The button, sometimes called the ‘lozenge’ is used in applications that have a ‘Hide Toolbar’ option in their ‘View’ menu.

In Finder the button will hide both the toolbar and the sidebar. If you command-click the button it will modify how the toolbar is displayed, cycling through variations of words and buttons, buttons only, words only and various different sizes of buttons etc.

The Lozenge

Another handy use of the lozenge is installing an app. When doing so you are often presented with the window that has the app icon. Sometimes there will be an Applications icon that you can simply drag the app icon into in order to move the app to the Applications folder. When this isn’t the case people usually think they need to open another Finder window in order to drag the app to the Applications folder. However, the lozenge can save you this trouble. Simply click on it and a sidebar will appear and you can drag the app to the Applications folder listed there. Nice!

Some other applications that have the ‘lozenge’ include:

Mail, Preview and Adium.

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ctrl + a: moves the cursor to the start of the line

ctrl + e: moves the cursor to the end of the line

Many of you will already know about these handy shortcuts but if you haven’t I think you’ll really appreciate them.

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New Apple iPad

Apple recently unveiled there much anticipated and much hyped tablet device, the iPad. Here’s a quick take on the new offering.

THE GOOD

Long Battery Life

• The iPad is being touted as having an impressive 10 hour battery life with 30 days of standby

It’s Pretty

• Like most Apple product the iPad is pretty and shiny and more pleasing to the eye than essentially any other hardware manufacturers devices.

It’s a Better E-reader Than the E-readers

• Your Kindle is kindling compared to the iPad. Georgous full color display with the ability to embed video in publications. Big publishers should be sucking up big time to Apple for the opportunity the iPad gives them. The opportunity to get themselves back off of life support.

THE NOT SO GOOD

No Camera

• What!? How sweet it would have been to be able to easily do video calls / conferences with this device. No dice. I guess Apple has to save some things to make people have to upgrade to the next iPad when that comes along.

Locked Down

• Just like the iPod and iPhone, you’ll only be able to put on the iPad what apple allows you too. Apparently this isn’t really a computer but an oversized iPod touch.

You can’t replace battery yourself

• A common grievance with iPods is the fact that you have to send your device to Apple in order to have a battery replaced. Unfortunately Apple continues this trend with the iPad. This is even more unfortunate considering Apple’s history of battery problems.

Text Entry

• The on screen keyboard will undoubtedly be more difficult to use that a real keyboard, especially considering the back of the device is rounded. That means typing with the device on a flat surface is all but out of the question as the entire thing will wobble with every ‘key’ press.

No USB Port or SD Slot

• Again Apple frustrates its users with a lack of standard connections. In order to use a USB based peripheral with the iPad you’ll have to shell out more money to Apple to get an adapter dongle. Would it be so hard to have just included one or both of these? Yes, we get it. The iPad isn’t a ‘computer’.

No Flash

• This doesn’t bother me that much. I’d love to see Flash go the way of the dodo.

The iPad might make a nice addition to my coffee table or kitchen counter for casual web browsing or emailing and tweeting but I can’t see it being a must have device.  I’ll wait to see if they can get things right in generation two, or until I can get a Google tablet that offers a bit more options and openness. While the iPad may not be ideal for the more technically savvy user there is a huge number of people out there who are less technical and don’t really like computers who will find the iPad will fit their needs very well.

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Google Sync and Mobile Devices

When Google launched Google Sync earlier this year the loop from my Google Calendar to my iPhone and back was completed. Sync allows you to view and edit events on either your iPhone built in calendar or on Google Calendar on the web and see the changes propagated almost immediately.

Google sync used to only allow 5 of your Google Calendars to sync to your mobile device but I noticed yesterday that they now allow up to 25 calendars to sync. If you are a Google Calendar power user this is music to your ears.

I highly recommend this combination of tools. If you haven’t tried it yet you are missing out on some serious awesomeness.

Official Google Mobile Blog: Google Sync

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The new 27 inch iMac

Yesterday Apple quietly launched a number of significant new products. The launch is obviously timed to take wind out of the sails of the upcoming Windows 7 launch. Some of the highlights of the Apple launch include:

- The Magic Mouse: new wireless bluetooth mouse with multi-touch

- A 27 inch iMac (a 21.5 inch iMac as well)

- A new hardware remote that also works with your iPhone or iPod;  no longer comes free with iMac purchase

- Mac Mini in a server version with no optical drive but has a second internal hard drive providing 1 terabyte of storage

- New white plastic MacBook that has a bigger hard drive than the MacBook Pro and boasts 7-hour battery life

- Upgraded Time Capsule and Airport Extreme

The product of most interest to me at the moment is the Magic Mouse. I wonder if the gestures would translate through Synergy when working on my PC via my Mac. I doubt it.

Read more at Apple.

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