checked.

Then, in General in Mail’s Preferences, leave the ‘Check for new mail’ pop-up set to whatever time interval you prefer. This way, your IDLE-enabled email will show up as soon as the server pushes it to your machine, but you’ll still check the non-IDLE accounts on a regular basis. This works quite well for me — three of my accounts have IDLE enabled and the email just shows up, while the other two accounts are checked using Mail’s automatic checks.]

One problem, noted by EricMc, which I too have experienced is:

When using the idle support in Mail.app many people experience issues with new mail sounds or sounds triggered from scripts not playing or playing much later than expected.

Popularity: 5% [?]

In the past, I’ve tried both aluminum foil and cigarette foil paper to block the iPhone’s GSM/Data interference from entering my car speakers (also notorious with computer speakers). Both worked okay, blocking most, but not all, of the speaker noise (I’d say about 80% was blocked).

Recently, I found a solution that blocks 99% of GSM noise, Static Free Bags (like the kind a new hard drive or RAM is packaged in):

Read more…

Popularity: 7% [?]

Learn some tips to increase battery life on your iPhone at http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/08/the-art-of-ipho.html. Nothing super secretive here, but great knowledge for new iPhone users.

The only thing I’d add to his guide is using BossPrefs (for jailbroken iPhones) to quickly enable and disable things like Edge, Wifi, and Bluetooth, rather than navigating through the menus. I should also note that “Airplane Mode” can make your iPhone last a few days on a full charge, if you just want to use the iPod.

Popularity: 4% [?]