Applepie

How To: access built in OS X Dictionary and Thesaurus

OS X includes a system wide dictionary and thesaurus, many native OS X applications make use of this feature to provide instant spell checking. Users can also benefit from it by invoking the dictionary or thesaurus at any point.

• Highlight the work in question
• Press Command + Control + D (for dictionary or define)

To access the thesaurus, select Oxford Thesaurus from the Oxford Dictionary drop-down menu.

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: Apple, Dictionary, How To, OS X, Software, Switcher, Technology

Mail.app - KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE fixed

A trip to the Apple Genius Store fixed my Mail.app kernel protection failure. My preferences file was corrupt, and even thought I thought I had deleted all mail preference files I missed one of them. Mail.app stores preference list files in at least 3 locations:

• \library\mail
• ~\\library\mail
• ~\library\Preferences

The important one to reset is ~\library\Preferences\com.apple.mail.plist. Once this file was deleted, Mail was able to load again.

In order not to loose all of my email accounts, I moved ~\library\Preferences\com.apple.mail.plist to the desktop. Then I restarted Mail.app which caused it to recreate a default, vanilla, preferences file and re-set Mail's internal settings. I exited mail.app and then moved my original plist file to the correct location. Once I re-started mail.app this time, everything worked - and all of my email accounts were available once again.

Horrible error handling on Apple's part, and annoying behavior to store preference files (plist) all over the place.

Thanks to Tom at the Bellevue Apple Genius Bar for helping me get my system running again.

Cris Pierry

Technorati Tags: Apple, mail.app, Technology

How to: Create an ad hoc wireless network

Few users are aware that they can use the wireless card on their Macs (or PCs) to create what is a called an ad hoc/computer to computer network - enabling you to extend a single internet connection to various computers/devices without the need for a standalone wireless router - your wireless card acts as a wireless access point.

Ad hoc networks are useful in a hotel room when you may want to extend the single hotel internet connection to your other devices or to a colleague's laptop. Even if you do not have internet access, you can use an ad hoc network to share files between computers.

Setting up a Wi-Fi ad hoc network on OS X

1. Click on the AirPort icon in your menu bar. From the AirPort menu, select Create Network.

2. Click on Show Options and encrypt the connection by entering a password as described in the dialog box.

3. Click on OK.

4. Each user on your ad hoc network should now select the network that appears in the AirPort menu and enter the specified password.

That's it - you can now share a single internet connection across various devices, and you can share files cross all devices on your ad hoc network.

Note: in order to be able to share files across computer, you must make sure that file sharing is turned on - In System Preferences, click on the Sharing icon and then on the Services tab. Turn on Personal File Sharing to share with other macs and/or Windows Sharing to share with windows PCs.

Windows users can also create an ad hoc network, it is only a little more difficult to configure - for windows instructions, see Making the Wireless Home Network Connection in Windows XP Without a Router.

Cristiano Pierry

Technorati Tags: Apple, How To, Technology

Mac's Boot Options

Besides the options outlined in the previous post, Macs also support the following boot time options

Press Option-Command-P-R until you hear two beeps. Reset NVRAM.
Press Eject, F12, or hold the mouse button Ejects any removable media, such as an optical disc.
Press N during startup Attempt to start up from a compatible network server.
Press T during startup Start up in FireWire Target Disk mode.
Press Shift during startup Start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items.
Press Command-V during startup Start up in Verbose mode.
Press Command-S during startup Start up in Single-User mode.
Press Option-N during startup Start from a NetBoot server using the default boot image.

Cristiano Pierry

OS X Startup Manager - booting from a CD

I need to diagnose my iMac and figure out how hosed my hard drive really is.

In Windows I knew to press F8 during system boot to get the boot manage. How can I do the same on my Mac?

• Press Option during startup Starts into Startup Manager, where you can select a Mac OS X volume to start from. Note: Press N to make the the first bootable Network volume appear as well.

• Press C during startup Start up from a bootable CD or DVD, such as the Mac OS X Install disc that came with the computer.

• Press D during startup Start up in Apple Hardware Test (AHT) (make sure the install DVD is in the computer.)

• Option-Command-Shift-Delete - Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume.

Cristiano Pierry

OS/X Shortcuts - My Favorite Apple Short-Cut Keys

Here are my favorite shortcut keys for OS/X.

F9: brings up expose
F11: shows the desktop

Control-Eject: evokes the shutdown window

Option+Command+Eject: sleep (no confirmation dialog)
Command+Control+Eject: restarts (no confirmation dialog)
Control + Option + Command + Eject: shut down (no confirmation dialog)

Command+Option+Shift+Q: Log-out current user

Command-W: Closes current window
Command-H: hides current window

Command-Q: quits the current application
Command-Tab followed by Q: enables you to quick any running application without bringing them to focus

Command-`: Cycle through windows in application or Finder (if more than one window is open)

Fn-Delete: delete from left to right (i.e. forward delete)

Cristiano Pierry

Mac OS X: How to secure an external hard drive.

Apple's FileVault is great if you want or need to secure your entire home folder. Unfortunately, FileVault does not encrypt your data on a second hard-drive or a removable drive. If, like me, you use an external portable firewire hard-drive when traveling, you can you Apple's Disk Image Encryption to securely encrypt the data on your removable media.

To create a new "Disk Image" with Encryption

Open the Disk Utility under \applications\utilities.
Click on New Image
Type in the new image name,
Set the encryption to AES-128 bit
Pick an image size appropriate for your removable hard-drive

The image will show up as a volume on your desktop.

Now drag the new image to your portable hard-drive and you are done. All file placed inside the new volume will be automatically encrypted and secured.

You can move files to or from an encrypted disk image as easily as you can from a non-encrypted disk image.

Cristiano Pierry

Easy file sharing with iDisk

Apple has made it really easy for you to share files with colleagues if you are a .Mac subscriber. Your .mac Public folder can be accessed easily via any web browser. Simply entering the URL http://idisk.mac.com/membername-Public now produces a page that automatically includes download links for whatever is currently in your public folder.

Your friends and colleagues can also use your iDisk Public folder page to upload and share files themselves - make sure read/write is select in your .Mac preference pane.

If necessary, you can password-protect your public folder to limit access to your files.

Pretty cool, and pretty easy to use.

Cristiano Pierry

Easy file sharing with iDisk

Apple has made it really easy for you to share files with colleagues if you are a .Mac subscriber. Your .mac Public folder can be accessed easily via any web browser. Simply entering the URL http://idisk.mac.com/membername-Public now produces a page that automatically includes download links for whatever is currently in your public folder.

Your friends and colleagues can also use your iDisk Public folder page to upload and share files themselves - make sure read/write is select in your .Mac preference pane.

If necessary, you can password-protect your public folder to limit access to your files.

Pretty cool, and pretty easy to use.

Securing your laptop data

Due to the latest security precautions, air travelers are not allowed to carry on their laptops, being forced instead to check it in as luggage. Chances are that many laptops will be broken in the process, and many others will be stolen. As a precaution, now is the time to ensure that your laptop data is secure and cannot be compromised if lost or stolen.

First and foremost, ensure that your account on the laptop is password protected. Then proceed to enable File Vault to ensure that your data is encrypted.

FileVault uses the latest government security standard to safeguard your hard work. It protects all the info in your home folder from prying eyes, so your trade secrets stay secret, your holiday shopping lists are kept safe and your personal finance records remain protected.

To turn on File Vault, go to Systems Preferences, Security, and click on Turn On FileVault...

Windows XP users can use EFS to safeguard their data - for more info check out Encrypting File System overview, and Vista users will be able to use BitLocker.

And finally, invest on a secure and sturdy laptop case to minimize accidental damage in the cargo hold.

Cristiano Pierry

Playing Windows Media on a Mac

Many news web sites today offer video news clips. Most of them seem to support only the Windows Media format, leaving most Mac users unable to playback the video.

While Microsoft canceled the Mac player for Windows Media, they do offer a 3rd party utility that enables you to playback many, but not all, Windows Media video clips on popular news sites.

Flip4Mac, available for free from the Microsoft site, makes it possible for you to access CNNs video stream. However, Flip4Mac does not work with MSNBC.

Note: the latest version of Flip4Mac, v.2.1, recently stopped working with BBC videos; hopefully this is just a bug that can be fixed quickly.

Short of running Windows XP on Parallels, there is not much else you can do to access these video stream until they provide native support for Mac or become compatible with the Flip4Mac plugin.

For now, I am glad to be able to access CNN's video through the free Flip4Mac plugin.

I hope that in the near future, top news organization, will adopt a more open and cross platform video streaming technology to enable non Windows users to access their content.

Cristiano Pierry

Viewing full email headers

If you ever need to double check that an email sender is really what who he says he is, you should access the full email header.

To view the full header information on Mac Mail,

Select the message in question

Select menu item View, Show, Raw Source

Alternatively, you can use option-apple-U as a keyboard shortcut.

To help you understand the message header, use an email header reading tool such as Mail Tracker v1.1

Here is the result of email header analyzes for a spam message I received earlier today:

Received: from 2erize76.tk0li5.adelphia.net (bzq-84-108-207-33.cablep.bezeqint.net [84.108.207.33]) by mac.com (Xserve/smtpin39/MantshX 4.0) with ESMTP id k79GU2lK006849;Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:32:10 -0700 (PDT)

SUMMARY - The reverse lookup name does not match the 'from' name (code=N). Sequence error -The 'by' name does match the 'from' reverse name in the header above (code=S). (more information.)

If you received a spam or fraudulent message, you can always report it by forwarding it to spam@uce.gov.

For even more info, check out SpamLinks web site - everything you didn't want to have to know about spam.

Cristiano Pierry

Frontrow - Keyboard Access

I am sure this must be documented somewhere, if only I read manuals...

If you want to launch and use Apple's Frontrow but you don't have your remote control with you, you can invoke Frontrow by pressing Command-ESC. You can navigate around with arrow keys, use space bar to select, and press ESC to go back.

Handy... just in time for my trip down to San Diego. Time to catch up on 24 second season.

OS X Tips: Command-Left/Right Arrow

Just discovered, by accident, that you can use Command-ArrowKey to move back or Forward in Safari - same as pressing the buttons.

Playing WMVs inside of QuickTime

Microsoft has made available "Windows Media® Components for QuickTime", by Flip4Mac™, it allows you to play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) directly in QuickTime Player and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a Web browser.

Unfortunately, I still can't playback my Windows Media Center content on my Mac.

OS X Tips: Switching to the Next Safari Tab

You can use Command-Tab to switch between open applications.

You can use Command-` to switch between open Windows of the same application.

You can use Command-Shift-RightArrow, or Command-Shitf-LeftArrow, to switch between open Tabs in Safari.

OS X Tips: Tabbed Browsing Shortcut

Here is a shortcut to open all bookmarks into their own separate Safari tabs. 

First make sure that you have Tabbed Browsing turned on, and add Folder with bookmarks to the Safari's Bookmark Bar.

You can Ctrl-Click on the folder in the Bookmark Bar, and select Open in Tabs, or even better, press Command-Click on the folder and all bookmarks inside that folder will open up in their own tab.

OS X Tips: Built-in Dictionary

Apple's OS X Tiger has a built in version of the Oxford Dictionary. You can pretty much highlight a word anywhere, say on a website, and press Command-Control-D and a window will popup showing the definition.

OS X Tips: Automatically Adding File Extensions

To make it easier to share files with a PC, you can configure your Mac to always add a three-letter file extension every time you save a file.

Go to Finder menu, choose Preferences, click on Advanced, and select Show All File Extensions checkbox.

OS X Tips: Hiding Your Open Applications

I often have too many applications open on my desktop.  Sometimes I need a quick way to hide all applications except the application that I am currently using.

To hide all applications except one, Command-Option Click on the Dock icon for the application you want to keep visible.  This will immediately hide all other applications -- cleaning your desktop workspace!

Yet another way to do the same things is to Control-Option Click on the application's icon, and select Hide Others.

OS X Tips: Finding Original File

If you ever need to find the the original/source file from a file alias, just click on the alias, and press Command-R.  A new Finder window will come up with the original file inside.

If you want to find the original file from a Dock icon, then Comamnd-Click on the Dock icon in question and a Finder windows will come up once again with the original file inside.

OS X Tips: Creating File Aliases

OS X allows you to create "Aliases" to files.  Alias is a reference to a file somewhere in the file system.  To create an alias, you Command-Click or right-click on a file and select Make Alias. 

A new file is created with the same file name plus the word "alias" is appended to the end of the file name.  Aliases can be quickly identified by a tinny arrow on the bottom-left corner of the file icon.

There is a faster method to create an alias and avoid having the "alias" text appended to the file name. 

Press Option Command and click and drag the file outside of the Finder window it's in (drag it to the desktop for example).  This creates an alias without the word "alias" attached to the file name.

OS X Tip: Widgets on Your Desktop

I love Apple's Dashboard and I often have 5-8 different widgets running. I have often wished to have the widgets permanently visible on my desktop ala Konfabulator.

The best part about widgets is the quick glimpse of information. Having to press F12 to first invoke the widgets takes away some of its effectiveness.

Here is an undocumented way to run your widgets directly on the desktop!

• Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities)
• type defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
• Log out and then log back in
• Start Dashboard (press F12)
• Invoke the Widget Bar (press command =)
• Select the widget you want on your desktop
• While dragging the widget from the Widget bar, press F12 to close Dashboard
• When you release the mouse, the widget will appear on the desktop

OS X Tip: Expanding a Long Filename

When working with the Finder in a column view, your files with long filenames may have part of the filename cut off from view because the column is not wide enough.

There is a quick way to expand the column to see the full filename: just double-click on the tab at the bottom of the vertical divider bar, and the column will expand just enough to display even the longest filename in the list.

OS X Tip: Deleting a File

Deleting files on OS X was not an intuitive process for me.

On Windows, you select the file and press the delete key. On OS X, I tried pressing the delete key but nothing happens.  I have been using the mouse to drag and drop files to the trash can, which is a very inefficient process.

To delete a file on OS X, select the file in question, and press command-delete, which will send the file straight to the trash can! I should have known...

OS X Tips: File Source

Ever wonder where a file came from?  If you download lots of files you may find a few cryptically named files on your desktop that you do not know where they came from.  Luckily, Mac OS X does!  Select the file in question, press Command-I (Get Info), the Info dialog appears, expand the "More Info"  section and look at the "Where From" field!  It even includes the exact web address for the file!

OS X Tips: Speeding up Full-Name Display

When you have Finder in list view, you may find file names that do not "fit" in the available column.  To view the full file name you can either resize the column, or hover the mouse over the file - after a second the full file name is displayed. 

If you don't want to wait that second, press Option and then put the cursor over the file name - the full name will appear instantly.

OS X Tip: Opening Folders in New Window

If you want to open a folder in a new window, Command-DoubleClick on the folder.  This tells Finder to open the new folder in its own window.

If you are always opening a folder in its own window, you can go to Finder menu, Preferences, click on General, and choose "Always Open Folders in a New Window."

Utility Review: Witch

Andrew Burke, who runs the http://andrewsmactips.cjb.cc/ site, pointed me to a great utility that addresses the issue I raised with the blog entry "Where are my Windows?" 

It is an application called Witch that clones Apple's Command-Tab with a much richer set of functions, including the ability to select open windows.  After installing, you access Witch's functionality via Option-Tab. 

For a review of the Witch take a look at Andrew's web site here. 

OS X Tips: Spring-Loaded Folders

Moving or copying files from one location to a folder nested deep inside another folder can be troublesome.  Apple has a concept called Spring-Loaded Folders.  Drag a file on top of a Folder, don't let go of the mouse button, after a pause, the folder opens up, revealing its content.  You can keep doing this until you find the desired destination folder.  Let go of the mouse button, your file is transfered to the destination folder, and the Finder closes all those folders for you automatically.

If you don't want to wait for the folder to open as you hover on top of it, hold down the space bar forces the folder to open immediately.

Pretty handy UI feature. 

If you don't like the concept of spring-loaded folders, you can turn it off via Finder preferences.

OS X Tips: Copying/Moving Files

The default behavior for drag-drop a file differs depending on the location of the destination folder.

Drag and drop a file from your Documents folder to your Music folder moves the file.  Drag and drop a file from your documents folder to your iDisk public folder copies the file.  In the former scenario, both files are on the same Mac volume, so the file moves from the old location to the new one.  In the later scenario, the two locations are on different volumes, so the file is copied to the new location, resulting in two copies of the file.

Fortunately you can easily overwrite this default behavior.  To copy a file to a different location on the same folder, hold down the option key before you let go of the file.  A green circle with a white plus sign will be added to the mouse pointer as a reminder that you are about to copy the file instead of moving the file.

To move a file to a new location on a different volume, hold down the command key before you let go of the file.

Utility Review: Outlook2Mac

As part of my transition to the Mac, I wanted to bring my email archives to OS X.  I am currently using Apple Mail as my primary email program on OS X, but I also have Microsoft's Entourage available.  I have about 5GB of old archived email that are store as a Outlook PST files. My first thought, of course, is that I could use Entourage to import my PST files, and then export them to a Mac Mail format.  But alas, Microsoft's own Entourage program does not support Microsoft's own PST file format.

I turned to a little program called Outlook2Mac.  It costs $10 but does a decent, albeit primitive, job of transcoding my PST into Apple Mail Mail Boxes.  To my surprise, Outlook2Mac is a Windows program, I would have expected a Mac OS X program.  The UI is very basic but does the job.  Transcoding was fast, but it was often interrupted by a message box asking me if I wanted Outlook2Mac to fix the send date of certain message, or if I wanted Outlook2Mac to save a digitally signed message to an insecure file format.  I wish they had a "Don't ask me again" option, as the message box popped up about 30 different times.  Another limitation is that Outlook2Mac saves each email folder into a separate mbox file, instead of saving them all in a nested folder structure.  As a result, my 3 archived PST email files have translated to 234 mbox files.

One hidden feature of Outlook2Mac is the ability to strip out all email attachments into a separate folder - this is great, I found long lost documents, and lots of photos that people have sent me over the years!

Thanks to Outlook2Mac I now have all my archived email available in a Mac friendly format.  I hope that Spotlight can search the mbox files without me having to open them in Apple Mail.  I don't think Apple Mail can support 234 Mail boxes :-)

Utility Review: Screen Capture Image Type

Here is another useful utility from smallApps by Dani.  SCIT 1.0  let's you change the image format for the screen capture function.

The known image types are:


BMP, GIF, JPG, JP2, PCT, PDF, PNG, PSD, TIF
The changes takes effect immediately, no need to logout and then re login.
Requires Mac OS Tiger (10.4 or above).

OS X Tip: Emailing Images

iResize enables you to quickly resize your images to any desired dimension, but if you are resizing the image so you can email it there is a quicker/easier way to do it.  You can use Apple Mail app build in resizer. 

• Open an new email message

• Drag and drop an image to the message

• Use that an Image Size control apears at the lower right corner of your email window

• Select the desired image size

OS X Tip: Screen Capture a Window

Here is another tip left by Joe in the comments area for the Screen Capture blog entry.

If you want to capture an entire window just follow Joe's suggestions below:

When you hit Command-Shift-4, you can then hit Space (hit it, not hold it down) to take a picture of exactly one window. The mouse cursor will turn into a camera icon and the window-to-be-photographed will highlight as you mouse over it. Hit Escape to cancel.

Switcher Tip: Where are my windows?

Command-Tab makes it easy to navigate to any open application.  But how do I navigate to an open window within an application?

On Windows, Alt-Tab navigates to all open windows, making it easier to find a open web page (remember, no Tabbed browsing on IE), or an open IM conversation. 

With OS X I am out of luck.  I need to Command-Tab to the application, and then use the Window menu to select the open window that I want.  I can also Ctrl-Click on the application in the Dock and select an open Window there.  Or I can also use F9 and click on the open Windows.  But F9 does not list any minimized window.

There is a nice keyboard shortcut, Command-`, cycles through all open Finder windows.  So I can always use Command-Tab to get to my application and then use Command-' to cycle through its windows.

 

OS X Tip - Changing Default Application

To change the default application for a file type:

Select the file of the type that you want changed

Press command i (Get Info)

Expand the Open With section and choose the desired application from the list

Click on Change All and OS X will always use the new application to open this file type.

OS X Tip: System Wide Spell Checker

OS X has a system wide spell checker.  Any application that wants to can make use of this service.  Best part is that they all share the same dictionary with all of your added words.  That's cool!

AdiumX makes use of this service by default!

Safari supports it as well, but it is off by default.  To enable Safari to use the spell checker, open a web page that has a text box (i.e., http://www.google.com) put the cursor in the text box field and go to Edit, Spelling and check Check Spelling as You Type.  Weird spot for this preference setting, I would have expected to find it in preferences.  Once you set it, it will stay on for every web site.

MSN Messenger for OS X and Firefox on the other hand chooses not to use it - go figure.

I hope more and more applications choose to make use of the system wide spell checker.

OS X Tip: Alt-Tab Q

Here is another useful tip left in the comments area under "Quitting an Application"

If you want to quit things really fast, hold down Command and then Tab through your open applications. When an application is highlighted, hit Q to quit it. (You're effectively using Command-Q.) If you get good with it, you can quit things very quickly.

OS X Tip: Font Size

To quickly change the size of the displayed font press Command +, or Command -.  This comes in handy when reading web sites, email, etc - making it easier to read the text on high resolution monitors.

OS X Tip: File Path

Joe left this useful tool in the comments area for the Proxy Icon tip.  It is a handy tip so I am promoting it to an entry.

Try clicking any title bar with a proxy icon. You'll get a drop-down menu tracing the path back to the icon's location on disk.  It's also fun to do it in Safari, which applies the same logic to URLs.

See example below.

Very handy!

Safari and pop-up ads

It took me 3 weeks but I have finally gotten rid of pop-up ads while using Apple's Safari browser. The pop-ups were driving me crazzy.

The solution turned out to be a lot easier than I thought - go to Preferences, Security, and check "Block pop-up windows".

Why is are pop-up blocking off by default? Both Internet Explorer and Firefox have this featured turned on by default. In fact, IE and Firefox warn you when a site tries to pop-up a new window. With safari now, pop-up windows are ignored and no apparent feedback is given to the user. Hum...

Isn't it great to be a newbie with a new OS? And to think that I would be running OS X on the 10th anniversary of Windows 95, how very sad.

Apple Mail: Outlook Compatibility

You would think that email would work seamlessly between an Apple Mail user and a Microsoft Outlook user.  Unfortunately, if you are just using the default settings on your Mac, you are likely to encounter Windows users who will complain that they cannot open your attachment or that you have "chinese" characters in your email text.

When sending rich text with attachments, Apple Mail produces messages with mixed encodings. When the message contains anything beyond basic ascii, like the accented characters used in European languages, it causes Windows Outlook to display these special characters as question marks, or other incorrect symbols.

To avoid this problem, you can send email as plain text instead of rich text.  Alternatively, you can set Mail's default encoding to UTF-8.  When running Mail, go to Message menu, select Text Encoding and select Unicode (utf-8).  It is also a good idea to instruct Apple Mail to send file attachments as "Windows Friendly Attachments".  When running Mail, go to Edit menu, select Attachments, and select "always send windows friendly attachments"

You can now freely email your Windows friends without having them complain about mis-formatted emails, or empty file attachments.

iPhoto Books - Improving Image Quality

Leave it to the web to find a hack around the poor image quality for iPhoto books.  After some initial research on various web sites, I now know why the image quality is so lacking in the printed books.

The PDF file that Apple uses to display a preview of the book before you submit the order is of much higher quality (720 DPI) than the file that is sent to Apple for printing (150 DPI) - very misleading.  You preview a high quality PDF, approve it for printing, then Apple turns around and generates a much lower quality PDF which is actually used for printing.  Thank you very much.

If you open up the preferences file for iPhoto (~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist), you will find 3 settings called:

• BookTargetImageDPI
• BookTargetMediumImageDPI
• BookTargetSmallImageDPI

The default values are 150, 150 and 300 respectively, and they are used for the three different book sizes that can be ordered from iPhoto.

Note: iPhoto 5.01 or below only has the BookTargetImageDPI entry.

If you have iPhoto 5.02 or above, the plist file is in binary format - you can use Pref Setter to change these values.  iPhoto 5.01 or below uses text format, so any text editor will do.

Changing the value to 300 forces iPhoto to use 300 DPIs for you photo books.  Next time you order an iPhoto book, the pictures will look as you would expect them to look.

I wish Apple would have made these settings exposed via iPhoto -- but I presume everyone would set them for 300 DPI and leave it at that :-)  Why does Apple think that we want to spend $50 on a book and have it look like it was printed on an Apple Imagewriter?

Technorati Tags: Cris Pierry, iPhoto

Switcher Tip: mini Start menu

Here is a quick trick to get easy access to your Mac applications without having to open the Applications' folder every time.

• Open your Macintosh HD

• Take your Applications folder and drag it to the Dock next to the trash can and the faint dividing line. If you did it right, the Applications icon is now in the Dock.

• Control-Click the Application icon in the dock and you get a list of all of your applications - a little bit like a Start menu.

Switcher Tip: Shortcut to Apple Menu

To quickly access the Apple menu, just move the mouse to the left top most pixel/corner on the screen and left-click.  That's it - no need to precisely move your mouse to the top of the Apple logo.

The same technique can be applied for the Spotlight icon on the right of the menu bar.

Switcher Tip: Keyboard Shortcuts

Since starting my Mac journey I have been struggling to figure out the correct keyboard shortcuts for navigating inside a document or email.

Start of Line, End of Line, Beginning of Document, End of Document, page up, page down, etc...  The Home, End, Page Up, Page Down keys do not work as they do on Windows.

What surprised me the most is the inconsistencies across different applications.  Mac apps do not follow a common convention for these shortcuts.  For example, Command+Left moves you to the beginning of a word when using Microsoft Word but it moves you to the beginning of the line with TextEdit.

I have lost various blog entries because of this inconsistency. 

    Using Mac Mail, Command+Left/Right moves you to the beginning or end of a line. 
    Using Safari or Firefox, Command+Left/Right moves you to the previous/next browser page. 

I have to be extra vigilant when typing my blog entry directly in the browser, since if I press Command+Left while typing my comments, Safari interprets the command as Back, and reloads the previous page, losing in the process all of my carefully typed comments...

Switcher Tips: System Maintenance

Shades of Unix.

While investigating the source of my 3x iMac slowdown, I learned that in order to keep the system running optimally, Mac OS X has to perform periodic system maintenance .  This maintenance is scheduled to run automatically from 3:15 am to 5:30 am. 

However, if your computer is off or in sleep mode at night, the maintenance tasks won't run.  Mac OS X does not warn the user if system maintenance hasn't been run in a while; unfortunately, OS X does not re-schedule the tasks to run at other times.

Ironically, MAC OS X ships from the factory with sleep mode turned on, so by default, the maintenance tasks are not run. 

Here is how you can force maintenance to run:

1. Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities).
2. Type: sudo periodic daily  (or "weekly", "monthly")
3. Press Return.
4. Enter your Admin password when prompted, then press Return.
5. Quit Terminal when the task is complete

Not very Mac friendly...

Alternatively, you can use a shareware program called macaroni to perform regular system maintenance on Macs that are off at night.

Switcher Tip: Proxy Icon

Ever noticed the little file icon next to the application title bar?

That little icon is known as the Proxy icon, and it represents the actual file you are working on. 

You can drag the icon to the Dock and drop it on top of Mail.  Mail will automatically create a new email with the file as an attachment ready for you to send.

Switcher Tip: Closing Application Windows

As you use various applications, you are bound to have a rather messy Desktop.  Pressing Command-W closes the top most application window, but it can be tedious to close each window one by one.  Command-Q quits the application, which might not be the desired behavior.

Pressing Option and clicking the Close button closes all of an application’s open windows, while leaving the application itself still running.

This is really handy if you have multiple IM windows open and want to close them all without exiting the application.