A clever little Mac utility : “Airlock allows your Mac to lock itself, plain and simple. Using your iPhone or iPod Touch, Bluetooth, and a smidgen of pixie dust, Airlock determines whether you’re near your computer. When you leave the room – poof! – your Mac locks itself. “And when I come back?” You guessed it: your Mac unlocks. You can also customize Airlock to perform specific actions as you come and go – have your computer talk to you, log-in or out of iChat, walk the dog, and such.”
Salling clicker does the same and much more for non iPhones, and works on windows and mac. Unfortunately is not free.. Also there was Romeo for mac, but has been discontinued…
Osnews is an Apple advertising agency these days?
Next time we run across some software that seems really interesting, we’ll make sure not to mention it, so as not to offend your delicate sensibilities.
This came right after “Apple Launches RSS Feed for iPhone Developer News” (now how’s that for news?), and this one looked like a simple app advertisement for somewhat trivial technology.
I apologize for getting a bit trigger-happy. I’ve been enjoying osnews’ slight anti-apple slant, and was concerned it would take turn for the worse ;-).
Wow. you’re a bit insecure aren’t you?
Yes I am you insensitive Clod!
No I’m not, why would you say that? You’ve been talking to Bob, haven’t you?!?!?
I guess that’s RDF Newspeak for “I don’t share your preference, for the following reasons:” (apart from having the advantage of avoiding all the tedious typing)?
(A sign of the times btw: just noted that my spell checker did not recognize the word “netiquette”).
No. It’s plainspeak, for “why would you be enjoying the negative news, but afraid of any positive news?”
That’s not a preference, that’s a deliberate rejection of objectivity for the sake of bias. The mentality of those who buy those sensationalist supermarket magazines.
Edited 2009-12-13 19:57 UTC
You are reading way too much into a brief posting.
This just isn’t interesting news – my mistake was to speak that out loudly, instead of doing the decent thing and ignoring it.
The irony of your comment is not lost on me.
This has to be the first time in a long time that we’ve been accused of being pro-Apple.
You lost a bet there, David.
hehehe very true
Back on topic though:
I was thinking of building something just like this – seems like someone’s saved me the trouble
So it’s OK in your opinion that they run article after article bagging Apple in every way possible, but as soon as there is something positive about a Mac App, not even something FROM Apple, they’re an Apple advertising agency? And you people call the pro-Mac brigade zealots???
Same coin, different sides.
One side complains if anyone displays “insufficient praise” – if they’re not enthusiastic enough when it comes to praising Apple, then they’re assumed to be anti-Apple zealots. The other side complains if anyone displays “insufficient condemnation” – if they’re not critical enough of Apple, they’re assumed to be pro-Apple zealots.
Speaking largely from the sidelines, neither approach is any more or less an example of zealotry than the other.
It’s a pretty good idea, but yeeugh, the website is so cutesy and patronising, managing to almost put me off the whole idea just for that. I mean yeah I know they want to sell this thing, but come on, I’d think it to be a parody if I didn’t know better.
I’m getting a Nokia N900 soon (just as soon as my PAC code comes through) so it’ll be interesting to see if I can whip up a script to do the same kind of thing for my laptop running Arch. I reckon it wouldn’t take long. Of course it won’t carry the same urban hipster cachet, but I think I can live with that
Only problem I can think of is if you come to rely on it, then forget to take your phone with you when you leave then you will end up leaving your machine unlocked. But if you have it on a timer anyway I suppose that’s not so bad.
Surprised someone hasn’t lashed out how this has been done before and somehow Apple again makes it seem new and cool…
Plugged my rubbish iPhone into a generic USB car charger yesterday. Unsurprisingly didn’t work. The Apple factor strikes again.
Always cooler when it’s Apple, obviously. It did not become very usefull with my usage pattern, but I thought it was a nifty hack when I tried it way back. Using bluez, KDE2 and my T61 🙂
Always cooler when it’s Apple, obviously. It did not become very usefull with my usage pattern, but I thought it was a nifty hack when I tried it way back. Using bluez, KDE2 and my T61 🙂
I had a small script for locking my screen and starting and stopping a few services every time my phone went too far away from my computer, and unlocking the screen whenever I came back. It was quite handy except when my phone crashed and rebooted or when the battery suddenly went empty
Except this is made by a company called The M.H.A. and has nothing to do with Apple.
BlueProximity
http://sourceforge.net/projects/blueproximity/
I’ve been using it for quite some time.. works great.
I remember doing the same thing about two years ago, using the tool “Proximity”. That supported any Bluetooth device, not just iPods and iPhones.
I didn’t find it to be particularly reliable, though. Sometimes my Mac would lock in front of me, despite my cellphone lying right next to the machine, or it would fail to unlock when approaching it. Perhaps Airlock handles these things better. Then again, I neither have an iThingy, nor OSX 10.5+. It’s a shame, because it’s a cool idea.
P.S. guide for doing that with Proximity here:
http://www.technocrat.ca/?p=44
I find it entertaining that people are constantly in search of new ways to increase their dependence on gadgets. Consumerism at its best I suppose.
Chalk it up to my minimalistic nature, but I tend to go the other direction – finding new ways to do without unnecessary “automation” in a search for simplicity and more control over my life (I even stopped carrying a cell phone ~5 years ago). Yeah, maybe I’m just a troll.
But having a device with me at all times which will lock/unlock my computer when I walk away or approach just seems like pure laziness. Reminds me of all those people who constantly forget logins/passwords because their browser or computer remembers for them automatically.
Hi All,
I only found out now that this has been working in KDE for years.
Its so simple to set-up!
Right click KDE icon in system tray, go to kbluelock, select enable and click
on your phone. That’s it.
NB: Pair KDE with your handset first so its discoverable.