The iPhone 3G is awesome, we all know that, but the rate plans are not. By default there are no text messages included on the plans, and it costs $5 to get only 200 of them. Well guess what, you can get free SMS text messaging on your iPhone by using the AIM protocol. First you’ll need some kind of AIM client for your iPhone, so you can either download the AIM client for iPhone from the App Store, or even use Meebo. Here’s the most important part, add a new buddy to your list, but use the full phone number with a + sign in front of it, like so: +18085551212. The plus sign is crucial because thats what tells the AIM protocol that it is an SMS message. Now you can SMS any phone on any carrier from your iPhone, without using any SMS messages or without having an SMS message plan! If you’re confused, check out the screenshot which shows adding a cell phone number in iChat.

I came across a pretty useful page today about securing your Mac, and while none of the tips are rocket science or particularly advanced, I still found it to be useful enough to want to share with everyone. The first two tips are definitely what I consider to be 100% necessary if you’re either in a shared computing environment, or if you have a laptop, and I have repeated them here. Both of these can be done via the System Preferences with the Account pane and the Security pane, respectively.

Secure your Sleeping Mac by requiring password upon wake from sleep or screensaver

1) Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Security
2) Click on General section
3) Enable password prompt to wake computer from sleep or screen saver, which is done by clicking the first checkbox

Securing User Accounts - Disable Automatic Login

1) Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts
2) Click on the Lock to make changes
3) Choose Login Options
4) Disable automatic login, so strangers will require password to access into your Mac

Like I said, I consider those two tips to be 100% necessary, but there’s 8 other great tips that you might find useful so check those out here: 10 most essential things for securing your Mac

Like many other power users, I’m addicted to the Mac OS X command line, any reason at all for me to launch the terminal I take as an opportunity to learn more about the powerful backend of our favorite operating system. Here I have gathered 5 useful commands that will make your life easier when you’re working in the command line interface, so launch the Terminal and try them out! If you have any others that you think should be added to this list, feel free to post them in the comments, and be sure to check out 10 OS X Command line utilities you might not know about for more.

Delete an entire line of commands/text

Don’t repeatedly hit the delete key, all you need to do to clear your prompt is hit Control-U and your slate will be clean.

Create a nested directory structure immediately

If you need to create the directory structure /annoyingly/long/and/outrageous/directory/path/ , instead of typing mkdir annoyingly, cd annoyingly, mk long , etc etc, simply type the following: mkdir -p /annoyingly/long/and/outrageous/directory/path/ and your nested directory structure will be created in full immediately!

Clear the Terminal screen

If you have a screen full of nonsense, clearing the Terminal screen is very easy, you can either type clear or just hit Control-L and you’ll have a clean slate.

Run a process in the background

If you want to set a process to run in the background, simply put a & after it, the command will execute but you’ll still be in the same shell, allowing you to continue as usual.

Run the last executed command

Typing !! will run whatever the last command that was executed, typing !l will run the last command starting with the letter l, and so forth.

Life is officially easier for front-end web developers, you can now easily test browser compatibility by running Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 concurrently with a great utility called MultiFirefox. Simply install MultiFirefox, then rename one of the Firefox applications (to say, Firefox 3), and upon launch you can select either application version to run. MultiFirefox is fast, free, and simple to use, so check it out. Mac web developers rejoice!

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If you’re wondering how to mount an ISO image in Mac OS X, it is very easy. In the Terminal type the following command: hdiutil mount sample.iso with sample.iso being the path to the image you want to mount. After the checksum is completet, your ISO will appear mounted on your Mac OS X desktop - that’s it. You you can actually mount virtually any other disk image type with hdiutil as well, so give .dmg .img a try too.

A while ago I made a typo when creating my short username in a fresh Mac OS X install, I figured it wasn’t a big deal and that I could change it easily in the User accounts system preference pane, but boy was I wrong. Unfortunately, changing your short username is not a matter of typing a new name in a field, but thankfully Macworld magazine has a fantastic write up on three ways to change the short username in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

The first tip, involving the creation of an alias by accessing an ‘Advanced Options’ area within the Accounts preference pane, is pretty nifty. You can access this area by doing the following:

Step 1): Unlock the Accounts preference pane by clicking on the lock icon
Step 2): Right click (or Control click) on the name of an account in the list and choose “Advanced Options” from the resulting menu.

So that’s where you create an alias and do some other fancy things, but this isn’t really a solution to the short username problem I had. So what else can we do? Read the Macworld article for more:

Macworld: Change the short username in Leopard

If you’re a systems administrator or a web developer, chances are you’ll have to flush your DNS cache every once in a while to get things straightened out serverside. Flushing your DNS cache in Mac OS X is actually really easy, and there are two different commands to use, one for Leopard and for Tiger. Depending on your version of OS X, open your Terminal and follow the appropriate directions below:

Flush your DNS Cache in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Launch Terminal and issue the following command:
dscacheutil -flushcache
All done, your DNS has been flushed. On a side note, the dscacheutil is interesting in general and worth taking a look at, try the -statistics flag instead for some stats.

Flush your DNS Cache in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

Type the following command in the Terminal:
lookupd -flushcache

That’s it, that’s all there is to it. Now your DNS settings should be as you intended them to be.

A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to your network card, and some networks implement MAC address filtering as a method of security. Spoofing a MAC address can be desired for multiple reasons, and it is very easy to spoof your MAC address in both Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5. For the purpose of this article, we are going to assume you want to spoof your Mac’s wireless MAC address. So without further ado, here’s a 3 step process on how to do it:

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Here’s a great tip that creates a nice hover effect when your mouse goes over an application (or folder) within a Leopard stack. Why this isn’t enabled by default in Leopard is beyond me, because it makes navigating within stacks a whole lot easier. Don’t miss out, here’s how to activate it:

Launch the Terminal and type the following command:
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean yes

then, you’ll have to restart the Dock by issuing the following command:
killall Dock

To disable the hover highlights, type:
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean no

Quick Look is likely the only feature in Leopard 10.5 that I actually notice and something I would certainly miss if I went back to 10.4, it’s just too useful. The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a decent post listing 10 useful Quick Look usage tips, some are built right in and won’t require modification, while others will require 3rd party plugins to use. Here’s the full list, minus the detail:

1. Identify files on remote machines.
2. Preview the contents of Zip files (plug-in required).
3. Preview the contents of a folder (plug-in required).
4. Examine snippets of code with syntax highlighting intact.
6. Prep your iWork documents for use with Quick Look.
7. Enhance TextMate.
8. Preview fonts.
9. Quick Look and Cover Flow.
10. Send images to iPhoto.

If these sound appealing, read more at TUAW: 10 ways to get the most out of Quick Look