We’ve covered some Notification Center tips at TekRevue, but what if you just don’t want Apple’s notification platform at all? Here’s how to indefinitely banish it from your Mac: First, launch the Terminal app from /Applications/Utilities, enter the following command, and press Return: launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist You’ll see the Notification Center icon disappear from your Mac’s menu bar. You may notice that there’s now a blank space between your rightmost menu bar icon and the edge of your screen.
Official Twitter for Mac App Gets Retina Support, New Languages
The official Twitter client for Mac OS X was updated today after nearly two years of neglect on the part of the popular social media platform. While still functional prior to today’s update, the Twitter app remained stagnant in the face of new hardware, such as Retina Displays, and drastic and controversial changes to Twitter’s API. The version 2.2 update to Twitter brings the following changes: Retina display support — Twitter is now more vibrant on the highest resolution Mac
Ubuntu 13.04 “Raring Ringtail” Now Available
Ubuntu, the Linux distribution known for its slick look and ease of installation, just received a major update. Version 13.04, codenamed Raring Ringtail, is available now. The latest version focuses primarily on under-the-hood improvements and streamlining, making it “the fastest and most visually polished Ubuntu experience to date.” Users of slower or older hardware will notice performance improvements the most, but those with more powerful hardware will still enjoy the visual improvements and tweaks to the user interface. Performance improvements
Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sells Out in Less Than 3 Minutes
Apple changed the way that it sold tickets to this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) by pre-announcing their availability, but that only led to a record-breaking sellout. After going on sale at 1:00 p.m. EST, Apple informed developers by 1:03 p.m. that tickets had sold out. As Apple’s consumer base has grown, and as mobile iOS application development has become more important to the industry, interest in the company’s annual developer event has grown exponentially. In 2010, it took Apple
How to Add iTunes Track Information to OS X Notification Center
Notification Center is a handy iOS tool brought to the desktop with OS X Mountain Lion that alerts users to various events on their Mac. Apple included built-in Notification Center support for many apps, such as Mail and FaceTime, but oddly neglected iTunes. Thankfully, third party apps can also tie into Notification Center and solve this oversight on Apple’s part. iTunification is a free app that adds iTunes notifications to Notification Center. When properly configured, users will receive a Notification
Madden NFL 25 Out August 27 Featuring Barry Sanders
Former Detroit Lions and NFL Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders will grace the cover of this year’s Madden football game, designated Madden 25 in honor of the franchise’s 25th anniversary. EA held a fan vote to determine which athlete would be featured on the milestone cover, and Mr. Sanders beat NFL MVP Adrian Peterson in the final round by 58 to 42 percent. Other athletes who received votes include newly-retired Ray Lewis, Joe Montana, and Jerry Rice. Madden
Chinese Court: Apple at Fault for 3rd Party Copyright Violations
A Chinese court ruled Tuesday that Apple must pay 730,000 yuan (approximately US$118,000) to three writers for allowing unlicensed copies of their works to be sold on the App Store. While the monetary impact of the decision will barely be felt in Cupertino, the ruling may set a precedent in China that that could force digital distributors of content to alter their policies. The books at issue were reportedly uploaded to the iOS App Store as standalone apps by third
Microsoft to Reveal Next Xbox on May 21
Microsoft, the last major player yet to announce its next generation console, just revealed that the “Xbox Reveal” will take place on Tuesday, May 21 at 1:00 p.m. EST (10:00 a.m. PST). Xbox programming director Larry Hryb, a.k.a. “Major Nelson,” made the announcement this afternoon: On Tuesday May 21st, we’ll mark the beginning of a new generation of games, TV and entertainment. On that day, we’ll be holding a special press event on the Xbox campus and we invite you
AMD Launches $999 Radeon HD 7990 GPU
AMD released the long-awaited Radeon HD 7990 Wednesday, finally providing an official dual-GPU product in this generation. While ASUS and PowerColor have had their own unofficial 7990 variants on sale for months, today’s release from AMD is the first in-house look at two Tahiti HD 7970-class GPUs on a single PCB. The card features 8.6 billion transistors (4.3 billion per GPU), over 8 teraflops of raw computing power, 6GB of GDDR5 memory, two 8-pin power connectors, and a custom three-fan
How to Temporarily See Hidden Files & Folders in Mac OS X
Like nearly every operating system, Mac OS X hides certain files and folders from the user by default. These files, which often contain system configuration information, are invisible to the user but can be revealed with a Terminal command: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE; killall Finder Unless you plan to frequently access hidden files, however, unhiding them will merely clutter up your desktop and folders. If you need to access hidden files only occasionally, there’s an easier way. First, launch
Hacked AP Twitter Account Falsely Reports White House Explosions
Hackers caused brief panic and a sharp, but temporary, market dip Tuesday afternoon by falsely reporting a bombing at the White House. The incident occurred after the official Associated Press Twitter account sent the following message at 1:07 p.m. EST: The report was almost immediately discredited and the AP’s Twitter account was taken down until control could be wrestled from the unidentified hackers. The markets sharply dropped upon release of the tweet, but regained their losses within minutes after the
The New York Times Frees Videos From Paywall
While The New York Times still limits non-paying readers to ten articles per month, the paper is now allowing unlimited video content to escape the paywall, according to a press release Tuesday. To cover the cost of allowing free access to the content, the paper is partnering with Microsoft and Acura to run advertisements before each video. As we continue to tell stories through video and increase our offerings, we want to ensure NYTimes.com users can watch and explore our