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Jun 18

CyberNotes: Add Separators to Mac OS X Leopard Dock

Posted in: CyberNotes, Hacks, Mac, Screenshots, Software, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 10, 2008 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Mac only
One of the first things that I did when I got my new (and first) Mac is I started customizing different aspects of the Dock. There’s actually a decent number of things that you can customize with the Dock by default, and it didn’t take long for me to start finding out some tricks here and there. A favorite of mine would be the drag-to-resize feature when clicking on the application/document separator. And then Lifehacker showed how I could add recent items to the Dock.

One thing that Apple failed to include was a way to separate your icons into groups, which can make it a little easier to find your applications. I figured there had to be a way to do this, and after a little Google searching I came across this article by Mac OS X Hints. In the end you can add as many separators as you would like on either side of the Dock. It’s really just an blank gap, but they work well at serving as a separators.

mac leopard spacers.png

How do you do this? There are actually two different ways that I’m going to show you, and I’ll leave it up to you to decide which one you’d like to use. You must be running Mac OS X Leopard for this to work though.

–SuperDocker (Homepage)–

The SuperDocker application is probably the easiest option for adding separators to the Leopard Dock. After you download and run the application you’ll want to look for the “Add a separator” option on the Dock tab:

mac separators leopard.png

From there you just need to decide which side you would like the separator to appear on. Choosing the Application zone will place the separator on the left side of the Dock, and choosing the Documents zone puts the separator on the right side. Every time you click one of those buttons you’ll see your Dock restart itself so that the new separators appear.

–The Terminal–

Power users who like to get their hands a little bit dirty will probably prefer to use the terminal. That way the need for yet another third-party application on your computer is eliminated. Here are the three commands that you’ll need to use:

To add a separator to the left side of the dock (the application side) enter this into the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'

Repeat this step for each separator you would like, and make sure to press Enter each time to execute the command.
To add a separator to the right side of the dock (the document side) enter this into the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'

Repeat this step for each separator you would like, and make sure to press Enter each time to execute the command.
Now you need to reset the Dock, which can be done by entering this into the terminal:
killall Dock

Here’s a screenshot from when I executed each of the steps listed above:

mac dock separator terminal-1.jpg

–Removing the Separators–

If you ever decide that you don’t want the separator(s) anymore there are two fast ways to get rid of them. Just like most other Dock items you can drag each one off the Dock to have them removed, or you can Ctrl+Click (a.k.a. right-click) on them and select the remove option.

–Overview–

Maybe in the next version of Mac OS X Apple will think to add some sort of separation option to the Dock, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that. At least there are tricks like this one that are able to separate the dozens of icons hosted in your Dock.

New Mac Leopard Dock on Windows

Multiple Docks in Mac OS X

CyberNotes:Mac OS X Leopard Launch Day Humor

Making A Dock For Your iPod In The Xbox 360 Part II

Jun 17

Windows Animated Cursor Vulnerability Patch Available Tomorrow

Posted in: Apple, Hacks, Microsoft, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista, Windows XP

This article was written on April 02, 2007 by CyberNet.

Hackers Microsoft will be releasing a critical security update tomorrow (via Windows Update) to patch what is being referred to as the “Windows animated cursor” vulnerability. It almost sounds hard to believe that an exploit can occur from something as simple as a mouse cursor, but as CNet points out it is definitely possible:

There’s a new Microsoft Windows vulnerability caused by an unspecified error in the way Windows 2000, XP, and Vista handles animated cursors. Animated cursors allow a mouse pointer to appear animated on a Web site. The feature is often designated by the .ani suffix, but attacks for this vulnerability are not constrained by this file type so simply blocking .ani files won’t necessarily protect a PC. Successful exploitation can result in memory corruption when processing cursors, animated cursors, and icons.

Most of you probably won’t have to worry though, because a large percentage of our visitors are using either Opera or Firefox as their browser. This vulnerability only applies to Internet Explorer 6 or 7 on Windows 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista. However, if you’re using IE 7 on Vista and you have the User Account Control (UAC) enabled then you are also fine. When you have UAC enabled it will force IE 7 to run in “protected mode” which is helpful at preventing unwanted attacks such as this one.

Microsoft learned about the vulnerability back in December 2006, but the attacks didn’t start appearing until the middle of last week. The severity of this is what prompted Microsoft to push out the patch even sooner:

This update was previously scheduled for release as part of the April monthly release on April 10, 2007. Due to the increased risk to customers from these latest attacks, we were able to expedite our testing to ensure an update is ready for broad distribution sooner than April 10.

While it is unfortunate that this vulnerability even exists, I guess it does demonstrate two things:

Internet Explorer should not be used by casual computer users because they are the ones who are most likely to get taken advantage of.
The User Account Control in Vista may actually be more beneficial than I thought. I used to keep it disabled, but as of about two-weeks ago I re-enabled it and I’m actually surprised that it hasn’t annoyed me. I’m confident that I can recognize a suspicious website or file when I see one, but the attacks are getting so advanced these days that I don’t want to take any chances.

Image Source: University of Texas

Big Day For Microsoft Tomorrow: Patches, XP SP1, And IE7?

Microsoft’s December 2005 Patch Tuesday

Firefox 3 Vulnerability Found in 5-hours

Microsoft Has Released A Patch To Fix MCE In Vista 5270

Jun 16

ICufflinks Pulsate and Glow Like a Sleeping Mac

Posted in: Apparel, Apple, Hacks, LED, Today's Chili

ICufflinks turn your wrists into sleeping computers

I don’t know what’s most impressive about the iCufflinks. It could be the fact that these glowing standby-symbols fit their electronics into such a tiny package, or it could be that the makers at Adafruit actually reverse-engineered the pulsing sleep light from Apple’s MacBooks.

Each cufflink contains an LED, a battery and the controlling circuitry. Screw the CNC-machined aluminum capsule closed with a fresh button cell inside and you’ll get a gently pulsing light for up to 24 hours.

And the light does look uncannily like Apple’s. Apparently this is patented, and while the patent says it is sinusoidal, Adafruit says not. To reverse engineer the wave, Adafruit measured the brightness of a Mac LED using an oscilloscope, a photocell, some extra circuitry and — of course — duct tape.

The cufflinks are also open source, so you download the schematics, CAD files and the rest to make your own. That’s a lot of work to do, though, so you might be better off just buying a pair. At $128 (even the price is nerdy) they’re not cheap, but it’s unlikely anyone else will be wearing them at the party.

Available now.

iCufflinks v1.0 [Adafruit. Thanks, Phil!]

Reverse engineering the Mac ‘breathing’ LED [Adafruit]

See Also:

Jun 15

Woah: Lulz Security Just Took On the CIA

Posted in: hack, hacking, Hacks, security, Today's Chili, top

Lulzsec, that merry band of hackers responsible for raids on Bethesda Softworks, the US Senate, Sony, terrorists, and rival hackers, has bagged maybe its biggest fish yet: the CIA. [Updated] More »

Jun 13

PhoneIt-iPad available via Cydia now, claims it’ll turn your iPad 3G into a phone (video)

Posted in: app, Apple, apps, hack, Hacks, ios, ipad, Software, Today's Chili, video

They hacked Facetime onto the iPhone 3GS, and now they’ve done it again — the iPhoneIslam team’s bringing cellular calling and texting to your jailbroken iPad 3G. We haven’t been able to test it for ourselves quite yet, but the new PhoneIt-iPad app should be available through the team’s Cydia repository right now, and it’ll cost $20 to bring out the full potential of your slate. And with that, it’s only a matter of time before iPad sidetalking becomes a meme.

Continue reading PhoneIt-iPad available via Cydia now, claims it’ll turn your iPad 3G into a phone (video)

PhoneIt-iPad available via Cydia now, claims it’ll turn your iPad 3G into a phone (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Jun 2011 04:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink @iTarek (Twitter) | source iPhoneIslam | Email this | Comments

Jun 08

Content Aware Image Resizing is the Future!

Posted in: Hacks, mod, Pre-Release, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

Content Aware Image Scaling

We all resize images quite frequently, but more times than not the result is not what we want. Either the image doesn’t scale correctly, or we are forced to crop off content that we would otherwise want to have. A solution for this problem might be just around the corner.

Content aware image resizing will more than likely be a common occurrence in the future. It uses a seam carving technique to eliminate the less important portions of an image, thereby leaving only what people want to see. The two images above are a good example of how this works. The one on the left is the original, and it shows two red lines indicating the next two "seams" that have been marked to be stretched or removed. The image on the right is the result: wider than the original, but only half the height. It was most of the water that was removed, which is exactly what most people would want to happen.

The creators of the system, Ariel Shamir and Shai Avidan, have thought a lot of things through, and they left me drooling. If there is a portion of the image that is marked to be removed, you can reverse that action and tell the software to preserve that area (useful for preserving faces). If there is a portion that you want removed first, you can do that as well which makes removing people out of images easier than ever!

Go ahead and watch this video to see what I’m talking about. The end is one of the most exciting parts, and I’m sure you’ll be wanting to get your hands on this after you see it:

As of right now this is a research project that will hopefully get released. There’s no download available, and it’s hard to say how good this really is without having tried it myself. After all, different images are going to give you different results. It would be interesting, however, to see browsers implement this sort of thing when scaling images to fit on the screen.

Sources: Hackszine, Digg, OhGizmo!, and Ghacks

Related Posts:

New Image Scaling Working Demo

Rsizr – Online Image Scaling Done Right!

ResizR Lets You Easily Resize Images

CyberNotes: Photo Seam Carving using Liquid Resize

CyberNotes: Your Week In Review With Sunday’s Summary

Jun 05

Newest Kinect hack: a grocery cart that loyally follows disabled shoppers (video)

Posted in: hack, Hacks, kinect, Microsoft, mod, mods, research, Today's Chili, video

Microsoft’s Kinect is the gift that keeps on giving for hackers, spawning everything from glasses-free teleconferencing to Tesla coil manipulation to uh, well, Android dance parties. But Luis de Matos’s wi-Go project is one of the most socially conscious we’ve seen: it adds a laptop and (despite its name) a Kinect to a shopping cart, enabling the cart to follow a wheelchair user. Improving on the B.O.S.S. bot we saw a half-decade ago, the wi-Go could allow anyone — including the disabled or elderly — to shop independently, regardless of physical capability. De Matos doesn’t offer many technical details, but see the video above for a before-and-after demonstration.

Newest Kinect hack: a grocery cart that loyally follows disabled shoppers (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Jun 2011 02:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Kinect Hacks | source Luis de Matos (Vimeo) | Email this | Comments

Jun 03

Find Out if Your Sony Pictures Subscriber Information Was Leaked Right Here

Posted in: hack, Hacks, sony, Today's Chili, top

Sony’s been hacked again, with over a million SonyPictures.com accounts lifted, containing vital personal information like home addresses. Is yours included? We’ve got an exclusive, easy database to check. Just enter your email address, and see if you’ve been compromised: More »

Jun 02

Researchers hack Kinect for glasses-free 3D teleconferencing (video)

Posted in: hack, Hacks, kinect, Microsoft, research, Today's Chili, video

Since the dawn of Kinect hacking, we’ve seen cameras strung together (or rotated) to create 3D, video game-like environments, while others have tweaked it for headtracking. Others, still, have used it for teleconferencing (albeit, the flat, two-dimensional variety). Now, a team of researchers have gone and thrown it all together to achieve 3D video chats, and if we do say so, the result is greater than a sum of its parts. The group, based out of UNC-Chapel Hill, uses 3D mapping (and at least four Kinects) to render the video, and then employs headtracking on the receiving end so that people tuning in will actually see the live video in 3D, even without wearing 3D glasses. The result: a tableau that follows you as you move your head and spin around restlessly in your desk chair waiting for the meeting to end. That’s mighty impressive, but we can’t help but wonder: do you really want to see your colleagues in such lifelike detail? Have a gander at the video and decide for yourself.

Researchers hack Kinect for glasses-free 3D teleconferencing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Jun 02

FaceNiff makes Facebook hacking a portable, one-tap affair (video)

Posted in: Android, app, apps, Google, hack, hacked, Hacks, privacy, security, Today's Chili, twitter, video, wifi, Wireless, YouTube

Remember Firesheep? Well, the cookie snatching Firefox extension now has a more portable cousin called FaceNiff. This Android app listens in on WiFi networks (even ones encrypted with WEP, WPA, or WPA2) and lets you hop on to the accounts of anyone sharing the wireless connection with you. Right now it works with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Nasza-Klasa (a Polish Facebook clone), but developer Bartosz Ponurkiewicz promises more are coming. You’ll need to be rooted to run FaceNiff — luckily, we had such a device laying around and gave the tap-to-hack app a try. Within 30 seconds it identified the Facebook account we had open on our laptop and had us posting updates from the phone. At least with Firesheep you had to sit down and open up a laptop, now you can hijack Twitter profiles as you stroll by Starbucks and it’ll just look like you’re sending a text message (but you wouldn’t do that… would you?). One more image and a video are after the break.

Continue reading FaceNiff makes Facebook hacking a portable, one-tap affair (video)

FaceNiff makes Facebook hacking a portable, one-tap affair (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source FaceNiff | Email this | Comments

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