How to capture a screenshot on iPhone

Today I need to capture a screenshot on my iPhone for my blog and discovered that the following tricks can do just that! I am impressed! Here are the steps on how to capture screenshots on your iPhone/iPad (from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3739872?tstart=0)

Steps

1. Go to the screen on your iPhone that you want to capture the screenshot.
2. Once you are at the screen, press the home button follow by the top right button of the iPhone (Sleep button) quickly. Note: You need to perform this in quick motion, otherwise the home button will bring you back to the home screen.
3. If successfully, you will hear a shutter sound, similar to when you take a photo.
4. Now check your Photo Album - there you have your screenshot.
5. Then you can email/upload to dropbox your screenshots.

Enjoy! 

iOS7 - iPhone or iPad music out of sync with iTunes

Recently I have a problem with my iPhone 5 (iOS 7) (Music). The playlist is out of sync with my iTunes. Every time I sync with my iTunes on my Mac, the smart playlists are not updated on my iPhone. The symptoms are:

• I have a smart playlist that only stores all songs that are added within a month ago. However, the smart playlist on my iPhone (iOS 7) does not get the latest songs and refresh the playlist. It still keep the songs that I have added a few months ago. 
• All the new songs in my smart playlist still added into iPhone music, but the playlist is not refreshed.

I have tried various methods, such as

• Delete the smart playlist and re-sync again.
• Delete all songs and re-sync with iTunes again

None of them works because when I re-sync, the smart playlist "auto-magically" bring back the old songs in the list, as if the information is stored somewhere in iPhone and never get removed.

After several attempts and googling around, finally I found a solution that works for me. If you have something similar, here is a solution:

• Plug your iPhone into PC/Mac with iTunes.
• Click on the iPhone tab and select Music tab.
• Uncheck "Sync Music". It will warn you that all songs and playlists on your iPhone will be removed (this is OK because we would like to start from clean sync).
• Click "Apply" and wait until it is fully sync. 
• Then go to iPhone.
• Select Settings -> General -> Usage
• You will see the space that Music consumes, i.e.

• Next select Music

• Swipe to the left on "All Music". This will remove the indexes as well after the clean sync to ensure that iPhone does not store any old data.

• Select Delete.
• Then go back to iTunes and select iPhone -> Music, select "Sync Music" again. Complete the sync and chceck your iPhone.
• This works for me on iPhone 5/iOS 7 with iTunes on Mac.

Mac OS Mavericks 2013 – Google Calendar issue

Problem

If you just get upgrade/fresh install the free Mac OS X Mavericks, then you might be scratching your head on this issue.

When you attempt to enable “Calendar” for your Google account under System Preferences -> Internet Accounts, you will see a spinner and after a few minutes, it displays an error message “A secure connection couldn’t be established”.

Unfortunately no solution so far and it is quite annoying. However I found a few peoples are having the same issues and you can check these forums and see if any solution helps:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/calendar/f7BGvVBbvaI

Note that some solutions proposed might work – but not completely. For example:

• Use Google caldav server: This only allows you to import your Google Calendar into Mac Calendar as read only. You cannot update any Google calendar entries in your Mac or add new Google calendar events in Mac Calendar.

Meanwhile, I just have to manage my Google calendar from my iOS devices rather than Mavericks.

UPDATE

09/12/2013 – After several tries and checked the forum above, finally the following works for me:

1. Thanks Ben Blazak and others that suggested the solution at http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/calendar/f7BGvVBbvaI and https://discussions.apple.com/message/20175844#20175844. There is a tweak or something that needs to be aware, where I found out why it works for others but not me.
2. Open iCal in Mavericks.
3. Go to Calendar -> Add Account…
4. Make sure you select “Add CalDav account….”
5. Enter your username (this is the tricky part): I use my gmail username without @gmail.com, and this is the trick that you need to be aware of. Use the full google account name, if your email address is test@gmail.com, then you enter the full email address.
6. Enter your password and type “www.google.com” as the server name.

Mac OS X 10.7 - Mavericks - Workspace

If you have recently upgraded to Mavericks or just start using Mavericks 10.7 Mac OS X, you might be curious about what is workspace and how to assign certain applications only open in specific workspace.

Workspace

Workspace can be defined as a copy of your desktop that you can create and use it to open different applications.

Imagine you have to different bundles of physical files and papers that you need to organise and work on, and you have a few tables. You can organise each related bundle on one table and work on them one at a time. Every now and then you can switch between them, but your focus is a specific table at any one time.

Workspace is the same. You can create multiple workspaces, and group any similar applications in one workspace.

How to create a workspace

If you are using Mac, press F3. This will trigger what we called "Mission Control". If you are using trackpad, swipe up with three finger and it will have similar effect.

You will see a screen similar to the following

The top part of the screen shows your current workspaces, with the left most being the dashboard. Dashboard is another “workspace” that contains all your widgets. You can switch between different workspaces by swiping four fingers left or right.

If you hover over the top right corner, you will set a “+” symbol. That allows you to add additional workspace to your current collection.

If you want to remove specific workspace, hover over the workspace at the top of Mission Control, after a second, there will be a “X” symbol shown at the top left corner of the workspace, clicking on the X will remove the workspace.

If you want to switch between workspaces but not in Mission Control mode, you can swipe four fingers in the trackpad (left or right).

How to assign applications to specific workspace

Now you have learnt how to create and use workspace to group applications together. You might be wondering what if I want certain application to open in a specific workspace only?

In Snow Leopard, you can do this in Settings. However, there is no such setting in Mavericks anymore.

The easiest way to assign application to specific workspace is:

• Choose the application that you want to assign a workspace to (preferably in the Dock)
• Right click on the application and select Options.

• You will see the options of “Assign To”. In this case, I have two monitors, which corresponding to Display 1 (External monitor) and Display 2 (Macbook Pro).
• Each desktop has its own name and I have two workspaces created in Display 1.
• Pick one of these options and you are done.

The nice thing about assigning applications to specific workspace is when you restart your Mac, all applications will be open in their assigned workspace.

If you do not assign any workspace to application before you restart your Mac, all applications will be opened in current active workspace, and then you have to move applications to the relevant workspace.

Further information

Please visit Mac support to understand more about Mission Control.

Mac OS X - How to show filename extensions in Finder

This post describes a simple trick to enable filename extensions to be displayed at all time in Finder.

I like to know and see what is the filename extension - because sometimes I would like to change them to different type.

By default, Mac OS X will not display the file extensions for known file type, such as .pdf. This could cause confusion because you might see some files that has filename extensions, but some don't.

In order to set Finder to display all filename extensions, go to Finder -> Preferences. Click “Advanced”.

Ensure “Show all filename extensions” is checked.

What you have now is all files will be displayed with filename extensions.