Tag Archives: ios

Embed only the video from another post on X or Twitter

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
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Twitter has a new-ish feature that lets you embed only the video from another post or tweet in a post/tweet of your own (without quote-replying the source tweet itself). Only the video is then embedded in your post, and a small attribution appears at the bottom identifying where the video came from:

In the screenshot above, Sarah is sharing a video that was originally shared by Luc, but she’s not embedding/quoting Luc’s tweet itself – only the video. This post will cover how to do that yourself, both on the desktop/web and in the iOS Twitter app on iPhone.

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Apple finally locks down the USB port in iOS 7

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
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One of the basic principles of computer security is that if someone has physical access to a machine, compromising it is simply a matter of time (yes, even technologies like whole-disk encryption via GPG/PGP, BitLocker, or TrueCrypt are often still susceptible to “Evil Maid” attacks). But while all devices are vulnerable to hands-on attacks, some devices are more vulnerable than others.

Innocuous-looking USB accessories for both PCs and smartphones have long been a preferred for attacks aiming to gain unauthorized access to a machine. Devices that look like USB sticks can easily direct a computer they’re plugged into to dump data to an external device or online file storage by mimicking a keyboard/mouse, an attack no antivirus or antimalware software can prevent. Smartphones have been susceptible to similar attacks, even from something as seemingly-innocent as a regular phone charger. These hardware-based attacks have been well-documented, and while a passcode on the device can mitigate such attempts, it’s no cure-all.

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OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 finally unifies iMessage messaging

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
3

iMessage fragmentation across devices has been a common complaint ever since iMessage was first released, and although Apple has taken steps to mitigate the issue, it hasn’t yet been truly solved. The problem was exacerbated with the release of Mountain Lion which brought iMessage to the desktop (or to the laptop, depending on what you use), where users of OS X would be allowed to join in the iMessaging fun – but with a very important caveat: the iChat (now rechristened “Messages”)  messaging software would only register with the iMessage email account, so iMessages sent to your phone number would not be received.

This meant that users would have to explicitly take care to send and receive messages from their iMessage-enabled email addresses; but while you can always select where and how you initiate conversations, you can’t very well choose how and where perfectly random strangers will choose to contact you. This limitation also applied to the iPad, however iOS 6 beta seeds included a fix for that, adding the option to initiate and receive messages from the phone number associated with your iMessage account.

It pleases us to inform you that with Mountain Lion 10.8.2 (as of the latest developer seed, 12C50) this feature has been extended to Messages on OS X, and in the future, your iMessages will be synchronized across all platforms. Here is a screenshot of how your iMessage account looks in iMessage on 10.8.2:

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