OS X has a built-in sandbox feature for applications, which can restrict their access to certain parts of the system. There isn't a lot of documentation available on the sandboxing system, but I've successfully been able to sandbox Firefox. It has some limitations, but my plug-ins and add-ons work though yours may not.

If you have issues, you'll have to search for the directories where your plug-ins are housed, and give read or read/write access permissions in the firefox-sandbox file. There is only write permission to the ~/Downloads directory, so if you want to save files in a different location, you will have to change the firefox-sandbox file or move them after the download has finished. First, create the following file and save it somewhere as firefox-sandbox: ...

The open command in Terminal will, when given a vnc://1.2.3.4 (or vnc://hostname) protocol argument, open the Screen Sharing app and connect to IP address 1.2.3.4 (or hostname).

[robg adds: I was certain we'd covered this tip somewhere before, but all I can find is a brief mention in this comment to this hint about dict:// URLs.]

Today I installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64 via Boot Camp on my 2007 MacBook Pro 2.4GHz machine. I was stumped when I couldn’t install the Boot Camp drivers from the 10.6 DVD in Windows.

I tried several different approaches, but every single try ended with the message Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model when launching the Boot Camp setup app. I could also not install the 3.1 update. The only visual indication was Nvidia drivers installing, and afterwards, it would simply quit while all the time there was no reference that I was actually about to install Boot Camp.

Knowing that I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t want to give up and finally found a solution. Here's a step by step guide:

• Boot into Windows 7 and insert your 10.6 DVD
• Right-click on Start » Programs » Accessories » Comman...
  
  
  

I haven't seen this documented anywhere, but I discovered that you can select an entire paragraph of text by quadruple-tapping on it when entering text in the iPhone. For instance, when replying to an email, you can quadruple-tap on paragraphs in the quoted reply, then cut them.

You have to do it pretty quickly, and take care not to move your finger too much between taps. Try it a few times, though, and you'll get the hang of it. And yes, I know it might sound weird, but I actually find it quite useful sometimes.

[robg adds: This works, and isn't covered in the iPhone user's guide.]

This hint shows how to utilize OpenMeta tagging to attach a set of multiple, often-changing files to an iCal event. Although it may work with other tag managers out here, I'm using TagoMan2 for this purpose, which allows me to refer to a tag using a tag:// URL scheme:

• Edit an event in iCal
• Enter tag://Name_of_tag into the URL field.
• Click on the link you just created; this will open up an empty window you can drag your files into.
• Drag in your files.
• The way this works is that TagoMan will associate a tag (e.g. Name_of_tag) to every file you drag in. When you click on the link again, TagoMan will search for all files using this tag -- any newly-tagged files that match Name_of_tag will show up in the list. Tags are Spotlight-aware, and this tag:// URL may be used in any app which support URLs. ...
  
  
  

Sometimes I visit a website on my iPod Touch that is almost unreadable due to the expected size of a screen on a desktop computer. Even when zoomed in, some sites have the text continue off screen, meaning I'd have to scroll left and right to read a whole line of text.

I have MobileMe and sync my bookmarks between computers and my iPod Touch. And one day I happened across just such a too-small site. Frustrated, I decided to just try my Readability bookmarklet, and was happy to see it worked!

You'll need either an iPhone or iPod Touch and a computer that you sync your device to via USB or MobileMe. From a computer, navigate to Readability and set your desired options. I like Inverse, Extra Large text, and Extra Narrow margins, but pick what you like. Drag your bookmarklet to your bookmark bar, as the site instructs. (You can move it to your Bookmarks menu, anywhere, or into the sidebar of Safari's Bookmark ...

If you have entire albums, artists, or playlists excluded from shuffling in iTunes (The 'Skip when shuffling' flag is set), your iPhone 3GS will fail to play these albums, artists, or playlists when you select them using Voice Control if it has shuffle play mode enabled.

The manner in which it fails makes it seem as if something is seriously amiss (hence this hint): It acknowledges your voice input, indicating that your selection is about to play (e.g., 'Playing album Avatar'), but then returns to whatever had been playing before. If nothing had been playing before you gave the voice command, the iPhone will remain resolutely silent after acknowledging your input.

The solution to this 'issue' is, of course, to simply to turn off shuffle play mode. Unfortunately you can't do this with a voice command (as far as I know).

I have several sites that I access on both my iPhone and desktop, so I like to have quick access to them via the Bookmarks Bar. However, these sites have different versions for the desktop, for mobiles, and, in some cases, yet another version for the iPhone. Usually, the full version doesn't work so well on the iPhone, and the iPhone version is undesirable on the desktop.

Instead of creating a plain bookmark, a little Javascript can make a bookmark context-sensitive, and allow you to have one bookmark that opens the right version of a page, depending on which platform you're browsing from. The basic idea is to use some client-side Javascript to check the browser's platform (a.k.a. operating system), and then tell the browser to access a URL based on that check. The code looks like this: javascrip...