users

If you regularly use specific applications, or access certain documents or locations in OS X, you can take advantage of the system's log-in items feature to make these items available to you whenever you log in to your system. For instance, folks who regularly use Mail and Safari might wish to have these programs open automatically when they log in. While launching applications is the most common use of the log-in item list, it can be used for quite a bit more.

Setting up log-in items Setting up and managing log-in items is easy. To do it, go to … Read more

It's been just over a month since I got my iPad 2 on launch day. For the most part, I absolutely love it. More often than not, I find myself reaching for it at times when previously I'd open up my MacBook. It's totally filled a void in my tech life I had not known existed, and for that I am grateful.

However, unlike my MacBook Pro, the iPad is curiously missing what I think is a must-have piece of functionality. Why doesn't the iPad support multiple users? I asked a few colleagues around the office what they think are the reasons for such a gross omission and far too often I got responses like, "But the iPad is such a personal device," or "They just want every household to buy one for each person living there."

Regarding the first excuse I immediately call foul. Yes, the iPad is a personal device, but it's no more personal than my MacBook Pro--which has no issues with giving my wife or me that deliciously satisfying cube-rotation animation when logging in and out. When I think "personal device" I think of, say, a toothbrush. Since the iPad is not a toothbrush (yet), it should let my wife and me maintain separate identities or system states so we don't continuously need to log in and out of e-mail accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and the like 20 times a day. Sure, iOS was originally conceived for a phone, but the iPad is not a phone that I carry around in my pocket.… Read more

My very own mom just joined the ranks of iPhone owners. (Welcome to the party, Mom!) Much as I was excited to show her all the cool stuff (FaceTime! Apps! Visual voice mail!), I quickly realized she needed to walk before she could run.

In other words, she needed a course in Basic iPhone Operation. After all, she was accustomed to a simple flip phone with a physical keypad. Going from that to an iPhone is like trading a car for a 747: confusing, intimidating, and no doubt a little scary.

With that in mind, I put together this list of 11 tips for iPhone newcomers. If they seem overly obvious to you, well, you're not the target audience. But I'll bet you know someone who is, so feel free to share this with the iPhone newbies in your life. Trust me: they'll thank you!

1. When in doubt, go Home. Want to go back to the main screen, the one with all the icons? That's called the Home screen. It doesn't matter which app you're using or task you're performing--a single press of the Home button (the only physical button on the front of the iPhone) will return you to the Home screen.

2. Always turn your iPhone off before you slip it into your pocket.Although your iPhone will switch itself into idle mode (where the screen turns off but the phone stays on) after a designated period of inactivity, you should get in the habit of manually turning off the screen. Otherwise you might accidentally place a call or run a battery-draining app while slipping the phone into your pocket. So remember: when you're done using your iPhone, press the top button (aka, the Sleep/Wake button).… Read more

Facebook announced this week that it's seeking user comment on a proposed redesign of its privacy policy that's meant to make the policy easier to understand while bringing the world of legalese-smothered documents into the widget-filled realm of the 21st century.

In a post to Facebook's site governance section, the company's privacy team offers a look at its "first attempt" to re-organize, rewrite, and add interactivity to the current policy, which is essentially your standard mass of small black text.

Among other potentially interesting re-imaginings, the proposed redesign features an interactive tool intended to … Read more

The idea of convergence, of one device replacing several, has long been a popular theme in forecasting high-tech gadgetry. It's also something that doesn't happen as often as predicted.

Some of the reasons relate to design and technology. It's hard to make a multitool as elegant for each individual function as specialist devices are. A form factor that's optimized around, say, being a phone demands serious technical compromises when it comes to a totally different function, such as taking a picture. And rapidly evolving technology means some functions in a device are inevitably behind the technology … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Here's another reason besides video chat that you might want a front-facing camera on your next mobile phone: controlling it by waving your arm or moving your hand.

This type of touchless gesture interface is coming to mobile phones from top-tier handset makers this year, promised Ofer Sadka, chief technology officer of a start-up called Extreme Reality based in Herzeliya, Israel, that's commercializing the technology.

In the Texas Instruments booth at the Mobile World Congress show here, he demonstrated two variations of the gesticulation-sensitive interface being used to flip through a photo gallery. One used close-range hand gestures, including rotating a fist to zoom in and out.

The other was from several feet away--it's got an 8-meter range--and used more sweeping arm motions, an experience more akin to Microsoft's Kinect game controller. … Read more

OS X is a multiuser environment in which besides standard user and administrative accounts there are a number of hidden or background accounts that are reserved for system-level tasks. One of these is the commonly referenced "root" user, which is the main and fully unrestricted administrator account on the system.

Because the root user has unrestricted access to all aspects of the system, running it interactively can pose a security risk as well as result in inadvertent system alterations. Therefore enabling it is highly discouraged, and the only time we recommend temporarily setting its stats to "enabled,&… Read more

The user's home folder in OS X contains a number of default directories including the Documents, Downloads, Desktop, Library, Movies, Music, and Pictures folders. While these locations do not have to be used to store your files, even if you rarely use these folders to store your files we recommend you do not rename or remove them.

OS X should have default permissions settings on these folders that prevent them from being inadvertently renamed; however, if you migrate your system, restore it from backup, or purposefully change permissions, then this restriction might change and allow you to rename the … Read more

Sick of your keyboard and mouse? Our touch points with technology are finally expanding beyond them. The Wii gave us motion-controlled games to one extent, and the Kinect took it to the next step: gamers are using their entire bodies for control. Apple, of course, has ushered in an era of multitouch and gesture-based user interfaces, and voice-operated technology is making great strides. What's next? We discuss with Ars Technica's Jon Stokes and Forrester's James McQuivey.

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Some of our discussion points… Read more