5 Tips for the New OSX Lion

OSX Lion was released on last week along with 250+ new features. With all those features to go through, you might just miss a few. Check out a few fun tips and tricks that you might have overlooked.

1. Capture your signature in Preview. In Lion “Preview” has the ability to capture your signature using your iSight camera. Simply write your signature with black ink on a white piece of paper, then go to Preview/Preferences and click on Signature. Hold your signature up to the camera and it will save the image so you can easily sign PDFs electronically.

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Unplggd: Four New Innovative Laptops

There has been a lot of talk about tablets these days, but there’s definitely still some innovative stuff going on in the laptop/netbook space. Laptops are now emerging with “instant on” operating systems, integrated 3G and external graphics, all with great looking style. We’ll take a look at a few of the best looking new laptops we’ve seen, after the jump.

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Desktop Organization

Stop for a moment, and clear your computer screen of any open windows to get a good look at your desktop. What do you see? We’d predict the average Unplggd reader keeps a pretty tidy desktop workspace, as we’d assume you’ve got a good sense of organization (or at least aspirations for it). Some say what your computer desktop looks like and how it’s organized reveals a lot about you…

The statistic/infographic geniuses over at Hunch polled their readers and discovered 72% of their readers keep their computer desktops tip-top and tidy, an impressive figure considering the average person’s desktop looks like someone spilled mahjong tiles. What was even more interesting was the conclusions they came to with their desktop organization findings, which may or may not apply to Unplggd readers, but gives insight about how we organize our virtual workspaces. Key findings include:

*Men are more likely to have neat desktops, but are also apt to have too many icons on their desktop (a no-no, since it slows down OS performance).

*The older you are, the more apt you are to have a messy desktop. 12% of those belonging to the 35-49 age category had a mess on their computer.

*The more education and more liberal you are, the more likely you are to have a messy desktop. Hunch’s readers tend to skew to the left, as noted in their findings, but it makes sense those who are more conservative and like order would have neater desktops.

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Unplggd: New Desktop Wallpapers

We recently showed you a few easy tips for de-cluttering your mac. Once you’re done cleaning up your desktop, it’d be a good time to start fresh with some new wallpaper. Apple just gave developers a peek at some brand new desktop pictures from the upcoming OS X Lion, and you can try out these high quality desktop images yourself.

Last Friday, developers were able to get their hands on the latest developer build of Apple’s upcoming operating system 10.7, aka OS X Lion. Along with updated features came some new desktop wallpapers. Apple has always been known for their beautiful and epic wallpapers. This bunch are nature-themed, featuring animals and scenic landscapes.

What’s interesting about these wallpapers is the actual size of them. At 3200 x 2000, these are larger than any display Apple currently ships today (the highest being the 27” iMac, topping out at 2560 x 1440). It’s nice to get such high quality wallpapers that are sure to be large enough to fit any screen you have, as well as span beautifully across two displays. ItsAllTech.com put together a bundle of these high quality wallpapers, which you can download here for free.

By Vivian Kim

[via cultofmac.com]

Unplggd: Speeding Up Your Virus Scan

We’ve all had this problem: we wake up in the morning and find out that our computer virus scan that was scheduled late last night is still running and basically stops you from getting any work done on your computer unless you interrupt or cancel it. Here are a few ways that we’ve found to make these scans run faster.

1. Run a default virus scan: Deep virus scans are thorough, but if you have a lot of data, they can take a lot of time. They can last anywhere from a few hours to over a day, so use the default level scan unless you really want every nook and cranny of your machine scanned.

2. Free up space on your hard drive: The more data the virus scanner has to check, the longer the scan will take. Delete anything you don’t need, and try to keep the apps to a minimum.

3. Run scans selectively: Instead of scanning all of your hard drives, program your software to scan only one hard drive per scan. The other hard drives can be scheduled for scans on other days. That way, you are only scanning one hard drive per scheduled virus checkup.

4. Run scans on your main hard drives: If you use a multiple USB hard drives which aren’t plugged in all of the time, then you can keep scan time to a minimum by running the scans only on your main hard drive. Periodically, you should scan also those hard drives, say every two to three weeks.

5. Pause your scan: Start your scan when you go to bed on a week night, pause it when you get up if you have to use the computer, then start it up again once you leave for work. This gives your computer time to scan pretty much everything.

By Range.

(Image: HD Free Wallpapers)

Unplggd: Year of the Tablet

“Year of the Tablet, eh? It certainly well looks like it. And now, we have HP steppin’ up their game with their own tablet – the HP Slate – positioning themselves as the anti-iPad/anti-computer of choice with a custom OS, integrated webcam, SD slot, and iTunes-touch.

Aside from the slick touch UI, we’re definitely loving the ability to hook the tablet itself up and project it onto an HDTV via a dock. It was one of my #1 requests for the iPad, but I guess we’re just going to have to wait a little bit longer for Apple to catch up with the needs of consumers.

If teasers are your thing, be sure to check out the 30 second HP Slate trailer. If the quick editing and cinematic orchestra doesn’t sell it for you, the features might certainly will.
Let us know what you think! Does HP have a solid winner on their hands?

[Via Engadget]

By Anthony.”