Posts Tagged ‘Tips’

Whether you’re going in for advice at the Apple Store, shopping online for new software or at a cocktail party talking about your favorite computer, someone is bound to ask you some questions about the technical specs of your Apple.  These questions could sound like: “Are you a ‘Tiger’ or a ‘Leopard,’” “Do you have the latest version of the OS,” or maybe “Which processor are you running?” 

All of this is important information, but maybe not something you necessarily commit to memory.  There is, however, a quick and easy way to see a lot of this information without needing a degree in Computer Science to understand it.  In the Menu Bar, go to the Apple and choose About this Mac.  This is going to pop up a little window that tells you some basic information right off the bat.

VERSION:  This is telling you which OS you’re running and how recent it is.  In the number, the number after the first period tells you which ‘cat’ you are.  Here’s the scheme

10.0 – Cheetah

10.1 – Puma

10.2 – Jaguar

10.3 – Panther

10.4 – Tiger

10.5 – Leopard

10.6 – Snow Leopard (coming soon)

The number after the second period let’s you know how many times the OS been updated since they made the first version.  The current OSX version is 10.5.7.  If you’re a Leopard with a lower number than that, you should click the Software Update button and the let computer get the updates from Apple.  If you’re a Tiger, no amount of updating is going to make you a Leopard and you may want to consider buying the upgrade.

If you click directly on the text of the Version Number, you can cycle through some other useful information including the Serial Number for your machine.

Under the Software Update button, we see three more fields:  Processor, Memory and Startup Disk.

PROCESSOR: The processor is the brain of the computer and determines how fast it can do things.  This is not an item you ‘upgrade’ on an older machine, just like your brain, you got what you got.

MEMORY: Mostly people will refer to this as RAM.  The more RAM you have the quicker the computer can change the task its working on and/or can think about more things at the same time.  With more RAM, you can leave more applications open at the same time without compromising performance of the one in the foreground.  RAM can be upgraded at any time.

STARTUP DISK: Is just telling you what hard drive the machine boots from.  Generally this is going to say Macintosh HD.

If you need more, in depth information like the make of your Superdrive, information about your graphics card or other specific hardware info, click on the ‘More Info’ button and you’ll see listings of all the bits and pieces of your computer.

So, when you’re considering a software upgrade and need to know how much RAM or what Processor you have OR when you’re at a party and someone asks if you’re a Tiger or a Leopard, don’t get intimidated, just tell them ‘About This Mac.’

Earlier we discussed how to add a shortcut to a website to your Dock, but what if I don’t like the springy @ symbol that it makes for an icon?  What if I have more than one shortcut and want to be able to tell them apart easily?  As usual with your Mac, the answer is a quick and simple solution.  In this case, we’re going to create a web shortcut and then change it’s icon.

Let’s create a new shortcut to a webpage but this time instead of dragging it to the Dock, let’s drag it to the Desktop.  Its going to create a shortcut called a webloc, feel free to change the name of this file by clicking on the text, but know that word webloc is important and will reappear on its own.  Now, right click on that icon (or COMMAND+CLICK) and choose Get Info from the menu that pops up.  Leave that window sitting there and let’s work on getting an icon for a moment.

We’ve talked about Candybar before as a great tool for changing your application or system icons, but you can also change individual icons manually.

There are a lot of places you can find icon sets for use with OSX.  For my purposes, I’m using a set of icons called ‘iPhone-Style Icons’, designed by Josh Ladella, which I downloaded for free from his page on DeviantArt.  A couple of the included icons are for Facebook.  Once you download the set, open it in Finder and find the folder titled ICNS to see all the icons.  Click on the one you want and use COMMAND+C to copy it. 

Now, click back on the Get Info window and click directly on that tiny icon in the top left corner to select it, use COMMAND+V to paste the icon there and the icon will change to match the one we copied earlier.

Now, drag the shortcut on the Desktop down to the Dock on the right side of the dashed line, near the trash can.  As you place it down there, you should notice the other icons move aside to make room.

Now you have a fancy Facebook shortcut on your Dock and the only thing left to do is cleanup the webloc that is still on the desktop.  Since this is the actual thing that’s directing us to the website, we want to make sure it doesn’t get deleted, so we just want to put is somewhere safe.  I recommend opening a Finder window and moving it to the Applications folder for safe keeping.

Websites are becoming more and more like applications everyday.  Whether its Facebook, eBay, Bananas4Apples or I Can Has Cheezburger, there are sites that we all check numerous times throughout the day and it might be convenient to have a short cut for those sites right on the dock with your other frequently used applications.  Fortunately, Leopard makes this possible.

First, find the site you want to make a short cut for.  I check Facebook several (hundred) times a day, so I’m going to work with that.  First go to the site, then look for the site’s favicon.  A favicon is the tiny icon all the way on the left side of the web address for the site we’re visiting; for Apple, it’s a little grey apple, for Facebook it’s a white F in a blue square.  If the website you’re looking at doesn’t have one, you’ll see a little globe there. 

What ever the icon is, click and drag it to the dock on the right side of the dashed line, near the trash can.  As you place it down there, you should notice the other icons move aside to make room, be careful not to drop your new shortcut on top of another as it might get added to one of your stacks and will be difficult to find later.

Once we’ve got it added, you’ll see a little springy @ symbol indicating that there’s a web shortcut there. 

Click on the short cut and your website will launch.

Back in March, Apple announced iPhone 3.0 software which will, again, revolutionize the way people use mobile devices. Here are 5 of the 100 new features that have us all going bananas over the new software:

1. Cut, Copy and Paste – FINALLY, the ability to copy and paste text and images is coming to the iPhone.  This is, in this monkey’s opinion, one of the key features that’s been missing from the beginning and we’re going ape over the potential for using it.

2. Send photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS – OMG, its like Christmas is Monkeytown!  One of the biggest things we had to give up by joining the iPhone revolution (which we did gladly btw) was MMS.  Not being able to send pictures or voice memos via text was really frustrating, but now its coming!  Now, if texting only worked in landscape mode.  (Note:  Because of the difference in networks, 2G iPhones will apparently not be getting this feature.  Time to pony up for a new phone!)

3. Email and Text Messaging in Landscape – No amount of flung poop can possibly describe the excitement this has generated here in B4A HQ.  We love the visual keyboard, but some monkeys, and I won’t name names (Dr. Zaius) have big gorilla fingers and using the keyboard in landscape mode is a much more comfortable solution.

4. Peer to Peer Connectivity – Want to play a game with a friend over the network?  Want to transfer a file across the room to another iPhone?  Now you’ll be able to with 3.0’s Peer to Peer connectivity.

5. In-App Stores – The multitude of ebook readers are very cool as well as the ability to purchase expanded versions of free or limited games.  Going out of the App, back to the App Store, finding the game or book you want, downloading it and coming all the way back is not.  In-App stores will provide the ability for Apps to sell upgrades and/or additional content right in the App without having to back out of it.  There’s also talk of Apple allowing ‘micropayments’ (payments under $.99) which might make upgrades even more appealing.

You can watch Apple’s full presentation online to see the features in action.  All in all, it looks like a HUGE win for owners of the iPhone 3G AGAIN!

Remember back when people used to send cards?  They were attractive, personal and really conveyed an idea in a visual way.  Using the Stationary feature that’s built into Mail, you can still send thoughtful correspondence, eye catching invitations and fun photo collages without making a trip to the post office!

Open a New Message in Mail and take a look over on the right side of the tool bar at the top.  There should be two buttons there, Photo Browser and Show Stationary.  If you don’t see the buttons, it just means that your window isn’t opened wide enough to see them; look for the two little arrows pointing right and click on them.  Click on Show Stationary.

You’ll notice that a bar opens just above the message section of the screen that shows 5 images.  These are the choices we have for how we want our email to look.  Don’t get discouraged that there are only 5, if you look on the left side of that bar,  you’ll notice that we’re only looking at Birthday stationary right now.  Click on each of the topics to discover all the choices you’ve got.  When you’ve checked them all out, choose on Announcements, and then select Dinner.  By selecting one of the Stationary examples in the bar, the message field gets formatted to match.  Now all we have to do is fill in the placeholder items and we’ll have a beautiful looking email to send to our friends.  To practice, let’s make an invitation for an afternoon get-together for 3:00 on Saturday.

First, we need to replace the photo.  Sure these people are good-looking, but I don’t know them and would rather have some of my attractive friends there.  Use the Photo Browser to find the perfect photo in your iPhoto library and drag it right on top of the existing photo.  Mail does all the cropping and rotation for you so that it fits into the same space.

Next, “Thanks for dining with us.”  Well we haven’t dined yet, so we need to change this headline.  Just click on the sentence, highlight the text and then type in your message.  For a quick way to select all text at the same time, triple click on any of the words in the sentence, then just start typing.

Now we’ve got some jibberish that looks like Latin.  Its actually type setter’s placeholder text.  Again, just highlight that text (triple click!) and type in your own message.

Now all that’s left to be done is to address the email and give it a subject and its ready to send!

If you really like using Stationary in Mail, you might quickly realize that there only a limited number of designs to choose from.  Equinux makes a equinux Stationery Pack 2 to add on to Mail to give you hundreds of new options for customizing your email using Stationary.

iPhoto is an extraordinary tool for organizing your photos and sharing a several photos at a time is really easy with iDisk and Facebook.  Sharing a one or two individual photos can be just as easy by emailing them using the Photo Browser in Mail. 

The Photo Browser is an interface built into Mail that acts as a window to your iPhoto library, allowing look through your Events and Albums and find the photos you’re looking for. 

To start, open Mail and start a New Message by clicking the New Message button in the toolbar or using the shortcut COMMAND+N.  Click in the message section of this window to let the computer know that is where we’re going to put the photo.  (If you want the photo to be in the middle of your message, write the first part before inserting the photos.) Now look across the Toolbar, all the way on the right hand side and you should see the Photo Browser button.  Click it to open the Photo Browser.

(If you see two little arrows instead of this button, it means that you need to open that window wider to reveal it.)

Once the Photo Browser opens, you’ll notice that the organizational system in this window is almost EXACTLY the same as the sidebar in iPhoto and has links for both Event and Photos.  Scroll down that list and you’ll see all your Albums, Smart Albums, Mobile Me Galleries, Facebook Galleries etc…  Click on which ever event or album has the photo you want to email and you’ll see its contents on the bottom half of the Photo Browser window.  Find the photo you want, drag it in to the New Message window and drop it where you want the photo to appear.

When the photo first comes in, its probably going to be solid blue or grey.  Don’t panic. The solid color is just a highlight indicating that the photo is ‘selected,’  click somewhere else in the Message window and the highlight will go away.

Repeat this step for another photo or two if you want to send multiples, but keep in mind that some people have difficulty receiving multiple photos at one time and that most email providers have limits on the size of emails.

Once you’ve got your photos in, look at the bottom edge of the Message window, on the right hand side, and you’ll see “Image Size” with a drop down box next to it.  You can change the size of the photos you’re sending to help with speed and ease of download of the recipient here.  Sending three photos?  Let’s choose Small.  Just one photo for Grandma and we know she’s probably going to print it?  Choose Actual Size.

Try out various ways of attaching your photos to find your own style.  Do you like the photo at Actual Size at the top with your message underneath?  How about a message that has Small photos peppered throughout it?  Mail and the Photo Browser gives you the ability to be as creative with your email as you like, quickly and easily.

Having a contact link on your website is a great idea, but exposing your email address can lead to tons of spam in your inbox.  A great way to get feedback, submissions or input on your website is by using a form which gathers the visitor’s information and sends it to you without exposing your email address to the world.  iWeb does not have a form builder included, but Jot Forms is a free and very easy service for building forms for your site.

Start by going to Jot Forms and signing up for the free membership.  They do offer a ‘premium’ membership if you are going to be taking payments or other, more intensive, tasks.  Once you’re signed in, click on the New button in the top left corner of the Form window to get a look at all the templates they have available.  For this purpose, choose, Contact Form and click Next.  Select your Style and click Finish.

Now we can see what the form is going to look like.  The text in each of those boxes can be changed by just clicking on it and the order can be changed by simply dragging and dropping in to the order that you’d prefer.  New elements can be dragged over from the Toolbox on the right.  (For extra fancy stuff, check out the Powertools!)  Specific element details can be edited using the Properties inspector on the bottom of the right column.

One of the important Properties I want to point out is ‘Send Email.’  I want that set to YES and then fill in my email address in the next line.  This way, anytime someone submits the form, Jot Forms will send you an email with the info.  If you don’t want individual emails coming to you, you can always leave it as ‘no’ and go back to Jot Forms to easily run reports on your form.

Once you’ve built the perfect form, save it and click on the Source button across the top of the Form window.  You’re going to be faced with two options for this process.  Option 1 will work, but the form might look funny in Firefox or Safari 4, so I recommend Option 2.  Highlight all the code in that window and COPY.

Now, we actually get to work in iWeb.  If you haven’t already created a Contact page on your website, do it now.  Once we’ve got the page ready, go to the Menu Bar and select Insert>Widget>HTML Snippet.  When that window opens, PASTE your code from the form builder into it and click Apply.  You’ll see the form appear on the page.  Resize the frame, if necessary, save and publish.  Its that easy.

Now you can get valuable input from your web visitors without exposing yourself to annoying spam bots and spiders.

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.