Bartender: A Menu Bar Cop

Do you suffer from menu bar overload? You know, when you've installed so many things on your Mac that keep a menu bar icon active that you've run out of space up there, or your menu bar is so "busy" you have trouble finding what you're looking for. Well, for 15 bucks you can reign in the clutter with Bartender.

First, I'd like to bitch a little...

Note to developers: When you write an app intended to run constantly, give users the choice to turn off your menu bar icon! I'm not going to call out anyone here, but knuckleheads who do this know who they are.

OK, on to business. There's a couple of reasons you may have limited space on your menu bar. If you use a Mac with a lower-resolution screen like a 13" MacBook Pro (1280 X 800), you may simply not have enough pixels to get a whole lot up there. Or, if you're like me, you run apps to keep track of what's happening on your Mac like iStat Menus or MenuMeters. Either of these can quickly fill up a menu bar if you elect to keep lots of meters displaying. No matter what the reason, an over-crowded menu bar can be confusing and unsightly. If you do have lots of screen like a 27" iMac, it's easy to fill the menu bar over time with so much stuff you get into a "forest for the trees" situation, making finding a particular menu bar item amongst the clutter a real chore.

Bartender creates a second, auto-hiding, drop-down menu bar (the Bartender Bar) for holding those menu bar icons you may only need occasionally but don't want to turn off completely. My Bartender bar holds Unclutter, TextExpander and all my various (and numerous) cloud storage items like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.net, Carbonite, etc. In all, I keep nine items there, reducing the space used on my main menu bar by a third.

If you're worried that Bartender might "cubbyhole" items and prevent you from seeing important notifications, never fear. For any third-party app, Bartender will put its icon back on the menu bar whenever the icon needs to notify you about something. You can set how long it stays there from 5 seconds to 10 minutes and just about anywhere in between. In any case, the Bartender bar is only a click or hotkey away. For apps written by the afore-mentioned knuckleheads, Bartender lets you hide their menu bar icons altogether if you wish.  System icons get pretty much the same treatment save the ability to move them back to the menu bar automatically.

So, if you're running out of room, getting cluttered or just like a minimalist look for your menu bar, $15 is what it will cost for Bartender to make things right. If you're not sure, you can download it at macbartender.com and try it for a month for free. That's what I did. When the clock ran out on my iMac I turned Bartender off for a couple of days. I really missed it. After trying to manually turn menu bar icons off and turning some apps off in an attempt to clean up my menu bar, I surrendered and ponied up. Fifteen bucks may not be the deal of the century, but for me it was money well-spent for an app that does one thing and does it very well.

iOS 7: Apple Takes Queue From Jailbreakers

We've all been conditioned to take keynote pronouncements with a grain of salt. So when Tim Cook said iOS 7 is the biggest change to the iPhone since its introduction, I had my doubts. Once the iOS 7 presentation completed at yesterday's WWDC keynote, my doubts changed to excitement. After installing the beta this morning and playing with it for a couple of hours I became convinced Mr. Cook was being truthful.
In March my iOS developer registration came up for annual renewal. I admit to being hesitant about giving Apple another $107 ($99 + tax) for twelve months access to the full developer resources on Apple's site. Today I was glad I did. One of the benefits of being a registered iOS developer is access to beta builds of iOS. Once Apple's servers became unclogged I downloaded the 1.2 gig file containing the beta and immediately installed it on my iPhone 5. The decision to do so didn't take long even though I would be giving up my jailbreak and a dozen or so apps I paid for in the Cydia Store. Believe me, I didn't come by my decision lightly, but by the time the 2 hour keynote was over I knew that iOS 7 was something I had to have. I suppose some remnant of the "reality distortion field" still exists.
Installing the new operating system was as simple as always. It did require a complete restore, but that is to be expected. After all, it is a beta version. That being said, once my iPhone restore was complete, iOS 7 booted and ran without error. While you expect that from a normal iOS release, betas are a bit of a crap shoot. The new interface is beautiful and like every preceeding iOS version, easy. One of the first things I did was re-arrange my home screen to include all the new pre-installed iOS apps. Restoring from my backup meant keeping all the folders and screen arrangement I had in iOS 6. Consequently, most of the old, dated Apple-supplied apps (Weather, Stocks, Notes, etc.) were relegated to obscure folders two or three pages deep. iOS 7 loses a lot if its lustre without the new icons displayed front and center. Besides, Apple has re-written all these apps and brought them up to date. Not only with the new look, but now they're as feature-rich as almost any third party replacement. My developer status (and its non-disclosure agreement) prevents me from reviewing them at this time, but I will say Apple has done a good job of catching up with third party developers.
There were two main reasons I jailbroke iOS 6. First was the Auxo app. It greatly enhanced iOS multi-tasking by displaying larger tiles of screen grabs from running apps when the home button is double pressed, making it much easier to recognize and select a running app to kill or switch to. The second was Intelliscreen which allowed enhanced notifications and widgets and made them available from the lockscreen along with buttons to toggle system settings like wifi, bluetooth and airplane mode. Apple replicated and enhanced these capabilities with iOS 7's new multitasking architecture, Notification Center and Control Center apps. They're not perfect and not very customizable (yet?), but a great improvement over the iOS 6 offerings. It's obvious Apple pays attention to the jailbreaking community as these features are among the most popular in the Cydia store. Another very popular jailbreak only feature is (was) Live Clock. It turned the clock app's homescreen icon into an actual working clock. Guess what? The Clock icon in iOS 7 is now "live" complete with a working second hand. Another obvious idea taken from the jailbreak world is live wallpaper. Apple calls it "Dynamic" wallpaper and only includes a couple with this beta release, but the ability is there nonetheless. I expect to see a ton of these moving desktop backgrounds available from third parties as soon as iOS 7 is released.
Hearing comments from Tim Cook and his minions yesterday made it obvious that the folks at Apple read what analysts and journalists publish. After using iOS 7 for a few hours its just as obvious they spend some time watching what the jailbreak community likes also. 

Once More Unto the Breach...

If ever I took you for granted Mac, I am truly sorry. Recent events give me pause to appreciate your elegant simplicity and ease of use. Once more I've been thrust into the abyss that is corporate IT and its dreadful trident, Microsoft Windows. Am I so shallow as to fall to the temptation of a large payday? Will I commit to soiling my hands with the muck and mire of the "technology" spewing from Redmond just to buy a new BMW? Alas, once more unto the breach, my friend.

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My Visit to the Other Side

I've been using an iPhone since July of 2007, about two weeks after its release. I've since owned every model. My iPhone 5 is as near perfect as a smartphone can be. My retina iPad has become my go-to machine for e-mail, web surfing and writing. Almost every post for the last couple of years was written on my iPad in a Zagg Folio keyboard case. The reason? It is always with me. In the office, at the coffee shop, on my living room sofa or in bed, my iPad is generally within arm's reach and with its ten-hour battery life, almost always juiced and ready.
Call me jaded, but...

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Free at Last

So I'm an Apple geek. So what? Just because I love my Macs and iOS devices, doesn't mean I take my marching orders from the Grand Poobah in Cupertino. Continuing the story I began in my previous post, my iPhone and iPad go with me wherever I go. As an independent IT consultant/contractor, I rely on them to track my schedule, time charged to customers and keep notes from every job I do. I would describe them as indispensable, but far from everything I need. As much as I love them, I wouldn't even consider showing up at a customer's site without my MacBook Pro. If not in hand, its in the back seat of my car, just in case. All to often, I need a network sniffer, wifi stumbler, an ethernet connection or just a good ol' terminal, none of which are allowed in the iOS App Store, at least none with any useful functionality. Sure, there are lots of apps that do pieces and parts of these tasks, but nothing really powerful and useful to a professional like myself. Apple just won't allow those types of "weeds" in their walled garden. The iOS SDK (Software Development Kit) just doesn't provide the necessary functions and coding an app outside the SDK is a sure-fire path to rejection by the App Store gatekeepers.

I certainly understand their reasoning. After all, iOS devices are designed for consumers, not gearheads like me. It just makes commercial sense to take all steps necessary to insure a smooth, consistent, reliable user experience for 95% of their customers. Still, Apple could give "superusers" the option to install third-party apps outside the App Store, but I estimate that will happen sometime after Jesus returns. It just doesn't fit Apple's M. O.  So, what's a person like me to do?

Jailbreak!

Thanks to some very clever folks, anybody can modify their iOS device to allow installation of apps from any source. Now the disclaimer: Do this at your own risk, Apple will frown on this at the Genius Bar and although this is completely legal, your warranty may be voided. Now that that's out of the way, I don't hesitate one millisecond to recommend evasi0n.com.  The evasi0n app (there's a version for Mac, Linux and Windows) is a simple tool to jailbreak any iOS device and works with the current iOS release (6.1.2).  The entire process of downloading and running evasi0n, following the simple instructions to jailbreak your device and waiting for a couple of reboots takes less than 5 minutes. So far I've jailbroken 4 devices, 2 iPhone 5s, an iPhone 4 and an iPad third gen.  All four were running iOS 6.1.2 and all went without a hitch.

Now, my iPhone is a perfectly-functional wifi sniffer and my iPad has a terminal app that is as useful as the one on my Macs.  That's just the beginning. I can now browse, create and delete files on all my devices like they were just another node on my network. I can download files in Safari and save them any number of places on my device or in the cloud. I can Facetime and download apps larger than 50 MB over 3 & 4G thanks to a $2 app that lifts the built-in restrictions.  I can also stream Amazon InstantVideo and HBO Go to my AppleTV via AirPlay, something taken away from users because Apple is in the middle of a pissing contest with various media providers.  Now, I can modify my user interface in more ways than I could possibly know or describe short of creating a small encyclopedia volume. Unlimited apps within folders, folders within folders and a custom settings drop-down are the ones I like best, but there are as many permutations as grains of sand on the beach.

Just like a real computer.

I still haven't left the MacBook Pro at the office, but it does stay in the car more since I acquired all these new capabilities. After all, iOS is just a slimmed-down version of OS X optimized for minimal resources and maximum battery life. Its lack of functionality has little to do with resource constraints and much to do with Apple's tailoring. Besides, all jailbreaking does is remove artificial restrictions built into the operating system. After using this most recent jailbreak for two weeks, I've noticed no decrease in battery life or reliability, just a two-fold increase in capability. I'm not saying jailbreaking is right for everyone, just that its a proper solution for me. There certainly isn't any technical barrier.  My 14 year-old daughter jailbroke her iPhone with no assistance, so I'm pretty sure anyone reading this will have no problem at all. So what if Apple doesn't like it. After all, these devices belong to us.  Jailbreaking is just a way to say, "Thanks for all your help and protection Apple, but I'll take it from here."