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Increasing the amount of RAM in your computer can make a noticeable difference in its performance.  RAM does not actually make the computer run faster, but it does help quicken the process of opening or switching between applications and can help you avoid the awkward pause between the time you click an application’s icon and when it actually launches.  The good news is, RAM is INNEXPENSIVE and there’s really no disadvantage to upgrading, even if its just to cover your bases.

You can buy Apple RAM from any Apple retail store or at the Apple Store online, but RAM that comes from Apple is, in my opinion, severely overpriced.  However, Apple compatible RAM is available at many companies online for a fraction of the price.  My absolute favorite place to buy Apple compatible RAM is Crucial.com.

In addition to cheap RAM, Crucial has the ‘Crucial System Scanner Tool’ which is a little program that you download on your computer which analyzes your system and decides what type of RAM you need, how much your computer can handle and makes recommendations on configurations. Awesome!  Its like having a Mac Genius right in your computer!  If you’d prefer to pick your own, there is also a function for doing so.

The only downside to this process, and it’s a very small downside, is that you have to install the RAM yourself.  Being a third party product, the RAM, itself, is not covered under your Apple Care on your Mac, BUT since RAM is one of the only parts of an Apple that is intended to be ‘user accessible’ replacing the RAM does not affect your Apple Care on the rest of the machine at all.

On the iMac, there’s a Memory Access Panel on the bottom of the screen which will give access to the RAM.  Lay the iMac down on its screen and raise the stand up, you’ll see the panel on the bottom and can remove it with a Phillips screwdriver.  Inside you’ll see some tabs used for pulling out the RAM tray.  Pull it out, and make a note of which way the RAM is facing, you’ll need to put the new ones back in this same position, fortunately, RAM can only fit in one way and if you’re observant, you’ll have no problems.  Remove the old RAM and insert the new and push the tray back in until you feel/hear a click.  (Just a warning, you might have to push those a little harder than you’d expect to, but make SURE the RAM is facing the right way.)  Tuck in the tabs and replace the door.

On most notebooks the RAM is underneath the battery that is accessible through a panel on the bottom of your notebook.  Since the notebook configurations vary greatly depending on your model and year, I recommend going to support.apple.com and searching for “replace RAM on <yourcomputermodel>” so you know you get the right instructions.  The process is just as simple, I assure you.

Now you’re probably wondering what to do with your old RAM, assuming you’ve got old RAM that didn’t get included in the new configuration.  Well, I find they make really interesting key fobs or earrings.  If you glue a magnet to the back, you could stick it to your fridge!  If you don’t have another computer that it will work in, it is practically useless, so feel free to be creative with it while enjoying the speed and efficiency of your new RAM.

More and more, everyone and their monkey is asking for an email address; buying things online, listing on Craigslist, even attending the neighborhood get together isn’t safe anymore…everyone wants an email address and, inevitably, they are probably going to send you stuff you don’t want your email address attached to.

There two easy solutions for this dilemma.  The first one is to set up a Gmail account that you only use for mass-mailing type people.  This allows you to give all those people an email address without actually putting your personal email address out in cyberspace.  You just have to remember to check it after you’ve made purchases to get receipts and shipping notices etc.

The second option, and I think a great one, is to set up an Alias on your Mobile Me account and start giving that one out to non-close friends.  An Alias is an email address, different than your first one, that comes to the same mailbox.  You can both send and receive mail through it and it’s a great way to have a second email address without actually having to check another mailbox.  By using an alias, I can list things on Craigslist and respond to potential buyers without having to give them my personal email.  Here’s how to set one up.

First, log in to the Mobile Me web interface at www.me.com with your mobile me sign in and password.  Once the page loads, look for the button in the tool bar that has a little gear on it; click on it and select Preferences.

On the Mail Preferences screen that pops up, we want to look for the Aliases tab on the top of the screen.

Click the Add New Alias button and just fill in the boxes going from left to right.  What you put in the first box will become your email address (see the little ‘@me.com’ already written in for you?)  If you type ‘ilovecraigslist’ in that box, your email becomes ‘ilovecraigslist@me.com’.  If you’re creative, you can use the ‘@me’ part ot make your email address something funny like: ‘wink@me.com,’ ‘holler@me.com,’ or the ever popular ‘stoplooking@me.com.’

The second box, which is optional, is what will show in the FROM field when someone receives an email from you.  If you don’t want people to know your real name when you write to them using this email address, type in something like ‘Craigslist Seller,’ or ‘eBay Maniac.’  If you don’t want a name, just leave it blank and your alias will appear in that field instead.

The ‘Color’ column is asking if you want to code emails to this alias with a particular color to help you identify them quickly in your in box.  Pick a color if you like and click the Create button.

Now mail sent to this alias will show up in your MobileMe inbox.  To send messages from this alias, you need to go into the Preferences for Mail, choose the Accounts tab, select your Mobile Me account and add the alias name to the ‘email addresses’ field.  You should already have a couple of names there, one at ‘me.com’ and one at ‘mac.com’; just put a comma after the last one and add your new alias there.

Now you’re ready to buy online, sell on eBay, post on discussion boards and list on Craigslist with the comfort of knowing that your ‘real’ email address isn’t being fed out to all the spammers of the world!

Ever need to send a file to someone but its too big to push through email?  Whether its photos of your darling new monkey in the house or the Keynote presentation for the meeting with the Big Banana, there always seems to be something I want to send that’s just too cumbersome for sending via email.  Fortunately, using your iDisk on Mobile Me, you can share documents of any size with anyone, quickly and easily.

First, put the document you want to share on your iDisk, the easiest way is to connect to your iDisk (if you’re not connected already) by clicking on the Desktop to get the Finder menu bar and then selecting Go>iDisk>My iDisk.  Once connected, your iDisk should show up in the sidebar in a Finder window and you can save files to it as you would any of your local drives. 

Once the file is there, we need to log in to Mobile Me’s web interface.  Go to www.me.com and sign in.  Click on the folder icon  on the top of the screen to access your iDisk.  Now, locate the file you want to share and look for the share button in the viewer pane on the right side and click it.

Now you can add the email addresses of the people you want to share the file with and even add a note.  Using the two links below the message field, you can set an expiration date for the file or add a password.  If you add a password, make sure to mention in your message that the person needs to contact you for it, DO NOT include the password in the message field as it will negate the benefits of having the password to begin with.

Once you click Share, iDisk sends an email to your recipients with a direct link to your file, all they have to do is click the Download button and they can download the file directly from your Mobile Me.

Generally, setting up a personal domain to point to your Mobile Me website is quick and easy.  Recently, however, we discovered that following this process with a domain at Network Solutions requires a few extra steps, but is still as easy as falling out of a banana tree.

The first thing you want to do open iWeb and select File>Set Up Personal Domain on Mobile Me.  This will lead you to the place in your mobile me to enter your domain name, type it in and click Continue.  You’re going to get a screen telling you to go do some stuff at your registrar’s website and this is where Network Solutions gets a little tricky.

First, press COMMAND+T to open a new tab in your browser and use that new tab to log in to Network Solutions, then click ‘Domains’ in the sidebar on the left and choose ‘Manage Domain Names’.  This will give you a list of all the domains you have registered with them, put a check next to the one you want to point at MobileMe and click the ‘Edit DNS’ button below the list.

On the next screen, click the button that says ‘Manage Advanced DNS Records.’  Yes, it sounds scary, but its not, trust me.

The first thing we need to change is in the first section called ‘IP Address (A Records), click the Add/Edit button in that section.   On this screen, you should see the first three lines directing your domain to an ‘under construction’ page,   Delete first three items by placing a check mark in the DELETE column and then clicking the CONTINUE button at the bottom of the column.  Save changes when prompted.

Now were back at the Domains page; go down to the section called “Host Aliases(CNAME Records) and click the Add/Edit button on the right.  We’re going to create two aliases.  In the first line, the ALIAS name is * and the OTHER HOST is web.me.com. (please note the . afterwards, it is important and necessary).  In the second line, the ALIAS name is www and the OTHER HOST is web.me.com. (again, don’t forget the period aftwards.  Now, click the radial buttons next to OTHER HOST on both lines so that they are blue.

I know this is complicated to type, so here’s a picture of what it should look like:

Click the continue button in the bottom right corner, save changes if prompted and you’re all done!  The site warns that this process could take 24 hours to take effect.  In my experience, its more like 2 hours.

Now, flip back to Mobile Me (forgot you had it open, didn’t ya?) and click the DONE button.  In a few hours, traffic will be directed to your Mobile Me through your personal domain and you’re ready to go!

There are several short cuts that I use everyday, but trying to learn a lot of them at one time can be a little daunting.  With that in mind, here are 5 keyboard shortcuts you can start learning, and using, today and add to your repertoire in the future.

COMMAND+W – Close a Window

COMMAND+Q – Quit an Application

OPTION+COMMAND+W -  Close all Windows

COMMAND+SHIFT+[ (or ]) – Move Forward (or backwards) Between Tabs in Safari or Firefox

COMMAND+EJECT – Show Shut Down Dialog

As a bonus, here’s one that’s not really ‘handy’ but good to know.  This bonus tip was inspired by a friend’s frantic FaceBook message to me yesterday telling me that her cat had ‘done something’ to her computer and now the screen looked like an x-ray machine.  Its actually a fairly common problem (especially if you’ve got animals or children touching the keyboard) but you might be hard pressed to find the solution.

COMMAND+OPTION+CONTROL+8 – Invert colors on monitor.

Once you’ve done all the heavy lifting by creating Keywords and Smart Albums, sharing photos to your iPhone is quick and easy.

To share your photos to your iPhone, we actually need to be in iTunes.  Plug in your iPhone and iTunes should launch automatically.  Once the Sync screen is up, look for the Photos tab, it should be the fifth tab across the top of the page.

To sync all or part of your iPhoto library to the phone, put a check mark in the box next to ‘Sync Photos from:” and make sure the next box says iPhoto.  Then, choose whether you want to sync all your photos or just some of them. 

Although its nice to have your entire photo library at your fingettips, I think its very cumbersome to flick through thousands of pictures looking for a specific I want to show to my friend, so I highly recommend using Smart Albums to organize this process so that you can find specific photos quickly.

To sync specific albums, click the button next to ‘Selected Albums’ and then put a check mark next to the albums you want to sync.  You can also click on the Album titles and drag them to put them in a specific order. 

Once you’ve gotten all the albums selected and arranged, just click the ‘Sync’ button in the bottom right corner of the iTunes window and iTunes will sync up the photos to your iPhone.

Now you never have to be caught without a photo of your new grandchild, puppy or spouse again!

If you found this info helpful, you may also want to check out these other, related articles:

Using Keywords to organize your iPhoto library

Organizing Photos Using Smart Albums

Creating a ‘Speed Dial’ on your iPhone using Favorites

Making New Things with the + Button

Smart Albums are really cool because they update themselves based on a set of criteria that you define and now that we’ve created and applied Keywords to our important photos, we can use Smart Albums to organize them for us!

Create a new Smart Album using the + Button at the bottom of the left side of to window, when the New Item box pops up at the top, click Smart Album and give it a name, preferably one that corresponds with one of your new Keywords.  Now in the Conditions row, we want to set the first two boxes to be KEYWORD and IS then, in the third box, select the appropriate Keyword.

Now, anytime we add this keyword to a photo, the photo will automatically be added to this Smart Album.  Repeat this process of making Smart Albums for all the loved ones in your life. 

Repeat these steps for each of the important Keywords you’ve created and you’ll have a collection of Smart Albums that help you quickly find the photos you’re looking for.  Also, you could use these Smart Albums to easily sync your favorite photos to your iPhone.

iPhoto provides many great ways to organize photos for showing off the new photos of your favorite monkey to family and friends, but the continuous process of updating albums can be a little cumbersome: keeping track of which new photos have already been dragged into an album can get confusing and time consuming.  Fortunately there’s a simple way to keep all your photos organized using Keywords!

Keywords add identifying tags to photos to help us find them more easily.  To assign keywords to photos you should first make there’s a checkmark next to View>Keywords in the Menu Bar; next, go to Window>Show Keywords (Command+K).  Show Keywords will bring up a list of pre-existing keywords you’ve got in iPhoto already; most of these were probably built in to iPhoto when you got it.  We want to add some Quick Groups to help organize your photos; click the Edit Keyword button and then use our old friend the + Button to make new Keywords.  I have always recommended making a Keyword for each of your kids, your pets and, maybe, for places you’ve gone on vacation.  Once you’re done, click the OK button to return to the Keywords list.

Now, go through your iPhoto library and add keywords appropriately.  When you put your mouse over a picture, you’ll now notice a place to ‘add keywords’, click on that space and start typing in your keyword and iPhoto will fill it in for you based on your list of Keywords.  Too lazy to type?  Me too!  We can also add keywords by selecting one or more pics (remember the Shift and Command keys for multiple selections) and then just clicking the appropriate keyword in the Keyword window.  We’ll see it turn blue to let us know its been applied.  You can apply more than one Keyword to each photo, so if both kids and the dog on in the picture, apply all three Keywords.

Once you’ve applied all the Keywords you want or need, you can quickly look up those photos by using the Search field at the bottom of the screen.  Before searching, click on the little magnifying glass and choose Keyword instead, quickly move your mouse over the keyword buttons that pop up to keep them in view.  If you miss them the first time, its pretty quick, just click on Keywords again in that search field to get another try at it.  

Click on the Keyword you want to look up and iPhoto filters your library to only include that keyword.  You can also click multiple buttons to further filter your results.  For example, to show only photos of Dr. Zeus choose the Keyword with his name, to only show photos of him on vacation, choose both DR.ZEUS and VACATION keywords.

1. Make Ringtones for your iPhone – That’s right!  You don’t necessarily have to go to the iTunes store and pay the extra money to have awesome, personalized ringtones on your iPhone, you can use any DRM-Free music you have and make it yourself.  When you open GarageBand 09 there are a few choices for what kind of project you want to start; in the left sidebar, select iPhone Ringtone and click Choose.  GarageBand will set up the whole project for you, all you need to do is pull a song from your iTunes library using the media browser, trim it up and send it back to iTunes as a ringtone using Share>Send Ringtone to iTunes!  EASY!

2. Sync up the soundtrack for your iPhoto slideshow – There are a lot of times where it would be nice if the music in an iPhoto slideshow would sync up with the picture to help evoke mood or to help establish different chapters, but when adding music in iPhoto you can’t trim or edit the music at all; not true in GarageBand!  To make awesome soundtracks for your Slideshow, skip the music in iPhoto and use File>Export>Slideshow to send it to the Media Browser.  Jump to Garageband, use Track>Show Movie Track to make a track for the video and then use the Media Browser to pull the movie in.  Now you can use additional tracks to carefully craft your soundtrack and clip, fade and overlap songs as you like.  You can see the video in the Movie Track, so you’ll know how to get the pieces lined up.  Awesome!

3. Create a soundtrack for your short film.  You can use the same technique coming out of iMovie to make a really polished soundtrack for your short film as well.  Add sound effects using the Sound Effect Library in the Podcast section of the Loop Browser and put theme music on the beginning and end and you’ve got a short that’s ready for Sundance.

4. Print sheet music – Yes, you can actually print the sheet music for the super-cool song you just wrote, even if you only used Loops to write it!  Once your song is complete, just go to the Menu Bar and select File>Print, its that easy!

5. Add Chapter Markers to a DVD – Once you’ve finished up in iMovie, take a moment to share the project to GarageBand.  Using Edit>Add Marker, you can add chapters to your movie.  Use the Movie Markers section of the Track Editor to name them properly and then send the project to iDVD.  iDVD sees the chapter markers and will set up a menu for them with thumbnails and everything using the titles you gave them in GarageBand.  FANCY!

Cover Flow is such a cool tool that missing album artwork in my library becomes a big drag.  Fortunately, it is really simple to find and add missing artwork in iTunes so your library can be complete and beautiful.

The easiest way to get missing artwork is to go up to the menu bar at the top of the screen and select Advanced>Get Album Artwork, then click the ‘Get Album Artwork’ button on the window that pops up.  Now, at the top of the iTunes screen, you’ll see a status of iTunes inventorying all the artwork and, hopefully, filling in the blanks.  This process is going to run for a few minutes and when it is done, you may get a screen that tells you that iTunes was unable to get some artwork.  If so, then you’ll need to find the appropriate art yourself and add it to iTunes.  Fortunately that’s a pretty easy process as well.

The first step to manually adding album artwork is to get the artwork you want for the album.  Amazon.com is a great resource for this.  Go to the site and search for your album in the Music section, when the search list comes back, select your album from the list by clicking on the album’s title.  When the album’s page comes up, you’ll notice an image of the album cover on the left side of the screen, sometimes this is accompanied by two or more smaller images below it.  These images are all different versions of the album cover/art; Amazon loaded the big one, and other Amazon customers have added the smaller ones.  Move your mouse over each of the smaller ones to determine which one you like best and select it by clicking it.

Once the larger size image has loaded, either in its own pop-window or in the same window you selected it from, control+click (right click) the image and select ‘Save Image As’ and save the image to your computer. 

A few notes on saving those images:  Firstly, I’d make a folder for them somewhere and put them all in one place instead of having artwork files strewn about the desktop or downloads folder.  I have a folder called Album Artwork inside my Music folder and I save them all there.  Secondly, RENAME THE FILE when you’re saving it!  The file name is going to be something lengthy and meaningless and, if you’re doing more than one album at a time, it will be difficult to know which file is which.

Once you’ve downloaded the artwork, go back to iTunes and select the song, or songs, you’re adding art to.  (Don’t forget about the Shift and Command keys for makng multiple selections.)  Once selected, choose File>Get Info (or Command+I) to bring up the info screen about the track(s).  (If you’ve selected multiple songs, you’re going to get a warning asking if you really want to change multiple tracks at the same time, sure we do!)  Now, look for the Artwork section, if you’ve only chosen one song, Artwork is the last tab across the top; go there, click the ADD button and add the file we just downloaded.  If you selected multiple tracks to add this art too, you’ll see the artwork well right there on the right side of the screen; double click in the well to add a new image.

Either way, the artwork is added to the file and will now show up in Cover Flow and on our iPod or iPhone!