The malware spreads in a way similar to several that have recently been passed to Windows machines. It calls itself Mac Defender or Mac Security, and encourages a user to download it from a web page with an infected link or advertisement. It appears at a glance to be a legitimate piece of antivirus software. Once downloaded, it asks the user to enter a username and password to allow for a system scan. Then it installs, complete with a nifty menu item. It lets the user know that the computer has been infected with viruses and offers to fix the problem for a small fee. Once the user has entered a credit card, the scareware says it was denied and asks for another. Clever. Once installed, the software uncontrollably brings up porn websites.

While security companies scramble for a fix, Apple refuses to comment on the situation, neither confirming nor denying the existence of the bug. In an internal document leaked to the internet, support staff were told not to admit to the bug at all, and not to help with uninstallation.

While this kind of malware is becoming downright common for windows, Apple is not used to dealing with this type of situation. There are very few Apple bugs. The reason is not, necessarily, that Apple is any more secure than Windows. It’s more likely that Apple has had a small, if loyal, market share up until now. Macs are becoming more popular, though. If there is safety in obscurity, then as Apple’s obscurity disappears, so does the safety factor.

Apple’s tendency towards secrecy will not serve it well here. Acknowledging the problem would give mac users peace of mind, and would let them know that a fix is coming. Being open with the public about security problems is, in general, smarter for a company than trying to hide them. Apple has not had to face this enough yet to get that point.

Any Apple fan will tell me how much better Macs are than PCs. Okay. Whether that’s true or not, though, you have to admit that as Apple becomes more popular, the company will have to face some of the problems that Windows has been facing for years. This is just one of the first. Yay, Apple, look at the positives. This is a good sign, right …?

What are your thoughts? If you are on a mac, do you agree with the experts who still say that an antivirus program is not necessary for the Mac? Will you install one? How do you think Apple should handle this? In your opinion, are they on the right track?

While it’s not necessary to ever synchronise the phones with a computer, it’s still the best way to transfer files and your existing music collection to the devices.  So the news from Microsoft that all syncing would only be done through the Windows-only Zune desktop software would probably have come as a blow.

Fear not though as Microsoft have finally, and let’s face it it’s something they should have said months ago, that there will be a Mac Sync application available by the end of 2010.  There will be a public beta available sometime in the next couple of months with the full product out soon after.

So applause for Microsoft for realising that, just as a great many Windows users happen to like the iPhone, there will also be Mac users who like Windows Phone 7.

For now these are all the details we have as Microsoft haven’t been any more forthcoming.  This means there’s no word on whether the Mac software will allow you to link to your accounts on the Zune Marketplace or Xbox Live.  It could just be a simple sync program for files, music, photos and to provide backups of the content on the phone.  For now all we can do it wait for a new announcement, but we’ll bring it to you when its made.

Via : Engadget

Live Sync is an excellent tool that I’ve come to rely on myself for automatically syncing files and folders across different PC, wherever they may be.  This could be in your home or between your home and your office, though not for corporate espionage ;)

Personally I use it to sync three PCs in my home.  Two desktop machines on which I need all my documents syncing and a media centre which I keep up to date with my photographs.

Microsoft say the new beta software will run on….

Supported Operating Systems: Apple Mac OS X; Apple Mac OS X v. 10.5 Leopard
Supported Operating System Versions: Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard Supported Processor Architectures: Intel-based Mac computers only

This means you can now synchronise your files and folders between any combination of PCs and Mac computers, which will be brilliant news for the many people who own both.

The official description of Live Sync describes it as…

In Windows Live Sync beta, you can:

• Keep your documents, photos, and other files up to date on all your computers, whether PC or Mac* – Select the folders you want to sync between computers. After they sync, your files are available on your computers even if you’re working offline at the moment. You can also sync folders on SkyDrive synced storage, so you can go to the Windows Live Devices website to access them on the web from any computer. To get started, see How do I sync a folder?

  * Windows Live Sync for Mac is available in English only.

• Connect to your computers remotely – Leave your PC online and run its programs or get to all its files from another computer. This is handy for “emergencies” when you might be at work and need a file from home. For more information about remote connections, see What are remote connections?
• Sync your program settings between computers – Keep your Windows Internet Explorer favorites and Microsoft Office settings up to date on all your PCs. For more information and to get started, see How do I sync program settings between computers?

This is an extremely useful program though I have found one bug in the beta.  If you want to sync a large folder, such as your music collection.  It will fill up your main drive with temporary files until it’s completely full.  Hopefully Microsoft will sort this out before the final release.

In this article I will outline a few of the possibilities that can be used to replace the beloved applications often used in Mac. In some cases their may be equivalents that are nearly identical. In some cases, however, there may be equivalents that miss some features, or even offer better features. Either way, after this article, you should feel much more comfortable about migrating from OS X to Linux.

In the previous article I already mentioned using Songbird as a replacement for iTunes. Personally I prefer Songbird to iTunes. The only downfall is that Songbird can not yet communicate to either the iPhone or the iTouch. Yet. There is another tool that is currently in development that will most likely change that. But for now – you can use Songbird as a replacement for iTunes – just don’t expect Songbird to communicate with your iPhone/iTouch.

Garage Band

For those looking to compose music on your Linux machine, a good replacement for Garage Band is Jokosher. Jokosher is a simple, powerful multi-track recording studio. With this outstanding tool you can import music, record instruments, mix down, set tempos, and more. You will not, however, find a large collection of pre-recorded instruments and sounds to add and manipulate. But, if you have a Freesound account, you can import anything from their. Unlike Garage Band, Jokosher is really more a user-friendly multi-track recorder. So don’t expect to just open up the application and start piecing together music without picking up an instrument.

For more information on other audio creating software take a look at Linux-Sound.org. In my humble opinion, if you are looking for mult-media creation, your best bet is to download Ubuntu Studio which will include so man pre-installed applications for media creation/editing.

iWork

This one should be obvious. If you’re looking for an office suite to take care of all your office needs, look no further than OpenOffice. Although OpenOffice may have a different look and feel, you will find it just as easy to use AND it includes more features and applications than iWork.

iCal

If you like Apple’s stand alone calendar (that also integrates with other applications) you can install the stand alone Sunbird calendar. Sunbird was created by Mozilla so it has a very Firefox/Thunderbird feel to it. Sunbird is very close to a feature-for-feature equivalent to iCal.

iPhoto

My wife uses a Mac and she HATES iPhoto. But it is the standard for Mac photo management. For Linux there is the F-spot photo management tool. F-spot not only manages your photo collections, but will work with your digital camera as an import tool. F-spot is actually easier to use than iPhoto and will not have you fighting to try to get a piece of software to do something you KNOW it should do, but won’t.

Final thoughts

It’s not an exhaustive list, but it will help you get by with the main applications one would use on a modern Mac computer.  If you have a Mac-based application you are looking for a Linux equivalent, let me know what that is and I will attempt to locate an equivalent for you.

Of course you might be thinking “OS X is supposed to be the most user-friendly OS available, so wouldn’t migrating to Linux be even more difficults?” Not exactly. There are certain elements of OS X that inherently make the process of migrating to Linux easier than when migrating from Windows. Take, for instance, the mounting of images and drives. This task is completely obfuscated from the Windows user, but the OS X user actually knows to unmount a drive before removal. But what about simple, every day usage? How do you make that more understandable for one moving from OS X to Linux? Let’s find out.

Choose the right desktop

Figure 1

This is just as important as choosing the right distribution for the Windows user. Why? Take a look at the modern releases of the GNOME desktop. Look familiar? It should because it looks quite a bit like OS X. The primary difference between GNOME and OS X desktops is the bottom panel. With GNOME you have a secondary panel that is typically used for only win lists, trash cans, and pagers. With OS X the bottom panel is an application dock for launching application. You can, however, add the Avant Window Navigator and configure the GNOME desktop to look and feel exactly like the OS X desktop (see Figure 1).

Install Compiz

Figure 2

Many OS X users are fond of bragging about their eye-candy. But with OS X it’s not just about eye candy, because the Mac eye-candy always has a purpose. Take for instance the Expose feature. By clicking the hot key all of your open windows are made visible (in small thumbnails) on your desktop. In Compiz you can use the Scale plugin to get the same effect. By clicking <Alt><Shift>Up Arrow you will see small thumbnails of all your open windows (see Figure 2).

There are plenty of other plugins that can mimic many of the features on the OS X desktop. Having these available will make the OS X user much more comfortable on the Linux desktop.

What about iTunes?

This is one area that is a bit tricky. Because the issues with the iPhone and iTouch, you won’t find a software capable of syncing. There is a new mechanism in development (ifuze – which I will cover in a later article) that allows you access to your iPhone/iTouch. There is still no way to add music to either of these devices on Linux. Older iPods? For sure. And to that end you will want to include a particular piece of software that looks and feels very much like iTunes. That software? Songbird. I have covered Songbird in Linux in an earlier article “Songbird in Linux“.

Install the right codecs and plugins

OS X users watch a lot of videos and media files. Because of this you will want to make sure all of the proper plugins and codecs installed. You will want to make sure libquicktime is installed  as well as mplayer plugin. As well you might want to make sure flashplayer is installed and a better video viewer than the default. A good choice is the VLC player.  The last thing you want is a former Mac user who can’t view multi-media files.

Configure all default programs intelligently

When you click on a URL in your email application, you want to make sure the right browser opens. When you double click on a .odt or .doc file in your file manager you want to make sure those files are opened in the right word processor. When in OS X (and in Windows) the default action is a very predictable beast. You want to make sure this is mimicked in Linux. In GNOME you can right click a file, select Open With, and then set that as the default application for that type of file. As much as this might seem second nature, for OS X users this is simply not an issue. Having everything so well integrated is not a feature on OS X, it’s a requirement. So make sure everything works exactly as expected BEFORE the OS X user touches their Linux box.

Final thoughts

I tried not to duplicate the advice on the previous article, but do understand that much of that applies here as well. Combining these two should give you a good guidepost for migrating just about any user from one platform to Linux.

It can be somewhat cumbersome to capture a screenshot in Grab, and then have to move it into a program like Photoshop to manipulate it. And if you want to share the image, you have to change its format.

An alternative piece of software is Skitch, screen-capturing software for OS X. Skitch provides screen-capturing facilities similar to Grub, but integrates some editing tools and also provides tools to share the images.

Skitch allows users to draw on screenshots and annotate them, through placing arrows and text. One can also make images have a transparent background, crop images, add a drop shadow to them or rotate them.

One of the cooler features is the ‘drag’ feature. When a screenshot has been captured and edited, if you click ‘drag me’, you can drag the image to a folder, an email or to open in another program.

Skitch can export images as JPEGs, PNGs, PDFs, SVGs, TIFFs, GIFs and JPGs. It can also upload images to Flickr, FTP servers, WebDAV folders and skitch.com, their own image hosting service.

The software boasts many features and I find it much better to use than Grab, as there’s no need to have to use other pieces of software.

Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) is utilised on a range of devices, but especially so by Creative. Creative Zens (and their variants) utilise the protocol. Whilst the Creative NOMAD isn’t MTP, it too uses an awkward protocol not natively supported by OS X. The infamous Zune (in the eyes of an Apple fanboy) too uses MTP, however, Microsoft make it very difficult to transfer data to.

XNJB is a piece of software that provides a graphical front-end to a libnjb and libmtp: free and open source libraries that allow communication with devices like Creative NOMADs and Creative Zens. Unfortunately, neither support the Zune, due to additional restrictions Microsoft put in place. The libraries work on other POSIX operating systems, like Linux, but XNJB does not.

XNJB allows users to upload and download songs from their media players, for ID3 data to be edited and devices searched. All of this has to be done within the software; it is not integrated into iTunes or Finder.

The transfer of data felt a bit slow to me, but I expect this is primarily due to the messiness of my library and the nature of Media Transfer Protocol.

This software is, however, a useful tool when you first got the Mac. I do, though, doubt you could realistically continue to use a MTP device successfully with OS X. Naturally, you could use it inside Boot Camp or a virtual machine, but in my opinion, that too is not an ideal option.

Compatible devices are listed on their website.

Google Voice has a ton of great features, and in a lot of ways fundamentally changes the way you’ll use your phone. A lot of things suddenly become easier with Google Voice – checking your voicemail, sending text messages, and more – and they’re all best dealt with through your computer.

But, as of now, Google Voice doesn’t inherently let you make calls from your computer. I mean, I’ve got a microphone and speakers on my computer, as well as a fast Internet connection – why shouldn’t I be able to make calls, ideally for free?

Well, as it turns out, I can – with a little legwork. Here’s how to set it up (I did this on a Mac, so PC directions might be slightly different – the same rules will apply, though).

Disclaimer: This is all assuming you’ve already got a Google Voice account. They’re sending out invites at lightning-speed, so if you don’t have one, go get on the list!

1. Download and Install Gizmo5 (create a free account, with no call credits – you won’t need them!).
2. Open Gizmo. In the “Home” tab of the application, click “Edit My Profile.”
3. In the tab that pops up, you’ll see, filled in, a number for “SIP number.” Copy that number (everything before the @ sign).
4. In Google Voice, click “Settings”, and then “Phones.”
5. Click “Add Another phone” and paste the SIP number from Gizmo (again, only what’s before the @ Sign) into the box.
6. Name the number “Gizmo” or whatever you want, and then Save it.

Now, to make calls:

1. Open Google Voice, and click “Call”
2. Enter the number you want to call
3. Make sure the Gizmo phone (whatever you called it) is selected as the “Phone to Ring”
4. Click “Connect”
5. You’ll get a pop-up from Gizmo, with your Google Voice number on the caller ID. Answer it!
6. Google Voice will automatically dial and connect the other person, and you’ll be chatting from your computer!

The whole process only takes about five minutes, and doesn’t cost a nickel. Because you’re using a SIP number, all the data is transmitted over your cable connection rather than your phone network. That means you’ll need fast Internet to really make this work, but also means it doesn’t cost a thing!

I’m not sure how long this will be around (I’m sure carriers won’t be fans), but for now it’s a fantastic solution for making calls directly from your computer.

Sticking to standards can therefore lead to issues with certain web browsers, which lack support for the latest tags or render pages wrong.

The W3C therefore has its own web browser and editor which adheres to standards more than many browsers and supports certain new technologies others don’t, such as RDF annotation. This browser is Amaya, an open-source and cross-platform browser.

Amaya can handle a wide-range of open file formats, including HTML, CSS, XHTML, SVG and MathML.

The software integrates the browser and web editor: when you go to a web page, it can be edited inside the browser. It also instantly displays syntactic errors.

It also integrates the mark-up languages. For example, in a web page, one can write formula utilising MathML or add SVG shapes inside the software.

Amaya is a reasonable WYSIWYG editor and a good web browser for developmental purposes. It is also good to produce rich web-pages, which include other pieces of mark-up than HTML.

Update: Amaya has not been updated in the last two years. While it is still possible to use the cross-platform HTML editor it needs to be noted that it does not support recent technology advancements. This includes no support for HTML5 or CSS3 in the last release.

Windows and Linux users find in Blue Griffon a suitable alternative. Blue Griffon user however need to know HTML to work with the program, as it does not display information about elements that can be selected in the editor. Users who know their HTML elements will find it to be a suitable alternative for Amaya.

EA use a product called Cider to power many of their Mac games. Cider basically adds a wrapper around the original PC game, and translates it on-the-fly to Mac. The recent release of ‘The Sims 3′, for example, works on OS X and Windows due to Cider.

Cider is likely to become more wide-spread. It saves game developers from having to develop ports, allows Mac and PC games to be released at the same time and ultimately little extra work must be put in to reach a larger market.

But Cider also allows certain Windows cracks to be implemented on Macs.

On OS X, Applications are actually just packages. If you have The Sims 3, for example, and go to the App and right click on ‘Show Package Contents’, and then choose ‘transgaming’, you will see a Windows folder structure. In there, all the files you’d expect to see are there. Basically, there’s a ‘The Sims 3.app>Contents>Resources>transgaming>c_drive>program files>Electronic Arts>The Sims 3′ folder.

The benefit of there being a hidden Windows folder structure in these apps are simple. If there’s a No-CD crack where you just have to replace a .exe, you find that .exe inside the Package and replace it. And then it works just like it does under Windows.

One of the issues with trying to use those older Macs is that they do not meet the requirements of newer versions of OS X. Within the last year I purchased an older eMac which had a 900 Mhz processor. I bought it mostly just to have it. It wouldn’t get too much use. When I received it it had the latest version of OS X it would support. The machine had a Gig of ram along with the G3 900 Mhz processor. I shouldn’t have to even type the fact that the machine ran very slowly. At first I attributed it to the processor speed. But after a few OS X updates I realized it wasn’t the processor but the version of OS X that was placed on it. That, of course, got me thinking…

I have installed Linux on a Mac before. The Mac in question was an old G3 800 Mhz iBook. With OS X the laptop felt sluggish. With Linux on the machine it felt much more powerful than it should have.  The version I used on the laptop was Ubuntu. And man did it make a difference. I really felt like I was using a much newer laptop. On top of that I had the whole of the Linux catalog of software at my disposal.

And now I am faced with reviving an aging eMac in the same way. So I thought I would bring the possibility to the attention of the curious ghacks readers before they toss out those old Macs to make room for other projects.

Which versions to use?

There are a few distributions to use for Mac hardware:

Yellow Dog Linux

There is a Linux distribution that has been around since 1998 called Yellow Dog Linux. This distribution was originally based on Red Hat but has since been migrated to being based on CentOS (the Free enterprise version of Red Hat.) Yellow Dog Linux is a Linux distribution that is only created for PPC architecture. It installs like any Linux distributions. One of the only pitfalls of using Yellow Dog Linux is you might have to extract the firmware from your current, working OS X in order to get the wireless working. This is made possible with a tool called fwcutter (for Ubuntu or an rpm based distribution.

Download YDL here.

Ubuntu

Unlike most newer releases of Ubuntu (and Linux in general) the Ubuntu PPC installation is text based. If you are only used to the graphical installations, fear not – the Ubuntu text-based installation is very simple to use. Take note, however,  sometimes, when using a G3, you might wind up with Ubuntu basically not wanting to install at all. If this happens you might want to upgrade your Mac’s G3 firmware. Once installed you will have one of the most user friendly versions of Linux on your Mac.

Download the ISO for Ubuntu for PPC here.

Final thoughts

Once you download your ISO images, burn them onto disk, and give the installation a try. Hopefully you will successfully end with Linux running your older Mac hardware better than it ran when it hosted OS X. This is not to say that all installations will go smoothly. I have found that, when installing Linux on PPC, the installations can be flaky. Sometimes they will install and sometimes they won’t. If you don’t get it on the first try, give it a second. The good news is that the effort will be worth it in the end. Your old G3, G4, or G5 will run faster and smoother than it did with OS X.

If you give this a go, please let your fellow ghack readers know how your experience went.

The alternatives can be filtered by license or operating system. It would for instance be possible to show only free software alternatives for the Windows operating system. Additional tabs are available that display user comments, ratings and Twitter information. The alternatives listed for Adobe Photoshop include GIMP, Paint.net, Pixlr and Picnik among others. The profile page provides comfortable means to view user opinion on software alternatives for a specific program with the option to visit the website of the developer for further information or downloads.

The main page can be filtered by operating system as well to narrow down the choices. The applications that are listed on those pages can also be viewed by most popular, most views, recent and those without alternative. The service offers an easily accessible way of discovering new applications for a selected operating system.

Update: The service has recently been redesigned. It displays a list of popular and new services on the homepage with possibilities to click on those service to open the service’s or program’s profile page on Alternative To. Alternatives are especially listed for popular programs, websites and services. Many lesser known products do not even have a profile page on the website.

Whilst disk space is no longer seen as a problem, considering 1GB only costs about $0.20! However, I find it an issue on my MacBook where I only have 120GB of space and it can’t easily be expanded.

Finding hogs could be quite a task. Naturally, trawling through every directory is impractical, so automated tools must be used to find large directories and files. Software exists on most major operating systems to graphically show which folders are large and how large they are.

In 2005, gHacks reported about WinDirStat. This is freeware that shows how big directories are. WinDirStat displays everything in the C:\ (etc) drive, colour coded for the first level directory (eg Program Files or Windows), and on tiers below that it is divided as blocks. This is a easy to use visualisation. WinDirStat runs on all Windows operating systems from 95 (w/IE5) to Vista!

An OS X alternative to WinDirStat is Disk Inventory X. It is essentially identical to WinDirStat. GrandPerspective is another essentially identical option.

Linux users can choose between KDirStat or Baobab.

Another option is JDiskReport is a Java-based piece of software which analyses disk usage using pie charts. Presumably this will work on Windows, OS X and Linux.

JDarkRoom is a free alternative which uses Java, allowing it to be used under Linux, OS X and Windows. JDarkRoom even operates on eeePCs, providing a non-resource hogging word processor.

JDarkRoom is customisable. Should you dislike the Matrix-like green-on-black colour scheme, through pressing F6 you can choose any colours you want (providing you know their RGB values) and if you dislike the somewhat monotonous font, that can also be changed. Margins and font sizes can also be changed through the preference menu at F6.

JDarkRoom definitely utilises a minimalist approach to word processing, I cannot even spot an italicise option, but is nonetheless an efficient one.

I do have a few minor complaints with JDarkRoom. When saving a file, you are presented with your operating system’s default box for saving files, which breaks the minimalist GUI. I do not see why you can not just specify a path to which to save it. JDarkRoom also takes a couple of seconds to quit, which is once again an annoyance.

JDarkRoom is well worth a shot and if like me, you are prone to procrastinate and lose concentration, it may be for you. Perhaps if I used it, I would write more posts here!

In Northern England, we have been ‘fortunate’ enough to have had quite a bit of snow this week. Not everyone is as lucky though, and Snowflakes is an application which ensures those at lower latitudes won’t miss out. Snowflakes allows snow to fall either on the desktop or, should you really need reminding, in front of all windows. The speed and number of the snowflakes can be modified. It is a little distracting even behind all windows, as the snowflakes falling can be seen in the space just above the dock.

Mac users love widgets and fairy lights. Festive Lights is a widget which allows you to ‘decorate your dashboard’. Users have several options: festive lights can surround the dashboard, or only hang from the top; they are available in different colours; mistletoe can be added; and the pattern which the flashes follow can be selected.

Fairy lights are also available for the desktop. One way would be to drag the above widget to the desktop (a little hack required). Another option is Xmas Lights, a standalone application which allows lights to appear behind and in front of windows. Several lights are available and more can be added.

Christmas Countdown is another useful widget which does what it says on the tin, displaying the amount of days until Christmas in the form of a Christmas Tree.

aMSN is an open-source intant messaging client available for Linux, OS X, FreeBSD and Windows (if you dislike the proprietary client) which supports many features specifically on the MSN network which Adium and Pidgin do not.

The client can handle most features which WLM can, excluding MSN Zone Games. aMSN is much more customisable than Windows Live Messenger too, with dozens of plugins and skins being available.

aMSN lacks the ability to connect to networks besides MSN but if you are in Adium and Pidgin and a situation arises when you may want to use a webcam, aMSN does not take long to load and it is much quicker than booting into Windows.

Update 19th October: aMSN does not yet support audio conversations

Many users prefer a keyboard anytime over the way the iPhone handles text input because that is what they are used to. The software iPhoneModem utilizes the iPhone as a modem for a computer so that the computer can go online.

There are several scenarios besides having to type more than a few paragraphs like running a software that is not available on the iPhone itself. iPhoneModem works with all jail broken iPhones 2G and 3G over EDGE and UMTS and Mac OS X 10.5.0 or higher with Mac OS X 10.5.4 recommended.

Installing iPhone Modem on a Mac:

• Download iPhoneModem and copy it to your application folder
• Make sure that the network environment automatic exists
• Start iPhoneModem.app and iPhoneModem Setup.

Setup the iPhone for iPhoneModem:

• Install with Cydia OpenSSH
• Install Insomnia with Cydia
• Install BossPrefs for starting and stopping the SSH server
• Change pass word for the SSH server

Using iPhoneModem:

1. Click on Start Connection

2. Activate the iPhone’s WLan as soon as the message Connect with iPhone WLan..
appears.

3. Start the SSH Server on the iPhone if it is not running already.

4. A message should appear telling you that your iPhone is now connected. Start Insomnia on the Iphone. Happy surfing!

Please note that this are screenshots from the German version but it seems that en English language version is available as well. It the application turns out to be popular it could very well be ported to Windows. No Windows version as of now.

The software only works with Quicktime compatible formats. Basic use essentially means picking a movie and clicking on the Go button. There are some advanced parameters the user can play around with like thumbnail size, number of columns or snapshot interval.

Matthew Merkovich created a gallery of images that he created with Thumber including Black Hawk Down, Bulletproof Monk and Equilibrium.

Falls into the modern art category, don’t you think ?

Expose all windows displays all windows on the desktop. Windows are minimized so that all fit on the screen. Expose applications does the same for one application and Desktop moves all windows off the screen so that they are barely visible.

Dexpose2 clones that Mac task switcher and brings that functionality to Windows. All windows are exposed when pressing the F9 key, all applications with the F10 key and the Desktop feature with the F11 key just like they are assigned on the Apple Macintosh.

The options are extensive. Users can change hotkeys, speed and layout and configure so called hotspots as well. These hotspots are four areas at the edge of the screen that automatically provide access to the features of Dexpose2. The time that is needed to activate the function can be configured in the options. If I wanted to immediately use the Desktop feature when moving the mouse to the lower right corner of the screen then I could configure this behavior.

The memory footprint depends on the amount of open windows and applications I think. It uses roughly 32 Megabytes on my system currently with several applications like Firefox open.

With all these restrictions, it’s no wonder that most people who own an iPhone are frustrated and are always on the lookout for ways to run applications on their devices. After all, you would not want to pay so much money for something that has hardly any functions. However, it’s understandable to also be reluctant. These devices are expensive and if something goes wrong, it’s a lot of money down the drain.

Adam from Lifehacker has found a solution to your problems. He uses a software called ZiPhone. ZiPhone is free, open source application that works on both Windows and the Mac. This software basically hacks or jailbreaks the firmware code on your device so that all the restrictions are removed and you can use your device to its full potential. What ZiPhone does is put your phone into recovery mode while it hacks the firmware. The entire process is accomplished in under one minute.

All you have to do is download and run the application. Select the device (iPhone or iPod Touch), choose the jailbreak option and you are good to go. I haven’t tried this out for myself because I do not own either device but a fair number of people have used ZiPhone with excellent results. The only precaution is that if you applied a jailbreak to your iPhone previously, make sure to restore it to the latest firmware (1.1.4) before you use ZiPhone.

All in all, I’m curious. How many of you have hacked your devices previously because you were unhappy with the restrictions. Do you know of any other ways to jailbreak your iPhone?

Via (Lifehacker)