One of the great features of OS X Lion would have to be Spaces which gives the user the possibility to have several desktops which can prove to be more than useful especially for those that are working in more than just one app and also in different documents.
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Let’s not forget that Spaces is also great for those that have just one display.

If you have several desktop spaces, most of the applications which are launched in a desktop space usually are dedicated to that space. One of the apps which you can use in order to manage the desktop spaces in OS X Lion is called Mission Control which can be launched from the Applications folder or the Launchpad. Once you open it you’ll notice two sections, with the main one occupying most of the screen’s center. It is called Expose and shows you the desktop of the Mac, helping you find the window you’re looking for on your computer. The desktop spaces are located on top of Expose and this is the places where you are able to manage Spaces. We have to mention that the available spaces look like thumbnails, with the first one being the Dashboard while the one next to it is the Desktop. If you want to add a new desktop by using Mission Control, you will have to move the cursor anywhere you want to the right of the aforementioned desktop thumbnail. Once you do this a pop-up that has a “+” symbol is going to appear in the screen’s upper right corner. After clicking on it, an additional desktop is going to appear. For deleting a desktop space all you have to do is move the cursor on the one that you want to get rid off and you’ll notice a circle that has an X on it which you have to press.

You might want to know that by holding down the Option button, that “X” is going to appear on all of your spaces, except of course for the Dashboard and Desktop 1. You also have the possibility of rearranging your desktop spaces by clicking and dragging them, with the exception of Dashboard and Desktop 1. We should mention that each of the desktops can have their own wallpapers. What you have to do is go to the desktop where you want to apply a different wallpaper and then modify it by accessing System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver > Desktop. Another way of doing this would be by right clicking on the desktop and after that choose Change Desktop Background. With Mission Control you can create as much as 15 desktop spaces so in other words you’ll have 16 desktops and the Dashboard as well. You will still be able to add new spaces even if you create all of the desktop spaces available in Mission Control by accessing the full screen mode with an application. More about full-screen applications in the second part of the article where we will also talk about moving between spaces.
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A very good application for ripping DVDs is HandBrake which is also suitable for converting other types of files on the HDD to various formats that work with iOS. We should also mention that it boasts a lot of built-in presets that make your life easier.
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Even though new devices are launched, it takes a while until new presets are made available which can take advantage of what those new devices have to offer. To give you an example, the third generation of the Apple TV as well as the third-gen iPad now are offering support for 1080p playback, but the HandBrake presets for these two devices are still targeted towards the predecessors of these two devices so as a consequence it will not offer the best video quality for these new devices.

The good news is that it is quite easy to make your very own presets in HandBrake once you learn a few tricks. One example would be to develop one for econding at up to a resolution of 1080p so the source material also has to be 1080p. Keep in mind that HandBrake is not able to rip Blu-ray discs but we should note that it still is able to transcode those that have been ripped using specific software like MakeMKV. The following method can also be used if you want to develop a tweaked version of the built-in presets, depending on your necessities. The first thing that you have to do is select a source file because otherwise HandBrake will not allow you to select or edit a preset. You have the possibility to choose just about any type of video file that the software is able to recognize. After making the selection you must click on Toggle Presets which can be found in the toolbar in order to view the available presets. Next, you must perform a click on the drop-down triangle which you will find next to Devices. One of the available presets is the AppleTV 2 preset which you should load if you want to follow our example. After the selection has been made it will load the settings of the preset and next you have to click on the “+” which is located at the bottom of the drawer so that you can start making a new preset. Now, from the Use Picture Size menu you must choose Source Maximum (Post Source Scan and after that enter a name and also a description if you want. You will also have to think about whether you prefer using the picture filters provided by HandBrake. Then you will notice the preset located on the preset list at the bottom.

You can choose this one as the default preset for all of the new video encodings from now on by selecting it in the drawer, clicking on the gear icon and after that from the pop-up menu you have to select Make Default. Once you do this the preset is going to appear in bold. The best thing about this preset that you have made is that it is going to create the highest resolution format video files for those who have one of the latest devices from Apple, based on the type of video you feed to it.
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In Transmit when you are doing an operation on one of the files, this will happen right away. If you delete a file then Transmit is going to remove it from the remote server. If you perform a double-click on a file or if you select it from an open dialog then Transmit is going to download and cache a version on which you will be able to work.
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Once you save it, Transmit will send the updated version on the remote server where it will replace the current copy. The downside of Transmit which is also the disadvantage of iDisk would have to be that the user’s interaction with the content is related to the broadband connection’s speed on which the user operates.

What this means is that if you want to do a double-click on a 50MB file in order to edit it then Transmit will make you wait until the file with the size of 50MB has been downloaded locally. The same situation applies for when you make a change to the file and save it as the updated version will be uploaded again. As far as Net Disk is concerned, just is just like iDisk but with the sync option activated. We should mention that this would have to be an extension of the Mirror feature in Interarchy and the user has the possibility to select if Net Disk will synchronize the modifications to the computer, from the computer to the server or in both ways. In most of the cases, the user prefers both so that it can simulate a real volume. It is important to note that when you will make a first Net Disk mount and have Both Ways or Download mirroring set in the Mirror Mode, the program is going to do a copy of all of the remote files and after this happens the changes will be synchronized back & forth. So, when you are saving on the Net Disk an updated file, this file will be saved immediately locally and Interarchy will uploaded in the background. Needless to say, Interarchy is not really recommended when you are operating with large files where there are involved lots of GB of traffic so for those situations you might want to consider Transmit.

In order to create a mountable disk in Interarchy you have to choose File > New Net Disk and after that select from the Protocol menu the type of connection. Next, enter the connection’s credentials. You should know that Interarchy is going to fill in the Local field on its own with the server’s name if no path has been set, or with the last directory if there is a path established. You are able to modify this by accessing Set and after that picking your preferred local folder. We recommend leaving Mirror Mode set to Both Ways. The final step is to click on Mount. For Transmit, choose one of the available connection methods, enter the suitable details and after that click on Mount as Disk. For unmounting the disk from the Finder you must access File > Eject “Volume Name” and after that press Command-E. You are going to view this drive in a Finder window from where you can hit on the Eject button or you can do a right-click on that volume and choose Eject.

The most significant advantage of iDisk from MobileMe was that it managed to provide an Internet-based storage which acted just like a mounted volume in the Finder.
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The user had the possibility to mount it, access it from just about anywhere and also transfer items to it. You can consider it as a more convenient type of FTP. The bad news is that MobileMe and iDisk will not be available anymore starting with the end of June, according to Apple.

Even though it wasn’t the best solution, many people have used it so since it will no longer be available, we must have a look at some of the alternatives offered. Right from the start we should mention that Apple provides the ability to mount several types of file sharing services, such as FTP and WebDAV straight in the Finder, but many users criticized it for not being flexible and robust enough. In addition, it doesn’t include support for two very popular methods of accessing files that are stored on a remote server (Amazon S3 and SFTP). For Finder-accessible access you might want to consider a storage system like Amazon if you have access to file sharing through a hosting company. For your own servers you can consider Panic’s Transmit which will set you back $34 or Nolobe’s Interarchy that costs $30. Both Transmit and Interarchy provide a connection to one of the many file-server protocol types that are available, along with support for several proprietary ones as well, to be treated just about the same as a regular Mac volume. The compute won’t know the difference while the programs handle the necessary protocol interaction in background, much like a regular AFP - Apple Filling Protocol volume. This would have to be a convenient alternative to the regular browser window approach in which the user can interact with the files via the lists that are in the program itself. Interarchy and Transmit can work with three of the most popular secured methods for a remote access: WebDAV over HTTPS - which is a popular way for extending the file service to a web server; SFTP - Secure File Transfer Protocol - commonly used by web hosting companies; along with Amazon S3 that at the moment is holding no less than 900 billion objects, including here web pages & images. These three protocols are entirely safe to use at home, at the office or on public networks. Needless to say, there are other methods which are less secure but these are recommended to be used only on trusted networks.

In Interarchy you can find several secure but less popular ways, while in Transmit you will need to install NuFS which is a tool that can make mountable volumes appear. We should mention that the programs have entirely different ways of approaching net disks, as Transmit will work much like the iDisk’s old default mode so you get a window within the file structure of the server path or remote shared server, but without syncing or downloading files locally.