Don’t believe me? Think about it: Abba. Ikea. Dynamite. GPS. Green-living communities. Lord of the Rings-inspired metal music. Statuesque blond ski instructors.

And Spotify.

Way back in 2008, a software development company in Sweden kicked back and thought about how great it would be to offer DRM-free, streaming music to the masses. Granted, lots of people have had this thought. I’m sure you’ve all spent some time on websites like Pandora, last.fm, and maybe even Grooveshark. But you probably don’t have an iTunes-like desktop client that will do what those sites will do. That’s what Spotify is all about.

Spotify lets you pick and choose what music you want to hear from their seemingly bottomless catalog, track by track, album by album, or artist by artist. It will also automatically import any existing audio files on your computer into its directory, so can play those songs along with stuff from Spotify. You can drag things directly into your play queue or create custom playlists. The stuff you make is saved to your account, so you can access the same playlists and history from any computer. You can also link your Spotify account to your Facebook, so you can share playlists with your friends and subscribe to their playlists in turn. Lists are also provided from time to time by the Spotify staff, and other commercial interests like Rolling Stone magazine and various record labels.

All for free.

That’s right. Free. You’ll get an ad or two for every 15 minutes of playback, but even those are easily muted with free apps like Blockify (Windows) or Smutefy (Mac), or you can shell out for an unlimited or premium membership ($5-10 a month) that will get rid of the ads. It will also allow you to stream that same music to your smartphone or mobile device, play music even when offline, and more.

And up until last month, Spotify was only available in a few select countries in Europe. But now, it’s our turn. Spotify has finally come to the US. And I highly recommend you give it a shot as a means of welcome. It’s still on an invite-only basis right now, but it only takes a day or two for your invite to arrive. You can sign up for one here. And once you’re all set, check out their automated playlist site suggestions to get yourself started with some great lists, or use Spotiseek to create some of your own using artist seeds like you would on Pandora or iTunes Genius.

And if you come up with any good ones, let us know! We’re looking for summer party music!

On June 6, Apple announced the latest incarnation of its OS X operating system: 10.7, more commonly known as Lion. Also announced were the imminent release of iOS 5 for Apple’s mobile devices and, hand-in-hand with that, the iCloud.

Folks who’ve been handy with Apple’s products for a few years now might recognize the source of this “new” service as MobileMe (née .Mac), the yearly membership with an email address, online storage, and push syncing for your mobile devices.

But iCloud is more than just a name change. Apple is revamping the service to expand its offerings and its reach. MobileMe used to cost $99 a year to subscribe. iCloud will be free to anyone using iOS 5, that is to say, anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch capable of running the new software when it comes out this fall.

And as Apple says, for free, you get a lot. iCloud, like MobileMe, will continue to push-sync your contacts, calendars, and email, but it will also do the same with your photos, documents, and purchased content like apps, music, and books. It even uses that syncing feature to back up your device’s content and settings, so that plugging in to your computer to sync becomes nigh a thing of the past. New devices that ship with iOS 5 can even be activated through iCloud if you already have a membership. Apple is slowly but surely removing the computer from the equation.

But the thing I’m most excited for is the music. You can push new purchased music to your device directly, or access your purchase history and re-download songs you’ve already bought. And, for a yearly fee of $25, you can “match” up to 25,000 songs you didn’t purchase from the iTunes store (so, stuff you either ripped from your CD collection or, ahem, acquired) with iTunes Plus-quality content and download it to your devices whenever you want. Simply put, iTunes says, “oh, I see you have this song in your library, but you didn’t buy it from me. Oh well, it’s your song. Here, have my version if you want to listen to it. It’s encoded at 256K, so it’s probably loads better than that 128K version you pirated or the 192K version you ripped five years ago.”  You know what I say to that? “Gee, thanks iTunes!”

But even with this stable full of awesome new features, a little caution is warranted. As much as Apple declared its MobileMe service “just works,” there are plenty of users out there (me included) who can tell you it sometimes doesn’t. If you don’t understand how push syncing works, you can often end up with duplicate and even triplicate contacts or calendar events. And Apple’s servers, like all servers, do sometimes go down. There can be cons to relying too heavily on someone else’s storage space for all your stuff. And will those remote backups be more useful for troubleshooting, or will they, like the computer backups, be basically useless if you’re trying to remedy a software bug? And I don’t even want to think about the poor souls who share one big iTunes library, and thus whose devices are filled with content purchased by a handful of different AppleID accounts.

So the moral of the story? iCloud could be as revolutionary and awesome as Apple wants you to think it will be, or it could be a big old mess. I’m pretty sure it will wind up somewhere in the middle.

Probably leaning a little more toward awesome.

Thanks to Apple for the image!

Macs are well-known for their user-friendliness and relatively low-maintenance operating systems, and it’s true: as long as you’re conscientious about keeping your software up-to-date and don’t drop it off a cliff, you’ll likely never have a problem with your trusty Mac.  But that said, there are some things that remain veiled behind the curtain of mystery—like keyboard shortcuts. Or Flash. So it is in the spirit of discovery that we present this list of apps that can make your iLife (HA! See what we did there?) that much easier.

Automator – How-to & Training

Automator is, hands-down, the most awesome piece of Apple software that’s already on your computer that you’ve probably never touched. It’s exactly what its name (and logo) implies: a little engine to perform repetitive tasks and actions for you. You can save your workflows as services or plugins to be accessed from the specific applications to which they apply, or just drag and drop the files you want to process onto the workflow itself.  Its interface reads like an a la carte menu of potential actions and processes, and (like lots of Mac apps) constructing a workflow is as simple as dragging and dropping. The link above will take you to a site with a wonderfully comprehensive intro video, and even some step-by-step instructions to create workflows and scripts for some commonly automated tasks.

Apple Hardware Test – How-to

We’re sure you were so overcome with joy when you first got your Mac that you couldn’t be bothered to look through all the other stuff that came in the box (a cleaning cloth? SCORE!), but you might want to fish out those gray and white “system disks” and put them in a very, very safe place. Not only do they hold the operating system your computer shipped with and all the bundled software (like iLife), they have the particular version of AHT, or Apple Hardware Test, that goes with your computer’s model. AHT is a diagnostic tool that can tell you if all the major hardware components of your machine are doing their jobs, and the test results appear with a simple pass/fail. If your machine is acting funny, it’s always a good idea to run the test before spending a day waiting around at the Genius Bar or otherwise bringing out the big guns.

AppleJack - download

One thing about Macs: when they do fail, they tend to fail pretty catastrophically. Often the crashes or weird behavior that play harbinger to full-on system failure can be fixed through terminal actions, and therefore avoid the explosion every user dreads. But if you’re like a lot of computer users, you haven’t had to run a command line script since, you know, ever. AppleJack can help you with that. It’s a simple utility you can install that will create “shortcuts” in Terminal to some of those magical restorative processes that will fix your corrupt OS woes. All you have to do is boot into single user mode (not scary, just holding down buttons), and type the word “applejack” before hitting the return key. The app will walk you through the rest. With luck, you may never need it. But the day you do, you’ll be really, really glad it’s there.

Onyx - download

Onyx is like one of those crazy Swiss Army knives with the butane lighters that they don’t sell in the US… that’s how many random tools are packed into it. It will do almost anything, from repairing your directory to cleaning up registry or plist errors, to showing you some of the hidden preferences for your system or applications you might not have known you wanted changed. Rather like AppleJack, it’s sort of hard to pin down exactly why you’d want to download Onyx, just because its uses are so varied. But in any case, it’s free. So do yourself a favor and install it, and figure out how awesome it can be for yourself.

GrandPerspective – download

Remember last week, when we talked about the PC Program Sequoia View that displayed the various items taking up space on your hard drive in a graphical, color-coded, and scaled representation? Yeah, GrandPerspective does the same thing for your Mac. It’s a great tool to have when you’re pruning your files, since you can see what’s taking up the most space without having to navigate through every folder one at a time. It’s also just interesting to look at.

Secrets – download

This app is meant to lift that veil of mystery we mentioned in the intro. It’s a Preference Pane plugin (so after installing, it shows up in the System Preference application), and it short cuts you to some of the most sought-after but well-hidden Mac user preferences and shortcuts. It not only has shortcuts for your OS, but also for a handful of popular third-party apps you might be using. If you don’t have the patience to sort through every single preference menu to customize everything your liking, Secrets is the app for you.

Thanks to Appstorm for the image

Viruses, worms, malware, and spyware all pose a very real threat to your computer’s security.  And even if you’re very careful, you’ll probably suffer an infection at some point. At best, these troublesome bits of programming will make it hard for you to use your computer without their interference. At worst, your personal information might become compromised.  It’s important to take the proper precautions to avoid infection when you use your computer (like keeping all your software up-to-date, only opening email attachments that come from trusted sources, and avoiding risk-taking behavior and downloads online). But on top of all that, you need a good antivirus. Here are our top picks for the various places you might be computing.

Best overall: eSet NOD32

Whether for your home or business, NOD32 is the best antivirus software out there. It’s lightweight, so you won’t notice it running or slowing down other operations on your computer. It’s fast, so full scans take a fraction of the time that they take with other softwares using older engines. And the best part? NOD32 uses traditional virus “definitions” to keep your computer safe, but it also uses what’s called heuristics, which means it proactively watches for certain types of behaviors that can be classified as malware rather than waiting around on a string of code it can match to a potential threat.  It’s got built-in protections to keep bugs from disabling its processes, and it even searches “secure” encrypted channels that tricky viruses sometimes use to enter your system. If you opt to use NOD32 for your business, the license even includes server-side monitoring and maintenance so your IT professional (ahem) can keep an eye on your system’s health for you. And the real kicker? It’s very reasonably priced, including discounts on multiple licenses and renewals.

Best for the whole family: Kaspersky PURE Total Security

Computers are a big part of life these days, and lots of households have more than one.  In some cases, there might be one for mom, one for dad, and one or two for the kids. If that’s the case in your house, you might want to consider PURE Total Security. It bundles its antivirus software with a two-way personal firewall and excellent spam protection to keep your computers safe on all fronts. It has a password manager, automatic backup and restore functions, and a “file shredder” so you can delete sensitive files with confidence.  It’s also built for your home network, so you can manage the scans and settings of all the computers you’re covering from one machine. There are built-in, customizable parental controls, so you can check up on your kids’ activity from the comfort of your own PC.  It’s also got lots of options to customize your safety profiles, like running suspect programs in a “Safe Run” mode, as well as “Gamer Mode” for when you need to optimize system performance without compromising your protection. The box version covers 3 PCs, but if you choose to download, you can get coverage for 3 or 5 PCs. And like NOD32, you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Best for Mac: eSet Cybersecurity for Mac

Macs have a great reputation for safety.  Since the company was such a small share of the personal computer market for so long, not many people bothered to write malevolent programming for them. But eventually the bad guys will catch up with Macs, and even the excellent security features built into OS X may not be enough to deflect their attacks.  That’s where Cybersecurity comes in. It’s specifically tailored for OS X, so it runs quietly in the background of your normal tasks without slowing everything to a crawl like a lot of antivirus programs do. Like NOD32, it uses both conventional virus definitions and the heuristic method to trap threats to your Mac, but it also eradicates PC viruses that may not be affecting your computer that you could inadvertently pass on to your PC-owning brethren.  It will even scan virtual machines, so if you have Windows installed on your Mac though Fusion or Parallels, it can keep that safe for you too! And again like NOD32, the pricing structure is excellent for covering multiple machines at a discount.

Best for on-the-go: VirusTotal.com

Every once in awhile, you may find yourself on an unprotected computer: you’re staying with relatives, or you just got a new machine and haven’t installed your antivirus solution yet.  Whatever the reason, it’s nice to know there’s a place you can go to perform a quick check for safety on individual files or URLs.  Simply upload the file or copy and paste the site address, and Virus Total will tell you if there’s anything there to worry about.  It’s a handy little tool even if you already have an antivirus installed and just need to verify something right this second, since it saves you from scanning a whole folder or drive. And best of all, it’s free!  Just bookmark the site and you’re good to go.

Thanks to allGeektv for the image

In spite of all the wonderful things computers have added to modern life, they’ve given us some pretty rotten things too: sentient AI along the lines of HAL and SkyNet, diminished capacity for social interaction, FarmVille. But of all these modern inconveniences, repetitive strain injuries have to be the most prevalent, persistent, and downright annoying. From headaches to hand cramps, there are myriad ailments you can blame on your PC.

Including sleeping poorly.

Ever since computers stopped using interfaces made up of neon green fixed-width type on an empty black screen, the light emitted by your PC’s display was meant to mimic daylight. Specifically, the color temperature of most displays is set to around 6000K by default.  And if you leave your display’s brightness setting at the higher end of its range, it means your eyes are getting bombarded with an awful lot of photons.  Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to stare into the sun?

And burning holes into your retinas aside, staring long and hard at your computer screen after dark can actually affect your circadian rhythms—the biological clockwork that tells you when it’s time to eat, time to wake up, and time to sleep.  Since your body interprets the cooler temperature light coming from your display as sunlight, it thinks computer time equals party time, even if it’s actually nighttime and you want to retire shortly after that last round of Spider Solitaire.

So what’s a self-respecting technophile to do? Luckily, the kind folks who designed F.lux made it just for you.

F.lux is a simple, free application (for Mac, Windows, and Linux) designed to run in the background on your computer and create a gradually changing color overlay for your display to affect the temperature of the light it emits. It’s tailored to your geographic location and the kind of indoor lighting you already have to make its changes in time with the sun’s movements and to create overlays that look like the artificial lighting you already have. You can make the transitions a quick 20-second flip, or an hour-long fade. There’s even an option to disable the whole program for an hour at a time when you need to do color-sensitive work like photo editing or graphic design.

While F.lux doesn’t affect your display’s brightness settings, the less intense contrast from the overlays helps reduce eye strain in addition to helping your body clock remember what time it is.  It’s a sneaky utility.  You will barely notice it’s there, but take stock a week or so after installing it.  If you’re anything like me, you’ll notice you haven’t had nearly as many headaches as usual and your eyes don’t feel like they’re made of sand after hours in front of the computer.

And hey, maybe you’ll even sleep better!

Thanks to IRPC on Flickr for the image!

Like many people, you may have received a new computer for the holidays.  If you’re already an avid user you know how to set it up, install your favorite apps and get to work/play.  But if you’ve just moved to a new operating system (Windows 7, OS X or even Linux) you may be a little lost as to the new functionality in your new toy.  Luckily lifehacker has put together a great list of tips and tools for whatever system you’re baffled over.  Take a look at this list and let me know if you have another cool trick you’d like to share.

image from bolti22 on flickr

There are times when you may want to keep files away from prying eyes. A great way to do this straight in OSX is to make an encrypted image that you can mount and write to. So first open up disk utility. I am going to create an image on a usb drive so that I can take it with me.

As you can see I have made a partition called test. Highlight the partition then goto File –> New –> Blank Disc Image

Select the Save as and give it a name, You may also give the volume a name but it is not necessary.

Choose volume size and select custom, enter a size smaller than what the volume in question can hold ( as you see in the video I choose 1.8 GB). Select the encryption type, the partition should be changed to harddrive and the image format should be changed to sparse image.

Click create, it will ask you for a password. When you hit create it will start the process and automount the image for you. It will not ask you for a password because it will have saved it to your keychain.

Here is a video of the entire event.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

You can now drag any icon to the highlighted icon on top. If it was successful the preview icon below should change as well.

Congratulations! You have changed your icon. Easy wasn’t it.

Open up terminal ( it’s in your application folder under utilities, you can also just type terminal in spotlight).
Enter this in the window:
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

The dock should close out and open up in 2D mode. There you have it, a short and sweet hack. If you ever want to change it back all you have to do is set the Boolean value to NO in that command.

http://www.7-zip.org/

http://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm

Archiving files

Why archive files? There are a few good reasons to do so. Back in the day when harddrives were expensive and space was at a premium, it made sense to compress files that were not used everyday to save space. It also made sense to take many files and put them in one archive to storage or transmission reasons. Back when data was transmitted over phone lines or even isdn ( if you were lucky enough to have that) you wanted to transmit the least amount of data. In compressing folders you concatenated many files into one and made the size smaller.

Over the years there have been quite a few archive utilities. The venerable zip , the new standard rar, and one new addition, 7zip. Each one of these has good and bad traits.

Zip is now incorporated into the last few editions of windows, it is not the fastest or the best compression.

Rar is both speedy and has very good compression, you can also add parity data( this will let you rebuild your archive should it ever corrupt, this adds to the size of the files, but I think its worth it.) The addition of encryption adds a level of security as well. The unrar program handles other compression algorithms as well (zip,ace,lha)

7zip Is almost as good as rar, it can create smaller file sizes and is free, but it is not as fast as rar.

I hope this archiver tutorial help!