If you need to delete a photo for whatever reason, you have to reset your stream.

First, reset your Photo Stream on iCloud.com.

Second, turn off Photo Stream on your iOS devices by going to the Settings app, then iCloud, then into Photo Stream where you can turn it off.

You should now be able to delete any and all photos from your device.

I mostly use mine to watch Netflix. The interface is simple; the quality is good, and the selection is constantly growing. Sometimes I’ll access music or photos from my MacBook Pro, but for the most part it’s Netflix or nothing.

When you turn on Apple TV, the first thing you see are the newest movie releases available for rent. I had been wanting to see Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps since it came out so when I saw it featured, I had to rent it. The HD version is $4.99 which isn’t a great price, but it’s reasonable. A few easy clicks and it started loading…

Then, the estimate for it to be ready appeared to be over three hours! I know HD movies are large, but I have a pretty good internet connection and a wireless N network. I never have trouble streaming Netflix instantly. I waited for over 30 minutes before bailing to watch Netflix. Before I went to bed I left it loading overnight so it would hopefully be ready the next night when I got home from work.

The next night I got home, and it was ready to play. I was a little over 30 minutes into the movie when Gordon Gekko said something I wanted to hear again (sidenote: I knew the movie was about his daughter, but in the first movie he had a son so I was curious if they’d fill that plot loophole and they did). I rewinded a few seconds and then the loading screen came up again! This time there was an even longer wait to just resume. I gave up for the night and let it continue to load.

On the third night, the movie still wasn’t ready. I didn’t know what was the matter. I unplugged my Apple TV, took it to the living room, ran a gigabit ethernet cable from the router to the Apple TV, and hooked it up to the TV in there. The HD movie started instantly.

The quality was very impressive. I was used to watching Blu-ray movies in the living room on this TV, and the 720p from Apple TV gave it a run for its money. I don’t understand Apple’s policy about only have 24hrs to watch a movie once you start it. That really put me in a bind and forced me to move my rig. You should be able to watch it as much as you want for 3 days, but I’m guessing they only want to stream it to you once.

Overall, I was very pleased with the quality of the movie. I’m guessing my wireless network was to blame for the poor performance. Like I said, I never have trouble streaming Netflix. Could it have been Apple’s CDN? Is Netflix that much better optimized for streaming?

I’m starting to think I’m going to need a switch for my next apartment to directly wire all the components that require internet and are connected to our TVs. The internet connected living room may not be as close as everyone thinks if wireless connections can’t keep up with the HD demands of users.

After purchasing Apple Care for my MacBook Pro, iPhone 4, and iPad this one repair I’m having on my MBP after owning it for 18 months makes it all worth it. I scheduled an appointment at the Genius Bar and an Apple Genius diagnosed the problem at no cost. The estimate print out had a lot of legal and technical details on it, but the Apple Genius who helped me circled the support number and wrote that extension five will connect me to a real human to talk with about my case. That is service.

I coughed up $400 or more after purchasing all of my Apple products, but it’s already paid off. The best part is that I still have another 18 months of coverage on my MacBook Pro in case anything else comes up. Unless I do something stupid like spill a coke on it, there will not be any additional costs.

Buy the Apple Care. I tell everyone I know who buys Apple products to do so, and here is the proof that it’s worth it. Most times nothing goes wrong, but if anything ever does you’ll come out ahead.

Multimedia

One of the biggest misconceptions is that Macs aren’t compatible with a lot of file types. The truth is that they handle more out of the box than any other operating system. Multimedia files notorious for not being able to playback because of DRM and special codecs that require plugins or proprietary software. The first question I ask when someone says something won’t play is, “Have you tried VLC?”

VLC

I’ve never found something VLC can’t play. As their site says — “It plays everything!” It also has some subtle features like being able to keep fullscreen on one monitor while you do something else in another app on a different monitor. You can’t do that with iTunes or while watching YouTube. They also just released iPhone and iPad apps so you don’t have to convert and add videos to your iTunes library in order to watch them on the go.

Handbrake

When you do need to change the encoding of a multimedia file, Handbrake is your one stop solution. It comes with a lot of great presets for encoding such as if you want DVD quality or if you intend to watch the video on a device such as your iPhone. If you’re more adventurous, it also allows you to tweak every last setting for the audio and video.

Security

Macs also have a reputation for being very secure, but I’m paranoid so I have some security goodies.

1Password

I have endless logins, passwords, account numbers, and PINs so to keep track of them all securely I use 1Password. It integrates with both Safari and Firefox while also running as a standalone. There are iPhone and iPad versions that I also have and I use Dropbox to sync all my data between my devices. It’s a lifesaver!

An alternative that Andy likes is called LastPass, but I haven’t tried it.

Undercover

This program is another lifesaver and failsafe. Undercover embeds itself deep down to allow you to recover your stolen Mac. If it’s stolen, you go online and report it. They’ll turn on the remote software to not only find the location of your stolen Mac, but also let you control it and use your iSight to see who is using it. They are so confident in their software that they will refund you 2x if they can’t recover it. So why not get it?

There are also iPhone and iPad versions but I rely on MobileMe’s “Find my iPhone” feature.

Time Machine Scheduler

This is another tool that Andy uses, but I don’t. Time Machine backups can bog down your system so sometimes you want complete control on when it backs up. Time Machine Scheduler allows you to do exactly that.

If you’re not backing up, get on it!

Development

I haven’t found a setup I like developing on more than my Macbook Pro. Most of what you need unix-wise is already there and MAMP takes care of the rest.

TextWrangler

When I first started developing on a Mac, TextWrangler was recommended by my professor. I liked that it was more robust than the built in TextEdit but not to the point it got in the way of coding. I still use it for quick text edits, but have stopped relying on it for complete projects.

Coda

This all-in-one program is perfect for a designer/developer. Coda says puts it perfectly — “text editor + file transfer + svn + css + terminal + books + more.” It takes a little while to get all of your clips, books, and projects configured, but once you do it’s awesome.

Transmit

Panic, who makes Coda, also makes the best FTP client in the world– Transmit. Even though you can transfer files within Coda, I still have Transmit for quick edits and specific uploads. It’s great for setting file permissions and editing files that are typically hidden. Whenever I’m editing .htaccess files, I’ll use Transmit because I can right click, open in TextWrangler, make my changes, and when I save in TextWrangler it starts uploading in Transmit (with a Growl notification to boot).

A free alternative is Cyberduck, which is actually what the IU Macs had installed. It gets the job done, but the interface isn’t nearly as intuitive.

Utilities

I consider utilities to be programs that run without you really realizing they’re running. You don’t launch these like you would Microsoft Word. They’re just there when you need them.

Quicksilver

I use Quicksilver over Mac’s built-in Spotlight because of its extendability. It takes a little configuring and getting used to, but once it becomes part of your workflow you’ll never know how you lived without it. I launch any app that’s not in my dock with it; search IMDB or Wikipedia directly with it, and could even use it to integrate with iTunes for more control.

Growl

Growl is a simple notification app that is also very extendable. It works with a lot of apps right of the box, and you can find some nice skins for it. Instead of checking if you have new mail, Growl will flash a notification. Is that FTP transfer done? Growl will flash a notification. It’s a real time saver!

Fluid

I learned about this gem when I was at Sproutbox. Fluid allows you to make a desktop app out of your favorite website. You can then put it in your dock and launch it just like you would any other app, only it’s a website. I use it for sites like Google Reader and Read It Later.

Dropbox

Sharing files across computers is cool. Syncing files across computers is awesome. Dropbox is secure, super fast, and dead simple. It has endless uses from the serious like backing up important files to less serious matters like syncing desktop wallpapers.

iStat

iStat monitors just about everything you can think of that’s going on with your computer: hard drive space, network activity, RAM in use, and even your Bluetooth peripherals battery level. It started as a Dashboard Widget but has now moved to the toolbar which I love even more.

Real nerds may opt for GeekTool, but I usually always have so many windows open I can’t see my desktop so I prefer iStat in my menubar.

OmniDiskSweeper

If you see in iStat that you’re almost out of disk space, OmniDiskSweeper can help you identify what’s occupying it all. I’ve used it to find Adobe and Microsoft both hogging gigabytes with localization and help files I didn’t need. I’ve also found files left behind by old software I had deleted.

AppDelete

To prevent apps from leaving behind their junk, I suggest using AppDelete when uninstalling apps. When you’re first configuring a new machine, there’s bound to be some apps you try and decide to get rid of so delete them safely with this app.

Bonus

I didn’t know how to categorize these, but they’ve earned a spot in my dock.

Things

Things is the ultimate to-do app. It’s very robust and will also sync with your iPhone and iPad versions (although not through Dropbox ). It’s a tad pricey but if you’re looking to stay super organized, look no further.

A simpler, more minimal app I’ve been trying is TeuxDeux. I like it more for day to day things that need to get done instead of the big picture items Things handles.

Colloquy

When I made the switch from Windows XP, the first app I looked to replace was mIRC. Colloquy is the closest thing I’ve found, although it’s not perfect. Over the years, I’ve grown to like it better than any other IRC app for Mac. They also have a great iPhone app!

VMware Fusion

Every so often, you do need another operating system. VMware Fusion is the best virtualization software out there. I don’t use it that often, but I do have a number of VMs at my disposal for when I want to be vigilant about cross-browser testing.

I’ve also used VirtualBox from Sun which is a great open source alternative. It’s not as well polished, but it gets the job done.

Of course, all of this software could become obsolete with the Mac App Store. What apps do you recommend for Mac? I’m always looking for new programs to try.

First, whip out your iPhone or iPod Touch and either launch or download the free AIM app [iTunes link]. If you haven’t  skipped ahead, you’ll need to link your Facebook account and AIM account which you can do within the app.

Now, go to ‘Preferences’ under the ‘Me’ tab. Scroll down and under “when exiting AIM…” you’ll see the option for “Sign off” after a period of time. I choose ‘After 24 Hours’ which means that if at any time during a day I launch the AIM app, I’ll be signed in until the next day. If I get at least one IM via AIM or Facebook per day, I’ll always be connected!

You’ll also notice AIM allows you to turn Push notifications On while disabling SMS notifications. This means every time someone IMs you, it is free. When you unlock your iPhone to answer, it opens up the AIM app, you quickly sign on, and are ready to have a conversation.

I don’t mind being available 24/7 but I understand it’s not for everyone. I’ve definitely chatted more with my Facebook friends in the past couple of weeks with this enabled. Conversations spark on my way out the door, and I can leave my laptop while still continuing to respond as I’m on the L. It works the other way, too. I’ve noticed that Facebook Chat conversations started in AIM show up minimized the next time I log into Facebook so I can continue chatting or look back at what we were talking about.

I’ll save the paranoid conspiracies about why or why not Facebook is logging all of your chats for another day. In the mean time, let’s chat.

Update

Jeremiah Hester (@pixelnated) brought Meebo [iTunes Link] to my attention that also has push notifications for AIM and a range of other IM networks. Do you have a favorite or more excellent iPhone app examples?

In the past couple months, I’ve fallen out of love with the TweetDeck iPhone app because it’s slow and crashes often (like more than any other app I have). The original reason I started using TweetDeck was for its columns feature and when they announced they would sync those with my iPhone app, I was blown away. When it took forever to load tweets into columns and often crashed on load, I started using it only when I had a few minutes to check updates (and had the patience to let it load). When I wanted to quickly look at updates, I chose Tweetie and still do. Now with all these added features, I fear Tweetdeck will be even slower and crash even more (although they say they’ve fixed the compose crash in v1.1).

Facebook Integration

Facebook integration on the desktop app is great because it saves me from running another AIR app and I can follow both my Twitter feed and Facebook feed throughout the day in the same window. I hardly go to Facebook’s site because of it. When I’m using my iPhone, it’s a different story. I have a Facebook app already and the newest version is pretty solid even though it’s missing push notifications. Some people may like both feeds in one app, but what happens when you want to do something else on Facebook like:

• Check your Inbox
• See whose birthday it is
• See who’s online to chat
• Anything but check your News Feed

The updated TweetDeck app also lets you create Facebook groups that will sync with your desktop. They’re already using the Facebook API so why don’t they allow you to pull your friends lists you’ve already created on Facebook? I would rather see my Facebook friends lists pulled into TweetDeck and synced between Facebook, TweetDeck desktop, and TweetDeck iPhone app.

Video Integration

With the iPhone 3GS video capabilities it was inevitable almost every app would try to add it. Tweetie has video capabilities and offers the option to use either yfrog or TwitVid. TweetDeck only allows you to use 12seconds.tv for video upload even though they support yfrog for image uploads. The problem with using 12seconds is that you can only upload videos that are 12 seconds long.

If you go over that, they are automatically trimmed down so the best part of your video could get cut out if you’re not careful. Yfrog and TwitVid do not have length limits (that I’ve found anyways). If TweetDeck is already using yfrog for image posting, how hard would it have been to tap into their video API as well?

Other Features

I don’t use the landscape keyboard so that’s not a major feature for me. I’ve had an iPhone since day 1 so I’m used to and pretty skilled at the normal keyboard. Including the Bit.ly account is another nice small feature, but I don’t know the last time I shared a URL on the go and wanted to track how many people clicked it. I also didn’t like typing in the 32 character API key.

Features I Actually Wanted

TweetDeck’s bread and butter since day 1 has been their columns feature. Twitter has picked up on how much people liked them so they created lists. I know not everyone has the list function available to them yet as it is slowly rolling out in beta fashion, but I want to see both TweetDeck’s desktop app and iPhone app convert my columns into lists and then continue to sync them with Twitter and my TweetDeck clients. They claim on their blog that “what [they] have planned for Lists is going to take your social media experience with TweetDeck to new heights”.

The “nearby tweets” has been a feature on a number of iPhone Twitter apps so it’s about time TweetDeck added it. They could have 1-up’d everyone by incorporating the new Twitter geolocation feature. If they are using this new feature, why aren’t they bragging about it to separate themselves from everyone else?

The last and least likely feature that I still want to see on both the desktop and iPhone app is retweet. Yes, I know they have the default “RT @username:” but I’m talking about Twitter’s built in Retweet that was announced back in August (along with geolocation by the way). Sure, the limited roll out just started last week, but has TweetDeck already included it in their code? Again, why aren’t they bragging about it?

Conclusion

I love using TweetDeck on my Macbook Pro and still love that it syncs my columns to my iPhone. But, I want more and to know more is coming. I’m weary that all the additional features will bloat the application on both platforms. It’s one of the biggest memory hogs on my Macbook Pro and app most likely to crash on my iPhone. It has outgrown its name as “TweetDeck” and should probably be called something like “SocialDeck” now that it continues to add more social networks. With LinkedIn adding the ability to tweet your status, you have to think they are going to be the next social network to be added. My other prediction is that since TweetDeck is built on AIR, we might see a browser based version of it. Then, Safari can use all of my RAM!

If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard of Dropbox, it’s “software that syncs your files online and across your computers” for free. You can view the full tour of features and use this link to sign up (please do since I’ll get 250 MB in additional space).

I had the idea to move my existing directory of wallpapers to my Dropbox folder so that they would be backed up in the cloud and also available for other computers to use. Dropbox is so awesome that they automatically created a gallery of all of my wallpapers to share with you! Feel free to steal any you like. I got them all for free so I don’t think the original designers would mind.

Mac OS X Instructions

Open up System Preferences and click on the Desktop and Screensaver icon.

Desktop and Screensaver Settings

Then, click the ‘+’ and navigate to your Dropbox folder. I’ve placed my ‘wallpapers’ folder inside my ‘Photos’ folder which allows me to share them publicly as a gallery.

Dropbox — Photos — Wallpapers

I then set some general options like centering photos that won’t fill my screen, change picture every 15 minutes, random order, and keep the menu bar translucent.

When I get my work computer that’ll run Windows, I can follow these simple directions and have the same pictures on both computers. Then if I find a new background, I can add it to my ‘wallpapers’ directory on either computer and it will automatically show up on the other.

If you’re looking to share desktop wallpapers with someone else like a coworker, family member, or friend, you could use Dropbox’s share feature to collaborate on your collection.

I hope this little Dropbox trick will spur other interesting and useful uses for both you and me. If you have any wallpapers that are plain awesome, please leave them in the comments so I can add them to my collection!

Source: Flickr

Before I continue, I will say once again that Mac OS X’s Time Machine with Apple’s Time Capsule is the easiest and most thorough backup solution around. Set and forget it. Never worry again about anything. I love it and highly recommend it to everyone I know (and those I don’t). When I got my new Macbook Pro, instead of having to spend a day or two configuring settings and installing new software I was able to just plug it into my Time Capsule and tell it I want it just like my Macbook and in a little over an hour I had an exact clone. It was a real time saver!

On to the problem at hand, what happens when Time Machine can’t back up anymore because there isn’t enough space on your Time Capsule? I called Apple Support for ideas and of course their first answer was to buy a bigger Time Capsule. The 1 TB model would suffice and the 2 TB model would probably be best, but I don’t have an extra $300 — $500 at the moment to buy another one.

The other solution was to erase my current Time Capsule and create a fresh full backup. This would erase months of backups which means I wouldn’t be able to restore to previous versions of files or recover files I had accidentally deleted. I was comfortable enough to do this so I took the following steps:

1. Turn off Time Machine in System Preferences
2. Open Airport Utility and select your Time Capsule from the list of devices on the left
3. Click “Manual Setup” and then the “Disks” tab at the top
4. Click “Erase…” and choose which level of security you want

AirPort Utility

I chose the quick erase option since I was going to be putting the exact same sensitive information back on the hard drive. This also is the quickest method so you can get to the next step. After it has been erased, connect your Mac to your Time Capsule with an ethernet cable if you’ve been doing this wirelessly thus far.

WARNING: Performing a full backup over WIFI will literally take DAYS

Once they’re connected via ethernet, go turn Time Machine back on in System Preferences and select your disk once again as the backup destination. This first full backup will still take a few hours when you’re connected via ethernet so you might want to leave it running overnight.

That solution is really just a “bandaid” and won’t last long term. Sooner or later, I’m going to need a bigger external hard drive. It doesn’t have to be another Time Capsule, but it’ll be easiest if it is. So what do you do with your old Time Capsule?

• Use it to backup another Mac with a smaller hard drive and expand your home network range
• Use it as a network storage drive for media, etc. and expand your home network range
• Sell it to a close friend or someone who isn’t very tech savvy

Why do I say that? Even if you use the most secure erasing methods, your data is really never gone. If you think about what Time Machine is doing, it’s not just keeping every single file that has been on your Mac but also the different versions you’ve had of it. If you’re one of those naughty children who keep a text file named “passwords” on your desktop with all of your passwords in it, someone could not only recover what your most recent passwords are but look back at what different passwords you’ve used in the past. From there, they could look for patterns in your passwords and maybe even guess future passwords.

If you noticed in my screenshot, we have tons of other Apple products spread around our house that makes our WIFI network awesome. When you’ve outgrown your current Time Capsule, turn it into a media server to store all those pictures and videos that are accumulating from weekends and vacations. I’ll probably dedicate mine to all the HD video my Mino Flip HD camera takes so I don’t have to worry about filling up another hard drive.

For you hardware hackers out there that probably thought this was going to be a post about cracking open your Time Capsule to throw in a much bigger hard drive, it has been done already. My only warning is that when I took my TC in to the Apple Store to check an ethernet port, the Genius technician told me that if you try to pop open your TC to change the drive you’ll probably break it completely. Apple doesn’t want you in there so they’ve designed them accordingly. That’s my only word of caution from the horse’s mouth.

Backup, backup, and backup again!

Two Years of Daily Snapshots

Before I show you how to automatically take a picture of yourself every day using Automator, maybe you’d like to see the results I had from almost 2 years of captures.

Daily Snapshots

You can see how it captures the happy, sad, and boring nights of my life. Looking back through 2 years of pictures, I realized a few things about myself like my hair is always different and I don’t shave as much as I thought. My little sister told me the other day that I have a very serious face when I’m on my laptop and that’s also very apparent.

Creating the Automator Workflow

Automator is super simple to use because it’s all drag and drop with a few options. The original tutorial from TUAW goes into more detail about what exact steps to take and what exactly you’re doing with each step so read that first if the rest of this doesn’t make sense. Take a look at a screenshot of my workflow and then download the workflow.

Automator Workflow

You can see that I tell it to take a video snapshot using my built in iSight camera in my Macbook and to save that picture to my desktop. Then, I import that file into iPhoto and add it to an existing album called “Daily Snapshot”. This step also deletes the original image on my desktop since iPhoto makes a copy in its library. This part is optional, but I love Growl notifications because they tell you what’s going on behind the scenes on your Mac. Finally, I tell it to quit iPhoto so everything on my system is back to how it was before the script ran. Pretty simple, right? Finally, make sure to save your workflow then “save as…” an application (download here for the lazy) for the next step.

Save As Application

Now for having it run automatically every day using iCal. In iCal, I created a new calendar called “run_scripts” that I could hide so it didn’t clutter my other events on other calendars. I created a new event at 9pm and told it to repeat every day forever. Here’s the trick– as an alarm for the event I have iCal run a file– my daily snapshot application if you couldn’t guess.

Open File as Alarm 0 Minutes Before

Now, every night at 9pm iCal will launch the Daily.Snapshot.app and the workflow will be processed.

Open file every night at 9pm

Why I’m Ditching This for DailyBooth.com

There’s nothing wrong with this system. Occasionally in Snow Leopard, I’ve noticed iPhoto crashes instead of quits after the import. With iPhoto’s evolution, each import is classified as a new event which makes organizing my other photos harder since I have to scroll through all of the individual events with only one photo. The main reason I’m switching is that DailyBooth.com gives me what I’ve always wanted to do with my script — sharing with everyone else.

When I update my account on DailyBooth, other people can comment on it, and I automatically tweet about it to give more people a chance to see what I’m up to that day. I also have more control over when I want to take a picture each day. You might have noticed I only had 275 pictures from 677 days. That’s just above 40% which isn’t even 3 days a week. DailyBooth.com offers to send me an email whenever I go 24hrs without taking a picture. I think I’ll update more since I’ll be on my own schedule. I’m just not around my laptop at 9pm like I used to be!

Come back tomorrow to see how easy it is to display your latest DailyBooth.com update on your blog or website!

Safari 4 Hiding Link Dialog

Safari 4 Hiding Insert Media Dialog

Safari 4 Doesn’t Hide Dialogs When Prompted from Outside WYSIWYG

I tried the WYSIWYG buttons in Firefox and they worked fine so it has to be something in Safari 4 Beta. I never had any troubles using Safari 3 with WordPress 2.7.1. I hope someone fixes this soon or I’ll either have to revert to Safari 3 or do all of my WordPress posts in Firefox.