How to share files on iOS 7 & above using AirDrop

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Source: macworld.com

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Introduced in Mac OS X Lion, AirDrop is a feature that lets you easily share files with other Mac users on your local network. With iOS 7, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users get to join in the fun. AirDrop on iOS devices can share photos, videos, web pages, map directions, and more. You can't share with Mac computers, though.

AirDrop sharing in the Photos app.

To use it, you need to make sure you and the person you want to share something with have AirDrop turned on. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open Control Center,  then tap AirDrop. To receive AirDrop shares only from people who are in your contacts list, tap Contacts Only; to share with anyone nearby, tap Everyone. Ask the person you want to share with to do the same.

Next, open an app that supports sharing via AirDrop—in this case, let's use the Photos app as an example. Open a photo, then locate the share button (it's a square with an upward-pointing arrow). If the other person has AirDrop turned on and is nearby, they should show up along the top of the sharing panel. Tap the name of the person you want to share, and they'll get a message asking to accept the photo. Once the person you're sharing with taps the Accept button, your phone will beam the photo to theirs.

[ Further reading: Everything you need to know about iOS 11 ]

What your friend will see when you share a photo with them.

AirDrop works over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but it doesn't work over the cellular networks. You don't even need to be on the same Wi-Fi network for it to work—you'll automatically create an temporary direct connection to the other person, so long as you're within a close proximity to one another.

Bear in mind that AirDrop does not work on all iOS 7-compatible devices: It only works with the iPhone 5 and newer, the 4th-generation iPad and iPad Mini, and the 5th-generation iPod Touch and newer. You'll also need an iCloud account in order to use it. AirDrop's transfers are encrypted, too.

This story, "How to share files on iOS 7 using AirDrop" was originally published by TechHive.

Ten things I'm happy Apple is fixing in iOS 7

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Source: macworld.com

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I love my iPhone, and have loved it since I ditched my Sony Ericsson 710a way back in 2008. But no device is perfect, and every year I look forward to Worldwide Developers Conference keynotes and the new iOS features that typically come with it. iOS 7—previewed at this year’s WWDC—brings fixes for quite a few of my long-term quibbles—here are the ten I’m most looking forward to.

1. No more digging around settings

As a general rule, I like keeping the automatic brightness control off, so as to save my battery life. Unfortunately, this means that my screen’s occasionally too bright (or too dim) for the environment. But until iOS 7, there’s been no easy way to change my brightness on the iPhone without diving into several Settings menus. Thank goodness, then, for Control Center. In addition to bringing easy on/off controls for Airplane mode, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Do Not Disturb, and screen rotation, there are big friendly sliders for both brightness and volume. Not only does this bring the iPhone ahead of the iOS 6’s paltry controls implementation, but it gives the end-user more control over basic settings (and eliminates one of the major reasons I ever thought about jailbreaking my device). iOS 7’s Control Center also reminds me a lot of OS X’s menu bar widgets: Your controls on iOS 7 may not live in your iPhone’s menu bar, but you can access them anywhere—even on the lock screen. There are even app shortcuts along the bottom of the Control Center to quickly turn on your LED flash and launch the Clock, Calculator, or Camera apps. Of course, seeing those app shortcuts makes me hope we’ll soon be able to customize them, but that might be a wish better saved for iOS 8.

2. Goodbye, multitasking bar

The multitasking bar was a godsend when Apple first introduced it in iOS 4. It was limited, sure, and you had to do a lot of tapping and swiping, but it at last brought some semblance of multitasking to the iPhone and iPad. But three years later, it’s time for a change, and iOS 7 delivers. The new multitasking interface feels much more in tune with the modern mobile OS. No more accidental tapping on app icons because you tried to switch too quickly; instead, you get beautiful miniature screen captures of your apps to swipe through, with the icons along the bottom (just in case you’re not sure what’s on the screen). The feature I love most about the new multitasking screen, though, isn’t the captures themselves; it’s when you need to quit an app. In the past, force-quitting an application involved tapping and holding on an icon to make it shake, then tapping the red delete button. Inevitably, this rather confusing process got me questions from my relatives: “Did I just delete my Facebook?” Quitting an app in iOS 7 feels much more natural: You just remove it from the carousel by dragging it upwards. The card disappears, and your other apps slide over. Easy peasy, and no scary delete button to frighten your parents. I still would like to see a Multi-Touch gesture for opening the multitasking screen on the iPhone (a pinch from the home screen, maybe, a la Mission Control on OS X?), but I suspect Apple worries about overloading the iPhone’s smaller screen with too many gestures. (And, no, Android fans, I don’t think the the solution is to make the iPhone bigger.)

3. Photographic updates with friends

Based on the popularity of apps like Snapchat, it’s obvious that people like sharing images with their friends. Apple tried to hop on this bandwagon with Shared Photo Streams in iOS 6, which let you send pictures to your buddies; unfortunately, the “shared” in Shared Photo Streams wasn’t very sharing-friendly at all. Photo streams were one-way trips: You could send images to your friends and add more throughout the week, but if they wanted to give pictures back to you, they had to create their own separate stream. Aggravating at the least, and it did a lot to convince me not to use Shared Photo Streams, an otherwise very nifty feature. Thankfully, iOS 7 addresses the core problem, giving you the option for one- or multi-way Shared Photo Streams. In addition, Apple’s added support for video sharing—so you can spice up that static stream with a moving picture or three. In the future, I hope we’ll see even more control over who can see and post to streams. I love the concept of having a shared repository of great images, and it would be great to see Apple further iterate on that.

4. Easy local file sharing

Given the iPhone’s popularity, it’s not surprising to be at a party with friends who all have an iPhone. Less fun, however, is trying to share images or files with those friends on the spot. You have two options—email and Messages (which only really lets you send photos or video) or using a third-party app like Dropbox. So hallelujah for AirDrop, Apple’s OS X peer-to-peer sharing network, coming soon to an iOS device near you in iOS 7. It uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to wirelessly share photos, video, Passbook passes, map data, contact cards, and possibly even more (depending on how third-party apps implement it) to your nearby friends—no email or messages needed. The AirDrop icon is all over iOS 7, and its settings even appear in Control Center, where you can choose to allow anyone to send you files, just your contacts, and no one. And according to this post from the Bluetooth blog, AirDrop may use the latest iteration of Bluetooth Smart technology.

5. Welcome back, keychain sync

Once upon a time, users of Apple’s MobileMe service (now known as iCloud) had an option called Keychain Sync, which would store passwords from OS X’s Keychain Access and let you access those on all of your Macs. It didn’t always work reliably—which was probably why it disappeared during the iCloud transition—but I’m really excited to see its partial return in the form of iCloud Keychain. Granted, Apple hasn’t said how iCloud Keychain performs its magic, but the end result is similar: Enter a password in Safari on your Mac, and iCloud will remember that password for you on your other Macs or iOS devices. You can also store account information, credit card numbers, and your Wi-Fi networks and passwords. All I know is I’ll certainly be overjoyed if I never have to manually enter in a credit card number on my phone again.

6. Searching in Siri

My colleague Lex Friedman uses Siri for search and all sorts of everyday tasks. But I haven’t been able to stomach it: I hate getting kicked out to Safari whenever I ask Apple’s virtual assistant something it can’t source Wolfram Alpha or its own servers for—and unfortunately, that happens pretty often. So Siri’s new inline search options sounds pretty promising to me. I’m not quite as sure how I feel about Apple’s partnership with Bing search, having been a Google searcher since I dropped Alta Vista, but I’m willing to give it a shot. (And hey—currently, you can force Siri to search Wolfram Alpha by prefacing all queries with “search Wolfram Alpha,” so it’s possible you might be able to force Siri to search Google by doing something similar.)

7. No more manual downloads

There’s just something about those awful red update badges that tweak my OCD something fierce. I’ve turned them off in every app I can, but the App Store app has ever remained, mocking me silently with its “2 app updates” reminder. So when Apple announced during its keynote that John McCain would be getting his wish and automatic updates would indeed come to iOS, I cheered. I do hope Apple does this sensibly: The company hasn’t publicly mentioned whether you can limit automatic downloads while on cellular data, or if you can disable automatic updates at all. That said, Apple’s been pretty good about letting users monitor and turn off cellular data for things like automatic music, books, and app downloads, so there’s a pretty good chance we might see a similar switch for updates in iOS 7.

8. Even more Multi-Touch gestures

I’ve long wished for more iPhone Multi-Touch gestures to match my iPad and Mac’s capabilities. Four finger swipes seem a bit crazy on the iPhone, but there are plenty of other gestures to add functionality. And while Apple didn’t include my most wished-for gesture (one for opening the multitasking bar on the iPhone), there are new swipes abound in iOS 7. You can swipe upward to access Control Center. Swipe to the right to go back hierarchically. Pull down from the center to access the search screen. Swipe up on an app in the multitasking screen to force-quit it. Many of these gestures we’ve seen in third-party apps, and I’m very happy to see them come to the iPhone in the fall.

9. Mail search will actually work (we hope)

Oh, mobile mail search. The bane of my existence—and, I imagine, many an email-laden worker. Apple’s Mail app has been limited to searching solely in the mailbox you’re occupying for as long as I’ve had an iPhone, and for someone who has a lot of folders and organizational tics (yours truly), it makes finding messages almost impossible. iOS 7, in contrast, looks to finally end our long national nightmare by letting us search all mailboxes from any mail screen—whether it’s our inbox or three levels down in a “coupons” folder. It’s a feature I’m eagerly awaiting—though I suppose it means I can no longer use the excuse “I’m on my iPhone and I can’t find that email with the information you need” when I’m not at work.

10. Thieves, beware

It looked as if senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi tossed in Activation Lock at the end of the iOS 7 presentation almost as an afterthought—but it’s clear Apple’s very proud of its new theft deterrent. Activation Lock prevents would-be iPhone thieves from wiping and reselling your phone by first requiring your iCloud username and password to unlock it. I lost my phone once last year, and that experience (coupled with a few close calls from sketchy characters in major metropolitan cities) makes me incredibly grateful for any extra security measures Apple can implement. We keep so much important, private data on our phones these days that it’s vital to have efficient protection from thieves and would-be snoopers, and I’m glad to see the company taking an interest in these matters.

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• Apple updates its website with iOS 7 iLife icons
• Unhappy Customer Suing Apple Over iOS 7
• iOS 7 round table review: One month later
• Apple shows off new iWork and iLife icons on its website, GarageBand now also going free
• How to access iCloud Tabs on iPhone in iOS 7
• Apple Strikes Out with Troubled iOS7

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Getting the best Amazon deal

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Source: www.macworld.com

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Although I’m the guy others come to for answers, there are times when I have questions of my own. For instance, while discussing beloved movies with a friend I was reminded that I don't own copies of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest movies. Hoping to remedy that I dashed to Amazon and found Alfred Hitchcock: The Master piece Collection [Blu-ray], which includes the greatest hits of Hitchcock’s later work. The collection looked great, but the price did not—$178.96 as I write this.
Reviews indicate that the collection has been sold for as little as $120—a price I would be willing to spring for. But how am I to know when it becomes available at such a discounted price? I turned to Twitter for answers.
Follower John Coxon (@johncoxon) told me about camelcamelcamel. This Web-based service allows you to enter the URL for the item you wish to track. You can then view a history of the item’s price to get a ballpark idea of how low it’s been priced in the past. Then just enter the price you’re willing to pay ($120, in my case) and choose how you wish to be alerted—via email or Twitter.

Mike Hoffman (@MikeHoffman) pointed me to Delite Studio’s free Mac application Price Drop Monitor For Amazon. Download and install it and a shopping cart icon appears in the Mac’s menu bar. In your Web browser just navigate to the item you eventually wish to purchase and drag its URL to this menu bar icon. It will be added to a list of watched items. When the price of a watched item drops you’ll be notified (you can choose from among a sound, notification center, Growl, and email). To track more than 20 items you must pay $3.99 for monitoring of up to 50 items at a time.
Both Chris Lehmkuhl (@ChrisLehmkuhl) and Dave Packard (@cpadave) informed me that all I had to do is add the item to my cart and leave it there, unpurchased. When the price changes you'll see a notification in your Amazon shopping cart.
And finally, I have a solution of my own. With Safari go to the item’s Amazon page and choose File > Open in Dashboard. This is the means for creating a Web clipping. Select the item’s price area and click Add. That clipping will appear in Dashboard. Because Dashboard clippings update whenever you switch to Dashboard, all you need to do is invoke Dashboard to view the item’s current price.

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• Confessions of an Amazon addict
• 16 Amazon Deal Hacks You May Not Already Know

FAQ: everything you need to know about iOS 7

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Source: macworld.com

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iOS 7 sports a revolutionary new design, under-the-hood features like Control Center and card-based multitasking, and app updates.

Editor's Note: This article was originally posted on June 11 after iOS 7 was previewed.

Now that Apple has set a release date for iOS 7, we've updated the article to include the latest information about Apple's latest mobile operating system.

When he took the wraps off iOS 7 at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference earlier this year, CEO Tim Cook called it the most significant overhaul of Apple's mobile operating system since the company got into the smartphone business back in 2007.

The Alabama-born Cook wasn't just whistling Dixie: iOS 7 is a dramatic re-invention of its mobile software that goes beyond mere additions and enhancements.

Apple is changing the very look of iOS itself.

Something as different as iOS 7 is going to raise questions.

Fortunately, we have some answers, especially now that the update's release is imminent.

Here's an overview based on what we've seen from Apple.

The basics

When will iOS 7 be available?

That's the big news to come out of Apple's September 10 press event (where the company also unveiled a new batch of iPhones).

iOS 7 will launch September 18 as a free upgrade.

You'll be able to get iOS 7 the same way you could with iOS 6 - either downloading the updated OS via iTunes or by taking advantage of iOS's over-the-air updating capabilities to pluck the new version out of the ether.

What's the biggest change with iOS 7?

The entire look and feel of the system has been overhauled, with flatter icons, less skeumorphism, and thinner typefaces.

That said, anybody who's used iOS will probably feel mostly at home: Apple hasn't changed the home screen much, and the basic gestures and interactions are largely the same, with a few new exceptions.

So how is the new look different from the old look?

How did you feel about green felt?

I hope the answer is "not great," because they're all gone in iOS 7.

Instead they've been replaced with a new cleaner design that's largely about simple lines and icons.

While there are elements reminiscent of Microsoft's recent Windows Phone design, iOS 7 clearly has its own distinct style.

These aren't just subtle enhancements either; they permeate every bit of the interface.

How did you feel about green felt?

iOS 7 also takes design cues from your content too, tinting controls and panels with the colors from the photos behind them.

Apple's Jony Ive spoke about layering the interface, with panels such as Notification Center and Control Center visually residing "on top" of apps and the iOS home screen.

Will the new design mean I have to completely relearn how to use my phone?

Launching and using apps is largely the same.

But there will be some new things to learn.

For example, you can now swipe up from the bottom of the screen to summon Control Center (a handy panel that gives you access to many of your most commonly-used system features).

There's another new swipe-from-the-left-edge gesture that means "go up a level" when you're in Mail, for example.

But, as Apple's Craig Federighi described it back at iOS 7's WWDC unveiling, it's a bit like getting a new phone that you already know how to use.

Those nifty new photo filters in iOS 7?

What devices will support iOS 7?

You'll need at least an iPhone 5 or fifth-gen iPod touch to use them.

If you're looking to update to iOS 7 when it lands in the fall, you'll need to have one of these devices: the iPhone 4 or later; iPad 2 or later; iPad mini; or fifth-generation iPod touch.

Oh, and both the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c announced by Apple will arrive with iOS 7 already installed, though they don't go on sale until September 20 - two days after iOS 7's release.

• Panoramic photos are only available on the iPhone 4S or later and fifth-generation iPod touch.
• You can't shoot square photos or video using the iPad 2; all other devices can use this feature, however.
• For the nifty new live camera filters, you'll need an iPhone 5 (including the s and c models) or fifth-generation iPod touch.
• Putting filters on after the fact in the Photos app is an option for the iPhone 4 or later, third-generation iPad or later, iPad mini, and fifth-generation iPod touch.
• To AirDrop a photo or other file to your friends, you'll need an iPhone 5 or later, fourth-generation iPad or later, iPad mini, or fifth-generation iPod touch.
• Siri continues to be limited to those using an iPhone 4S or later; third-generation iPad or later; iPad mini; and fifth-generation iPod touch.

It also may not be available for your country.

And if it's a new Siri voice you desire, keep in mind that it'll only be available initially in English, French, or German.

The iPhone 5s can claim a few specific iOS 7 features of its own, not the least of which is support for the built-in Touch ID fingerprint reader that comes with the new phone.

And camera features like burst mode, image stabilization, live 3x video zoom and the ability to shoot 120fps slow-motion video in 720p are iPhone 5s-specific.

The new Control Center gives you easy access to settings and features you access most often.

How is it different from Notification Center?

The System

What is this Control Center thing?
How is it different from Notification Center?

If you've ever grumbled to yourself while navigating three levels deep into Settings to turn off Bluetooth, you're going to love Control Center.

This new panel, which you can summon anywhere in iOS by swiping up from the bottom of the screen, gives you easy access to common settings, including Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, Orientation Lock, Brightness, AirDrop, and AirPlay.

There are also media playback controls, and icons at the bottom enable you to launch frequently used apps and utilities: You can turn on the iPhone's camera flash to use as a flashlight, or open the Clock, Calculator, or Camera apps.

Did Notification Center change?

While you still summon it by swiping down from the top of the screen, Notification Center has a new translucent look, like much of the rest of the OS, and offers some different information.

In addition to storing your notifications, as it did in previous version of iOS, it also offers a tab where you can view only your missed notifications, as well as a new Today view.

The latter acts a little bit like Google's Google Now feature, providing you an overview of what you have to do today, including the current weather forecast, upcoming appointments on your calendar, stock quotes, and even a quick paragraph about what kind of day you have tomorrow.

How do I access the Spotlight search feature now?

Spotlight's moved from its traditional home on a separate home screen.

With iOS 7, you'll trigger searches by pulling from the center of the screen and essentially dragging your home screen downward.

It's a weird gesture to learn at first.

What's up with multitasking in iOS 7?

The multitasking interfaces changes in iOS 7.

You can still switch apps by double-clicking the Home button, but the interface for doing so has changed: It now resembles the old interface for switching pages in Safari on iOS 6 and before, where you see a thumbnail of the page.

A row of app icons still appears below, and you can swipe back and forth to find the app that you're looking for.

Force-quitting apps is a little different though: Instead of tapping and holding on the icon, you flick a thumbnail up to dismiss it.

Behind the scenes, there are other, more significant differences.

In iOS 4 and later, only certain tasks could run in the background (in order to save battery life).

In iOS 7, we finally get full multitasking.

So any app can run in the background, providing you with up-to-the-minute information as soon as you switch to it.

If any app can run in the background, what about battery life?

Apple's spent a lot of time making sure that battery life won't suffer from the new multitasking.

It tries to collect updates from different apps and run them all at the same time, and keeps an eye on both power efficiency and the current network situation to make sure it doesn't run down your battery.

Any other changes to iOS 7 since WWDC?

There are new ringtones and alert options with iOS 7, if that's the sort of thing that sets your pulse racing.

The apps

What’s new with the Camera?

Like the rest of iOS 7, Camera's gotten a significant overhaul.

It offers four different modes: standard camera, video camera, a square camera, and panorama; you can swipe back and forth between them.

If you think that square camera might be Apple's way of taking a shot at Instagram, congratulations: You're spot on.

The app also now includes different live photo filters that you can apply to your still or square shots.

They're even non-destructive, in case you want to remove them later.

If you think that square camera might be Apple's way of taking a shot at Instagram, congratulations: You're spot on.

What are Moments and Collections?

For those of us that end up with thousands of pictures in our Camera Rolls, Moments and Collections offer a better way to organize those photos.

Just as iPhoto on the Mac can automatically break pictures into events, Photos on iOS can use metadata like time and location to create different "Moments" - all the pictures you took on Thursday at dinner, for example, or all the photos you snapped while on that weekend trip to the country.

Collections are larger groupings of Moments - often all the photos you took in a general area (around your house) during a time period of often several months.

Beyond that you can zoom out even further to a Years view that breaks down all the pictures you took in various (you guessed it) years.

So iOS 7 has AirDrop?

AirDrop in iOS 7 lets you exchange files like pictures, Passbook passes, and contacts between two iOS users over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, without any configuration and (as Apple's Craig Federighi pointed out) without the need to walk around and "bump" phones with people.

AirDrop appears in the Share sheet, along with more conventional items like Mail and Messages; you can even use it to share multiple items to multiple people at once.

Files end up right in the appropriate app and are encrypted during transmission.

You can also change permissions to determine whether everybody can share with you, or only certain people nearby (or people in your contacts).

What we don't know is whether or not iOS devices will be able to AirDrop files back and forth with Macs.

iOS 7 sports a revolutionary new design, under-the-hood features like Control Center and card-based multitasking, and app updates.

The Macworld staff occasionally work on articles together.

Apple updated its iPhone line with two new models, the high-end 5s and the more affordable 5c.

Macworld is your best source for all things Apple.

We give you the scoop on what's new, what's best and how to make the most out of the products you love.

Concepts:

Networking, iOS, apps, iPhone, features, Apple, camera, iPad, Macworld, photos, fifth-generation iPod touch, accessories, Mac, video, Control

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Automator (software) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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macworld.com

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5 Automator workflows everyone should have

I meet a lot of people with Automator anxiety: they think using OS X’s built-in workflow-maker is a lot more complex than it really is. The truth is that Automator workflows are (a) pretty simple to assemble and (b) great for simple but repetitive tasks that you do all the time anyway.


To show you what I mean here are five workflows that I think pretty much every Mac user should have. They do things we all need to do: Wrap text in quotation marks, for example, or count the number of words in a selection of text. There might be other ways of doing the same things, but Automator is built into your Mac and you can implement them yourself for free in a couple of minutes.

Wrap text in quotes

This one works with selected text to wrap it in quotation marks.


To start, create a new Automator Service workflow and configure its header area to process selected text in any application. Click the Output Replaces Selected Text checkbox so the result of the workflow—the wrapped text—will be inserted in place of your selection.


Although Automator includes a number of actions for working with text, it doesn’t have one for adding a prefix or a suffix. As a workaround, you’ll need to use AppleScript for this. So, add the Run AppleScript action to the workflow, and copy-and-paste in the following script, which simply adds quotation marks around any text input it receives:

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on run {input, parameters}
     return "\"" & (input as string) & "\""
 end run

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Save the finished workflow as Text > Wrap in Quotes and you’re done.


The next time you’re ready to wrap some text in quotation marks, just Control- or right-click the selection and choose Text > Wrap in Quotes. (You could also choose the workflow from the Application > Services menu.)

Count words of selected text

Another one for working with selected text, this one gives you a quick word count.


Create a new Automator Service workflow and set it to process selected text in any application. Leave the Output Replaces Selected Text checkbox unchecked.


Automator doesn’t have any built-in actions for counting words. So, again, you’ll have to add the Run AppleScript action to the workflow, and enter the following:

on run {input, parameters}
     set theWordCount to count words of (input as string)
     display dialog (theWordCount & " words in the selected text." as string)
 end run

Save the workflow as Text > Display Word Count. Next time you want to know the length of some text, just select it and run the workflow from the Services menu.

Create subfolder

Although it would be super useful, OS X still lacks a handy Add Subfolder command in the Finder. Sure, you can open a folder first, and then create another folder inside of it, but that’s one more step than necessary.

Create a new Automator Service workflow and set it to process folders in Finder.

Find the Set Value of Variable action and add it to the workflow. Then, from its popup menu, create a new variable and name it Folder.

After that, add the New Folder action to the workflow. Enter a name of Subfolder or whatever else you prefer. Drag the folder variable from the Variable area at the bottom of the workflow to the Where popup. Finally, with the action selected, choose Action > Ignore Input from the menu bar. This is important because the New Folder action copies anything it receives as input into the new folder, and you don’t want this to happen. By setting the action to ignore its input, you bypass this behavior.

Save the workflow as Folder > Create Subfolder. The workflow should now appear under Services in the Finder’s contextual menu when you Control or right-click on a folder. Just select a folder and then the service.

Add date to files

This one adds a current date prefix to the names of any selected files or folders.

Create a new Automator Service workflow and set it to process files or folders in Finder. Find the Rename Finder Items action and drag it to the workflow. If Automator prompts you to insert a Copy Finder Items action first to preserve your originals, click Don’t Add; you’re just adding a prefix to the names of the files, not deleting them or anything serious like that.

Configure the action to Add Date or Time. Then set the Date/Time popup to Current, the Format popup to Year Month Day, the Where popup to Before name, the first Separator popup to Dash, the second Separator popup to Space, and click the Use Leading Zeros checkbox. While all of this sounds kind of complicated, it’s really just telling Automator you want the date prefix in YYYY-MM-DD format.

Lastly, save the workflow as Files and Folder > Add Date Prefix. Your workflow now shows up in the Finder’s Services menu when you Control- or right-click on something. Select a file or folder, then select the service, and the date will be prepended.

Toggle hidden files

Sometimes it helps to see hidden system files; this one toggles their visibility on and off.

Start by creating a new Automator Application workflow. Automator doesn’t have an action for toggling on and off the visibility of hidden files, so again you’ll need to use AppleScript to do it. Actually, this AppleScript really just triggers a bunch of Unix commands to update the Finder’s preferences to show hidden files and then relaunch the Finder. Add the Run AppleScript action to your workflow, and enter the following:

if {"OFF", "FALSE"} contains (do shell script "defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles") then
     set theValue to "TRUE"
 else
     set theValue to "FALSE"
 end if
 do shell script ("defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles " & theValue) as string
 do shell script "killall Finder"

(When you copy and paste, make sure that the first line, beginning "if" and ending "then", and the sixth, beginning "do" and ending "as string" are each a single line, with no hard returns in the middle.) Just save the workflow as Finder > Toggle Hidden Files. That done, if you double-click that app, your Finder will disappear for a second, then reappear with hidden files showing or hidden (depending on their state before you launched the app). (And be careful with those hidden files: They usually do important stuff, and deleting or renaming them could get you into trouble.)

Have any trouble following along, or get stuck somewhere? Don’t worry, you can download an archive containing the complete workflow .

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Source: macworld.com

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• Automate Everything On Your Mac with Keyboard Maestro [Mac]
• Automating your Mac: Beware of Over Automation

Watching What You Want When You Want To With The Mac Mini

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macworld.com

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• May 9, 2013

Trot back to the 16th century and corner famed prognosticating monk Nostradamus, and it’s quite likely that when posed the question: “Will those living in the year 2013 be able to call up any media programming they like from a single box?” he’d respond with an enthusiastic “Mais oui!”

Sadly, we know only too well where this one sits in the cleric’s win/loss column. Progress has been made, via cable and satellite services that deliver a trillion channels plus on-demand programming, as well as set-top boxes that have access to online music and video services.

But the ultimate goal—watching exactly what you want to watch when you want to watch it—remains elusive.

 In search of a solution, some people have turned to the most powerful media device in their home—their computer.  Not only can it play locally stored music, video, and slideshows, but it can also bring you any media found on the Internet, including streaming TV programming, movies, and music.

But sitting in front of a computer monitor—regardless of its resolution—can be limiting. It makes for a less-than-satisfying group-viewing experience, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re, well, sitting in front of a computer. What many of us want is a device as intelligent as a computer but one that’s at home in the living room, attached to a big-screen TV.

Turns out that Apple produces a device fitting that exact bill: the Mac mini. Small, not obscenely expensive, and capable of accessing media locally as well as online, the Mac mini has a lot going for it. But is it the perfect solution for those anxious to cut the media cord? I spent a month with one to find out.

About the box

I chose the $599 base-model Mac mini for my media experiment, largely based on its price and performance. That mini includes a 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory, a 500GB hard drive, and the Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipset built into the motherboard.

For another $200 you can purchase a Mac mini with a i7 processor and a 1TB hard drive. I chose to save that $200 because the base-model’s processor is fast enough for a media server, and because, while storage is important for this kind of use, an external hard drive offers more space for less money.

About the box

I chose the $599 base-model Mac mini for my media experiment, largely based on its price and performance. That mini includes a 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory, a 500GB hard drive, and the Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipset built into the motherboard. For another $200 you can purchase a Mac mini with a i7 processor and a 1TB hard drive. I chose to save that $200 because the base-model’s processor is fast enough for a media server, and because, while storage is important for this kind of use, an external hard drive offers more space for less money.

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Source: smartcompany.com.au

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BEST OF THE WEB: The Steve Jobs stories you’ve never heard

You’ve probably heard the stories before. That Steve Jobs once threw an iPad in an aquarium; that he fired the head of MobileMe on stage in front of his entire team; that he once took the PC-like keys off a Mac keyboard before he signed it for a fan.

There are plenty of anecdotes floating around about the late Steve Jobs that show off how dedicated to detail he was. And, perhaps, that he was a little neurotic.

But a new piece on Forbes collects a bunch of stories you’ve probably never heard before. Like how he told NeXT employee Randy Adams to hide his very expensive car in the back before potential investor Ross Perot showed up - "we don’t want him to think we have a lot of money".

Another story pins him as dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out $100 bills to employees.

But one of the best describes an Apple store opening in 2004, in Jobs’ first public appearance after his surgery. He was fretting over the material used for the floors, which showed off every scuff mark and handprint.

After a reporter told him "it was obvious that whoever designed the store had never cleaned a floor in their life", he took action.

"A few months later an Apple executive told me that Jobs had all of the designers return to the store after it opened on Saturday, and spend the night on their hands and knees cleaning the white surface."

"After that, Apple switched the floors to the stone tiles now prevalent in its designs."

The stories are typical Steve Jobs, including anecdotes of him sleeping under his desk at Atari after an all-nighter.

The story of a meeting with IBM encapsulates Jobs’ philosophy in doing business - disarming the opponent.  Executives from [IBM and Apple] gathered in a conference room at NeXT’s headquarters on Deer Creek Road in Palo Alto, Calif., waiting for Jobs to arrive.  He finally came in, turned to the senior IBM executive and said "Your user interface sucks." There were gasps from executives at both companies.

"This is kind of how he got to be a good negotiator. He would totally disarm people by dropping F-bombs," the NeXT executive recalls. "He would say, ‘We’re doing this deal but your products are s--t. He was outrageous. But he always ended up getting exactly what he wanted."

The stories aren’t all rough and tumble, but they provide a good snapshot of Jobs you may have never seen before.

The websites paying users for social media posts 

You may have heard of eCommerce sites buying reviews, or even mentions on blogs. But a new trend is seeing these same sites buy up mentions on users’ social media accounts.  This post on The New York Times profiles the trend - which may actually be blurring some legal lines, according to the United States Federal Trade Commission.

These sites basically pick a person’s post, and then turn that into a paid promotion. The poster gets a little something, the site gets some recognition, and everyone’s happy, right?  Well, not so much. As the NYT points out, it’s problematic.

"It’s turning word of mouth into a revenue opportunity," said Mary Engle, who directs the commission’s division of advertising practices. "Since they’re getting compensated, in a sense, for their endorsement, then they should disclose that."

The main company at the heart of all this, Beso, is providing companies with a way to monetise these links. After all, they can be tracked from anywhere and can generate revenue.  The social media shopping sites act as a middle man, collecting fees from the retailers and depositing payments into the users’ online accounts — after taking a cut. (Sometimes, sites cut out consumers, too.)
Earlier this year, Pinterest got into hot water when it quietly adjusted some users’ links to become affiliate-marketing links, and seemed to be collecting all the revenue for itself. It says it has ceased using affiliate links and declined to comment on whether it would offer users fees from such links in the future.

Will this trend end up revolutionising the industry or just be a thorn in the regulator’s side? While it’s too early to tell, it’s definitely an interesting story you should be aware of.

Is this the end of the cash register?

More and more businesses are using iPods and iPads to confirm purchases, but not many large chains have made the leap…until now.  American fashion chain Urban Outfitters will now start using iPads as POS systems, with cash registers slowly being phased out. And as The Atlantic says, it may be the start of a larger trend - and one that has an enormous amount of benefits for business.  It also means, of course, that store workers can be relatively mobile, allowing a point of purchase to be ... pretty much any point in the store. The iPods, for their part, will be used not only for sales and returns, but also for worker-side activities like retagging items and taking inventory.

The iPad may not be the only solution. But mobile payment systems will definitely change retail - and the more businesses that realise the change, the better they can improve their customer service.

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