I’d like to thank the fine folks at Oomph Inc for being my relaunch sponsors for Finer Things in Tech 2.0 and DavidChartier.com. They make Sidekick, a great utility for automating your Mac based on your location.
I’ve been using Sidekick since it was called NetworkLocation, and it’s great. When you get to, say, work or your local coffee shop, Sidekick can change your default printer, enable password protection on your screensaver, toggle hardware settings, open and close apps, and change your iChat status—all automatically. Sidekick even has a plugin architecture so you can build your own or install pre-built plugins for rooSwitch, Adium, Microsoft Outlook, and 1Password, which I also do work for. Scroll down to the bottom of Sidekick’s site and click “See all the plugins.”
A free demo of Sidekick is available. When you realize how great it is, $29 seems like a steal.
Macworld has an easy way to create an automatic, sequential backup of your iOS apps
Chris Breen shows you how to create a simple Automator action that will automatically backup your iOS apps every time iTunes downloads updates for them. This is perfect for avoiding “The Twitter App Effect,” where a major update takes one step forward, but two huge steps back.
This action will even create sequential backups of your apps, so you can hang onto (and roll back to) any previous version you’ve downloaded.
