Category: Average Joe’s Tips

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Average Joe's Tips

Add Some Extra ‘Magic’ to Your Trackpad with BTT

Apple finally got the trackpad right when they made it glass, multi-touch, and entirely clickable; but it gets even magic-er with a little customization courtesy of Better Touch Tool.

Apple natively offers some (limited) customization of trackpad gestures, but the free application BetterTouchTool deserves credit for making the hardware as useful as it is. BTT allows you to assign commands to 50+ gestures – from ‘5 finger swipe down’ to ‘3 finger tip-tap left’ – and better yet, assign unique gestures to unique applications. BTT also implements the pretty useful ‘Snap’ feature found in Windows 7, used to view two windows side by side (which I find very useful when comparing or transcribing data).

My favorite implementation of BTT is in Chrome; where four finger swipes left and right move me between tabs and three finger swipes up and down create and close tabs. I also  use it to control Spaces (five finger tap to view all, ‘tip finger swipe’ to switch between) which allowed me to actually enjoy the benefits spaces without having to wait for OSX Lion. Other cool features are ‘Live View’; a window that shows you’re finger motions on a virtual trackpad and the command that is recognized (so you can practice your ‘tip-taps’ and ‘tip swipes’), and you can easily toggle BTT on and off from the taskbar in case you have to share your mac with your clumsy fingered roomate.

The trackpad has come quite a long way (and has definitely destroyed its portable-input-device competition) and while it may not yet be ideal for gaming, graphic design, and other involved processes, it adds significant value over the mouse in everyday tasks; like web, editing documents, and viewing media, and may even beat out the mouse and become the input method of choice for the everyday user. I mean IBM definitely never created a desktop version of their ThinkPad’s little red dot…

For more details head to the Better Touch Tool site, or if you’ve heard enough download it now.

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Average Joe's Tips

How to: Download Free YouTube Videos in Safari

Don’t you want to watch your favorite YouTube videos on the go without having to wait for it to load the whole way? With a couple of easy steps and a few minutes you’ll have them on your iPhone in no time. The first step to this is launching Safari and opening up the YoutTube video that you want to download. Then (even if it is still loading) you go up to “Window” and scroll down to “Activity” and click on it. You will see a list of stuff that is helping to load the video, but the only one that you will need to click on is the largest file that should probably be in megabits you can select the file even if it is still loading, and to select the file press “alt” and left click. The video then will download into your “Downloads” and the last step is to drag bring it into iTunes. To do this you will need to download an application to convert the file to allow it to play on your iPhone or iPod. The application you will download is HandBrake. After you finish downloading HandBrake open it and select the “videoplayback” and click start. When the video is done converting name it and drag it into iTunes. The video should then be under “Movies” in iTunes and then after that just sync it up with your iPhone of iPod.

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Average Joe's Tips

How to Jailbreak via Limera1n

Here is a quick tutorial on installing LimeRa1n.

Disclaimer: The Real Mac Genius.com is not liable for any loss or data or breaking of your device. Backup your data prior towards the process. The evolution of jailbreaking has become very user friendly, but still has minor consequences.

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Average Joe's Tips

How to: Why and How to Check and Verify the SHA1 Checksum

Throughout the eternal marathon of jailbreaking and counting down the days to get the new software released by the devs, one question rises into many people’s mind. Is the software safe, and how can I compare the file against the source. SHA1 enables you to check the file integrity against the source, so that you are able to make sure the file has not been modified. Apple and the iPhone Dev Team uses the SHA1 hash to prove the integrity of their downloads. SHA1 (Secure Hash Algorithm) is a cryptographic hash function created by the well respected Geeks at NSA (National Security Agency). SHA1 is the most widely used hash algorithm today, development of the SHA3 hash is ongoing and expected to be completed by 2012.

How Do I Use SHA1 On My Mac?

SHA1 is simple to access and use on your Mac. First, launch the Terminal application (Applications>Utilities>Terminal). Then, from the template below, use this for your situation:

The SHA1 checksum should equal = 2eb722f340d4e57aa79bb5422b94d556888cbf38

/usr/bin/openssl sha1 [full path to file]

Example: /usr/bin/openssl sha1 /Users/test/Documents/1024SecUpd2003-03-03.dmg

Example Output: SHA1(/Users/test/Documents/1024SecUpd2003-03-03.dmg) =2eb722f340d4e57aa79bb5422b94d556888cbf38

Awesome! In this example, our SHA1 checksums match; therefore, our integrity has not been tampered.

What do you think about SHA1, let us know leave a comment!

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Average Joe's Tips

How to: Customize Icons in Mac OS X for Free

One thing that I always liked to do was customize my computer icons so that they would look cool and stands out from the crowd. For that same reason I want to show you two different ways to customize your icons. The first way that to customize your icons are by just going to the apple website and downloading icons or by downloading apps.

I would recommend this way of customizing your icons for people who have a lot of time or really want personalized apps. First access the Apple Download’s page and then look through the list of icons, screensavers, and ect but when you look through the list make sure what you select is an icon download and not a screensaver or something else. You can even do this with your own pictures by opening them in preview and cropping the part that you want and clicking “Command + C. After you download the file open it up and you will notice that they are just thumbnails. What you need to do is select one of the thumbnails and click “Command + C”. From that point go to the app(s) that you want to customize in finder, select it, and press “Command + I”. Then on the top left of the new screen that popped up should be the icon and select the icon and click “Command + V”. After that the thumbnail that you copied should have replaced the old icon.

For those of you people who don’t want to waste to much time replacing every app you can just download and app. Some of my favorite two of my favorite apps that I use for downloading is “Candy Bar” and for my dock “Dock Library”. For “Candy Bar” you can either put “Change all icons” or you can select certain icons that you want you customize. Now  “Dock Library” is a little more confusing because you have to go to different websites like Lepoard Docks and download the a few neat custom docks. What “Dock Library” is for is to actually convert your dock. The way to do that is after you download the custom dock that you want you go into “Dock Library” and import them by clicking the “Import” sign on the top. The Dock should appear below and from there you select the dock on the bottom that you want and click activate.

Overall, no matter what tool you use, make sure your dock bounces off the wall!

What do you think? Leave a comment with a link to a picture of your dock? Who’s is the coolest?