If you’re a fan of Google’s online Office Suite and you’re a Firefox user you’ve probably already heard of Google Gears. The plugin has been available for Firefox for a while now, and basically what it does is allow you to access certain Google services (like the Reader, and Docs for example) offline. You can even edit your documents offline, and then resync them when you are once again connected to the Internet.

This makes for a very cost effective alternative to MS Word, or even Pages if you’re just looking for a simple word processor.

Thankfully, this has been released for Safari this week. At least, a beta has…there could still be some hiccups with it - but so far, I haven’t had any problems.

You can click here to install Google Gears, then all you have to do is navigate to a Gears equipped page, and you’re ready to go.

via TUAW

There is a pretty big problem with the iPhone 3G’s Passcode security. A new vulnerability has been uncovered which will let anyone have access to most of the features on the iPhone - even if your passcode is in place - including email, SMS, browser, and more.

BUT - luckily, there is a way to fix it - so here’s a tip to keep your iPhone truly safe from prying eyes.

First, if you want to see the vulnerability for yourself, all you have to do is enable your Passcode lock in your Settings, then put your phone to sleep and wake it up.

Your Passcode screen will appear. If you select Emergency Call you will be taken to a keypad. Now, simply double click your Home button, and your Contacts Favorites will pop up. You can then click on the email address of any of your favorites to send them a new message. If you cancel out of that message, you will be taken to the mail inbox, exposing all of your email to whomever has your phone.

You get the idea.

There is a simple way to stop this.

Go to Settings>General>Home Button

Now, set your home button double-click to “Home”. If you set this to iPod your music library will appear when you double-click on the Emergency call screen.

If you select “Home” however, nothing will happen when you double-click, and you will not be able to access email, SMS, contacts, or other important info.

SO - to sum up. If you have Passcode Lock enabled, you need to set your Home button double-click feature to “Home” or your Passcode Lock will be easy to bypass.

I have a tendency to leave A LOT of Applications open at once, and I also leave a lot of windows open at the same time - so its really hard to tell which Apps I have hidden on my Dock.

There is a trick, however, to making this much easy to see. Plus, it looks really cool.

All you have to do to enable the Transparent Dock effect is open the Terminal and paste the following into the Terminal window:

defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES

The reload the Dock by typing in the following:

killall Dock

Note that if you have any applications hidden already you may have to show them, then re-hide them before the effect will display properly.

If you want to disable this effect at anytime you can do so by opening the Terminal again and typing in the following:

defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool NO

Then reloading the Dock again.

You can watch a higher quality version of this video on YouTube, or on your AppleTV by searching for Mactips.org

This simple Automator tutorial will show you how to create a Finder plugin that will allow you to automatically attach any file to an email without having to drag anything or even open Mail.

All you have to do is launch Automator and select a custom workflow. You’ll need to search for 3 variables.

1) Get Selected Finder Items (then drag it into the work space)
2) New Mail Message (then drag it under the previous variable in the work space)
3) Add Attachments to Front Message (and again, drag under the previous 2 variables)

Now Run the workflow to test it out. If you get 3 green check marks, then select File>Save As Plugin…

Finally name your plugin (I named mind “Mail Attachment”) and make sure Finder is selected.

Everything should be set up, and you can now can control+click (or right-click if you have a two button mouse) on any file and select Automator>Mail Attachment to launch Mail and the file will be attached to a new blank email.

We’ve all heard about the problems that Apple has been having with their recently launched MobileMe service. While the service may be having a difficult first few months, things are getting much better, and MobileMe is finally coming into its own.

If you buy the service from Apple it will cost you $99 for a single user and $149 for a family pack. A quick stop by Google Product Search will show you, though, that if you do a little shopping around, you can save a substantial amount of money on your MobileMe subscription.

For a single user you can find MobileMe for as little as $66.99.

If you’re looking for a Family Pack you can find it for $105.00 which will save you $44 off the traditional price for the service.

This will only work for new subscribers, but its well worth it for those of you that have been thinking of signing up.

Update: You CAN Actually use this for existing subscriptions it turns out. What you’ll need to do is purchase it, then go to www.me.com/activate and enter the activation key, then it will credit your existing account with another 12 months of service.

Thanks to cmfnyc for the tip!

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to send email attachments there is no faster way than by using Mail.

We all know the standard way. Open Mail…Select New Message…click on the Attachment Paper Clip icon…fill out your email…and Send.

There is actually a much quicker way to do this. Just take the attachment you would like to send, and drag it to the Mail icon in the Dock. Mail will launch, a new message will pop up, and your file will already be attached.

Fill our your email, and click Send.

It’s the weekend, so no MacTip today, but I was driving home from taking my daughter to see a movie, and I drove past THIS…

Yup - that’s right…the iCar is REAL! Sure, it looks like a Ford Escort covered in spray paint, but the person selling it is a marketing genius.

Here’s a closer look.

Whoever decided to do this put “iCar” clearly on both sides…and I’m half tempted to buy it just for a laugh. I need a second car anyway.

You can see two more pics of it (including the front) over at Apple Gazette. (and no, I won’t be doing cross over posts all the time - but this was just too funny not to show both audiences!)

Organizing your dock can help you get things done much more quickly and easily. In today’s screencast we’re covering how to do that using Stacks.

With Stacks you can create a stack of your favorite applications that appear bundled together until you select the stack. Then they will fan out allowing you to select the application that you want to use.

To do this you need to Create a New Folder, then drag aliases of the Applications you’d like to have in your stack into that folder. Holding Command+Option while dragging the application will create an alias of it in the folder you’re dragging it into.

After you have dragged the Apps that you want to appear in that stack into the folder, drag the folder itself onto your dock and BOOM - Applications Stacks.

Hello everyone!  I’m Michael from Apple Gazette, and I’m extremely happy to be here on MacTips.org.  We’re very proud to have MacTips joining Apple Gazette.  I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself, and give you an idea of what is happening to MacTips now that its part of our family.

MacTips.org is a fantastic resource, and it is going to continue to operate as its own site, separate from Apple Gazette. We’re going to be posting Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials every Monday through Friday. Plus we’re going to be adding regular video screencasts to the site in the form of a new video podcast that will be available to view online, as well as in a downloadable format through your podcast reader of choice.

As for me, I have been a full time Apple blogger for the last two years.  I write daily for a variety of blogs including TVJab.com, Travelbrook.com, Gadgetizer.com, and, of course, AppleGazette.com.  I also record a daily Apple news podcast called Apple Gazette Daily.

If you like Apple Gazette I hope you’ll subscribe to our RSS Feed, as well as the audio podcast.  We’d love to have you join us over there.  

One of the things that has always driven MacTips is you, the readers.  Your submissions have always been helpful to this site, and we’d love it if you’d continue to do that.  I’d also like to welcome you to submit tip requests as well.  If you have a tip or trick you’d like us to research, we’ll be happy to do that and share the results with everyone here on the site. 

Later today I’ll be posting the first video screencast. I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward from hearing from many of you in the near future!

After 3 years of writing Mac tips, its time for me to move on. I’ve sold MacTips to the Apple Gazette.

It’s fairly obvious over the past few months things have been slipping here at MacTips, with the latest post being made back in July.

Unfortunately I just don’t have the time to dedicate to MacTips that I’d like. It takes a lot of hard work to keep MacTips running and I’ve simply run out of hours.

This move is a good one for MacTips. The staff at the Apple Gazette is very smart and dedicated. They’ll be able to provide the focus MacTips needs to become a big site. All of you will get your Mac tips back, and I get to see MacTips live on.

I started this site when I switched from Windows nearly 4 years ago as a small side project. I’m extremely proud to see what its grown into and am excited to see what the future holds.

To the future of MacTips!