Sure, I could configure my network using my .ssh config, and messing around with my router, and running a manual VNC server, but why do that when I can just run a program that takes care of it all for me? Plus, with Sharetool, you get the added benefit of all your Bonjour services being accessible over WAN or LAN. This means you can do all kinds of sweet stuff from ANYWHERE including:

• listen to your iTunes library
• access your iTunes Home Sharing
• control your home Mac’s screen through VNC
• route your web browsing through your home network for secure browsing anywhere
• grab that presentation you forgot on your home computer
• print on your home network!

Plus, the new version (Sharetool 2) supports running as a background service, proxies, and compression of traffic for optimal browsing!

Bottom line: If you’re looking for a tool to access your home computers securely anywhere in the world, which is easy to setup, Sharetool is your best option. I would consider it an essential addition to any Mac user who travels and wants to stay connected.

Sharetool, by Yazsoft, get it here.

So I hate the default Apple signature. “Sent from my iPad” to me sounds extremely pretentious. No one cares what device you are using. Obviously you can change the default email in ‘Settings’, but being a designer I enjoy having a custom signature for people to view. Anyways, I adapted the current tutorials for iPhone CSS/HTML sig for my iPad, and here is the end result that you will be building:

As you can see, I have custom CSS, custom images, and custom HTML. The process is very simple, here is an overview of the steps we will be following (assuming your iPad is Jailbroken and has Cydia installed, if you don’t know how to do this you probably shouldn’t be messing with plists in the first place):

1. Enable SSH on iPad
2. SSH into iPad
3. Create Signature
4. Import Signature into iPad Plist File
5. Reboot and enjoy!

Let’s dive in!

1. Enable SSH on iPad

So in order to change the proper signature file we need to be able to SSH into the iPad. However, before we do this we need to generate the plist file, and in order to do that just go into your Mail settings on your iPad (Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars->Signature) and just type in anything. This will generate a plist file for the signature in the iPad file hierarchy, which will give us the ability to replace the default signature key.

Anyways, back to enabling SSH. Go into your Cydia app on your iPad, and do a search for ‘OpenSSH’. Install this file, and then do a search for ‘SBSettings’ and install that as well. You will need SBSettings to easily toggle SSH on/off. Once these are installed restart your device. You are now able to get into your iPad using SSH!

2. SSH into iPad

In order to SSH into your iPad, you’re going to need a couple of things:

• FTP Program – I recommend Panic’s Transmit, v4 just came out and it’s really slick (Mac only, PC user have fun).
• Your iPad’s IP Address – This can be found by connecting your iPad to same WiFi network as your computer. Once you are connected, drop down your SBSettings and write down your ‘Wi-Fi IP Address’ (the IP can also be found under the ‘WiFi’ section of the ‘Settings’ app).

Once you have these items, open up your FTP program and create a new connection. Make sure it is SFTP (which is SSH), type in your iPad IP into the ‘Server’ box. Type ‘root’ into Username field, and ‘alpine’ into Password field (without the single quotes). Keep these settings here, and we’ll come back and initiate this connection once we have made our signature.
**Security sidenote**
since MobileTerminal isn’t iPad compatible yet we can’t change these default usernames, so make sure to only keep your iPad connected to secured WiFi networks you trust, otherwise anyone can get into your file system and wreak some serious havoc.

3. Create Signature

So now to the fun part, creating our custom signature. I will put my code to the signature I used, and you can obviously edit/tweak/change to your heart’s content. In order to use images and have them viewable by recipients of your messages, you will need to use a dataURL maker. Once you generate this dataURL, paste it into the ‘src’ attribute inside of your img tags. Here is the code for my signature:

Now, we will move to importing this signature into the iPad plist file.

4. Import Signature into iPad Plist File

Go back to your FTP program and connect to your iPad. Once you are in the file structure, navigate to /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences. Download the file ‘com.apple.mobilemail.plist’. Duplicate this file and rename it as ‘com.apple.mobilemail.BAK.plist’ and store this somewhere on your computer in case you need to restore the original. Now, open the plist file (you will need a plist editor, one is installed with Apple Dev Tools or you can use something like Plist Editor). Then copy the signature HTML code you generated, make sure to remove all spaces and insert your dataURLs, and paste it into the SignatureKey value section. Disconnect from your SSH, you just input your new iPad signature!

5. Reboot Device

All you need to do now is reboot your device. Reboot your iPad, and send an email and you will see your new signature! Make sure to not edit this signature on the iPad itself, if you want to make any changes SSH in again and replace the old signature with the new one in the plist file.

Any questions or items that need clarification? Feel free to post in the comments and I will respond. Thanks!

We conservatively project…

What they really mean:

We read a book that said we had to be at least a $90 million company in five years, so we reverse-engineered the numbers.

What they say:

After we determined our future profitability we cautiosly divided by 2.

What they really mean:

We accidentally divided by 0.5

What they say:

Were projecting a 10% margin.

What they really mean:

We downloaded business software and didn’t change any of the assumptions

What they say:

The project is 99% complete

What they really mean:

Sure were 99% complete but to complete the remaing 1% it will take twice as long as the 99% and cost three times as much.

What they say:

Our calculations show that we have a nine-month lead

What they really mean:

After doing market reasearch, we really tired to not to find out who has a nine-month lead

What they say:

We have no competition.

What they really mean:

Only Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Sun have announced plans to enter the business.

What they say:

Our team has a great deal of experience…

What they mean:

…consuming the product or service

What they say:

A select group of investors is considering the plan.

What they really mean:

We emailed a copy of the plan to every investor on the internet.

What they say:

We seek a value added investor.

What they really mean:

We are looking for an extremely lazy, uninformed, and unintelligent investor.

-Harvard Business Review August/July 1997

It allows you to record keystrokes and link clicks so that you can easily automate tasks you perform on a daily basis. Also, I haven’t experimented with it, but iOpus has a bunch of other optimization software, so be sure to check out your site.

Any feedback on additional tools is appreciated.

Basically how it works is you sign up (which, did I mention, is free), then you get to do some sick online missions that lead to registration info for free copies of premium Mac software. Last year, I finished about 2/3rd’s of the missions, and I got over $150 worth of free software! Plus, at the end, you have the option to buy the yearly software bundle, which is a $400+ value for around $50.

Overall, one of the coolest (if not the coolest) ways to get mac software for free online.

PS. Check my twitter (http://twitter.com/thinklime which should also be in my lifestream) if you want the coordinates for the first copy of free software (Daisy Disk, a sick hard drive space management tool).

Linux/Unix friendly users will like this concept, as it’s essentially a shortcut [Ctrl + Space on PC, Alt + Space on Mac] that brings up a terminal

which you can type all sorts of commands into. It’s also very easy to write your own commands using their [see: Mozilla's] guidelines. If you’re too lazy to write your own commands, they have a GIGANTIC list [see: Ubiquity.Commands] which encompasses everything from multi language translation tools, to code editors, to hardcore math calculation tools.

Not only is it super expandable, but it actually has a ton of built in functionality with the base install. The folks over at Mozilla have included:

• Built in translation tools that will automatically translate any highlighted text on the page and replace the original with the translation
• Weather that can dynamically find weather at various locations at blazing speed
• Direct page editing with page changes reflected immediately
• Powerful tab control functionality
• Hopefully I have got you excited enough to try this out, because once you do it will truly make your web experience a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable.

Be sure to grab a copy of Ubiquity [link] today.

In case you’ve checked out my last post, you will have seen that I absolutely love a Firefox add-on called YSlow.  This add-on actuallyanalyzes your site and grades you based on a ton of factors.  Not only that, but it has some pretty decent documentation on Yahoo’s site that explains how to fix pretty much anything.

Most of my sites had a grade between a high B (87) and an A+ (100), but one of the features that I seemed to lack on all my sites was GZip, which after doing a bit of research I realized that it could speed my site up 40-70% just through server side compression.  After several days of web research, I finally found a great site with very useful instructions.

For now I’m going to link to this tutorial (which is specialized for Hostmonster hosting), but this week I will post back with a custom modified version that is easier to read and gives more of a background understanding.

If you are interested in seeing this expanded version, let me know.  Here’s the link: GZip Website Compression

UPDATE: Falcon has posted some wonderful additional info in an updated post, found Here. Enjoy!

I’ve got quite a few of what I consider awesome add-ons, and so I decided to make a collection that I could share with everybody.  I made this for other web developers and for anyone who happens to do web design or development.  Here’s the link for it, please comment on here with feedback!

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/tlwebdev

-bt

UPDATE: Optimized collection and added a new addon to keep your FF as fast as possible. 3.6.3 compatible now. All Mac compatible as well.

We are currently in the progress of creating a custom new skin, so we will post back here once we have that finished.
Thanks for your patience!

-Bryan

http://www.guerrillamail.com/