Scott Explains

Chuck - OS X App Launcher

The one thing OS X doesn't lack are app launchers. Spotlight is built in, of course, but there are a wealth of third party options: Alfred, LaunchBar, QuickSilver, and more.

I've been using Alfred for awhile now, and much like the other apps I listed it does far more than merely launch apps. Despite the power under the surface, the only thing I use it for is... launching apps.

Chuck is a new (to me at least) app launcher that only launches apps. No fancy workflows here, no way to open 18 apps at once and edit a file while calculating Brazil's GDP with a single keystroke. Nope, you bring up Chuck's interface with an assignable key combination, type, and launch your app. Plus, Chuck's icon is a mustache. Awesome.

Chuck's interface is pretty simple:

Start typing and you see this:

Hit Enter and your app (in this case Skitch) is launched and Chuck's interface fades away.

If you can't remember what app you'd like just hit ESC and Chuck will list the apps on your Mac (though I can't figure out what order they are presented in):

You can run Chuck as a normal app which shows up in your Dock, or just run it Dockless with just an icon in your Mac's menu bar (a tiny mustache! So cute!):

You can toggle the search panel,  refresh Chuck's App list, or quit Chuck from here. Chuck's Preferences have a few tricks waiting for you:

Assign a Keyboard shortcut (by default nothing is assigned) or decide to run Chuck headless (no icon in the Dock or menu bar which means you would be missing out on all the sweet mustache action) from the basic preferences.

Clicking on Advanced gives lets you assign shortcuts to apps (so when I type in vpn Chuck finds my Cisco VPN app which someone thought would be a great idea to rename "Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client"):

Chuck requires OS X 10.6 or above, is free, and available in the Mac App Store.

Typing accented characters in OS X Lion

Typing accents on the Mac has always been a pain. Sure, you could enable the Character Palette to make it easier, or remember the key combinations of some common accented characters, but aren't computers supposed to make our lives easier?

Yes, they are. And OS X Lion makes typing accented characters much easier. Here's how to do it:

1. Type as you normally would. When you get to the character that requires an accent hold the key down.
2. A menu pops up (seen to the right) with a few options. Hit the number under the accented character you want.

You'll never misspell résumé again (except when you're taking screenshots for a blog post, that is)!

Make Lion more like Snow Leopard with two changes

Hurrah! Lion is now available with all sorts of new, shiny features. There are also a couple of changes that long time OS X users might find irksome: no indication of what apps are running in the Dock, and "natural" scrolling.

Quick! What apps are running in my Dock? You can't tell, can you? Neither can I, but there is a way to bring back those helpful little lights under each running app OS X users have become accustomed to.

App indicator lights

Launch System Preferences by clicking on the System Preferences icon (pictured above).

Click on "Dock" in the Personal row.

And the Dock options reveal themselves.

At the bottom you'll see a checkbox labelled "Show indicator lights for open applications." Make sure it is checked.

Ahh, now we can tell that I have Safari, iTunes, System Preferences, Outlook, Twitterrific, NewsRack, Acorn, MarsEdit, and ScreenSteps.

Scrolling

Scrolling in Lion works in exactly the opposite way you're used to on the Mac, but just like it does on iOS (iPhone, iPad) devices. When you drag two fingers  down on your trackpad (or Magic Mouse) the content on your screen scrolls up, and when you drag up on the trackpad the content scrolls down. The idea is that you're using your finger to actually push the content on your screen like it is a piece of paper.

Can't stand it? Here's how to change it: back in System Preferences select either Mouse or Trackpad (depending on which you have attached to your Mac). I'm writing this on a MacBook Pro, so I'm going to click on Trackpad.

Click on the Scroll & Zoom and uncheck "Scroll direction: natural."

Scrolling is back to the way it should be, gosh darn it!

The Mac OS X Lion Project Book

I wrote a book about the Mac! Exciting, I know.

More details over at my personal blog.

What does this mean? Well, obviously, I hope lots of people buy many, many copies. But it also means that I have lots of free time on my hands. The book is done... and now I can return to blogging here (I know, I know).

Look for new content here starting tomorrow (funny how that works!).

Pause an app download on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPod

There are some rather large applications available for iOS devices (iPhones, iPads, and the iPod touch). You may know that larger applications won't download nukes you're connected via WiFi, however, what do you do if you need to leave your WiFi coverage in the midst of a download? Just tap the app's icon and that'll pause the download. You can tell the download is paused because it says so right under the app's icon (see the image to the right).

Tap it again to resume when you're once again embraced by the welcoming arms of WiFi.

Put a Fav Folder in your iPhone's Dock

 One of my favorite iPhone tricks has to be assigning the camera app to launch whenever you double click on the home button. Sadly, if you’re running iOS 4, Apple’s latest and greatest operating system for i-Devices, this trick no longer works. Double clicking the home button now brings up an application switcher, allowing you to scroll through all the recently launched apps on your iPhone (as seen to the right).

Don’t despair, Apple giveth when they taketh away, though. You can now create folders of apps on your iPhone. Just press down on an app’s icon until it wiggles. Then drag that icon onto another icon you want to group together and a folder is created. You can drag in up to 12 apps into one folder, and you can even name that folder whatever you want.

Back to our camera conundrum, though: can I still get easy access to the camera? I could just put it in my iPhone’s Dock (that’s the row of four icons at the bottom of your iPhone’s screen), but I don’t use the camera enough to devote one of those four coveted spots to it alone. I do, however, have a few apps that I use quite frequently.

 I bet you can see where this is going: create a folder with your most used apps and put that into the Dock. As you can see I created a folder named ‘Favs’ that includes Twitter, the Camera, We Rule, and TaskPaper. Now tweeting, snapping a pic, wasting some time, or getting stuff done are all a tap away.

Each folder can hold up to 12 apps, and the Dock itself can hold 4 icons (either singular apps or folders) so you could cram up to 48 apps into your Dock if you like. I have found that 4 is the number that I can manage without being overwhelmed, but your mileage may vary.

Check out the video to see this tip in action.

How to delete Gmail messages on an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4

Google's free email service, Gmail, is quite popular. If you're a long time Gmail user you'll recall that Google wanted to reinvent email by giving folks what seemed like unlimited space for their email accounts. All that space meant you would never need to delete an email message again. In fact, at the beginning there was no easy way to delete an email from your Gmail account, the only thing you could do is Archive messages (which removed them from your inbox, but they would still show up in searches and the like).

Gmail users who updated their iPhones, and iPod touches, to the latest version of the iPhone operating system (called iOS now) might be experiencing a little dejavu. By default you can't delete messages from your Gmail account on your iPhone/iPod touch running iOS 4. Luckily, you can revert back to the old deleting behaviour pretty easily.

iOS Gmail default

Here you can see my Gmail account with the iOS 4 default setting. Swiping an email message reveals an 'Archive' button (which used to be a delete button). As Jacqui at Ars points out in her great iOS 4 review you can move an email message to the Trash folder manually... but that is far too many steps.

Launch the Settings app

To turn off message archiving just tap on the Sattings app and select "Mail, Contacts, Calendars." This will list all the email account you have on your iPhone under the 'Account' section. Tap on your Gmail account.

Turn off Archive Messages

This is what your Gmail account settings should look like (roughly). Tap on the On/Off switch next to "Archive Messages." Now you can delete emails like a mad man.

Deleting like the good old days

And there is the familiar Delete button we know and love. If you decide you rather liked Archiving messages just pop back into your Gmail settings on your iPhone and toggle "Archive Messages" to On.

Changing your iPad's email signature

You just got a brand new iPad, and you're excited about it! We all understand the excitement, but do you really want to remind everyone that you have an iPad every time you send them an email? Of course not! However, by default your iPad appends an email signature (basically some text that appears at the bottom of every email message) that says, "Sent from my iPad."

I'm going to show you how to either replace that text with some a little more useful, or just turn off the email signature all together.

Launch Settings

Launch the Settings app, it is the icon with gears on it (did you know your iPad is steam powered? How else do you think it lasts for ten hours?).

Select "Mail, Contacts, Calendars"

All of your email settings are found under "Mail, Contacts, Calendars." Once you're there tap "Signature" (notice that your current signature is displayed here).

Clear the signature, or replace it

You can clear the current signature by hitting the 'Clear' button on the top right of this screen. Now you can either leave it blank, which means you won't have anything appended to your outgoing email messages, or type in a message of your own.

Happy iPad emailing!