So for people like me, the folks at Stem Innovation have come up with the TimeCommand, which will let you turn your iPod, iPhone or iPad into a Chumby-like device, and charge it at the same time. By itself, the TimeCommand is a perfectly acceptable dual alarm clock with dimmable display. Plug in an iDevice running the free Stem:Connect app, and it can wake you to music or Internet radio, or even turn on a lamp. It has a snooze feature and a battery backup, too, in case the power goes out.

Stem:Connnect won’t show you the latest news, but you can choose your music, adjust the sound, set an alarm, dim the display, and check the weather without leaving the app. The app also includes a graphic equalizer to let you tweak the dock’s sound, which I found performed well, both for playing music and for voice conversations using an app like Bria. The TimeCommand’s round shape is useful for being able to see its clock from various angles, too.

I tried using the TimeCommand with both an iPad and an iPod touch, and found that it interacted well with both. The app has been designed for both screen sizes. Even the dock connector itself can move enough to work without taking your iDevice out of its case (depending on the case’s thickness, of course). It even works with other iPods, like the nano, though obviously you can’t use the iOS app with these.

My only complaint is one that isn’t really the TimeCommand’s fault. It gets its time from the iDevice, and updates itself automatically when docked. Unfortunately, Wi-Fi iPads and iPod touches have no way of maintaining accurate time from an online server, so you’ll need to make sure the device is set correctly.

The TimeCommand is available for $99, which is a little pricey — you could buy a Chumby One for less than that — but if you already have an iDevice, the TimeCommand might be a useful place to park it, by your bed or your easy chair.

Disclaimer: The TimeCommand was provided to us by the manufacturer for the purposes of this review.

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Here at TheAppleBlog, we spend all day working on how-tos and tutorials to help you get the most out of your Apple products. But then we thought: Maybe we should ask you what you need to know.

We’ve come up with a new idea that we’re calling Ask TAB. Once a month, we’re going to run a post asking you for ideas. If there’s something Apple-related you wish you knew how to do, or do more easily — from the basics like rearranging your Mac’s Dock to advanced topics such as setting up file sharing between a Mac and a PC — leave a comment below. We’ll go through all the suggestions, assign a bunch to writers and post the articles throughout August.

The more of you who get involved and ask questions, the better this will work. Since Lion has just been released, why not ask a question about the latest version of OS X? Post anything that comes to mind. If we’ve run an article on it, we’ll point you in the right direction with a link to something from our huge archive of content.

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The model I got my hands on is for the 17-in MacBook Pro. Inside the box, you will find the plastic base along with the following cables: Ethernet, FireWire 800, USB Extenders (3) and audio (2). Not included are a MagSafe power adapter or a DisplayPort cable. You can order DisplayPort extenders and adapters from the Henge Docks site that are guaranteed to have enough slack for the dock. I would recommend buying another power adapter since removing the one used in the dock becomes rather tedious if you do it frequently. Assembly is a little tricky, but the ability to choose which ports you want to extend is worth it. It took about a half hour to assemble everything and the end result seems pretty secure.

I started by feeding the wires through with the dock laying on its side. After about half the connectors were hooked up, I flipped everything up to its normal position and hooked up the remaining connectors.

One thing that was confusing is why the audio connectors are shaped to fit into a particular slot on the dock but the other end of the cables aren’t marked as to which is headphone or line-in. Just remember which you feed through which hole.

The hardest part was getting the DisplayPort to VGA adapter to fit. I would recommend purchasing one of the official Henge Docks adapters or at least their DisplayPort extender, it will save you some trouble.

When it’s all put together, it works rather well. The manual states that you should never rock or carry the dock around with a MacBook docked. You’ll notice right away that it can be top-heavy, so place it on secure surface that doesn’t wobble to avoid accidents.

The only real drawbacks to the Henge Docks system are that you can’t access the power button or the FaceTime camera. If you accidentally shutdown the MacBook, you’ll have to un-dock the computer to open it up and power it back on. Since running the MacBook in clamshell mode is the whole point of a dock, you’ll have to get yourself an external USB webcam if you want to be able to do video chat.

With limited options for docking stations, the Henge Dock does everything it claims to. If you want to pretty up your desk, and you frequently switch between desktop and portable configurations with your MacBook, the Henge Dock is an idea companion that will save you many unpleasant plugging and unplugging rituals.

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At first, I resisted getting the dock, opting instead for the Apple iPad case. When using the iPad in the case, it is possible to set the iPad on its edge and use the bluetooth keyboard to type. Possible, but not elegant. The case is malleable and unstable, so while the case can balance the iPad on its edge, to interact with the touch interface still requires both hands. If you don’t use one hand to steady the iPad, the first time you try to tap on a word in Pages you’ll knock your iPad onto its back. I’ve done this more than once and it makes a sickening sounding “whack” noise.

The case isn’t all bad. Using the case in its other, more stable position, laying down with the small edge at the back, lifts the iPad up to a perfect reading angle, and a good angle to type using the software keyboard. Once you try to use the bluetooth keyboard at this angle though, it becomes much more awkward, since the screen is sitting farther back.

There is no way to dock the iPad while it’s in the case, but sliding it out of the case is fairly easy. The dock is small, and at first I was worried about how stable the iPad would be resting in it. It turns out that its much more stable than I expected. The dock is surprisingly heavy and solid, reassuringly so, and most importantly it doesn’t distract with worry about the iPad tipping over like it does with the case.

I’m not convinced that the Apple dock is the best stand for the iPad, but I am convinced of the usefulness of the dock for the purpose of writing. Combining the dock with a bluetooth keyboard and Pages is one of the most elegant and relaxing writing experiences I’ve ever had. I’m looking forward to many long hours with this setup.

I’d love to hear your opinion on the case, the dock, or the software keyboard. Let me know your favorite way to interact with the iPad in the comments!

I’m sorta picky about what I put in my Menu Bar. It probably stems from my MacBook’s 13″ screen turning pixels into a premium. Whatever the case, I audit the icons that are displayed there on a regular basis. If this sounds remotely familiar, the following tip may be a good way to remove System Usage info from the Menu Bar (if you use something like iStat Menus, for example).

The Apple-provided Activity Monitor (found in /Applications/Utilities) is a great source of information about how your system is currently running. Often, when I have a system slow down, or the fan’s running abnormally, a quick peek at Activity Monitor can pinpoint the application that’s gone rogue on me. But better yet, if you don’t want to keep it in view all the time, you can set Activity Monitor to display a selected bit of system info in place of its Dock icon.

It’s a simple setup, you just have to know that the feature is available.

With Activity Monitor open, select the View menu, and then Dock Icon. There are 5 options to view in the Dock Icon:

1. CPU Usage
2. CPU History
3. Network Usage
4. Disk Activity
5. Memory Usage

The CPU Usage display is the cleanest looking by far, while the rest are high contrast line graph style views. I’ll point out too (and this is only tested in Snow Leopard, but I’m guessing it’s valid for Leopard too) that you can right click (or CMD click) the Activity Monitor icon in the Dock, and the same Dock Icon menu is available from there.

You can’t monitor everything at once this way, but if — for example — your CPU seems to be running slow, watching that for a little while may be helpful to you. Of course if you hide your Dock it’s not immediately available all the time, but it still saves you some clutter in your Menu Bar.

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PowerBook Duo: A hint of things to come?

PC Mag’s Sascha Segan posed an intriguing question the other day: “If you put a smartphone in a dock, it could replace a netbook. So why hasn’t anyone succeeded at doing that?”

Good question.

Now that I’ve been thinking about it, the idea of a dock into which you could pop an iPhone or an iPod touch, thereby quickly connecting it to a decent-sized external display, keyboard and mouse, some USB ports, Ethernet, and maybe an SD Card slot, you would have, if not best of both worlds, at least an attractive hybrid.

A dockable smartphone/Internet computer would no doubt cost more than a PC netbook, but it could also be much more versatile, and arguably a better overall value.

Indeed, external input device support over Bluetooth alone would make handhelds much more appealing to me. As Segan observes, with “65,000 apps for the iPhone alone, it’s hard to believe that there aren’t thousands of people who would want to use those apps with a nice big keyboard and screen.”

Of course, to make a docked iPhone or iPod touch truly competitive with the netbook segment, it would require driver tweaking and some re-engineering to support the necessary hardware inputs and outputs. There’s also the issue of what Segan refers to as “the OS problem,” specifically: The iPhone OS as presently configured is not really up to the job of supporting the kind of robust productivity apps that can run on a netbook under Linux, Windows, or OS X.

I’ve long been a fan and admirer of the Apple PowerBook Duo concept from the early to mid ’90s. It combined a subcompact laptop module that could be used as a freestanding notebook, and a Duo Dock with a full-size CRT monitor, a full set contemporary of I/O ports, and internal expansion slots for desktop power with few compromises.

Toward the end of the ’90s, laptop computers became powerful, versatile, and gained improved connectivity and display options. Many of the the Duo’s advantages were negated, but it seems to me quite logical that the PowerBook Duo concept could be successfully updated, using a handheld instead as its “core module.”

Indeed, it’s so logical that it seems a wonder no one has yet acted on the idea. Segan thinks the reason is that Apple and the wireless carriers don’t want it to happen. Presently, folks who have both a smartphone and a netbook need two wireless service subscriptions, whereas our proposed dockable handheld hybrid device would theoretically only require one. As for keyboard-supporting iPhones, he thinks that won’t happen because Apple doesn’t want to erode MacBook sales.

All that sounds a bit conspiratorial, but also lamentably plausible. Even so, look at the issue from the angle of a similar new product category. While Microsoft has a complicated relationship with the netbook phenomenon, and Apple is downright contemptuous, consumers voted with their wallets and made the netbook the hottest-selling category in computers. Now that the dam has burst as it were, Microsoft is playing ball with the netbook-optimized edition of Windows 7.

I think platform convergence and rationalization between the smartphone and netbook spaces could likewise catch the consumer imagination and take on a life of its own. It seems just too good an idea to be able to keep suppressed indefinitely.

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My interpretation of minimalism in the home office is removing all distracting items that are not constantly utilized. For software, this is both easy and cheap. Becoming a hardware minimalist is slightly more expensive and time consuming and I recommend reading Apartment Therapy’s Unplggd for recommendations.

Minimal Mac

I recently discovered a website called Minimal Mac, and it is rapidly climbing the charts as my favorite blog. Naturally, it has a simple design that utilizes plenty of white space. Reading this blog has inspired me to clean up my iMac by reducing the clutter. Below are a few quick and easy steps to help you reach software bliss.

Clean Up Your Desktop

Open Preferences for the Finder and deselect everything. Organize your files in the Documents folder. Doing this will remove all files, folders, hard drives, etc. from your desktop.

Empty Out Your Menu Bar

Do you always use the same Wi-Fi network? Remove the Wi-Fi icon in the Network System Preferences. Time machine backs up every hour automatically, so there’s no need for the icon. Are you unsure if it’s AM or PM? First, get more sleep. Second, remove it in the Date & Time System Preferences. Use your keyboard to change the volume? Remove the Volume icon in Sound System Preferences. You get the idea.

For extra credit you can remove the Spotlight icon using Onyx, a thorough maintenance and optimization tool.

Warning: disabling the icon also disables the hot key to activate Spotlight. Only do this if you don’t use Spotlight or if you’re satisfied with using Command-F in the Finder.

Simplify Your iTunes Controller

The built-in mini controller for iTunes is simple to use, but it’s definitely too large and distracting. I recently discovered the perfect app for reducing your iTunes controller to a single line of text. It’s called Bowtie. It offers a variety of cool themes, but the one that is consistent with this post is Simple Bar. It provides previous and next buttons, the artist, the title, and rating controls.

I don’t usually rate songs in iTunes, so I got fancy and removed the stars from the Simple Bar theme by modifying its plist and html files.

Forget About iChat

Start using Adium. It’s extremely customizable and it supports a slew of networks (including Twitter). Below is a screenshot of my preferences that made my buddy list virtually unnoticeable.

Empty Out Your Dock

Leave only the most essential applications in your dock. For me that’s Mailplane, Adium, Safari, Google Reader Fluid app, iTunes, and Tweetie.

Search for a Desktop background

Find a desktop background that is both soothing and non-distracting. For me, that’s a nature-related black and white photo. Here’s the one I chose. You can find more by searching Flickr.

Ten Minutes Later

Below is my new desktop after following these steps. Smaller dock, quiet buddy list, empty menubar, serene background, clean desktop.

What are some ways you keep your Mac minimal?

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Do you own 20 iPhones or iPods? Do you need a bulky beast of a charging solution for them? Then set aside your energy-related woes, as we’ve found just the device for you.

Designed by Parat Solutions, the Parasync is a multi-port charging hub. The mammoth device can simultaneously recharge up to 20 iPhones or iPod devices, supporting the iPod touch, classic and even 4G nano. Although it’s not an official Apple device, the Parasync is available in a traditional Macbook white.

Oddly enough, the portly power device works just like a traditional sync cable, connected to your Macbook via USB. Once plugged in, you’re able to open iTunes and view every single device that is plugged into the giant dock. While the iPhones and iPods are charging, you’re even able to drag and drop content from the iTunes library to the devices and sync as normal.

Notably, Para Solutions has also designed a big brother for the Parasync, the clumsily named Paradidact. This humongous device can simultaneously charge up to 24 Macbooks. It’s also designed to provide a safe method of storing and transporting multiple devices. For the doubters, Parat has produced a wonderful demonstration video for this “computer room on wheels.”

It may look like the Parasync has been designed especially for over-enthusiastic Apple fanboys, but there’s actually a legitimate use for this huge dock. The manufacturers suggest that it could be used to charge multiple iPhones or iPods at a multitude of venues, including museums, universities, service centers and tourist resorts.

While most iPod and iPhone users certainly won’t have a need for this gargantuan charging machine, it’s certainly a viable charging-solution for corporate and public use. Check out the promotional video below, and enjoy the dreamy trance soundtrack.

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When Apple introduced the Dock with OS X, people immediately either loved it or hated it. Over time, we all got used to it. Among some of the usability complaints about the Dock is the fact that, without hacking, you can’t simply get rid of it. Hiding the Dock will only get you so far — it still pops up at inopportune times. If you’re frustrated by the inability to completely hide the Dock, there is a simple solution.

I know what you’re going to say. “Just hide the Dock; it’s simple.” While that is true, it’s not a complete solution. Hiding the Dock doesn’t really get rid of it, rather it just moves it off the screen — barely. Moving your mouse, even slightly, to the edge of the screen brings the Dock back into full view, and launching a new app makes the icon bounce into view even when the Dock is hidden.

I love the convenience of the Dock, but there are times when I’m working in certain apps like iMovie, iPhoto, Photoshop and a few others in which application icons, windows and scroll bars go right to the edge of the screen. Trying to use certain elements in those apps which are close to the edge almost always invokes the Dock, causing a brief yet annoying interruption in my workflow. At the same time, I want access to the Dock without a trip to the Terminal or other convoluted method to bring it back on screen.

Dock Gone System Preference Pane

Enter Dock Gone, by Old Jewel Software. Dock Gone is an OS X System Preference Pane which allows you to turn off the Dock completely, not just hide it.

Like any great Mac application, Dock Gone offers more than one option to turn on and off your Dock: via the Preference Pane, a menubar icon, or a keyboard shortcut — which you can customize any way you like. You can even have it play a system sound when the Dock is turned on and off.

Dock Gone menubar options

Turning off the Dock using any method available with Dock Gone results in the Dock gently sliding off the screen, and playing the system sound if you have that setting turned on. Beyond the menubar icon, which you can hide if you so choose, you’ll not even notice it’s there — a great usability trait.

Whether or not you feel that such an app is worth having, I can say that Dock Gone performs as advertised, with perhaps the only ill side effect of using 9.2MB of my RAM to do nothing 99.9 percent of the time. Still, if the default behavior of the Dock is disruptive enough to you, it’s probably worth putting up with.

Dock Gone works on any Mac that can run OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or higher, and a single-user license is $14.95. A 15-day demo is available for download from the Dock Gone site.

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This post will explore the different possibilities open to you, outline a variety of relevant websites and applications, along with providing a walkthrough of how to alter the style of your Dock.

Brief history of the Dock

As mentioned above, the Dock has been present since the very early days of OS X. Through the years, it has undergone a few major design changes.

OS X Puma and Cheetah

OS X Tiger and Panther

OS X Leopard

These changes haven’t always been met favorably, particularly the reflections and gloss featured in the new Leopard dock (personally, I’ve never been a major fan). Ars Technica, along with others, have raised interesting critical points.

In-Built OS X Options

With recent updates to Leopard, Apple ha re-enabled the level of customization found in previous versions of OS X. It is possible to move the Dock to the left or right of your monitor, and experience a slightly different design. Other options such as auto-hiding and using different minimize effects are still available.

Many Mac users prefer to align the Dock to the side of the screen, making the most of the widescreen real estate present on new machines. These limited in-built options don’t come close to justifying a whole post on customizing your Dock, however, and far more fun can be had when third party applications are used to change its appearance.

Other Software Options

The Dock, as with any OS item, is made up of a collection of different images. Shortly after the release of Leopard, people found where these image ‘resources’ were located, and experimented with swapping them for others. As this is a fairly technical operation, several different Dock manipulation tools have abounded which are able to swap the image resources automatically. I’m only going to focus on a couple, so it’s worth searching for others if the ones mentioned don’t fit your needs. Here is a quick run-down of the main tools available:

• Mirage – Clear all background material from your Dock
• CandyBar – Complete customization control over the Dock
• SuperDocker – Simple utility for making changes
• Dock Library – Another simple swapping utility

Obviously, in addition to any of these applications, you’ll need to find a set of Dock resources which suit the look you are aiming for. A site called (very appropriately) Leopard Docks catalogs a huge range of different themes which you’ll be able to apply through the above applications. Jack Rebel also has a few nice options.

CandyBar is arguably the most popular option for quickly customizing your dock, so here is a quick walkthrough of the process.

Step 1: Download and install CandyBar.

Step 2: Head over to Leopard Docks to choose and download a Dock that catches your eye.

Step 3: Open CandyBar and select the ‘Dock’ icon in the top left corner.

Step 4: Drag and drop your downloaded Dock resources into the appropriate location on the right hand side. The files in the zip you downloaded from Leopard Docks should be appropriately named to make it obvious which ones to drag where.

Step 5 & 6: You will then need to enter your password (CandyBar requires authorization in order to replace the system files making up your dock), and then agree to restart your Dock (to refresh the graphics). If all goes well, you should then be looking at a delightful updated Dock style:

It’s important to note that CandyBar makes it easy to revert your Dock back to the original style if you grow tired of the altered version. It’s as simple as clicking ‘Restore’ in the top right corner, so you don’t need to worry about experimenting with a questionable ‘grass’ dock…

A Few Examples

Here are a few examples of some truly lick-able Docks to boost your levels of inspiration:

A wooden theme:

A ‘slick retro’ dock, with a glossy silver feel:

For all you chocolate lovers out there:

And finally, a dock to complement the default Leopard wallpaper – Aurora:

Conclusion

No longer does the Dock need to be an untouchable part of your system look and feel. With the tools outlined you’re able to take control and change it for the better (or worse –some themes are truly awful). I hope you have fun experimenting, and please feel free to look at our earlier customizing articles relating to wallpapers and icon applications if you grow tired of applying different Dock themes.

I’m always interested to see new themes and effects, so please feel free to post a link to screenshot below and share the masterpiece you’ve managed to create!

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Most people know that when you want to remove an app from your dock, you simply need to right click it then drag it to the desktop. The first few times it disappeared in a puff of “smoke”  you probably thought it was cool but if you’re over it now, it’s possible to change that “poof” to  a twirl, fade, or anything else that strikes your fancy.

First, locate the file that contains the animation. Navigate to /System/Library/Core Services. Hold down the control key, then click Dock and choose Show Package Contents. When the Dock window opens, select Contents > Resources.

Locate the file called poof.png and click to open. Gasp in surprise when you find out that it’s really just a five-frame graphic that can easily be replaced with your own file. 

Use Photoshop, Seashore, Comic Life, or the image editor of your choice to create a cool new graphic that, like the existing file, measures 640 pixels tall. Then just save the new file and restart your system. 

Poof, now you have yourself a new dock animation!

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1. Does the application have a good icon? I mean some of the developers are great programmers, but they desperately need a graphic artist to design them some justice. I don’t hide my dock, so if I have to look at it I want it to be pretty.
2. Do I get convenient options or controls from the Dock’s contextual menu? Take for example, Mail lives in my dock for many useful reasons. One of these is the options I get from right-clicking on Mail’s Dock icon.

   With this I can immediately check my mail as well as create a new message or note. Did you also know that if you drag an item on the Mail icon it will attach the item to a new message? I do this frequently all day and its become part of my workflow.

3. Is the application used daily? I love being able to come to work in the morning and have immediate access to the things I need to do in my Dock. I used to fill it up with Applications, but with this little hack you can enable the Recent Applications menu in the Dock. I’ve found I really only use about 10 applications a day anyway.
4. Files and folders have to have many of these criteria as well. Most of the folders I put in my dock are current project folders, network volumes (they automatically connect if you put them in the Dock), and Downloads.

There you have it, very basic criteria for getting into the Dock. Its prime real estate for developers and more importantly Mac users.

What criteria do you have for your Dock?

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Installation

To ‘install’ them, go to /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock and click on the gear icon in the Finder window.

Select “Show Package Contents” and then go to Contents/Resources/ and copy these files in. They will replace the system images, so be sure to backup the originals!

Download Sky
Download Wood

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