Cateye: More Free Effects For Photo Booth

With the new photo booth effects in Lion such as Lovestruck and dizzy, as well as with the older inbuilt effects ( Pop Art, Sepia, Mirror, Dent, Eiffel Tower, etc ) photo booth along with its effects has definitely become more - for lack of a better word - iconic in a Mac. Well, if you like these effects and seem to feel that Apple hasn't included its fair share of effects for you, you might be happy to see this application - CatEye which include 3 sets of 8 effects each and straight into your Photo Booth app.

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10 Amazing Features of iCal 5 on OS X Lion

iCal on Mac OS X Lion is an amazing and easy-to-use software on the Mac. It incorporates the stunning looks of its iPad equal with mind blowing simplicity and convenience.

The majority of Mac Users, including me, have never really used iCal on a day to day basis. Unfortunately, I simply do not have the time or patience to spend several minutes in simply setting a reminder or an alarm. The process which included naming the event, prioritizing it, setting a due date,  duration for the event, an alarm, choosing an account and performing several other moronic tasks was far too time consuming and tedious for me to find useful.

But with some changes in Lion and a little digging around the app, I discovered the tricks of the trade ( or rather, tricks of the app ) -

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OS X Lion - Dock in Full Screen Apps

When you install Lion for the first time, you'll probably be excited about the new Full-Screen apps. But if you've read enough reviews or if you're attentive enough, you might think that the dock doesn't show up in Full-Screen apps when you push your mouse down to the bottom of the screen where the dock would usually be.
So here's the secret: You push your mouse down to the bottom of the screen where the dock would usually be. And you keep pushing it down. This way, it ensures that you weren't simply clicking ( or mousing over ) something at the bottom of the screen but makes sure that you were intentionally trying to bring up the Dock.

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Safari in Mountain Lion

With Mountain Lion, Apple has made several changes to their famous cross-platform browser. The majority of changes have been  minor changes have been made, some of which are lifesaving tweaks or layout changes while others just add a little color to the browser. However, other layout changes too have been made in Safari 5.2 ( Developers preview available )

Here are some of the visible prominent changes in Safari 5.2

Reader has always been, in my opinion, one of Safari's under appreciated talents. After all, the feature to turn cluttered and clunky multi-page articles into a single paged neat and ad-free article with the perfect layout and font-size has definitely earned a spot on my list of favorites. 

What was previously a small black  button that would appear upon availability is now a permanent and prominently visible button next to the URL bar. When Safari detects an article on the webpage, the reader button automatically turns blue. Click it to read in a clutter-free and clean environment space.

Unified Search and URL Bar - The google search bar on the right corner of the safari window has now been integrated with the main URL bar. ( Possibly an idea taken from chrome ). To google something, simply start typing.

Tabs on Safari now expand to fill the tab bar no matter how many tabs are open. Even if you have just two tabs open, Safari will expand them to fill the entire space which makes viewing and switching between tabs a breeze.

The 'http' before the site URL no longer exists.

Apple has grayed out the everything after the root domain making the root domain far more prominent.

A new iOS-like share button has appeared throughout Mountain Lion and this is included in Safari too. It allows you to 'share' or save the webpage you are on by adding it to your bookmarks or reading list or by sharing it through Twitter, Email or iMessage.

Here are the some other changes in Safari 5.2

Passwords can now be 'Autofill-ed'. Safari asks you if you want to save the passwords for any websites which require it. If you choose to, it will automatically appear in Safari's preferences under the new 'Passwords' tab

The options for default font and font size seem to have vanished.

Also, new privacy options such as "Tell websites not to track me" have appeared.

While these changes seem to be largely for the better, only time will tell how they actually work in practice.

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Top Ten Marks in Mountain Lion's Crosshairs

Mac OS X 10.8 or Mountain Lion - Apple's new operating system - has been incorporated with a variety of new features many of these borrowed from iOS.
But along with this, Mountain Lion has also "killed" ( replaced, renamed or removed ) many applications, services, devices and names. Here's what Mountain Lion has in its crosshairs:

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Mac OS X Mountain Lion Release Date ( Expected )

On the 16th of Feb, Apple announced their new operating system for Mac: Mountain Lion. Taking the Mac community by surprise, the announcement stated that Mountain Lion would be due to release sometime "late summer" which, by looking at previous release history, suggests a mid-August release.

Mountain Lion can be downloaded as a developer preview if you have a Mac developers account. ( $99 a year to enroll, if you were thinking about making one just for the new releases )
Some of the new features due to be included in Mountain Lion include Notes, Reminders, Game Center and Notification Center for Mac ( Such as the ones on iPad and iPhone )

Watch out for a detailed article on All the Features in Mountain Lio on Control Your Mac.

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Revert Back to the 'Classic' Mail Look

Mac OS X Lion seems to have borrowed many features from iOS. ( Although apparently, not as many as Mountain Lion plans to ) One of these, is the new Mail look. I personally love this look and find it far more convenient and organized.

Mail on Lion has a neat two-column view where you can see everything together side-by-side as shown above. It now shows a list of all your messages in the sidebar to the left with the selected message in the viewing column to the right. You can also click the 'Show' button to make it a three column view in which the extra column would be a list of your email accounts and folders.

However, many may have trouble adapting to the new look ( or may simply prefer the classic look ).

To switch back to the classic Mail look, go to Mail's Preferences ( By pressing command-comma or going into the Mail menu )
Go to the 'Viewing' tab and check the first option: "Use classic layout"

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Quick Look Stacks and Spotlight in Lion

In Lion, you can now use Apple's amazing Quick Look facility for a quick preview of files in Stacks or within your spotlight search. To do so, simply mouseover on the item within the stack or the spotlight search drop down, and press the spacebar to 'Quick Look' the file.

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Top Ten iPad Games in HD

With hundreds of thousands of applications available on the app store, its often very hard to decide which ones are worth the trouble of downloading and buying.  For those of you who lack the patience to sift through the thousands of Games available, this article might be helpful.

10. Labyrinth 2 HD

Description: A simple game where you have to navigate the ball through various different mazes using the iPad's accelerometer.

Pros:

1. Extremely fun and addictive.

2. High quality graphics

Cons:

1. Harder to play when not in upright position

CYM Rating: 7.6

9. Jenga HD

Description: The classic Jenga game now on the iPad.

Pros:

1. Excellent touch controls make the game feel much more realistic.

2. HD Quality

Cons:

1. Gets boring after some time.

CYM Rating: 8.0

8. Moto X Mayhem HD

Description: Brilliantly designed game where you have to drive the

motorbike across all kinds of terrain.

Pros:

1. Addictive, fun and well designed for the touchscreen interface

Cons:

1. Only 4 levels in the game.

CYM Rating: 8.5

7. Fruit Ninja HD

Description: Slice your way through a number of fruits appearing on your screen while making sure to avoid bombs.

Pros:

1. Great game perfect for A device like the iPad with larger real estate.

2. Multiplayer mode too.

Cons:

1. Excessive gameplay can lead to the possibility of scratching the iPad screen. ( Been there, done that )

CYM Rating: 8.5

6. Need for Speed - Hot Pursuit HD

Description: Play as cop or racer in this EA designed game.

Pros:

1. Excellent graphics.

2. Nice controls and game design

Cons:

1. Not matching unto the potential that racing games on iPad have.

CYM Rating: 8.3

5. Scrabble HD

Description: The game of scrabble on the iPad offers the real feel of the classic board game version.

Pros:

1. HD quality

2. Smooth gameplay makes it fun to play even if you don't like the game.

Cons:

1. Tiles can be seen by any other player

CYM Rating: 8.9

4. Angry Birds Rio HD

The Angry Birds fad has become so popular that unless you live under a rock, it's almost impossible not to know of this game. If you've ever played it, you may have noticed that it doesn't live up to the hype. Nevertheless it is a great and addictive game to kill time.

Description: The all time favorite angry birds' new app in HD on iPad.

Pros:

1. Extremely addictive game.

2. Many levels.

3. Keep trying to beat your score

Cons

1. See point one of pros

CYM Rating: 8.7

3. Real Soccer 2011 HD / Real Soccer 2010 HD

Description: A wonderful game for all soccer fans. Another such option is FIFA 11 HD

Pros:

1. Well designed with great graphics.

2. Gameplay is better on iPad with larger real estate.

Cons:

1. Clutter of controls on screen.

CYM Rating: 9.0

2. N.O.V.A HD / N.O.V.A 2 HD

Description: This is not just the best first person shooter game on the iPad but also one of the best games on any device.

Pros:

1. HD quality graphics.

2. Great controls designed perfectly for the iPad.

3. Brilliant storyline.

Cons:

1. I'll need some time to think about that.

CYM Rating: 9.6

1. Real Racing 2 HD / Real Racing HD

Description: Not only is this the best racing game for The iPad but it is also the best game for iPad and surpassed all other by miles ( Except N.O.V.A And N.O.V.A 2 which came very close )

Pros:

1. Great design and graphics.

2. Controls give a great feel of real racing.

Cons:

1. Crashes fairly often.

CYM Rating: 9.6

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iBooks 2 Textbooks - Impressed ?

iBooks textbooks. To be honest I've seen it coming from the beginning. For several years, I've thought that some day a magical Device will come and take the heavy load of my schoolbag off my back. When the iPod Touch came out, I thought I had the gift of foresight. But its size was traumatic for the optically challenged masses. The vision fell down and the backpack somehow managed to climb up my back. Then came the iPad. Books were literally the first thing I thought of when the device was announced, although admittedly not the textbook variety. ( pun intended )

When I realized that Apple hadn't any real provision for textbooks on the iPad. Or rather no marketed provision for textbooks,  I wrote them a mail with the suggestion to include textbook facilities in the iPad. Although I received no reply, I realized it was only a matter of time before the genii behind Apple inventions thought of it for himself.

Anyway, Apple decided to market the facility better than I'd have thought ( although exceeding expectations is undoubtedly one of their specialties ). And loaded with several more features especially for textbooks than one would expect. The facility to load video and audio was quite obviously, expected considering the fact that the iPad is an LED backlit handheld Tablet which works beautifully as a portable media player. 

But as it turns out the iBooks application was also blessed with the capability to use 3D images in textbooks.

So as said by Apple, "rather than seeing just the cross section of a brain, you can see the whole thing". Its potential for being "groundbreaking technology" in the field of education was furthered by the "interactive image" widget and the ability to view keynotes ( presentations ) and a gallery of images rather than just a single one. 

The interactive image widget allows pan and zooming in images for better education. So you can see diagrams and figures in far greater detail

 And the note taking and highlighting ability doesn't hurt either. 

Nor does the fact that the top K-12 publishers are now making multi-touch textbooks for iPad.

So where does one purchase these textbooks which students "just won't put down" ? Why, at the iBookstore of course.

But obviously this won't reach the same level as the App store, since not everyone has the facility or the capability to make such textbooks. Right ? 

Wrong. 

Apple seems to have provided both the facility and the capability to produce multi-touch interactive textbooks with its easy-to-use, beautifully designed free software - iBooks Author - available on the Mac App store

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The Application System in Mac OS X

Note: In this article, ‘Window(s)’ refers to the window of an Application not the operating system. To refer to the operating system, I have written Microsoft Windows. ( in this article only )

Mac OS X functions on something I like to call ‘The Application System”.

The Application System. Think of it this way, if Mac functions on an Application system, then Windows functions on a window system.

A window is the visual area in an application containing some kind of user interface.
An Application or an ‘App’ is a computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. An application may be capable of opening one or more windows.

For example, in your Microsoft Windows web browser, you may open one window for Google, one for Facebook and so on. Discard the idea of tabs at present and think of windows instead. Now, to close them, you would close each window one by one by clicking on the red cross in the corner. By clicking on this cross you are terminating the processes taking place in the windows. When the last window of the Web browser has been closed, the Application is no longer running.
This is not the case in Mac. In Mac, the window is a part of the application. So by clicking on the red cross in the top-right corner and closing the window, you are terminating processes within the window but not within the application.
So essentially, in Microsoft Windows, the window is both the window and the application. In Mac, the application contains the windows.
So in a Mac you could have no Application windows open, but the application may still be running, which, if done excessively, can make your computer slow. ( Don’t worry, you’ll get it as you use it )
So naturally, the obvious question arises: How do I close the Application and not the window in Mac ? When you close an Application, you are closing its windows as well. Closing an Application is called ‘Quitting’ the application. Shutting a Window, is called closing a window. 

To quit an application, click on the Application name in the menubar ( left ) and click the last option: Quit ApplicationName.
Or you could simply press Command-Q To close an Application window, select the window, click ‘File’ in the menubar and click ‘Close Window’ or ‘Close All Windows’
Alternatively, simply press Command-W ( Close Window ) or Command-Option-W ( Close All Windows )

Now, another obvious question that might arise is “How do I know which applications are open ?”
Apple has provided for this by making tiny blue indicators beneath open application icons in the Dock as shown above. Even if your application isn’t in the Dock it will appear in the Dock as the last icon if it is open. ( You can drag it from the its position as the last icon to any other place in the Dock to keep it there permanently or you can right click on the icon and click ‘Keep In Dock’ ) 

Alternatively, to view and switch between open applications, use the Application-Switcher by pressing Command-Tab. Keep Command pressed and pressed Tab repeatedly to switch between applications. Release both buttons to select the applicatiosn.

What you should take from this is - Use the application switcher from time to time and quit Applications that you’re not using.

Note: Finder is an Application that cannot be Quit.

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Format an External Hard Drive for Mac and Windows

The question most Mac Users always have on their mind is "How can I format my External Hard Drive for Windows?". There could be any number of reasons for wanting to format an external Hard drive -

• Too much junk 
• Need space 
• Not working
• Not compatible with both windows and mac

Or perhaps simply because you're reorganizing the file system on your Mac. In any case, there's a correct method to do it such that it gives you the best amount of space possible and is compatible with windows as well as mac.

If you have important data on your hard drive make sure you back it up before formatting your hard drive.

So to start, open up Disk Utility which is located in Applications --> Utilities.  Or Launchpad --> Utilities
Now, that you have Disk Utility opened up, from the left hand side column select your external hard drive. It will be orange colored. Make sure you select the main Hard drive and not a partition. For example, in the screenshot below, you would select "500.08GB WD My Passport" and not "SHIV WD" Now, click on the partition tab ( as shown selected below )

MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT SELECT YOUR COMPUTER'S HARD DRIVE. ( IN GREY )

Change the partition layout to as many partitions you want in your formatted Hard drive. If you're not sure, select 1 partition.
Change the Name as per your liking.
Change format to Mac OS Extended ( Journaled ).
Leave the size as it is.
And finally, click apply. Your Hard drive should now be formatted for both Windows and Mac. 

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The Textbook - Reinvented by Apple ( Video )

Textbooks on iBooks 2 - Here's what Apple has to say about it.

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Magic Mouse: How to Fix The Battery Issue

The Magic Mouse is truly one of Apple's better inventions, albeit not too well known. A multi-touch mouse is in my mind, simply genius. The sheer brilliance of the idea aside, the bluetooth mouse provides a sensational experience. Put it this way, 30 per cent of the pleasure of using a Mac is contributed by the hardware. ( Magic mouse contributes the majority of that number )

The seamless, multitouch surface of the mouse, also functions as the button and is capable of detecting intuitively a swipe, a tap, a pinch, a double tap, a click, a scroll or even a resting hand and also how many fingers were used to do it. In addition to this, if put through the right software it can also double as a trackpad. However there is a tiny flaw. Battery.



It drains enormous amounts of battery. Within a few weeks of average consumption your "long lasting" battery will fall down to 10 per cent or so. The obvious solution ( aside from the tedious task of frequent battery replacement ) would be the heavily advertised Battery charger. Although not a bad idea, it is essentially, a hyped up pack of six rechargeable batteries and a charger. What I am about to tell you however is simply a trick, to change the "few weeks" of battery like to a few months and if done regularly enough maybe even half a year.

Switch off the mouse at night. ( Or when not in use ). You may not believe me now but switching the mouse off at night or otherwise actually somehow seems to increase your mouse battery. Not much, but it does by 5-10 per cent each time. Even if you don't believe what I am saying, surely turning your magic mouse battery off can't do any harm. And in any case, you'll see it for yourself.

To turn it off, push the little switch behind the mouse downwards. However, since this is only a temporary solution, buying a battery charger isn't a bad idea.

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How to Run Rosetta PowerPC Apps on Lion

If you haven't updated to Lion yet, don't be in a rush. If you have, this might come as a bit of a shock but Apple has removed Rosetta PowerPC. Which means most of your old applications and games may not work. These apps will now have a white slashed circle on it thus officially declared by Apple to be dead.  Another way to check is by right clicking on the app in Finder and clicking on "get-info" or pressing Command-I after selecting the icon in Finder. In the kind section it will say either "Application ( Intel, Universal or PowerPC ). The first two will work with Lion the last will not.

Chances are, if the application was old ( which it probably was ), developers won't bother making a new Intel version of the same app. So if you upgrade to Lion you'll probably have to live without it or you'll have to find alternative applications. Dilemma ? Lion's cool new features versus the Compatibility in Snow Leopard. Why not keep both ?

So how to keep Lion and Snow Leopard.

Simple: Upgrade to Lion and Install Snow Leopard on Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion
Parallels Dekstop and VMware Fusion are crossover applications which allow you to run Windows ( or any other Operating System ) on your Mac without having to reboot your Mac. 

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