Apple Mac HQ

My wife and I enjoy eating out a few times a week. We aren’t crazy spenders when it comes to eating out, but during a typical week we eat out between 1-3 times. We have a handful of restaurants we visit and rotate visits between those choices. After a while though, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut of visiting the same places. Scoutmob allows us to try new restaurants and save a little cash in the process.

Scoutmob is similar to Groupon in form, but functions a little different. Both Groupon and Scoutmob allow you to experience local restaurants and businesses at a discount, but unlike Groupon, Scoutmob is completely free to use.

Each day, Scoutmob has a different daily deal. You can visit the Scoutmob website and enter your mobile phone number and you’ll receive a text message with the deal information. The deal is good for about 3-4 months, after which it will expire and you cannot use it. You can only claim the deal if you visit the website and enter your mobile number during the time the deal is being offered; unless you have an iPhone. If you have an iPhone, you can download the Scoutmob iPhone App and you can see all current deals (ones that have yet to expire) and there is no need to “claim” the deal.

Using the deal is simple. If you have the text message, just show the text message when you pay and your discount will be applied to your bill. I’ve never used the text message method, but I imagine you have to delete the text message on the spot to prevent reuse. If you have the iPhone App, just open the App, select the deal, and click the “Use This Deal” link. The App will verify your location and then just show the screen to the server.

I’ve used the Scoutmob iPhone App about 3-4 times and have never had a problem getting the discount. The first couple version of the App were horrendously slow, but those problems were fixed some time ago. My only wish for the App would be a way to hide deals I know I’ll never use. Scrolling through the deals can take a while, and having the ability to hide unwanted deals would be a time saver. A simple hide flag would be fairly simple to implement, and a button to removed the “hidden flags” would be a great way to get any accidentally hidden deals back.

Scoutmob is currently offering deals only in Atlanta and New York, but are looking to expand to other cities. The handful of cities they are expanding to next are listed on the Scoutmob homepage. Sign up to be notified if you want to know when they launch in your city. Scountmob is completely free to use, and I highly recommend it.

Popularity: 3%

If you weren’t one of the lucky ones to reserve your iPhone 4 or very lucky ones who bought iPhone 4 without a reservation, you’re likely going to be in for a wait. I dropped by my local Apple Retail Store this afternoon and was shocked to not find a line snaked around the mall. Within a few minutes however, I knew why.

My local Apple Retail Store was out of iPhone 4, and it’s highly likely yours is as well. You can’t reserver one from AT&T and even the few Wal-Marts and RadioShacks I called were out. I didn’t leave the Apple Store empty handed however.

If you show up at your local Apple Store, the staff is allowing you to add your name to a priority list. This list is essentially your way of staking a virtual claim to incoming iPhones. Once you have chosen the model you want, you have to sign in with your iTunes login and you’ll shortly receive an email with the below information.

When a iPhone 4 comes in, you’ll receive another email stating that you can pickup your iPhone 4. From the time you receive the second email, you have 48 hours to purchase your phone at the store you reserved it. I clicked around on the Apple website, and haven’t seen a link to the priority list anywhere. This appears to be an option only in Apple Stores. The Apple staff I spoke to didn’t know the length of the wait for new iPhones to arrive.

Good luck to everyone still looking to purchase iPhone 4!

Popularity: 7%

When you login to your Mac for the very first time, you will likely see a number of application icons in the Dock that are unfamiliar. Sooner, rather than later, you’re probably going to want to add or remove applications from the Dock. Adding or removing items from the Dock is very easy. You essentially have two methods for doing so.

Click
If the application you want to add to the Dock is currently open, just command click the icon and choose Options from the menu. In the Options menu, select “Keep in Dock”. You’ll see something similar to the screen grab below.

If the application is currently in the Dock and you want to remove it, perform the same actions as above. This time, the Options menu will have “Remove from Dock” as an option.

Dragging
To easily add a closed application to the Dock, being by going to the Applications folder in the Finder. Once there, drag the application from the Finder window to the bottom of the Dock and hold. If you hold the application near the bottom of the dock, you’ll see the two closest icons move out of the way to “make room” for the new icon. Drop the icon where you want in the dock and it will fall into place.

To easily remove icons from the dock with dragging, just select and hold the icon and move it away from the dock. When a little cloud shows up just below the mouse pointer, let go of the mouse and watch the icon disappear in a puff of smoke.

To view more post for Mac OS X beginners, head to our Beginner Mac section.

Popularity: 3%

I don’t watch much TV during the week, except for during the baseball season (My Braves are stinking it up this year). In addition to baseball and cooking shows, I do sit down a watch a handful of network TV shows. My favorite, Chuck, is again on the chopping block bubble this year and needs your help.

So what does Chuck have to do with Apple products? I’ve written about Chuck a few times on this website before. The show has featured a number of Apple products during its three seasons. It was one of the first shows to feature an iPhone. In fact, the two main characters (Chuck and Sarah) use iPhones and they are shown on nearly every episode. The show has featured older Macs, Cinema Displays, and many more Apple products.

If you haven’t seen Chuck before, I very highly recommend it. The plot features an average geek who mistakenly has a CIA database transplanted in his brain. The US government finds out about the intelligence leak and sends two of its’ top agents to protect him. As the show has progressed, Chuck has become a spy in his own right. The show features references to video games, pop culture, comics, and many other things a geek would enjoy. If you like Mythbusters or Big Bang Theory, you’d probably like Chuck. You can read more about the show on Wikipedia.

So how can you help Chuck? Watch the show live! If you are a Nielsen household, your live viewing counts even more. Chuck has four more shows left this season and now is as good a time as any to start watching. The show features comedy, action, adventure, and is a ton of fun. The chemistry between the two main characters, Chuck and Sarah, is fantastic. I’ve heard from a number of people that Chuck is one of the only TV shows the whole family can watch. Please help this fantastic show get renewed for a fourth season!

Chuck is broadcast on NBC at 8PM Eastern on Mondays. If you are an international viewer, check your local listings for the channel and time Chuck is playing in your area. Let me know in the comments if you watch Chuck and what you like about it!

Popularity: 3%

The other day I noticed I was running low on disk space. I fired up the application WhatSize which I hadn’t used in quite some time. I’ve written about WhatSize before, but I guess the demo period had run out. Long story short, I went looking for alternatives to WhatSize.

A short search later, I downloaded OmniDiskSweeper. When you first launch OminDiskSweeper, you’re prompted to choose a drive. Once you select the drive, it takes the application a few moments to “sweep” the drive. Once the sweep is done, you’ll see a list of folders with their current size. As you drill down in your folder list, the size is reflected in those folders as well. You can delete files from within the application and the folder sizes are automatically recalculated.

OmniDiskSweeper is a free application by The Omni Group. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. If you’re looking to clear up some space on your hard drive but don’t know what’s taking up the space, I highly suggest downloading OmniDiskSweeper.

Popularity: 3%

I use all of Sophiestication Software’s apps (CoverSutra, Groceries, and Tipulator). When I found out that Sophiestication recently released the Wikipedia app “Articles,” I had to try it. I am very pleased with it.

The look of Articles is reminiscent of Mobile Safari. The interface includes a progress bar, back and forward, bookmarks and history, and page selection. Up to 9 pages can be opened at once, which is 1 more then Mobile Safari.

Articles remembers the last Wikipedia page that was accessed from the last session, as well as the position left off while reading it.

The bookmarks section includes bookmarks that can be organized into folders, recent history, a link to a random Wikipedia article, as well as a map showing nearby links. Recently viewed are saved for offline viewing

Wikipedia articles are displayed nicely. Clicking on a picture zooms into it, and after loading the picture can be saved or copied. Separate windows are used to open tables, graphs, and extra information.

28 different languages can be chosen to search from, including French, Spanish, and Chinese.

There are a few things I did not like about Articles. There is no way to quickly go to a section. Any section must be scrolled down to. Also, there is no queue.

Even with these flaws, Articles has shaped up to be a great app. Articles is available for $2.99 (iTunes link) for iPhone OS 3.0 and above.

Popularity: 5%

For a few months now, I’ve been wishing for a Groupon iPhone app. Recently, the folks behind Groupon have granted my wish. The free Groupon iPhone app (iTunes link) is now available.

If you’re not familiar with Groupon, it’s essentially a group coupon purchasing website. Each day in a number of large cities across the United States, there is a daily deal. The deal is essentially a gift certificate/coupon to the location featured that day. You have the remainder of the day to purchase the deal before it changes, but enough people need to purchase the deal before the coupon is issued. If the required number of people don’t purchase the deal, you aren’t charged and the coupon is not issued. I’ve never seen a deal not purchased by enough people to trigger the deal however. The deals vary by city, as does the cost, value, and expiration date of the deal.

Up until now, you had to login to the website to purchase the Groupon. Once you purchased the Groupon, you had to print it and present it to your server/cashier. With the release of the iPhone app, you can now purchase and redeem the Groupon right on your phone!

After opening the app, you select your city and the daily deal will be shown. You can sign in with your existing Groupon login, create a new login, or sign in with Facebook Connect. Once signed in, you can see your existing Groupons and purchase new ones. When using a Groupon, your iPhone displays the same code that the printed out Groupon displays. The retailer just needs to verify your code and then you receive the value of the coupon.

I enjoy Groupon as it gives my wife and I a chance to visit different restaurants and save some cash. We don’t eat out a lot, but Groupon has provided good motivation for getting us to try different places. If you live in one of the cities with a Groupon site, I highly suggest you check them out.

Popularity: 5%