If you’ve got an Apple TV and you updated to Apple TV 3.0 a couple weeks back, it’s time to update yet again to 3.0.1—if you’d prefer your content not temporarily disappear until it’s re-synced, that is. It’s a pretty big bug, and presumably pretty annoying, so grab the update for the fix. For our part, we’ll stick with Boxee on our Apple TV. [Apple via TUAW]
Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks, TUAW Tips
One of the great torments of owning several computers is keeping all of your personal data in sync; having multiple copies of the same application speak the same jive. Take The Hit List, for example. I use this app on my MacBook Pro at work for organizing tasks and collecting thoughts like a virtual inbox to my brain. At the end of the day I need a way to get all the day’s notes from my laptop into my home desktop, which also happens to be running THL as well. What to do?
The ideal solution is to get each machine sharing the same THL database file synced to the cloud, instead of a locally rooted file. Fortunately, there is an way to do just this, and all that is required is for each machine to be running Dropbox. By now all of you should be using this amazingly awesome free service for saving and sharing data to the cloud. If you haven’t yet opened an account, and downloaded and installed the Mac desktop client, go now. It’s ok, I’ll wait. Got it? Good, now let’s do this.
First, you need to locate THL’s main database file which can be found hiding in /Users/userprofile/Library/Application Support/The Hit List. Look for a file called The Hit List Library.thllibrary. Find it? Good, now simply drag this file to your Dropbox folder. Hold on, we’re not quite done yet. Here’s where the magic happens.
Hold down the option key while launching The Hit List. A dialog window will appear, asking what the hell you’ve just done with its library. Just select “Choose Library” and point it the file located in your Dropbox folder. You must repeat this part of the process on every machine running THL. That’s it!
There is one small caveat. It’s a good idea to always ensure that Dropbox has fully synced all of your local changes before loading THL on another machine, or else you risk losing your most recent data. Be wise to this and you’ll have no troubles at all. You’re welcome.
By the way, if you use Things rather than The Hit List for your task management, be sure to see our previous post about how to sync it using Dropbox as well.
TUAWTUAW Tips: Sync The Hit List on multiple machines with DropBox originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Software, TUAW Tips
1Password is one of my very favorite and most essential Mac utilities. Combined with Dropbox, I can have all of my login information synced to all of my Macs.
The other day I noticed that 1Password had gained a lot of weight, specifically around the backups area. I’m not usually one to comment on such things, but we weren’t talking about “love handles,” 1Password’s backups had gone from 1MB to 21MB literally overnight. On August 28th, the backups were 1MB, and on August 29th, the backups were suddenly 21MB.
Wait? Did you say August 28th? Isn’t that when Snow Leopard was released? Yes it was. And wasn’t that when you switched from 1Password version 2 to 1Password version 3? Yes it was. Could that have something to do with it?
I contacted 1Password’s excellent support staff who correctly diagnosed that the increase was related to the preview images which are used for Login and Software License icons. (These can be found in the 1Password.agilekeychain/a/default/thumb folder.) Each preview image take about 100K. With 600+ items in my agilekeychain, this quickly added up.
Fortunately, this is easily fixed. If disk space is a concern, the icons and previews can be deleted using 1Password > Preferences > General > Remove all icons and previews. I also unchecked the box next to “Automatically download icons and previews for new Logins.” After I did that, the backup size went from 21.5MB to 889KB!
Why worry about space with today’s hard drive spaces? I have 1Password set to backup to my Dropbox account, which is limited to a total of 5GB. Plus this meant having to upload 20+MB every day versus <1MB. Personally I neither use nor need the icons, so it’s no loss to me, and it makes a big difference.
Many thanks to the 1Password folks for helping me get to the bottom of this mystery!
TUAWSlim your 1Password 3 Backups originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Grabbing Dropbox files from a web browser got a bit easier overnight, as the file synchronizing service added search, bulk operations for separate items, Gmail-style keyboard shortcuts, and a mobile interface for non-iPhone browsers to its web site.
The site as a whole got a visual overhaul, actually, but what established Dropbox users are going to most appreciate is the ability to create new ZIP-ed packages of different files—a few files, one or two folders, and maybe that picture, all at once—and grab them. The Dropbox team also added a search bar and “Gmail-style keyboard shortcuts,” although we haven’t seen a guide to those shortcuts as of yet.
Update: Reader Samuel points out that keyboard shortcuts are something you have to enable from the “Other Preferences” section of your Account settings on Dropbox’s web site. Once you do, hitting “?” brings up the shortcut list you see here. Very Gmail-like indeed.
The non-iPhone mobile version, assuming I’m seeing it on my Android model, works fairly well, providing quick access to files and recent changes. We’re still waiting on a dedicated iPhone app—submitted for Apple’s approval about four weeks ago—but these changes, mobile and otherwise, are a nice step forward for grabbing files when you’re at a non-synced computer or on your mobile device.
Can a custom Android operating system and handsets designed for social media junkies revive the fortunes of Motorola? That’s what the company is betting on, as today they announce two phones that run on a new OS called MOTOBLUR that adds a serious social twist to the mobile landscape.
Think of MOTOBLUR as Google Android meets FriendFeed, Plaxo, and Ping.fm, optimized for the mobile world. In other words: aggregation of activities from all of your friend’s activities across social sites, automatic updates and syncing of contact info with social profiles, and the ability to simultaneously update your status across networks.
These new features will first come to life on CLIQ (North America) and DEXT (International), two new 3G handsets with QWERTY keyboards, touch screens, and a 5 megapixel cameras, announced today at the Mobilize conference in San Francisco.
One piece of MOTOBLUR acts somewhat like TweetDeck, delivering automatic updates to CLIQ’s desktop (the home screen) from your friends on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other social sites through a widget called “Happenings.”
Meanwhile, like Ping.fm, you can quickly update your status across all of these sites in one move. Other social networking features – like wall posts, photo sharing, and quick posting of videos to YouTube (via CLIQ’s 5 megapixel video camera) are also tightly integrated, such that they are pushed to the home screen via one-touch widgets as opposed to opening and closing individual applications.
MOTOBLUR’s contact features are similar to the original premise of Plaxo – an address book that automatically updates when your friends make changes to their contact info. However, in this case, it’s synced with social networks, so whenever a friend updates anything in their profile, that update is reflected across MOTOBLUR handsets. This integration also allows you to see recent updates from contacts whenever you’re viewing them on your phone.
All of this information is also backed up to an online account, so if you lose or damage your phone, you can login to retrieve all of your contacts, as well as any customizations or data from social networks that may have been on your phone.
Similar to the social networking and contact features of MOTOBLUR, the messaging system is designed to work seamlessly with social sites. It combines all types of messages – text, email, IM, and social networking – and lets you reply in the appropriate format. So, for example, if you get a Facebook message, you can easily respond to it through Facebook. All major webmail providers are also included.
The first two MOTOBLUR handsets – CLIQ and DEXT – won’t be available until later this year, on T-Mobile in the US, Orange in the UK and France, Telefonica in Spain, and America Movil in Latin America.
It’s certainly an intriguing idea – while there are hundreds if not thousands of social networking applications for iPhone, BlackBerry, and other platforms (including Android Market, which is integrated with MOTOBLUR), Motorola is going after social media power users with an OS and handset designed and optimized specifically for them. Can those users be converted from the existing, extremely popular platforms they already use? That’s the challenge ahead for Motorola.
I’ll be interviewing Motorola Mobile Devices CEO Dr. Sanjay Jha live around 6pm ET / 3pm PT. Stay tuned to our Twitter feed (@mashable) for the details, and feel free to ask questions about MOTOBLUR and the new handset in the comments so we can share them with Jha.
Tags: facebook, Google, Google Android, Mobile 2.0, Motorola, myspace, social media, twitter
When the Palm Pre launched early last month, one of its biggest selling points was that its mobile phone synced with iTunes, something that few phone makers could or would guarantee. The Pre accomplished this by essentially pretending to be an iPod. Apple wasn’t happy though, so its iTunes 8.2.1 software update broke iTunes sync with the Pre.
Well, it looks like Palm isn’t standing down on the iTunes syncing issue. We’re seeing user reports that the new Palm Pre webOS 1.1 update has re-enabled iTunes 8.2.1 sync.
In fact, the Palm Pre support update page specifically mentions the fix:
System: … “Resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (8.2.1).”
You know what’s going to happen next, right? Apple’s probably going to fire back with another update that breaks this update, and the cycle will go back and forth until one of the two companies gets tired of playing this iTunes syncing game. Palm stands more to lose though, as without iTunes syncing, it loses its edge as a mobile media and music playing device.
Who do you think is going to blink first: Apple or Palm? My gut says Apple. Give us your thoughts in the comments.
Tags: apple, itunes, palm, Palm Pre
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