The setting to turn off Siri when an iPhone is passcode-locked isn’t found in the dedicated Siri settings, where you might expect to see it. Instead, head to the iPhone’s Settings app, the go to General > Passcode Lock. Here, under the setting to choose whether or not to use a simple 4-digit passcode, you’ll see an option called “Siri” next to an on/off slider. As the screen itself says, this tells your phone whether or not to allow access to Siri when your phone is passcode-locked.

Note that you must have a passcode active on your device. Siri is always active from the lock screen on devices without passcodes, which makes sense, since your info isn’t protected anyway in that case.

As a bonus, you can also choose to put Siri behind a parental code lock if you choose. Do this in the Settings > General > Restrictions section, once you’ve enabled restrictions. You can choose to lock Siri out altogether, or just lock out its ability to display profanity and explicit language in the Siri interface screens.

If it garners enough negative attention, we might see Apple make Siri inactive from a passcode-locked device by default with the next iOS update, but in the meantime, following the steps above keeps you covered.

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Most Mac users know about the characters which can be accessed by holding down the Option key, such as accented characters using Option + E, and some others such as the Apple symbol —  — using Option + Shift + K. But there are a whole list of other Unicode symbols which can’t normally be accessed with keyboard shortcuts. Normally, you’d open System Preferences, go to Language and Text, enable Character and Keyboard Viewer and access them that way. However, it’s even easier to enable Unicode input, which lets you type the Unicode code for a symbol.

Load up Language and Text in System Preferences, then choose the Input Sources tab. There’s a list of languages on the left. Scroll down the list and check the box next to Unicode Hex Input. You should see a small flag appear in your menu bar, representing the current input language of your keyboard. Click that flag and choose Unicode Hex Input from the list. It’s now possible to type any Unicode character that you know the code for.

To type a character, hold down the Option key, then type in the code for that character. For example, a pencil icon has the code 270E, so you would hold Option and type 2 7 0 E on your keyboard, and a pencil icon will show up, like this one: ✎. For a full list of Unicode characters, you can visit this Wikipedia page.

Obviously it would be difficult to remember the codes for a lot of symbols, but if there are a few you have to use often, I’d recommend doing this instead of resorting to the Character Viewer.

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1. Call 611 or 800-331-0500.
2. Press 1 to use existing number, or enter the wireless number starting with area code.
3. Tap the 3 key to “get help with voicemail.” (5 for enterprise customers)
4. Tap the 3 key to reset your VM password.
5. Enter the Billing Zip code for the account.
6. A temporary password will be sent via SMS
7. Access voicemail with this temporary password.

After performing the above steps, my voicemail was accessible once again, and I didn’t appear to have lost any prior voice mail messages.  AT&T’s support page has several other options available as well, but I found the above to be the quickest and easiest to execute directly from my iPhone.

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This also works in the Finder:

So, how is this useful? Well, say you’re really deep in the hierarchy of a website and the designer of the website hasn’t provided a link back to the homepage. Rather than clicking the back button a bunch of times, you can just command+click the title bar and scroll down to the root, which is a lot faster.

You probably won’t need to use this that often, but it’s still a neat trick to learn, and, as far as I know, this only works in Safari and Finder. If you know of any other applications where this works, tell us in the comments.

Normally clicking and dragging from the top of a window moves the window around on the screen, but clicking, holding on the icon for a second, then dragging picks up just the icon.

Most applications behave similarly when you drag the icon, and also when you add the Option modifier key. Dragging without a modifier key and dropping the icon either into a Finder window or to the Desktop creates an alias (indicated by the cursor turing into a ‘curly’ arrow) to the file which is open in the window you dragged from. You can also drag and drop onto an application’s icon in the Dock to open the file with that application. One last thing you can do is drag into an Open dialog or into an email or chat window to open the file there.

Holding down the Option (⌥) key while you drag creates a copy of the file rather than an alias to it, indicated by the cursor changing to a green plus sign.

Note that this only works when you have a file open that doesn’t have unsaved changes. If you haven’t saved, the icon will be greyed out and you won’t be able to drag it. Also bear in mind that there are some third-party applications which do not behave in the same way. For example, in BBEdit, the functions are reversed, meaning that a simple drag and drop results in a copy, and to create an alias requires the Option key.

Bypass the Dialog Box

Something annoying about shutting down or restarting a Mac is the way that you have to go to the  menu, click Shut Down or Restart then click another button in a dialog box asking, “Are you sure you want to do that?” However, there is a simple way to bypass this dialog box, using a single modifier key on the keyboard. Holding Option and clicking on the command you want gets right down to business and does what you want straight away. You’ll be able to tell because the ellipsis (…) will disappear from the Restart, Shut Down and Log Out commands in the menu. And don’t worry; your unsaved documents are still safe — you’ll still see the “Do you want to save changes?” dialog come up. There’s no way to bypass that.

Bypass the Menu

OK, so that saved a few seconds by eliminating the move from the menu command to the dialog box, but what about saving even more time by using the keyboard instead? There are four key shortcuts for the main commands: Shut Down, Restart, Sleep and Log Out. There’s also one extra that isn’t in the menu: Sleep Display.

The first, which has been labeled in the Apple menu since OS 10.6, is Sleep. The keyboard command is Option + Command + Eject (⌥⌘⏏). This puts the computer straight to sleep without asking you anything. Very handy if you want to dash off somewhere in a hurry.

Next is the shortcut for Log Out, which is also labeled in the menu. However, to bypass the confirmation dialog, you have to add in the Option key, making the shortcut Option + Shift + Command + Q (⌥⇧⌘Q).

To put the displays of your Mac to sleep (I do this in order to let my Mac run a process overnight but still saving power), it’s Control + Shift + Eject (⌃⇧⏏).

Restarting is a simple case of pressing Control + Command + Eject (⌃⌘⏏). Dialogs for unsaved changes will still appear.

Finally, to shut down your Mac using the keyboard, press Control + Option + Command + Eject (⌃⌥⌘⏏).

That’s a lot of key combinations to remember, but even if you use just one of them every day, the amount of time you’ll save will soon add up.

To sort this out, you need to try the old, clichéd “turn it off and turn it back on again” approach. Navigate to the Settings app on your phone and turn on Airplane mode (the orange switch at the top of the first settings page). This deactivates everything — the data network, Wi-Fi, GPS, etc. Leave Airplane mode on for around 15-30 seconds and then turn it back off again. This should fix the problem, and get your iPhone back on the Internet again.

If not — you know exactly what I’m going to say now — turn off the iPhone entirely and turn it on again. If, even after doing that, your phone still won’t connect to the Internet, I’d recommend contacting your network provider and asking them if they know what the problem might be.

As a side note, this works just as well with unresponsive Wi-Fi networks. If it’s happening with Wi-Fi, however, you can turn Wi-Fi off by itself by going to Settings &gt Wi-Fi and turning the switch to off. If that doesn’t work you can try turning the router off and on (if it’s yours), or telling your iPhone to forget the network by tapping the blue arrow in a circle next to the network name and tapping “Forget this network.”

For those interested in cloud computing or data centers, check out our Structure conference in June.

• Yes, I do look small in that photo. That’s because I’m only 16 (and the photo has been resized).
• In regard to #1, I know more than you might expect about computing*.
• I write from my house which is tucked away in the South-East corner of England, so expect posts which seem to have been written in the middle of the night.
• This is my first proper move into the world of tech writing, so I dare say you’ve never heard of me before.
• I first switched in 2007 with the receipt of my 20″ iMac, which I still have today.
• If you visited me, you’d find the iMac, a late-2008 MacBook, two iPhone 3GSs and two iPod touches (2nd generation).

I’m joining TheAppleBlog as the newest How-To and tutorial writer. Look out for my series of ‘Quick Tips’ which will hopefully teach you something useful in a short amount of time. I’m open to feedback, argument, insult etc. in the comments area of my posts, so chatter away.

If you have trouble sleeping at night, try reading my stream of dullness that is @jobbogamer on Twitter.

* Contrary to popular belief, not all teenagers sit on MSN and Facebook all day long.

Apple’s iTunes application is perhaps the most popular app ever installed on the Mac. It’s also one of the least flexible, in terms of customization. There’s little you can do to “make it your own,” so to speak. However, all is not lost for habitual tweakers like myself; the iTunes Visualizer can satisfy your need to not leave well-enough alone.

If you display your iTunes window on a second monitor, or just like to look at the iTunes Visualizer full screen on your 30″ LCD, you should know that you have some really nice options available for customizing the appearance of the Visualizer.

iTunes default Visualizer

Invoking the Visualizer by hitting Command + T (hit Command + F to make it full screen if you wish) then hitting the ? key brings up an overlay on the Visualizer screen containing a few keyboard shortcuts to control various aspects of whichever Visualizer you’re running at the time. But these customizations only go so far. To move beyond minor tweaks to Apple’s built-in Visualizers, you can install a number of truly cool third-party Visualizers which really enhance the iTunes experience.

Download More Visualizers

I’ve put together a list of some of my favorite Visualizers to get you started. This is by no means a complete list, so if you’re looking for even more, I suggest a quick Google search to quench your thirst.

All the Visualizers listed below work perfectly with OS X Leopard, iTunes 8.2, and are free to download and use. Click the preview image to go directly to the download page of each Visualizer.

Punkt Visualizer

Punkt is a Quartz Composer Visualizer that is much cooler than it appears in this screenshot. Colors burst to the beat of your music.

Circle Visualizer

Circle places the track name, artist and album in a circular format, and floats in a 3D space.

Fountain Music Visualizer

Fountain Music is probably one of my favorite Visualizers. It reminds me of the drummers in The Blue Man Group, where water is blasting upwards from the drums, highlighted by bright neon lights as they play. Fountain Music also has a decent amount of customization options, such as particle size and color.

Dragon Visualizer

Dragon features a squishy, squirmy dragon dancing to your music. I almost feel like this one borders on being somewhat icky — but it’s truly awesome.

WhiteCap Visualizer

WhiteCap places dynamic wireframe mesh visuals on your screen, cycling through colors and traveling through space.

Figure Visualizer

Figure places the track title, album, artist and album art on a virtual wall, swiveling around in 3D space.

Bugaboo Visualizer

Bugaboo places colorful dancing lightning bugs on screen. This is another one of those that you have to see to appreciate.

Cubism Visualizer

Cubism brings a Tetris-like appearance to your Visualizer, bouncing blocks to the beat of your music. A 3D cube with the album art mingles among the blocks as well.

Gaslight Visualizer

Gaslight is a customizable frequency spectrum analyzer — kind of old-school, but still quite nice!

Snow Visualizer

Snow, another offering from WowLab, displays colorful snow blowing across your screen. This one is really nice for soothing music after a rough day at the office.

LED Flow Visualizer

LED Flow uses Apple’s Quartz technology to place a colorful level meter in 3D space.

G-Force Visualizer

G-Force, the original awesome third-party Visualizer for iTunes, still going strong with its fractal goodness!

Sing Visualizer

Sing places a friendly little creature in your iTunes window and sings. Sort of. Well, it’s cool to look at anyway.

Jumping Steve Visualizer

Jumping Steve pays homage to Steve Jobs with a cutout jumping jack that dances to the beat. Hit the P key for a special iPod commercial-like silhouette feature.

Don’t forget that different Visualizers will offer disparate customization options, the level of which (if any) varies between minor, and fairly major stuff — it just depends on the developer, and how much time they bothered to put in. Don’t forget to hit the ? key to find out what options are available to you.

If you’ve never installed a plugin or other add-on to iTunes, Visualizers are a great place to start. They’re simple, require little effort to get up and running, and typically they either work or they don’t, with no ill side-effects.

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Having used Microsoft Office for many years, despite my utter disdain for it, nobody was happier than me when Apple launched the iWork applications. For my light office application needs, Pages, Keynote and Numbers are just perfect. Here are a few tips I use to make my time in the iWork apps a little easier.

Multiple Inspector Palettes

If you use any of the iWork ’09 apps on a daily basis, you’ve no doubt been frustrated by the fact that you’re forever clicking different Inspector tabs to get to various features. Wouldn’t it be handy if you could have more than one Inspector palette open at a time, with different tabs displayed? Thankfully, Apple offers a way to do just that in all the iWork applications.

Multiple Inspector palettes in iWork apps

Hold down the Option key while clicking any of the tab icons at the top of the Inspector palette to have a new palette open with that group of settings showing. This works in Pages, Keynote and Numbers.

Saving Palette Locations

Open and arrange multiple iWork Inspector palettes in all three iWork apps and they’ll be “saved” for the next time you launch an app, opening in the same location as you last left them. As obvious as it may seem, many users never even notice this feature.

Using Document File Info

The Document tab of the Document Inspector palette in Pages contains some great features. Here you can view raw stats of your document, such as word and character count, enter author, title, and keyword info, and file comments.

At the bottom of the palette, just below where Pages indicates how many times the document has been printed, you’ll find a Show File Info button. Clicking this button opens the File Info box of your document in the Finder. From there, you can adjust permissions, hide the file extension, view more data about your file, and enter Spotlight comments for easy searching.

Saving Spotlight comments in Pages '09

The one thing that I’m left wondering is why Apple didn’t have Pages automatically place the Comments from within the Document Info palette into the Spotlight Comments area in the Get Info box, instead of forcing you to copy/paste.

Keynote and Numbers offer the same feature in their Document Inspector palette.

Protecting your files

Password Protecting Files

In iWork ’09, Apple added the ability to password protect your documents. Microsoft Office apps have had this feature for quite a long time, so it’s nice to finally see it in iWork’s applications.

In the same Document tab of the Document Inspector at the bottom, you’ll find a checkbox, which when clicked will pop open a dialog box where you can enter a password and hint for your file. This is a great addition to the iWork suite, especially if you work in a server/multi-user environment.

M.I.A.: Drag & Drop

Much of the Mac OS offers the ability to drag and drop files, text, and images from one app to another. For some inexplicable reason, iWork apps are different. Though you can drag text from one app to another, you can’t do the same with objects and images. For this reason, you should keep the Media Browser palette open to make it easy to drag images into your documents from iPhoto, or folders located on your hard drive.

Adding More Shadow

You probably know you can add a shadow to your text simply by selecting the text container and clicking the Shadow button in the main toolbar. If you’re looking for a bit more from your shadow, try adding a second one.

Adding a second drop shadow to text in Pages

Once you’ve customized the appearance of your shadow using the Graphic Inspector, select the text itself (rather than the text container) and apply a second shadow using the Fonts palette Shadow button. A second shadow will appear beneath your text, which is completely customizable separate from the original shadow.

While these tips are certainly not Earth-shattering, I hope I’ve been able to share at least one tip you didn’t know about. How about you, do you have any handy tips for using any of the iWork applications?

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