Subscribe by email
Follow us on Twitter Subscribe to our RSS Feed

iMovie Themes

Enhance the look and feel of your movies with iMovie Themes
Read More >>

Refurbished Macs

Want a Mac but don't want to spend a fortune? Get great deals with Refurbished Macs
Read More >>

Google Wave on the iPhone

Check out how well Google Wave runs on the iPhone
Read More >>

Disabling iPhoto When Syncing your Device

by Shaun

I don’t know about you, but I know for me it is very annoying when I want to sync my iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to my Macbook and every time that I do this, iPhoto pops up.

“Gosh, I hate when this happens because if I have no photos that I want to sync with iPhoto, I have no reason to have iPhoto open.  I just wish there was a way that I can disable iPhoto from opening up when I sync my devices. “

Have you ever thought this before?  Well, if you have, the solution to your problem is outlined below.

First, open up iPhoto.  Then click on the “iPhoto” tab, then click on “Preferences”.

When the preferences pane opens up you are going to want to click on the “General” tab.  Then, look for the “Connecting camera opens:”.  Here you are going to want to click on the drop down menu and select “No application.”

And there you have it!  Now, when you go to sync your device, iPhoto will no longer pop up.  Now if you do want to transfer photos from your device to iPhoto, then you can open up iPhoto manually and it will recognize your device that is plugged in and then you can go through the process of uploading your pics.

That is really it.  Really simple, short post.  Just wanted to share this tidbit because this is something that I just recently learned and I am guessing there are others out there with the same problem, so I thought it would be a good, quick idea to share with you all!

Share this on Facebook Share this on Digg Share this on Twitter Share this on StumbleUpon Comments No Comments »

Using the iPhone Voice Control to Your Advantage

by Shaun

I don’t know about you, but I tend to forget about the Voice Control feature on the iPhone 3GS and my iPhone 4.  But recently I have started to use it more and more and have suddenly realized how good of a feature this really is.  So this post is to show and tell you about most of the features of the Voice Control feature on the iPhone.  Do be advised, this is only for the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4, so I am sorry you 3G and 1st gen. iPhone owners.


There are two aspects to voice control on the iPhone, one of them is the phone dialing.  First, in order to get to Voice Control, you need to hold down the “Home” button until you see Voice Control pop up.   In Voice Control you can say “Call ______” and if it recognizes that person’s name it will repeat the name and call that person.  If there is more than one number you will hear the voice ask you which number do you want to call.  So for example, if I say “Call Goodman”, it will recognize that and let you know that your iPhone will now call Goodman.

The other function in phone calling with Voice Control is that you can say “Dial” and then the number.  So I could say “Dial 451-6582″  and the phone will then dial that number for me.

The other nice feature that I learned while testing out Voice Control is that say you want to call someone that has a hard pronunciation or spelling of their name.  For example, my last name always gets butchered.  It is Takenouchi.  I will give you a dollar if you can actually say it correctly.  Well, if you don’t want to keep repeating the name in Voice Control, hoping they get it right, you can make this process a lot easier.  Here is what you do.  First, you want to go into your Contacts and then select the contact that you has a hard time being picked up by Voice Control.  Then you are going to want to hit the “Edit” button in the top right hand corner of your iPhone.  Then scroll down until you see the “Add Field” tab.  Click on this.

You will now be presented with some options.  Here you can do a couple of things to help Voice Control get the name right next time you try.  If you scroll down to “Nickname”, you can fill out a nickname for that person that is shorter and easier for Voice Control to pick up.  For example, for my name, instead of trying to say Shaun Takenouchi, I can just enter in Shaun in the Nickname field.  Then the next time I go into Voice Control, I can just say Shaun and Voice Control will know that I want to call Shaun Takenouchi.

iPhone Voice Control Commands

Your other option would be to try and input the “Phonetic First Name” and/or the “Phonetic Last Name” to help Voice Recognition recognize who you are trying to call.  Now, lets move on to the second aspect of Voice Control and that is the iPod features.  There are a lot of voice features when it comes to playing music that is on your iPod.  Here are the different iPhone voice commands.

“Play Music”: will play your music

“Play playlist ____”:  will play that playlist that you mention

“Play album”:  will play the album that you name

“Play artist”: will play the artist that you name

“Pause”: pause music

“Next Song”

“Previous Song”

“Shuffle”

“Genius”

“Play more songs like this”: will play songs that are more like the one that you are currently listening to

“What’s playing”

“What song is this”

“Who sings this song”

With the new iOS 4.0 a couple of new commands came out like “What time is it?” and saying “No” or “Not that one” will prompt Voice Control to ask you again for a different command.  You can also say “Cancel or Stop” to exit out of Voice Control.  All in all there are some pretty nifty features in Voice Control, that I believe get overlooked.  Especially now with more and more states cracking down on using your cell phone while driving, this is a great tool to have.  My only gripe is that I wish it came as an application instead of having to hold down the Home button to use it.

What do you think?  Useful tool or just a gimmick that Apple threw in?  Personally, I think it is a great tool, I think Apple could capitalize on it more and expand it to the rest of the phone, but we shall see what happens.

Share this on Facebook Share this on Digg Share this on Twitter Share this on StumbleUpon Comments No Comments »

Apple’s Magic Trackpad Announced

by Shaun

The long rumored Apple Magic Trackpad finally came to market along with some other updates to the iMac and the Mac Pro line of computers.  But, this announcement is more significant than updates to processing power or monitor sizes. Personally, I believe with the introduction of the Magic Trackpad, this could be opening up some doors for some exciting things maybe from Apple as well as third parties.  Will get to this more later.  For now, here is the lowdown on Apple’s Magic Trackpad.

The trackpad is made out of the same metal material that is used on the current Macbook Pro Line and the iMacs.  The trackpad is about 80% bigger than the normal trackpad found on a Macbook.  Check out the difference here.  So think of it this way, when I saw it, it is a little bigger than about two iPhones put together.  It is the same angle and height of an Apple Keyboard.  The trackpad also takes 2 AA batteries and works over bluetooth.  

As far as the functionality of the trackpad it is very similar to the track pad on a Macbook or Macbook Pro.  You can press and tap just about anywhere on the pad.  You can designate the right side of the pad to work as a right click as well.  You can also choose to use finger taps instead of pressing on the trackpad, just like you would on a normal trackpad.  You will also be able to use finger gestures, such as swipe, rotate, pinch and zoom and scroll.  Again, as with the Macbook trackpads, you will be able to customize your trackpad with how you want it to work.

Apple is touting this as a trackpad for the iMac line, which makes sense as the Macbook line already has a trackpad.  But, you will still be able to use this with any Mac that you have.  Apple has the Magic Trackpad on sale now for $69.  So the question now becomes, do you get this over the Magic Mouse?  

Well, it kind of depends on what kind of Mac that you have.  If you have an iMac or a Mac Mini, I would definitely say go for it.  But if you have a Macbook or a Macbook Pro, you already have a trackpad so I don’t see a need for it, unless you just want something bigger.  What would be interesting to see is which device is better for your wrist, the Magic Trackpad or the Magic Mouse.  For me, that would help me make a better decision as well.

There are a couple of reasons why I think this could be big for Apple fans.  The first being that this trackpad design could hopefully open doors for photographers and designers.  Although Wacom has done a good job of coming out with their tablets, I think Apple will could possibly do as good if not better.  This is a starting point and it would be interesting to see if Apple will try to compete with Wacom for this market.

My other thought here on why this could be big is that I can definitely see how this trackpad may some day be integrated into Apple TV.  A new Apple TV has been rumored for a little while now and there could be some significant upgrades to it in the near future and beyond.  If Apple is serious about competing in the TV market with the likes of Google, they are going to need to be integrated more into the tv itself, meaning that at some point don’t be surprised to see Apple collaborating with TV makers on some kind of Apple TV.  But with that you need a remote as well.  Well, this trackpad could very well be a great touch remote for that new Apple TV.  Again, this is all speculation, and but the cool thing is that Apple has at least launched this product so that now these rumors can at least possibly become reality.

So what do you think?  Do you think you will buy something like this?  If you have bought one, what are your first impressions?  Do you like it?  Why or why not?  Feel free to hit us up in the comments with your thoughts.

Share this on Facebook Share this on Digg Share this on Twitter Share this on StumbleUpon Comments 1 Comment »

Chronicle: A Bill Minder App for the Mac

by Shaun

Are you one of those people who tend to forget when your bills are due each month?  Some of your bills are due at the start of the month, some are due at the end and some somewhere in between?  I know for me, I sometimes couldn’t keep up with all the bills I knew I had to pay.  

Every once in a while, I was bound to miss a payment, not because I couldn’t make the payment, but more so because I would just plain forget!  If you can relate to any of this, I have got a great Mac app for you.  Chronicle, is a bill reminder application for the Mac, that I have been using for about a year now, and I absolutely LOVE the app!  It has literally saved me so many times.  Let me show you some of the major features of the app.


As you can see from the picture above, the way to get started is to enter in your bills into the app.  You can enter in as much as you want or as little as you want.  If you put in “due date”, Chronicle will integrate itself with iCal and you can set up reminders for your bill.  This is one of the best parts of this app.  I love that I can get reminders each month of when I need to pay a certain bill.  

You also have the option of getting reminders every two weeks and other custom reminders as well.  If you do online bill paying for a specific bill you can fill in the online info and from within Chronicle you can go straight to the website of the bill and make a payment.  Once you get all your bills put in you will get an Overview page, similar to the one below.  As you can see the Overview page gives you a list of all your bills, the amount if you entered one in, the average paid on the bill and when the next payment is due.  You will also get a “Bills at a Glance” window which tells you your total bills and billing information for the month.


When you go to log a payment all you have to do is enter in the amount that you are going to be paying for that month.  If you like you can scan in your receipt and attach the receipt to the payment as well.  It is a nice feature to have.  Then once you log your payment the date of the next bill will be automatically updated for the next month.

Each bill has it’s own page.  As you can see from the picture below.  You can see when the next due date is for the bill, when it repeats, the average paid on the bill, etc.  You can also see charts and numbers of your payments based upon whenever you log your payment info into Chronicle.  You can also set goals for yourself to pay down a certain bill, like a credit card.


That is pretty much it for the application.  It is a very simple, yet awesome bill reminding app.  Other than loving the app for the fact that it reminds me when to make payments, I love that I can track my payment info for each bill.  It is great for record keeping purposes.  IT is very intuitive to use and I love that it just works and it works well!  

Overall, this is a great application to add to your Mac software collection.  Right now the app is on sale for $14.95, you can get it at Littlefin LLC.  So what are you waiting for?  Go get it!!  Don’t wait till you miss that next bill payment and have to pay late fees because of it!

Share this on Facebook Share this on Digg Share this on Twitter Share this on StumbleUpon Comments No Comments »

Getting Your Gmail and Address Book Contacts on your iPhone

by Shaun

If you are like me, you have a lot of contacts in your Gmail account and you have a decent amount of contacts in your Address Book.  But you want to have them merge, play nice and have them all on your iPhone or iPad as well.  Dan did a great post about putting your Gmail contacts into your Address Book a while back.  While this article may have some similar things in it, I am mainly going to focus on getting the contacts of both Gmail and the Address Book to be more of a universal address book on your iPhone.  I know for me, I like to have my Gmail contacts as well as my Address Book contacts on my iPhone.  And with the integration of Google and Apple, I can do this, but it does take some house cleaning to make this happen in a manageable way.

The first thing you are going to want to do is cleanup your Gmail contacts.  That means get rid of any contacts that you don’t want to merge over and take care of any duplicate contacts.  Gmail has created an easy way to take care of duplicates now with their Merge function.  All you have to do is click on the contacts you want to merge and then click on the Merge link.


Once these contacts are cleaned up, you can now merge the two contact books.  You can use the method that Dan mentions in his post that I referred to earlier.  You can also use another method to get the contacts onto your iPhone.  First, I sync my iPhone to my computer. Then you are going to want to click on your iPhone in iTunes, then click on the “Info” Tab.  From here you will scroll down till you “Sync Address Book Contacts”.  Here you will see options for syncing contacts from your Address book, Yahoo, and Google.  Check the Google Contacts box and then hit “Configure”.  You will then be asked for your Google username and password.

Once you are done setting this up, hit “Sync” again and now your Address Book and your Gmail Contacts will all be on your iPhone.  The nice part about this is that any contact that is now added or deleted to either your Address Book or your Gmail Contacts, will now stay in sync with each other.  So if I add a contact on my iPhone, the next time I sync up my phone, that contact will now be in my Gmail Contacts.  For most this could be a blessing, but for some, I can see how this would make things a little more complicated.

When you are done with this process you are going to want to do some house cleaning in your contacts.  You may find that you will have some duplicate contacts that came over from Google, but didn’t merge with your Address Book.  The easiest way to clean all this up is to go back to the first step in this process and take care of any duplicates.  Then you will want to sync your iPhone again.  

Every once in a while you are going to want to clean up your Address Book and Gmail Contacts, by going in and merging duplicates and deleting contacts you no longer need.  Otherwise what you will find is that your iPhone contacts list gets really long.  Hope this helps you out.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Share this on Facebook Share this on Digg Share this on Twitter Share this on StumbleUpon Comments 2 Comments »

Mac Help

Maciverse is a site dedicated to Mac Help. We aim to provide Mac Help guides, tutorials, reviews, and information that can assist Mac owners get more from their computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads, and other Apple products. Visit Maciverse.com for helpful Mac tips and information.
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »