Category: Reviews-HowTos

Losing important items is always a concern, especially when it comes to smartphones. Whether phones are misplaced in the course of a day or left behind when moving about, it is something that happens frequently. But what if there was a device that coul…

Apple’s iWeb has long been a godsend for those wanting to design their own website but who didn’t have the coding skills to do so from scratch. So, when Apple announced that it would no longer be supporting or developing iWeb in 2012, the quest for a suitable replacement began in earnest. EverWeb, from RAGE Software, aims to be just that — and, for the most part, it’s right on target.

EverWeb’s interface, while not a carbon copy, will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s used iWeb. Additionally, most iWeb features have an equivalent in EverWeb, while some extras, such as the functionality of the iWeb SEO Tool, have been integrated into this application.

What this means is that websites can be built much in the same way that you make a graphics-rich document in Word or Pages. There’s no coding involved — simply a WYSIWYG interface and various elements from shapes and social widgets to images and video that you can drag-and-drop into place. The results approach those of what’s possible with traditional site design and coding, while more experienced users can get under the hood to work in HTML5 and CSS3 for further customization.

As already mentioned, EverWeb boasts some functionality not present in the last available version of iWeb. This includes master pages, which allow elements to be easily repeated across multiple sections of a site, and drop-down navigation menus. EverWeb also builds on the e-commerce functionality of iWeb by enabling users to implement a full shopping-cart-based sales system, in addition to PayPal integration.

The included site templates are numerous, but oddly specific (one is for a chiropractic website). Each features a mobile-optimized version, and additional templates are available. EverWeb also includes a gallery of embeddable widgets, from RSS feeds and Google maps to feedback forms and image galleries. Additional widgets are also available from the EverWeb community.

Version 1.3 of EverWeb (reviewed) allows for the publishing of your site directly to an FTP server via an intuitive interface. Those who opt for the $99.95-per-year one-click publishing version of the application that includes 2GB of web hosting can, as the name suggests, publish and configure their site right from EverWeb.

If you’re someone who’s come to depend on iWeb and would like a supported version that will continue to evolve into the foreseeable future, or are just looking to build a website without getting your hands dirty with code, EverWeb is a great option. It’s still missing some things, like built-in blogging functionality, but unlike with the original iWeb, there’s at least some hope that it may one day be included.

The bottom line. If you’ve been seeking an iWeb replacement or are simply new to the whole website design thing, EverWeb is both a worthy successor and a good first step toward building your own web presence.

Privacy is one of the most important words in tech today. It seems like we hear about new threats to our identities almost daily, whether someone’s hacking into our credit card company’s files or the government is peeking into our emails and messages. 

But it’s not just our personal information that’s vulnerable. The files on our Macs that we never see — cookies, caches, download histories, recent items, even icons — can be used to track our digital fingerprints and compromise our privacy without us ever realizing it. Browsers and certain apps are constantly keeping track of what we’re doing and storing it for easy access later. If you don’t want all of this data to come back and haunt you, you should get rid of it.

Of course, there’s a fairly easy way to do it built right into OS X. At the end of each day, you can dutifully head to the menu and clear out all of the offending files on an app-by-app basis until everything is wiped clean. But it’s a tedious process — and even if you can remember to do it on a regular basis, there’s no way to know if you’ve gotten them all.

PrivacyScan simplifies the whole process by taking the guesswork out of it. Right from the start, the app does most of the work for you, scanning your Mac to find any supported apps. The main window lists every app available for cleaning — ours included Safari, Chrome, Preview, QuickTime, Flash, and the Finder — and there are individual settings within that give you full control over which files to delete. Pressing the run button unleashes PrivacyScan on your Mac’s most vulnerable folders, and within seconds it returns a batch of files to be scrubbed. You need only press the trash button to instantly delete them — or, if you’re particularly paranoid, eradicate them with Department of Defense–level shredding.

It’s all very fast and simple, and PrivacyScan certainly made us feel less exposed when it had finished. It might not stop any malicious attacks or viruses, but there’s something to be said for covering our tracks, especially for those who travel a lot with their MacBook Pros. A spot check of the folders confirmed that files were indeed jettisoned, but we experienced occasional issues with its handling of the Google Chrome browser, which triggered a few crashes and hang-ups. 

We’re not sure how regularly we would run PrivacyScan, but the ability to set a schedule and forget about it might help, as would an option to securely delete the files in our trash.

The bottom line. Even if you haven’t fashioned a tinfoil hat, PrivacyScan’s system of deletion will make you sleep just a little better at night.

The Dropbox service lets you store and access your files remotely, but that’s just the beginning. Once your files are uploaded, the service lets you do a whole lot more, particularly when it comes to sharing and collaboration.

One of its most useful features is sharing, and you can easily send links to files, folders, and albums to others to allow access, complete with access controls or permissions. You can also create shared folders others can join when invited — the folder appears inside their Dropbox, and content they place into it is automatically synced. You can see how handy this would be for working on projects with people over the Internet: no need to email files, just keep a synced folder of files. 

When you collaborate, several people may open and work on a single document, so it’s important to know if and when changes have been made. Luckily, Dropbox also supports versioning. As a new version of a file is saved and synced, it keeps both the old and new versions, and you can access or restore any version at any time. And if someone accidentally deletes a file, that’s no problem either. Synced items that you remove from your local Dropbox folder or manually delete from your main file list on the Dropbox website are not fully deleted from Dropbox’s servers; they just disappear from your listing, and are removed from your computer’s storage. They can be restored, unless you choose to permanently delete them.

1. Share a File

The main file list in your Dropbox web account provides a way to send a link to any file easily. Click once on a file to highlight it, and a link icon appears. There’s also a link in the toolbar at the top of the file list that performs the same action. Click Share Link and your file is opened in web view.

2. Email the Link

Click Share at the top of the screen and a window opens where you can enter the email addresses of recipients, as well as add an optional message. Facebook and Twitter buttons let you post the link to your social media account. Click Send, or click Get Link to copy the link to the clipboard.

3. Create a New Folder

To share multiple files, group them into a folder first. Click on the New Folder button in the toolbar at the top and name your folder. Now select the items in the list that you want — to select multiple items, click the first, then Command-click any others you want — and drag them into the new folder.

4. Share the Folder

Select your new folder in the main file list and right-click on it. This is yet another way to share an item — by using the contextual menu. Repeat the previous steps to enter the recipients’ email addresses and send a link to that folder. If you edit the contents of the folder, the link still works.

5. Collaborate on a Folder

To create a collaborative folder, right-click on it in the list and select Invite to Folder. Again, add a recipient’s details plus an optional message. You can also allow the recipient to invite others — or not, if you want to keep it private. The folder appears in their Dropbox account.

6. View Versions of a File

If you open and modify a file in your Dropbox folder, the updated version is synced to the cloud. If you right-click the file on the Dropbox website and select Previous Versions, you see all available versions from newest to oldest, as well as who uploaded it and when it was synced.

7. Restore a Previous Version

From the versions list, you can select any previous version and restore it by clicking Restore. Now the version shown in your main file list is the one you selected. If you look at the previous Versions list again, you see nothing has been overwritten; everything remains available.

8. Restore a Deleted File

If you’ve deleted a synced file from your Mac or from Dropbox, it isn’t actually gone. Click the trash-can icon at the top of the main file list to show deleted files, then right-click on a deleted file and choose Restore to undelete it, or you can choose Permanently Delete to get rid of it for good.

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using built-in OS X utilities such as Terminal, Apple’s command line application. These easy hacks can make life better and simpler, and don’t require any knowledge of coding — all you need is a keyboard to type ’em out!

Mission Control was released with OS X Lion to provide an easy-to-use switching manager for using multiple apps and desktops under a single user interface. As with other areas of OS X, animations in Mission Control are prevalent, but they do take time, and when switching your apps you want the fastest possible experience. Fortunately, with a little Terminal trick, you can reduce the time spent on these animations. Continue reading and we’ll show you how it’s done.

To speed up the animations on Mission Control, open the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities), and type in the following command, followed by the enter key:

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.15

To make the changes take effect, you can either log out and back in, or type the following command into Terminal to restart the Dock:

killall Dock

After restarting the Dock, the new and speedier animations will be available when activating both Exposé and Mission Control.

If you wish to restore the Mission Control animations to their default speed, then open the Terminal and type the following command followed by the enter key:

defaults delete com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration

Again, you can make the changes take effect by either logging out and back in, or by typing the following command into Terminal:

killall Dock

Cory Bohon is a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer. Follow this article’s author on Twitter.