We all have those Facebook friends that constantly ping us for no reason other than to distract you. You tried ditching AIM and Google Chat to avoid encountering them online, but they remained persistent.

Hey Tony!
Whatcha doin?
How was your day?
What’s you favorite color? Mine is brown. Because it’s the color of your eyes.

But if ditching Facebook isn’t an option for you, what can you do?

Mashable(ugh) noted in an article that Facebook can allow you to selectively hide yourself from chat. Start a Facebook chat as you normally do, and then click on the cog icon on the top-right of your chat box. You will find an option that says “Go offline to [name].” And like that…you’re gone!

Mashable also has a more detailed walkthrough for this process if you are interested in hiding from multiple people. You can check it out here.

Photo Stream is this awesome feature in iCloud that automatically distributes your photos across all of your devices. Despite the benefit of not needing to connect your device to your Mac to access the photos, there is one drawback. For instance, to access photos in your Photo Stream, you need to launch iPhoto on your Mac. It’s not the fastest way and luckily, there is a better solution.
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Web developer Mathias Bynens shared a list of Terminal commands on Github to customize OS X. There are a bunch of great tweaks to be found, like disabling auto-correct, removing the green checkmark icon in your Dropbox folder, and enabling a 2D dock. Here are some of the ones I used:

# Disable the “Are you sure you want to open this application?” dialog
defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool false

# Disable auto-correct
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled -bool false

# Allow text selection in Quick Look
defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool true

# Expand save panel by default
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool true

Unforgiveable

Almost as embarrassing as having someone read your browsing history, autocomplete suggestions in modern web browsers can be just as painful.

Lifehacker posted an awesome tip to a question I’ve been struggling to figure out for awhile now (innocent reasons, I swear): how the hell do I stop my web browser from displaying my past web-surfing exploits every time I type something in my address bar?

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I’m relatively new to the whole cryptography and computing security scene and it has always intrigued me on how so many people with their Macbooks, Netbooks, iPhones, external hard drives, and other mobile devices are so vulnerable to malicious attacks from outsiders. There has always been an age-old saying in the IT business: PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair).

While most of the problems that IT managers and security professionals deal with stem from the inability of users to practice some common sense when browsing the web, those types of problems are easy to rectify.

However, there is very little IT managers and security professionals can do about physical theft, such as a burglaries and corporate espionage.  Thankfully, there is a way for ordinary people like you and me to protect your sensitive data from physical theft.

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Gmail is the email client I love and use every day. Desktop email clients like Sparrow, Apple Mail, and Microsoft Outlook are nice, but I prefer doing most of my work inside my browser.

One of the annoying things that I often have to deal with is accidentally clicking a mailto link on a webpage and then furiously trying to quit Apple Mail as it launches. Ideally, I wanted mailto links to open in Gmail by default. Here are some methods I’ve found that will do just that.

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New blog post: "How to Clean your Filthy, Grimey Laptop"

If you’ve ever attempted to remove a sticker from your computer, two things usually happen:
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Wouldn’t it be great if you could save apps you find at the App Store into a wish list?

Maybe you’d prefer to read reviews online first before deciding to download the app. That’s fair enough, but how to keep track of those apps?
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