If you come from the Windows world, uninstalling apps on a Mac might seem a bit odd to you. Unlike in Windows, where you go through a whole uninstall process, on a Mac there are no such hoops to jump through. To uninstall a Mac app, you simply highlight it in your application folder, and trash it. The problem, though, is that many Mac apps leave behind preference files and other breadcrumbs, even after you delete them. To remove all traces of an app from your Mac, delete it using AppCleaner.
Ask any computer expert, and she will stress the need for not only local backups, but offsite backups as well. One option to get offsite backups is to use an online service. For many years, I was a happy subscriber to Carbonite. As the number of computers in my household grew, however, I needed a more economical solution. My wife and I each had a desktop and laptop, and I also ran a Windows virtual machine on one of my Macs. That made five systems that I needed to backup. After a bit of research, I settled on CrashPlan, and haven’t looked back. Not only is the CrashPlan+ Family Unlimited plan a good choice for a family with many computers, but CrashPlan might also be a good choice for you if you don’t want to pay anything at all.
40Tech is pleased to present a guest post by Simon.
Although Apple’s new iPhone did not electrify either the media or the stock market quite so much as Apple might have hoped, it has certainly proved popular with their most vital audience: the consumers, who have made it the most successful iPhone launch ever, with 4 million sales already. It’s achieved worldwide success, including unprecedented penetration in the Chinese market.
Many people probably picked up the 4S for the Siri Personal Assistant, or the much-improved 8Mp camera, or just because it’s fun to have the very latest high-end phone. Hopefully they will sooner or later appreciate the true power of this new handset, which goes far beyond what we’ve come to expect in smartphones, particularly in several areas crucial to gaming: notably processor power, graphics chip, and the possibilities unlocked by the iCloud and AirPlay services.
Processor
The A5 processor in the Apple 4S is the same one used in the iPad 2. Yes, that means the latest iPhone is more powerful than the original iPad – a frankly staggering achievement, allowing game developers to create some seriously resource-intense games for the 4S.
Graphics
The graphics chip is also state-of-the-art, allowing for shading, lighting, and movement graphics that are at least as good as most gaming consoles. Infinity Blade II, the sequel to earlier the hit iPhone game, will probably be the first big release to really show off the new graphical capabilities. It won’t be the last, though – expect movie-quality graphics in a number of new 4S games next year.
Gaming in the iCloud
The iCloud has some great possibilities for gaming. Cloud computing in general has a variety of potential security issues, not yet fully explored or studied, but even if you’re wary of storing your work documents in the cloud, you can certainly save your computer games there. Cloud gaming allows you to start a game on your iPad, and continue it on your iPhone if you don’t have the iPad with you, without any hassle.
Not just a player; an AirPlayer
AirPlay lets you use your iPhone as a controller, moving the visible action from your phone’s 4.3 inch screen to your (suitably compatible) TV screen, and the audio to your surround sound system. Combine this with the iCloud possibilities, whereby you can seamlessly move the action from one device to another since your saved games are stored in the cloud, and some intriguing options open up for game developers. Fancy developing a game character in solo play on the iPhone and then bringing it along to a group gaming session via AirPlay? With the right game – not yet developed – it should be a possibility. Group games via AirPlay, using your iPhone as a controller and your TV screen to show off the action, are already available.
Cheap as chips (potato, not digital)
The very cheap price of most iOS games is a huge boon, too – look out for Diddly next year (free download) for a fiendishly competitive trivia game you can play on your AirPlay compatible TV. Hundreds of one-man indie developers and small teams are working on new titles, often inspired by classic 80s and 90s games, with prices from nothing to just £1-2.
Simon writes on behalf of Best Mobile Contracts, the UK’s leading mobile phone comparison website.
We’ve already talked about how you can encrypt files in Evernote. Two of the three methods in that post involved using other programs (one of which is also available on OS X). If you’re on a Mac, though, and want to encrypt PDF files and load them into Evernote, you don’t need any third-party programs at all. OS X can handle encrypting a PDF and getting it into Evernote, all on its own. There’s one slight catch, though.
Some Mac task management apps allow you to use a keystroke to create a task from an Apple Mail message, and then have that task link back to the Mail message. This is particularly handy if, like me, many of your tasks originate from Mail messages. If you’re a Toodledo user, you can do this as well, although it will require you to purchase a third-party Mail plugin.
