Christopher Breen

Reader Chas Hamilton has come down with a case of spring-cleaning fever for Mac users. He writes:

I was just looking at my Applications folder that contains hundreds of apps and realized that there are a lot of old things in there that I never used. I came up with the clever idea to sort my applications by the date they were last opened so that I could toss out old apps. (I figured that if I hadn't touched something in the last two years I wasn't likely to.) I'm running Snow Leopard and the problem is that when I open my Applications folder and choose View -> View Options, the option to view files by Last Opened is grayed out. Is there some way to make it active?

Today Google launched Google Drive, a free-if-you-just-need-5GB-of-storage Dropbox-like service that lets you easily store and share files in the cloud.

RELATED: Google Drive vs. The Rest -- A Comparison Chart of Cloud Storage Services

This iPad is on its way to the refurb farmAfter having more than a dozen iOS devices entrusted to my care I experienced the "Ah drat!" moment that all iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad owners dread--gravity gets its grip on the device, it tumbles to the ground, and CRRRRRAAAACKKK goes the display. My new third-generation iPad managed to slip off my desk and glance off the one metal object on my office's carpeted floor. That glancing blow was enough to shatter a section of the iPad's glass display and send cracks across the bottom-left corner.

Those who haven't faced such a wrenching moment may wonder what one does after the swearing stops and tears dry. It goes something like this:

Image Courtesy of Lance Shields via Flickr Creative Commons Editor’s Note: Now that Apple’s third-generation has arrived in stores, that means a lot of earlier models of Apple’s tablet could find themselves looking for work. If you’re upgrading to a new iPad, you don’t necessarily have to sell your old tablet or give it away. This is the latest in a series of articles in which we look at ways to give your old iPad a new purpose. In this installment, we focus on converting your old iPad into a kid-friendly tablet.

With three-generations of iPads under Apple’s belt, it’s becoming more usual to find multiple iPads in a home. And some of them are being passed along to kids. What can you do to make such an iPad useful (and safe) for your child? Read on to find out.

Reader Steve Carter would like his deleted files to be really, really gone. He writes:

How do you delete a file completely and forever? I thought the original still remains on the hard drive until it is overwritten. And is there a way to go back and permanently erase old previously deleted files?

We'll start with the basics. When you toss a file into the Trash and then empty it, the file isn't really gone. It's simply removed from your Mac's file directory. With the proper recovery tools (Prosoft Engineering's $99 Data Rescue 3, for example) you can recover it provided that you haven't added other files to your Mac that have overwritten the portion of the drive that file once occupied.

Reader P.J. Schultz is attempting to reach across the great Mac/PC platform divide but has been thwarted. She writes:

I am trying to install the software for my Canon printer on to my husband's Windows 7 PC. We have a software install CD that is compatible with Mac and Windows, however he has one of those new-fangled machines without an optical drive. We looked online for the appropriate software but couldn't find the right combination of software and drivers that worked. So, I thought I could try to transfer or "burn" the CD to a USB thumb drive on my Mac (which still has the optical drive). No matter what I do, I have only been able to transfer the Mac specific files onto the thumb drive. Is there any way to access that Windows partition of the disc from my Mac, to be able to transfer those files to a different medium?

There is. Like so:

When recently pondering the nature of the Apple TV, I suggested that Apple has brought about nearly miraculous changes that we now take for granted. I experienced another such miracle last night.

I'd finished rehearsal with my band and contemplated the hour-plus drive home. I'd neglected to pack my iPhone with the podcast episodes I usually reserve for these drives. While grumbling about my lack of forethought, it suddenly dawned on me. Within my grasp were:

Reader Ted Adams is particular about what is and isn't in his Mac's Applications folder. He writes:

Is there any way to get rid of the applications I have no use for that are included with Lion? I never use GarageBand, Stickies, Calculator, Chess nor several others. They do nothing more than clutter up my Applications folder. How do I trash them?

A jailbreak hacker known as chpwn, has developed Spire, a tool that allows those with jailbroken iOS devices to use Siri, Apple's personal assistant voice-control technology.

With the help of Ryan Petrich (a jailbreak developer responsible for the popular DisplayOut app, among others), chpwn has created a tool, available via the Cydia repository, that downloads the Siri components to the iOS device directly from Apple (approximately a 100MB download).

Holiday music and eggnog have this in common--they should be wrapped in the proper season. Break them out during a mid-summer celebration only if you want to immediately poop the party. Fortunately, you can ensure that your holiday music is played at the right time--and in the right way--during the holidays. The avenue for doing so is iTunes's smart playlists.

Tag Your Tuneful Gifts

Reader Sigil has an interesting question regarding a MacBook Pro with ailing i-sight. He (or she, I suppose) writes:

I have a MacBook Pro with a failing graphics chip. I just read your article about using an old Mac as a backup server. If anything, what can I do with my MacBook Pro to salvage some value?