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Chuck Melcher wrote:

I'm wondering if anyone can help me with a mail syncing problem.  Probably I'm just missing a simple setting somewhere, but so far it is eluding me. Here is what happens.

I read my UTK exchange mail on my iPhone 4 using the Mail app.  I have iOS 6.1.3.  I read a newly received message then delete it.  It then disappears from the Inbox on my phone and appears in the Exchange trash folder on my phone.  It also disappears from the Inbox in OWA and appears in the trash (aka "deleted items") folder in OWA.  Therefore, it really does seem to be moved from my Inbox to the Trash folder on the Exchange server.  Or at least that is my simplistic view of things.

Then I go to my Macbook Pro (10.8.3) where I use Mail to access the same UTK exchange account.  The previously mentioned message is still listed in my Inbox although I previously deleted it using my phone.  If I try to delete it from the Inbox on the Macbook, I receive an error message that I cannot move it to the trash.  I then look in the trash and sure enough it is already there.  I.e. it is listed in both my Inbox and my Trash folder.  The only way that I have found to fix things is to rebuild my Inbox (~500 messages).  In that case, the message will, in fact, disappear from my Inbox.

What am I missing here?  It seems that my Inbox on my Macbook is not syncing properly with the exchange server, but the problem is specifically limited to messages deleted via my phone.  I'm not aware of any other syncing issues.

I would greatly appreciate any help since at this point I have only two options.  One is to never delete messages via my phone; the second is rebuild the Inbox on my Macbook every time that I do delete messages via my phone.  Neither of these options is particularly attractive.

By the way, I have already deleted the exchange account from both my Macbook and my iPhone and recreated it on both devices, but the problem persists.  I'm using all of the standard settings as far as I know, i.e. I'm using Autodiscover to set up the account on both devices.

And Chuck found the solution:

I discovered a simple setting that fixes the problem below.  On my phone I went to Settings/Mail, Contacts, Calendars/UTK Exchange/Mail Folders to Push and put a checkmark beside "Deleted Messages".  Problem solved.

This week the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published 26 newly granted patents for Apple, and among them were the Cupertino company's take on a push-to-talk feature and a double-sided touch-sensitive panel, both of which could possibly appear in future iPhones. -- AppleInsider.

Backing up your Mac is vitally important, yet creating a backup is something that most people don't bother with that much.

This is a shame because Apple has gone out of its way to make creating a backup incredibly easy. And a good backup will save your bacon if (and more likely 'when') something goes wrong. Losing valuable files, not to mention your entire system isn't fun, so we're going to take a look at some of Apple's options. -- Macworld UK.

Our guide to restoring Mac OS X from a Time Machine backup will help you recover a Mac that doesn't boot, and help with a failed hard drive -- Macworld UK.

Next week at AllThingsD's D11 conference in LA, Apple CEO Tim Cook will be interviewed by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg.

Here are some questions Horace Dediu is hoping they will ask:

1. Why is the iPhone not sold as a portfolio product? Meaning, why, after six years, is there no iPhone product range being updated on a regular basis. Having a portfolio strategy is not only followed by every phone vendor but also by Apple for all its other product lines, including the iPad, which came after the iPhone. In other words, please explain why the iPhone is anomalous from a product portfolio point of view.
2. There are more than 800 operators world-wide so why are there only about 250 of them carrying your phone? Competitors large and small (from BlackBerry to Nokia to Samsung) have cited relationships with more than 500 operators so Apple is being uniquely selective. My question does not stem from a lack of patience: this total number of iPhone distributors has not increased markedly for over a year. Are you limiting distribution through conditions placed on operators (like the availability of sufficient quality data services) or are operators finding the distribution agreement too onerous (e.g. too high a minimum order quota)?
3. In 2012 Apple's capital spending has reached the extraordinary level of $10 billion/yr, higher than all but the most capital-intensive semiconductor manufacturers. This is unusual for Apple as it was less than $1 billion in the year before the iPhone launched. It's also unusual for Apple's competitors in phones, PCs or tablets. It's on a level matched only by semiconductor heavyweights. What is the purpose of this spending and what should we read into it leveling off at $10 billion for 2013?
4. Depending on one supplier is an operational faux pas, and yet Apple has found itself in that situation with Samsung for mobile microprocessors. It may be excusable in PCs with Intel having an architectural monopoly but it's not excusable for a chip that you designed yourself and purchase in massive quantities. Why did you give Samsung such a concession, especially knowing their potential as a competitor vis-à-vis alternative suppliers who had no such potential? Does the answer have something to do with the previous question?

Tim Cook survived his grilling during his appearance before the U.S. Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc. Even though some of the senators still aren't happy with Apple's international tax practices, a solution to the problem wasn't given.

Not one to pass up the opportunity to make fun of senators, John Stewart broke down the Senate hearing on his show last night and jokingly proposed the U.S. create the 'Tax Code Nano.'

XiStera 8: pocketable lens adapter, stand, tripod mount, headphone wrap, stylus, bottle opener & key chain with optional LED lighting.

With the discovery of malware signed with a valid Apple ID, here are some steps you can take to help prevent the remote chance of any such programs infecting your computer.

There is no question that regardless of the computing platform you use, malware happens. To help prevent these and other unwanted programs from running, Apple includes a data execution prevention routine called GateKeeper, which offers three layers of protection. The first allows everything to run, the second allows only applications signed with a valid Apple Developer ID to run, and the third allows only programs distributed through the Mac App Store to run. -- MacFixIt.

A new test video, along with explanation and question period, shows Corning firing back at rumors that Apple and other clients may switch to using a sapphire glass cover in future products. In addition to showing that Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 is stronger and more resistant to damage, the US-based glass company says that their product is more eco-friendly, cheaper to make, and more flexible for designing products. -- Electronista.

On May 23, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals an all-new intelligent audio system that is coming to future iDevices that will be based on a device's orientation rather than depending on its fixed speakers. Depending on the way the user is holding their iDevice and which content they're enjoying, Apple's new audio processing router will ensure that the very best audio output configuration is chosen using its intelligent audio mapping system. -- Patently Apple.

Last week we learned about Apple inventing an all-new touch sensor panel that would support larger displays like those found on a MacBook Air or Pro. Today, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals yet another major touch related invention relating to an all-new touch pad electrode design which is to reduce the effects of noise and thermal drift and to provide users with more precision in their interaction with a touch display. Another invention covered in our report covers an amorphous diamond-like carbon coating for increasing the thermal conductivity of the structural frames of any Apple mobile device that is battery-powered. We close out our report by covering a new camera patent and providing you with a list of continuation, provisional and divisional patents that were published today that may interest some. -- Patently Apple.

Got a file that's preventing you from emptying your Trash? Got a disk image that won't eject? Then we've got a Terminal trick you'll like. This command will show you what programs are accessing a file or volume, so you can quickly figure out what to quit to get on with your life. -- The Mac Observer.

It used to be that the iTunes Store Download link was on the left side of the screen and you could click it to see or pause multiple files downloading at once, but with iTunes 11 it's gone now?

Apple's redesign of its iTunes jukebox software last fall moved a number of elements around to new locations within the program's interface. In iTunes 11, you can see a list of actively downloading files by clicking the small downward-pointing arrow in the top right corner of the program's window.

When you click this Downloads icon, a box pops open showing the name and progress of each file on the way to your computer. You can pause all file downloads or individual downloads here as well, which can come in handy if you need to free up some network bandwidth.

Although the Downloads link no longer appears there, if you miss the other items that were listed in the left pane of the iTunes window in previous versions of the program, you can restore it. Just go to the View Menu in iTunes 11 and select Show Sidebar. When the Sidebar is showing, your various libraries (Music, Movies and so on) appear in a readily visible list instead of being hidden away in the Library pop-up menu in the top left corner of the window. (If you find you prefer the Library pop-up menu, just return to the View menu and choose Hide Sidebar.) -- New York Times.

AirPrint is a great feature of iOS that provides a simple way of printing documents from your iPhone or iPad directly to an AirPrint-compatible printer with no setup or installation needed. That's all well and good but the number of AirPrint-compatible printers is pretty small, chances are many of us have a great printer at home that isn't compatible. In this tutorial, we'll explore a couple of ways to provide AirPrint to your iOS device using your Mac as well as how we can make AirPrint work even better! -- Mactuts+.

iTunes U makes it easy to download and subscribe to any courses you'd like. While not all courses come with assignments and material, some do. If you decide you'd like to complete assignments or want to download additional material, here's how to find out if any is available in iTunes U and download it directly to iBooks. -- iMore.

Welcome to the dawn of the SSD age. Solid-state drives now offer great performance at affordable prices, which is why more and more users are choosing them in new PCs and adding them to older ones.

I'm a big fan myself, but I want to share a cautionary tale. -- PCWorld.

A patent application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday reveals Apple is actively researching methods to ensure a video's multi-channel audio is always played back correctly, no matter how a user holds the device. -- AppleInsider.

This was a popular subject when Mac OS X Lion (10.7) first shipped, as Apple drew a firm line between the new and old ways in regard to data sharing. MobileMe was out and iCloud was in. At that time there were a couple of sneaky ways to make Snow Leopard's iCal work with iCloud. Allow me to report that I've wasted plenty of my time so that you needn't waste yours. These schemes are broken and it's very unlikely Apple is going to do anything to make iCloud compatible with Snow Leopard.

But that doesn't mean you can't use an alternative--Google Calendar. In order to have such a thing you must sign up for a Gmail account. For the six of you who don't have one, hightail it on over to Gmail.com and set it up. -- Macworld.

Last week we wandered about Mountain Lion's Messages application to get a feel for the territory. In today's lesson we'll dig into some of Messages' less obvious features, including screen sharing, initiating remote slideshows and presentations, and viewing past chats. -- Macworld.

In this week's tip, I'll discuss a cool feature that you may be wholly unaware of--even if you're a long-time Mac user.

In Lion and Mountain Lion, click the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. Yeah, yeah, you've seen this before. But now click More Info.

In the old days, you'd be taken to System Profiler, and you'd see a fairly drab list of specs about your Mac--which you can still see in Mountain Lion by choosing Show System Report from the File menu. But now More Info offers a slicker view that puts your Mac's most important information front and center. -- Macworld.

Is your iBooks library starting to outgrow those beautiful skeuomorphic wooden bookshelves that Apple provided for you? Have you purchased way too many Star Wars novels, only to find them crowding out your beloved Jane Eyre collection?

Well, there's a simple way to manage an epic, ever-growing iBook collection, of course (why else would I be writing this), and here's how. -- Cult of Mac.

If you're using an email service that supports it (such as an iCloud account or a Gmail one), you can choose to archive your messages instead of deleting them, which will save emails into a folder called "Archive" or, within Gmail, "All Mail." If this feature is turned on for a particular email account on your iOS device, you'll see a storage box in your toolbar when you've got a message open instead of the typical trash icon. -- The Mac Observer.

Flickr has announced that all users will now have 1 TB of storage for free. With that much space, surely it would be interesting to figure out how to use Flickr as a cloud drive.

Ricardo Tomasi has done just that with Filr, a command-line tool that turns Flickr into a storage repository. This solution isn't ideal, since it's only available for now from the command line, and has only been tested with certain types of files (images), and only on files of up to 15 MB. But it's worth highlighting, and I'm sure others will come up with better solutions very soon. -- Mac OS X Hints.

Google has announced plans to roll out an update to the iOS version of Chrome that will enable voice searching. The feature will function similarly to Siri on the iPhone, requiring a tap on the microphone to bring up the interactive search interface.

As is traditional for the time of year, Apple has updated its main US homepage to promote items from its store in tune with the upcoming Father's Day holiday. In addition to the iPad and iPad mini, such items as iPhone 5, the Nike+Fuel band, the iGrill meat thermometer, the HipKey proximity alarm, the Nest thermostat and other suggestions are highlighted. The page also features a subtly cleaner and more geometric design.

The update to the design of the page is not immediately noticeable, but offers more squared-off corners and a more-clearly tiled design. The layout has been made more elegant, and buttons are also noticeably more rectangular. The look has been extended to the other main pages of the online store.

A link to shipping deadlines is also featured on the Father's Day page so that buyers can be sure to receive their deliveries in time for the holiday, which falls on June 16. Apple is again offering free custom engraving on the iPad as part of the promotion.

Most of our ventures onto the Web still begin with a search -- a fact readily exploited by spammers and swindlers who rely on excessive use of keywords, link exchanging and other manipulation techniques to push their content higher in the list of search results, hoping you will click on them.

Though the major search engines discourage such deception, that hasn't stopped companies from engaging in such practices -- and fooling users in the process.

A little caution when using a search engine can help you steer clear of fraudulent merchandise and keep out of the clutches of spammers. -- New York Times.

On May 23, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals Apple's next generation of "Airplay" that will be able to operation in a two-way manner that is also interactive. Apple also hints that the separate devices of an Apple TV and a Television could be combined into a single device, an Internet-enabled television. -- Patently Apple.

The open-source Intel Linux graphics driver has hit a milestone of now being faster than Apple's own OpenGL stack on OS X. The Intel Linux driver on Ubuntu 13.04 is now clearly faster than Apple's internally-developed Intel OpenGL driver on OS X 10.8.3. when benchmarked from a 'Sandy Bridge' class Mac Mini. Only some months ago, Apple's GL driver was still trouncing the Intel Linux Mesa driver. -- Phoronix.

Is Mountain Lion worth upgrading to? It's a question worth considering, and it seems that many Mac OS X owners have yet to take the plunge. In this feature we take a look at some of the features in Apple's latest operating system, and see if the update is worth it. -- Macworld UK.

Congratulations! You've made the leap from a Windows PC to the Mac. Now that you're here, it's no surprise that you might be feeling a bit lost. We've assembled this chart to make it easy for you to find the feature you're looking for, whether it's your printer settings or audio controls. -- Macworld.

A reader recently asked for help with their iPad: Safari's navigation bars had turned black, and the reader didn't know why or how to fix it. The short answer is that the reader had inadvertently enabled Private Browsing in Safari, but it got us thinking that perhaps a more detailed look at this useful, but little-known, iOS feature was in order. -- TekRevue.

It's expensive to use a cell phone abroad. It's even more expensive to use a smartphone abroad. A few years ago, I took a work trip to Paris and did a dumb thing. Long story short, I get off the plane, forget that both my voice and data plans are standard and end up with a four-figure phone bill. AT&T was actually really great about getting the number down to around $50, but they told me very clearly that this was my one get out of jail free card. -- Gizmodo.

Thomas Moats has several iOS devices: 6.0.1 -- iPhone 4, 6.1.2 -- iPhone 4S, 6.1.3 -- iPad, and more; he reports a problem and provides a fix for Excessive Data Usage/Charges:

I thought I would pass along something that we found on some iOS devices that were having excessive data usage (20-40GB per month) and thus excessive data charges ($200 to 400 per month).  After loading a data monitoring app called Onavo Count we found that the Exchange email service was the problem because of an old email stuck in the Outbox.  In one case it had been there for several months.  Deleting the email appears to have fixed the issue, but we are still monitoring everyone's usage to be sure.  One thing about deleting the email, on a couple of the devices I could not delete the offending email until I turned off cellular data and Wi-Fi.  After doing this, we had no problem deleting it.

Just thought I would pass this along.  It is a lot better than resetting a phone.

What do you do when you have a decent photo that you want to turn into a great photo?

Making a great image often means you need to spend a long time editing, but that's not always the case. Sometimes all you need is the right tool or approach.

We asked a few of the Ars editors and writers about some of the tools they use. All of us do some degree of photo editing for the articles we write, but some of us also love photography in our spare time. Here are a few of the tools we rely on and a few pro tips on creating images with impact. -- Ars Technica.

Back in ancient times--throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s when just 1000 or so fonts were available for desktop computers--designers had a tongue-in-cheek saying among themselves: The one who dies with the most fonts wins! It made sense at the time because fonts were coveted by every designer as a creative resource of unparalleled importance, and prices were astronomical. While supply has risen and prices have dropped in more recent eras, one thing remains true today: Fonts remain incredibly important and valuable to anyone who puts words on paper or pixels. -- Macworld.

One of the most infuriating thing about Apple's music devices - its wonderful iPods and iPhones - is their rigid approach to syncing. You can sync music from a single PC or Mac very easily and intuitively using iTunes, but transferring music in the other direction seems to be impossible. Here's how to get it off and transfer your tunes to a Mac. -- Macworld UK.

I just got back from a week-long vacation. We were staying in Tel Aviv, Israel, which meant lots of walking and cycling (I took my Brompton), plus day trips. Which in turn meant traveling light.

The iPad is perfect traveling companion, and the iPad mini is even better. But if you want to take lots of photos with an actual camera, or -- worse still -- a camera that shoots huge RAW images, you need to plan ahead. And as I didn't want to take a Mac with me, I needed a few tricks to help out.

This post isn't about how I managed my photos on the trip (although I will mention that side of things a little in terms of the hardware I used). It's about the gadgets and apps that help you work around the limitations of the iPad when you're relying on it away from home. -- Cult of Mac.

iBooks is not only a fantastic e-reading app on your iPhone or iPad, but it's also a fantastic study tool. If you need to read books for class or your own learning objectives, you can use iBooks to highlight words or passages, search the text for specific words or phrases, and make notes that appear in the margins as little colored sticky notes. -- Cult of Mac.

An ongoing issue for some people who have installed Mountain Lion is the inability to access their systems' internal optical drives. Once installed, inserting a disc results in a couple of noises before the disc is ejected. While this can sometimes happen for burned discs that are no longer readable, it appears to happen for all discs, be they home-burned or commercial. -- MacFixIt.

There are several ways you can move a user account from one computer to another without having to set up the account again from scratch. -- MacFixIt.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 26 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover three main granted patents. The first covers the possible implementation of a native Push-to-Talk feature for a future iPhone. The second covers a new flexible circuit supporting a double-sided touch panel that technically could be used for a wraparound display for a future iPhone. The third covers the touch technology that went into the design of Apple's Magic Mouse. Our report concludes with a full list of the remaining granted patents of the day. -- Patently Apple.

Wireless carriers typically subsidize the cost of a new mobile phone by requiring you to sign a two-year contract for service on their networks -- in effect, "locking" the phone to the network. This subsidy can lower the price of a new smartphone to about $200 from around $600, but it basically means you cannot legally use the phone with any other company's network without permission from your carrier.

Modifications earlier this year to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act actually made unlocking your phone without your carrier's permission illegal. A Congressional bill, the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013, was recently introduced to change the current law.

You can still buy an unlocked phone outright, though, and one big advantage to doing so is that you can use it freely on other carrier networks -- especially if you buy a handset that works on the G.S.M. networks used around the world. Traveling with an unlocked G.S.M. phone means you can buy local inexpensive service plans, and S.I.M. cards, in the countries you visit and not worry about exorbitant roaming charges from a company back home. -- New York Times.

Kerberos originally designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Network Service Authentication Protocol. It was named after the three headed guard dog of Hades.  This is quite accurate as Kerberos creates a realm with 3 key components, These are the Kerberos Client, the kerberised service and the Key Distribution Center or KDC. Apple have been using Heimdal's  implementation of Kerberos Version 5 since OS X .7. -- Amsys.

I have a new iPhone. You know I am going to use this for both videos and images that can be analyzed. It's just what I do. So, before I need it I am going to measure the angular field of view for this phone. Oh sure, I could just look it up somewhere but I don't always trust these values. It's more fun to do it yourself. -- Wired Magazine.

If you think the private messages you send over Skype are protected by end-to-end encryption, think again. The Microsoft-owned service regularly scans message contents for signs of fraud, and company managers may log the results indefinitely, Ars has confirmed. And this can only happen if Microsoft can convert the messages into human-readable form at will. -- Ars Technica.

If you've never heard that noise before, you're bound to hear it someday: that amazing, dull crunch as your Mac slips out of your hands or off a desk and makes a date with the ground at 9.8 meters per second squared, gravity having played the role of a yenta-like matchmaker bringing together your computer and an admirably dense surface. The crunch registers in your brain, and you have a sudden mental image of the universe collapsing.

Here's how to make the best of a terrible situation, get as much of your data back as possible, and avoid a similar disaster if your Mac decides to smooch the ground again somewhere down the line. -- Macworld.

So you dropped your Apple iPhone in the bath, the sea or the toilet, and you want to fix it, dry it out, and recover the data inside. Here's how to rescue a waterlogged iPhone. -- Macworld UK.

Waiting hours for a cellphone to charge may become a thing of the past, thanks to an 18-year-old high-school student's invention. She won a $50,000 prize Friday at an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds. -- NBC News.

Apple is well-known for its love of the so-called golden ratio, an "extreme and mean" mathematical ratio that designers as far back as the third-century B.C. had identified as most likely to lead to harmonious design. The iCloud logo, for example, is designed with the golden ratio in mind... and it's widely believed that the iconic Apple logo is also designed using the golden ratio. -- Cult of Mac.

When I opened iBooks on my iPad mini the other day, I tapped the Collections button, and selected "Purchased Books" as my filter option, to see what I had in my account that I wanted to read. Oddly, I saw a ton of the same book, over and over, sitting on the shelves. -- Cult of Mac.

Charles Erwin Wilson, known as "Engine Charlie," was president of General Motors and later Secretary of Defense under President Dwight Eisenhower. He is broadly -- and incorrectly -- quoted as having said during his Senate confirmation hearing "what's good for General Motors is good for America." His actual quote is more nuanced: "For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa."

This is a fascinating bit of history because we aren't talking about today's General Motors or even today's United States of America but the GM and the USA of 1953 -- a time when both were leading the world. Yet look at the equivocation in Charlie's statement -- I thought, not I think.

Look, too, at our biggest companies today like Apple, Exxon-Mobil, Google, Microsoft, General Electric, and even, yes, General Motors. Can we still maintain, as Engine Charlie kinda/sorta did, that what's good for those companies is good for America and vice versa?"

No, we can't. -- I, Cringely.

iTunes 11.0.3 provides AppleScript support for controlling AirPlay devices. Below is a basic script that illustrates how AirPlay devices can be selected and applied using some of the new iTunes AppleScript classes and properties. -- Mac OS X Hints.

Apple's Preview program is the default PDF viewer in OS X, and has a number of options for annotating and otherwise managing PDF files. One of its features is support for Quartz filters, which can be applied to PDFs and image files to convert them, for example into sepia, black-and-white, or gray scale. A Quartz filter can be used to reduce the PDF's file size, but while it's effective at doing so, you may find images in the resulting PDF too grainy to use.

You can make your own filters for reducing or otherwise adjusting images when exporting in OS X's Preview application. -- MacFixIt.

Kodak, continuing its journey back from bankruptcy, has introduced a ScanMate i940 scanner specifically aimed at Apple users for the North American and European market. In addition to featuring increase image accuracy and precision capture, the unit now comes bundled with NewSoft software for Macs, including Presto Pagemanager 9 for scanning images and doing OCR on the scanner as well as Presto BizCard Xpress business card-scanning software. -- MacNN.

You do not need a special iOS app to get coupons, tickets and other digital documents that work with Apple's Passbook electronic wallet. -- New York Times.

The ability to copy electronic code makes one-time pads vulnerable to hackers. Now engineers have found a way round this to create a system of cryptography that is invulnerable to electronic attack. -- MIT Technology Review.

If you are unable to sign in or purchase content from the iTunes Store, you may see the following alert:

"iTunes could not connect to the iTunes Store. A secure network connection could not be established. Make sure SSL 3.0 or TLS 1.0 is enabled in the Internet Options control panel, then try again."

In an effort to protect your privacy, iTunes uses the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol when you sign in to the iTunes Store. The SSL protocol uses port 443, the date and time, and other information from your computer to function as expected. The troubleshooting steps below will address the most commonly incorrect information that SSL and the iTunes Store require; this should resolve the issue and the alert should no longer appear.-- AppleCare Knowledge Base.

E-mail security is an ongoing issue, but there are basic precautions you can take to help keep your account safer from intruders, viruses and other malicious scenarios. To start, make sure your computer's operating system, security software and e-mail/Web browser program have all the latest updates and security patches installed. -- New York Times.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 26 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover Apple's future Magic Mouse that will utilize a new force sensor. Our report also covers and 4 new design patents covering Apple's Smart Cover and more. -- Patently Apple.

In 2010, Outlook poorly supported Gmail accounts, but today it's a lot better. Most of the setup that was previously required is now automated. In this revised guide, you'll now find two major sections. The first shows you where to plug in your account information, and I'll also walk you through some extra steps to remove a couple unnecessary folders. The second details how you can make Outlook feel more like Mail, and includes some of what was previously covered in the 2010 tutorial. I've also removed the previous introduction -- I'll get straight to the point. I hope you find this guide more more relevant and useful than it was before. -- MacStories.

Digital photography expert Derrick Story has a new book with a very specific focus. "iPad for Digital Photographers" is your guide to getting the most out of Apple's tablet if you are into photography. Derrick talks about why the iPad is such a compelling and useful device for photographers of all experience levels. With tips on using the iPad as a camera, and editing device, and a business device (for the pros), this book has something for everyone. We talk through some of Derrick's workflows for both transferring and editing photos to and from the iPad, why the iPad can encourage even the most traditional photographer to try something new, and why he recommends getting this book on paper rather than as an eBook. -- MacVoices.

As cloud computing services become ever more popular, you might begin to wonder how much you can really trust them to perform when you need them? I decided to find out - by testing the top file-transfer/file-storage/file-backup services. -- ReadWrite.

iTunes U offers a wealth of knowledge and for the most part, a lot of it is free. This means you can download courses and lectures on a vast array of topics and subjects without ever having to actually step foot in a classroom. Whether you want to brush up on a topic you've already studied or would like to learn something new, there's something for everyone.

Follow along and we'll walk you through how to subscribe to an iTunes U course directly from your iPhone or iPad. -- iMore.

These tips will extend battery life for all iPhone users, but you probably don't need to bother with any of this unless your iPhone battery life is actually suffering. It's usually pretty obvious when so, because those of us impacted by the battery drain will have a battery at 30%-60% by mid day despite very light to moderate usage. If you're not certain, you should run the battery down to about 5% and then see how long the battery has actually lasted by checking usage statistics, if what you see is only a couple hours of actual device usage, then you may have an excess drain issue that can be resolved by the tricks outlined below. -- OS X Daily.

Game designer Steve Jackson and a bunch of friends build Lego trains and tracks and scenery, including buildings and other props. The group calls itself the Texas Brick Railroad. They often display their train sets at public events where -- yes -- their trains attract children like crazy. This FLASH video shows off both current Lego trains and some of the classic, no-longer-sold Lego trains that members have collected over the years, including the highly-prized monorails.

The purchase of 18,000 iPads for use as electronic flight bags has set the stage for the U.S. Air Force to save more than $50 million over the next 10 years. -- AppleInsider.

The U.S. Department of Defense announced on Friday that it has officially approved Apple devices running iOS 6 or later to access its secure government networks. -- AppleInsider.

Thirty-party apps didn't exist when the iPhone first launched in 2007. At that time Apple offered its own set of built-in iOS apps and users were relegated to Web apps if they wanted tools made by someone else. Luckily things have changed since; we now have hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from for our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. Many of them even offer similar or better functionality than the default apps from Apple.

Users still can't delete Apple's default apps from iOS devices (grumble grumble…) but there are plenty of useful alternatives out there for people hoping to use something other than the default. Readers are always asking about which apps the Ars staff uses when they choose to ditch the Apple's camera, mapping, music, or other apps. I put out a call to our editors and writers to find out just what does the Ars staff use for the major app categories (and why)? Here's what we came up with. -- Ars Technica.

Thanks to iCloud, syncing an iPhone with a Mac is a piece of cake. But Mac users who don't buy into the whole "one vendor to rule them all" thing will find that syncing an Android phone with OS X isn't quite as easy. That said, it isn't terribly difficult, either, thanks to Google's own cloud services. -- Macworld.

Apple has filed a new patent in which a primary iOS device controls many other secondary devices as assistant flashes in order to light the scene.

When taking photos in low light the outcome may not always be as desired, that's why we use flashes to light the scene up. But, one flash might not be enough or it might ruin a face shot, and presumably that is why Apple have come up with this new system.  -- Macworld UK.

In the US, on a sales per square foot basis, Apple retail continues to perform twice as well as Tiffany & Co., the second best retailer, and three times as well as lululemon athletica, the third best retailer.

The latest quarter showed a 7% growth in visitors and a new record of $57.6 revenue per visitor. -- Asymco.

When Siri was updated along with iOS 6, we showed you a bunch of ways to use Apple's personal digital assistant the right way, like using punctuation and finding out the weather.

Yet time marches ever onward, and we've compiled yet another five tips and tricks to help you master Siri, whether you're looking to create a secure password or just pass the time with a few laughs. Enjoy! -- Cult of Mac.

Saving space on your Mac's hard drive is more important than ever, especially if you use one with a faster but smaller solid state drive in it, like my Macbook Air. Being able to manage your space wisely is the key here, and once you've done the obvious things, like pare down your Applications folder and delete all those iMovie source files, it's time to get trick, and a bit advanced.

Here's five things that you can do to get rid of hard drive bloat, if you dare. -- Cult of Mac.

In this tip, we're going to dive into the new options available for the MiniPlayer under the just-released version of iTunes, including the lovely new album art view. Melissa Holt informs us that she listened to a lot of Pink Floyd while writing this tip, so it may turn out to be her grooviest yet, man. -- The Mac Observer.

Love your Apple TV, but don't love all of the applications that come pre-installed? Then hide the ones you don't want, and enjoy a cleaner user interface! All you need is your Apple remote and a couple minutes of your time. -- The Mac Observer.

OS X looks great, but sometimes you need to give your Mac a little personality, or maybe you just need some quick visual cues for your folders files. Sandro Cuccia shows you how to engage in a fun, but Apple-sanctioned method for customizing your Mac desktop icons. -- The Mac Observer.

By default, Mail will keep file attachments that you've opened or viewed in your ~/Library/Mail Downloads folder, until you delete the associated email. You can save disk space by making the following switch.

In Mail's preferences, go to General, then set Remove unedited downloads to When Mail Quits. This does not remove the attachment from your email, just from your local cache of Mail Downloads.

On one machine I've got, I reclaimed nearly half a gigabyte after using the system for only a few months! I can't wait to see how much I get back on a system I've been using for 5 years! -- Mac OS X Hints.

If you've got an OS X firmware update that just refuses to install properly, there are a few things you can try to remedy the situation. -- MacFixIt.

Three months after hackers working for a cyberunit of China's People's Liberation Army went silent amid evidence that they had stolen data from scores of American companies and government agencies, they appear to have resumed their attacks  using different techniques, according to computer industry security experts and American officials. -- New York Times.

Intel is a $53-billion-a-year company that enjoys a near monopoly on the computer chips that go into PCs. But when it comes to the data underlying big companies like Facebook and Google, it says it wants to "return power to the people." -- MIT Technology Review.

AT&T shared a little bit of what goes into a portable network cells they put up at special events where bandwidth needs will be extraordinary. Remember, AT&T's network is about 80% iPhones so this is important stuff. The setup above was what they used to cover a recent Los Angeles festival (read: Coachella).

This isn't a test network; AT&T's been honing their skills since they got caught with their pants down at SXSW in 2010 (back when AT&T was the only US iPhone carrier). Since then, with their mobile response team, they've been able to keep their network up and running at huge events with the addition of these 'kits'. -- 9to5Mac.

Jack Sanford is being lied to by the Mac App Store and would like to do something about it. He writes:

When I checked for Mac App Store updates on my MacBook Air, it said there were no updates available. But when I clicked the Purchases tab, the button next to iMovie showed Update. I clicked that and got a dialog telling me "You have updates available for other accounts." But I have only one Apple ID that I use for purchases. How do I fix it? -- Macworld.

The Mac on your desk or on the cafe table next to you has a chip with secret functions that can be unlocked only by inputting a spell from the Harry Potter series. The SMC, or system management controller, is a chip used to regulate a Mac's current and voltage, manage its light sensor, and temporarily store FileVault keys. Turns out that the SMC contains undocumented code that is invoked by entering the word "SpecialisRevelio," the same magic words used to reveal hidden charms, hexes, or properties used by wizards in the Harry Potter series written by author J. K. Rowling. -- Ars Technica.

Adobe Photoshop is one of those weird products that has an cultural significance far beyond its actual purpose. As we've said before, it has become a verb - we commonly speak about 'Photoshopping' images regardless of the software that we actually used to do it.

Adobe's recent announcement that everything beyond Photoshop CS6 will need to be rented as part of its Creative Cloud lineup has caused a fair amount of disquiet (some of which has been pretty loud), but Photoshop isn't the only game in town, and never has been. In this article we'll be taking a quick look at ten other pieces of image manipulation software that you might not know about, but which are well worth exploring.

None of these applications is a true one-to-one 'replacement' for Photoshop CS6, particularly if you're a graphic designer or video professional. But for the rest of us - people that just want to retouch images, manipulate composition, adjust colors and saturation, apply canned filters and effects, and remove that kid who wandered into the foreground of an otherwise-perfect photo - they may prove to be very useful. -- Digital Photography Review.

When Lightroom 5 Public Beta was introduced I recorded a video showing my Top 5 Favorite Features (see below). One of the features that I knew would be a game changer for me was the new Smart Preview feature. When you build "Smart Previews" for your images they are available even if the original RAW files, TIFFS, JPGs, PSDs, etc. aren't with you. You can perform edits on them in the Develop Module and also output them for web/email as well as use them in slideshows. -- Terry White's Tech Blog.

Apple has filed a patent (number 20130125242) with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for client-server version control system for software applications. It's for a software version control system that manages versioned applications in a client-server computing system environment. -- AppleDailyReport.

Lately, we've been combing through data from our community survey and collecting stories for the Amazing Break series. All those stories have taught us a thing or two about the way people go about fixing things.

We firmly believe that it's always best to use the right tool for the job. But, sometimes, time is really of the essence. When you've just dropped your iPhone in a glass of Sprite or your motherboard is on fire, you probably don't have time to wait for a box of shiny new tools to arrive in the mail.

In these cases, you may need to resort to some improvisation. Here are a few tricks we've collected from our own experiences and those of our users. -- iFixit.

The golden ratio (symbol is the Greek letter "phi") is a special number approximately equal to 1.618. It appears many times in geometry, art, architecture, Aesthetics, Painting, Book design, Industrial design, Music, Nature, Optimization, Perceptual studies, and other areas.

If you divide a line into two parts so that the longer part divided by the smaller part is also equal to the whole length divided by the longer part then you will have the golden ratio. -- Math Is Fun.