Pair your remote with your Mac

If there are multiple Macs around when you’re using your remote, you’ll find that pressing a button once will perform the same action on every nearby Mac. To solve this problem, you can pair the remote specifically with a single target Mac. Open System Preferences, and then open the Security & Privacy pane.

At the bottom is a button labelled Pair…. Click this button, then follow the instructions that appear by holding the remote near your Mac and holding down the Menu and Next buttons on the remote. (Next is the button on the right-hand side of the ring at the top of the remote.)

Once you’ve done this, your remote and your Mac will be paired, meaning that using that remote will only control that one Mac.

Send your Mac to sleep with the remote

When using your Mac as a media center, you may wish to put the computer to sleep once you’re done. To do this quickly, you can use your remote. All you need to do is hold down the Play/Pause button on the remote. After a few seconds, a graphic will appear on the screen and your Mac will go to sleep.

Set up custom actions for your remote

By downloading the free utility BetterTouchTool, you can set up custom actions, which will be performed when you press specific buttons on your remote. This is great if you don’t use your remote for controlling iTunes or FrontRow, since you can override the default actions (play, next, pause, etc).

Once you’ve downloaded BetterTouchTool, you can add custom actions (called Gestures in BTT) by clicking its icon in the menu bar and choosing Preferences. Click Gestures at the top, then Apple Remote and other.

Next, click Add new gesture at the bottom of the screen. You can then select a ‘gesture’, i.e. a button on the remote, from the drop down in the lower left. After that, choose an action from the other drop down in the bottom right corner, or type a keyboard shortcut in the box.

For instance, you could set up an action which locks your computer when you hold down the Menu button on the remote by setting the gesture to Menu, Holding and the action to Show Loginscreen. (Note that since OS X doesn’t have an explicit ‘lock’ feature, this is the next best thing since it requires you to enter your password to get back into your Mac afterwards.)

Change the startup disk and eject CDs

As your Mac starts up, if you hold the Menu button on the remote, you’ll see the same menu as if you hold the Option key on the keyboard – a list of available startup disks. You can then use the remote to select a disk, and boot from it using the Play/Pause button.

In the same menu, you can also use the Volume Up button to eject a CD or DVD after selecting it.

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The design

The Cosmonaut is designed to be more like a marker than a regular pen. The tip is wide, which may make you think it’d be less accurate, but surprisingly, it’s one of the most accurate styluses I’ve used. This is mostly due to the structure of the tip; it’s made of rubber which pushes in slightly and isn’t too flexible. (Some other styluses, such as the Griffin iPad stylus, are completely flexible which gives a horrible experience when writing). The stylus moves across the screen with the same fluidity as a dry erase marker on a whiteboard, which I find exceedingly nice to use.

It may just be me, but I’ve found that sometimes when pushing hard on the screen with the Cosmonaut, the rubber rubs against the aluminium core inside and gives the stylus a ‘scraping’ feeling. However, this is only a problem if you push too hard with the stylus. Bear this in mind if you plan on lending your Cosmonaut to young children – it’s unlikely, but repeated rubbing against the core may split the rubber tip.

The thick ‘barrel’ of the stylus makes writing and drawing more comfortable than with any other stylus I’ve used. Since it’s made of soft rubber, it’s a lot easier on the hand than the metal that makes up most styluses. I’d pay good money for someone to offer regular pens with the same rubber barrel.

The one issue I have with the design is more to do with my OCD tendencies, but the absolute blackness of the rubber means any dust that gets trapped on the rubber is very noticeable.

Usage

I find the Cosmonaut very easy to use, since its design encourages you to hold it further up the barrel, like you would with a marker pen. This means that there is little chance of accidentally resting your hand on the iPad screen.

The entire tip can be used as the contact point with the screen, which means the Cosmonaut can be used at any angle – very useful if you hold it in a strange way, like I do (I never learned the ‘proper’ way to grip a pen, so this is perfect for me).

Its weight means that it’s very rare that a touch isn’t recognised, since it keeps itself in contact with the screen. You also get a very satisfying feeling when dotting your I’s or tapping on-screen buttons with it.

Should you buy it?

In my opinion, this is currently the best iPad stylus available; comfortable, accurate and good-looking, too. The quality of manufacturing also seems to guarantee it will last a long time, unlike some styluses I’ve tried before. Whatever you plan to do with it, a Cosmonaut is a great purchase and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. You can pick one up for $25 on Studio Neat’s website.

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Welcome to another installment of Tips and Tricks, the series that aims to teach you something new about your Apple stuff. This time, we’ll be taking a look at Siri on the iPhone 4S and how changing one or two words in your query can produce completely different results.

Dateless reminders

Sometimes, you might want to use iOS 5′s new Reminders app as more of a checklist, rather than being reminded at a certain time for each item. Using the normal Siri query, Remind me to…, you’ll be asked to give a time or place to be reminded. In order to add a ‘dateless’ reminder, you can say one of two things. Either use Add … to my … list, which will add the item to the named list, if you have one set up, or you can use Remember to… to add the reminder to your default list without giving it a date.

Stop Siri tripping over words like Christmas

When setting up reminders, Siri can get a bit confused if your reminder contains words such as ‘Christmas’ or ‘Easter’. Instead of setting the reminder up for the date you say, it’ll ignore that date and set it up for 9 AM on the day you mentioned. However, after a bit of playing around with word order, it turns out that this only happens if you mention the holiday day before the date on which you want to be reminded.

Say Remind me to buy Christmas presents on December fifth, and Siri will create a reminder for Christmas day at 9 AM. However, say Remind me on December fifth to buy Christmas presents, and your reminder will be created exactly as intended. As long as you tell Siri the date for the reminder first, you should have no problems.

Distinguish between a text and an email

When using the syntax Send a message to…, Siri will send either an iMessage or an SMS (depending on whether the recipient has iMessage or not). However, if you start the sentence with Write a message instead of Send a message, then your message will be sent as an email instead.

Change spelling or find alternative interpretations

Perhaps when using Siri or when using the dictation feature, you may have noticed blue dotted lines under select words in the text. This means that either alternative spellings are available, or Siri thinks it’s possible you said something slightly different. Tap the underlined word, and a menu similar to the copy/paste menu will appear, allowing you to select the suggested alternatives.

Do you have any tips of your own for using Siri more effectively? Share them below in the comments.

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What you’ll need

All you need is any iOS device; this works with all versions of iOS, and only uses a website to set up the icons on the home screen. The only thing to keep in mind is to make sure you only add icons for settings your device actually has; for example, using the website, it’s possible to set up a shortcut to the Siri settings page, but only the iPhone 4S has that settings page, so the link will break on other devices.

Method

1. To get started, use your iOS device to open the IconSettings page, over on iPhoneZA. Scroll down and you’ll see a long list of links with the names of pages from the Settings app.
2. Tap one of the links to open a new page. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to open in Settings; tap cancel, because you still need to be in Safari for now.
3. Tap the Action icon in the toolbar, which looks like an arrow coming out of a box, then tap Add to Home Screen. A new sheet will slide in, allowing you to rename the shortcut if you wish. Wait a couple of seconds, and an icon will appear in the square to the left of the text field.
   
4. Tap Add at the top of the screen, and the icon will be added to your home screen. It can be moved and deleted in the same way as a regular app icon. Tap the icon, and you’ll be taken to the corresponding page in Settings. You can add as many of these to your home screen as you wish.
   

Things to consider

First of all, don’t worry about breaking any rules doing this; it’s all above-board, since these icons are simple links using Apple’s “prefs:” URL scheme. It’s the same as when a developer uses a custom URL scheme, so Apple is fine with people using it.

It’s also worth noting that although these shortcuts can make it easier to access buried settings pages with one touch, this isn’t quite the same as the popular jailbreak app, SBSettings, which actually toggles settings when you tap the icon, not just take you to the Settings app. However, short of jailbreaking, this is the best alternative.

Finally, you may notice that some of these don’t save much time over simply opening Settings. For example, Wi-Fi is right at the top of Settings, so it only takes a few seconds to open it manually. However, some of the other available icons are quite handy; for instance, Bluetooth is buried under General, and so takes a few taps to open. Using IconSettings makes accessing the Bluetooth settings a lot faster.

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Starting a group message

To start a group conversation, open Messages and tap the compose button in the top right corner, which looks like a pencil inside a square.

You’ll be taken to the New Message screen, which contains the “To:” field. On the right edge of the screen is a blue plus icon, which you can tap to select a contact to add to the conversation. You can also type a person’s name, phone number or email address directly into the field to add them that way. If you do add multiple people, the message will be sent to all the people listed, forming a group conversation automatically.

Participating in a group conversation

If you receive an iMessage as part of a group chat, the conversation’s entry in the Messages app will have the group icon (which looks like the silhouette of two people) to the left of it.

It’s easy to tell which participant sent the message even in a group chat; the person’s name will appear above the message itself when you look at the conversation.

When you reply to the conversation, everyone will receive the message.

Limits of group iMessage conversations

There are a few caveats when using iMessage for group conversations. Firstly, when adding contacts to the conversation, make sure you enter everyone’s name the first time, because the participants of a group chat can’t be edited after the first message has been sent. In order to add people after that, you’ll have to set up an entirely new conversation.

Another thing to keep an eye on when setting up a group chat is that the bubbles in the To field stay blue. If they turn green, it means that one of the recipients can’t receive iMessages, so the entire conversation will be sent using SMS instead. If this happens, wait a few seconds in case they turn blue again, as sometimes it takes a second to check that all recipients are able to use iMessage. You can still send group messages via SMS, but it won’t have all the features of iMessage.

Something else to know

The good news is that anything you can send in an iMessage to a single person can be sent in a group message. That’s text, photos, videos, audio and contacts. However, it’s not clear whether sending a group iMessage uses more mobile data than a single message does, so keep an eye out when sending attachments to multiple people that you don’t go over any usage limits you may have on your plan.

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Updating Twitter

To start using Twitter with Siri, you’ll need to set up your phone on your Twitter mobile settings page. In order to register your phone, follow the steps on that page by entering your country and phone number, then sending an SMS containing the word ‘GO’ to the number displayed. In the U.S., this is 40404. By doing this, you’re verifying your phone with Twitter.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll be able to tweet by sending an SMS to that same number. Add it as a contact in your iPhone’s address book, and then to get Siri to tweet for you, all you have to do is dictate a message to “Twitter.” It’ll then send an SMS with the tweet to Twitter, which will in turn post that tweet for you.

Posting a Facebook status update

To update Facebook, the same method applies. In order to verify your phone with Facebook, visit the Mobile Settings page and click Add a phone. You’ll be prompted to enter your password, and then to select your country and mobile carrier. Finally, text the letter ‘F’ to 32665. You’ll receive a confirmation code, which should be entered into relevant space on the web page.

When your phone is set up with Facebook, you can update your status in the same way as with Twitter, by sending a text to the contact with the Facebook number.

Make your (and Siri’s) life easier

If you find Siri cutting you off because it gets confused about Twitter, you could call Twitter “Twit” and Facebook “Face,” since those are very unlikely names to have in your address book (unless you have a very stupid friend, or you’re a member of the A Team).

If you have any other tips or hacks for Siri, let us know in the comments.

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To add a new word to the dictionary, tap Settings, then navigate to General > Keyboard. At the bottom of the screen, you should see a Shortcuts heading. Don’t be put off by the name; this is the place to teach iOS new words, but it’s called shortcuts because it’s primarily used to create typing shortcuts, similar to TextExpander.

Next, tap the Add New Shortcut… button. You’ll be taken to a new screen with two text fields, labelled Phrase and Shortcut. The important one is Phrase, at the top. This is where you need to type the word you want to add to your dictionary. The Shortcut field, as it says, is optional. That’s where you’d add a shortcut that expands into the phrase you added (more on that in a minute).

After typing in a word or phrase in the first field, tap Save at the top of the screen and your word will be added to the auto-correct dictionary. Now, when you type that word anywhere on your device, auto-correct should leave it alone, and if you spell it slightly wrong, it should suggest that word, too.

My username for almost everything is jobbogamer, so I added it to my dictionary.

If you’d like to enable TextExpander-like functionality, you can fill in the Shortcut field. For example, you could type “eml” as the shortcut, and set the phrase to your email address. After tapping save, whenever you type “eml”, auto-correct will suggest your email address. It’s very useful for words and phrases you type a lot, and since the feature is baked into iOS, it works in every app, not just those with support for TextExpander Touch, which was the way to get this functionality before iOS 5.

Some useful words to add to the dictionary

I’ve found it incredibly useful to add some words to my iPhone’s and my iPad’s dictionaries. For instance, I’ve added all my email addresses (I have quite a few!) with different shortcuts; my main email address is “eml”, my iCloud email address is “ieml”, and my Gmail address is “geml”.

Other helpful words to add are words you’ve made up yourself – I have a few of those, too – and nicknames for people. That way, you won’t have to battle auto-correct to type words that don’t really exist.

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iOS 5 is the biggest update yet to Apple’s mobile operating system. Along with over 100 other features, it brings Notification Center, an improved way to manage push notifications on your iPhone or iPad. Read on to learn how to get started using Notification Center.

What’s a push notification?

Introduced in iOS 3, a push notification is a message sent to your device by an app you have installed. For example, a turn-based multiplayer game may send you a notification to tell you it’s your turn. A lot of apps use push notifications, and a list of the ones on your device that do can be found in Settings > Notifications.

What happens when I receive a notification in iOS 5?

If your device is running iOS 5, then one of two things will happen. If your device is locked (the screen is off), then the screen will turn on temporarily, and the notification will be shown. If you do nothing or are away from your device, notifications will form a list so you can see them all at once.

You can swipe across any of the notifications in this list to open the app they belong to. For example, if you get an SMS, you can swipe across its entry in the list to open the Messages app to reply.

If you are using your iPhone or iPad at the time the notification comes in, it will appear in a banner at the top of the screen, then disappear after a few seconds. This won’t interrupt what you’re currently doing, unlike notifications in iOS 3 and 4, which required you to tap ‘Close’ to dismiss the notification. While these banners are visible, you can tap them to open the corresponding app.

What happens to notifications I don’t respond to straight away?

It might seem like unanswered notifications get sent away, never to be seen again, but don’t worry; iOS 5 is keeping track of them for you. If you’d like to see a list of received notifications, simply swipe downward from the time at the top of your device’s screen. A tray filled with recent notifications, called Notification Center, will slide down. You can then tap a notification in the list to view it in the correct app.

If you’re using an iPhone, this tray will also show a Weather widget and a Stocks widget. These can both be turned off by going to Settings > Notifications, then selecting Weather widget or Stocks widget and sliding the switch to Off.

Can I change which apps show up in Notification Center?

You can indeed, by going to Settings > Notifications, choosing the app you’d like to turn on or off, and changing the Notification Center setting. You can also decide whether apps’ notifications appear in the Lock Screen by changing the setting at the bottom of the screen.

Is there anything else I should know?

When you’re looking at an app’s notification settings, you can decide whether notifications should show up as a banner, an alert, or not at all. An alert is the same as what push notifications were like before iOS 5: when a notification arrives, a box will appear in the middle of the screen, and requires an action to dismiss.

You can also change the order in which notifications show up in the notifications tray: either by time or manually. If you select by time, the most recent notifications will appear at the top of the list. If you select manually, then they will show up grouped by application in the same order you set up in Settings. Once you select to sort them manually, you’ll be able to drag apps around in the list to reorder them.

That’s pretty much all you need to know to get started with Notifications in iOS 5. Any other questions? Feel free to ask in the comments.

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[View the story "Twitter jokes about Siri" on Storify]

Seen any other great jokes about Siri, or have some of your own? Share them in the comments.

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What you’ll need

• A Mac with at least 2 GB of RAM and at least 20 GB of free hard drive space.
• A disc burned using the ISO of the Windows 8 preview, available to download here, with a burning program such as Toast.
• A hard drive backup, in case everything goes pear-shaped.

Method

1. First, open the Boot Camp Assistant, which can be found at Applications > Utilities > Boot Camp. Once opened, you’ll see a screen explaining what Boot Camp does, and warning you to make a backup.
2. After clicking Continue, you’ll be asked whether you want to download Windows support software or if you have it on a CD or DVD. Make sure to select the second option; you won’t actually be installing the support software, since it won’t work with the Windows 8 preview. Then click Continue again.
3. The next step is to choose how large to make the Window partition on your hard drive. A Boot Camp operating system must be installed on a partition of your internal drive; it can’t be used on an external drive. The partition you create should be at least 25 GB in size, so there’s enough room for the OS and anything extra that might end up there, like files or applications. Next, click Partition.
4. Once your drive is partitioned, it’s time to install Windows. Again, the Windows 8 preview needs to be burned to a disc in order to install. Boot Camp should detect the disc once it’s inserted and allow you to continue installing. Click Start Installation. Your computer will now restart and boot from the Windows disc.
5. Follow the instructions on screen. When the installer asks you where to install Windows, select “Disk 0 Partition 3 BOOTCAMP” and then click Drive options (advanced). Choose Format from the options that appear to format the partition to NTFS, the file system Windows requires.
6. Follow the onscreen instructions again. Once Windows has installed, your Mac will automatically restart into Windows.

Since the Boot Camp support software for Windows won’t work with the developer preview, you won’t be able to install the Boot Camp tools on Windows. That means that to boot back into your OS X partition, you’ll need to restart your Mac with the Option key on the keyboard held down. You’ll be shown a list of available startup drives, from which you can choose your main partition where OS X is housed.

Remember this is a developer preview version of Windows 8. That is, it’s essentially alpha software, so things could go very wrong when you use it. Just as Apple suggests when using developer previews of OS X, you might not want to install Windows 8 on your main computer, and make sure to back up before you do any installations.

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