Making Hard Choices at the Crossroads
Posted on October 7, 2007
Filed Under Mac | 1 Comment
Life is full of crossroads. These are moments in life when we must choose. This is true when it comes to selecting which kind of computer to purchase, a Mac or a PC. It is also true in other areas of life. This blog has been essentially about choice. The choice to use a more advanced computer system. And now I stand at a crossroads myself. This time its not about choosing which computer to purchase. Its about which activities to pursue and how to prioritize my time.
I am married, employed full-time and a part-time graduate student. Blogging for me is a hobby. I’ve committed myself over the course of a year now to carve out time in my otherwise busy schedule to blog. However, I have come to a place in my life where I must choose between blogging and other activities. These activities are spending time with family, day job and graduate studies. I am nearing the completion of my graduate program. I’m in the last stretch of the race to my masters degree. Time is of highest value at this point in the process. I need to write my thesis by early spring of 2008 if I want to complete my masters before the arrival of my first child.
I have decided to place blogging on the back burner while I focus on research and writing of the thesis. It has been a difficult decision to make. Blogging about Macs is a whole lot more fun than doing graduate research and writing a massive paper. But I’ve come very close to completing the masters, I must refocus my energies and finish strong.
So, what will happen with the blog? The blog will become dormant for some months. I hesitate giving a specific time frame. But at least until May 2008. At that point I will re-evaluate my commitments and activities. I have hope that the blog will come back to life. However, it may undergo some changes in the process.
If you’re reading this in your email inbox, keep the subscription and you’ll be among the first to know when this blog has returned from hibernation. If you’re reading this at Gustacci.com, subscribe to email delivery to be among the first to learn about my future plans for this blog.
Thank you for your commitment and dedicated reading of this blog. Farewell now. I hope to see you again.
crossroads, mac, pc, priorities
Drag & Drop in Mac OS X
Posted on October 2, 2007
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One of the features that makes Mac OS X so user-friendly is the ability to drag & drop. On your Mac you can drag and drop files, icons and selections of text. I did a survey of the common drag & drop functions that make using a Mac a pleasure. Here’s what I came up with.
The Dock
Your Mac is equipped with a cool application launcher called “The Dock.” It’s the area at the bottom of the screen where a bunch of icons sit. Adding and removing icons from the dock is a snap. It’s as easy as dragging and dropping. If you need to add an application icon, grab it and drag it to the dock. Once you release the mouse it attaches to the dock. When you find that you don’t need certain icons on your dock, removing them is as easy as dragging them off the dock and letting go of the mouse. Pooh! They just disappear. Remember that removing the icon from the dock does not delete the program from your computer. Should you do this unintentionally, you can go back to your Applications folder and find the program icon you removed.
Trash
Getting rid of unwanted files is no more involved then dragging them to the Trash bin in the dock. This also works for ejecting CD’s and disk images. If you accidentally move the wrong file to the Trash, not all is lost yet. You can recover the file by clicking on the Trash and dragging it out. However, once you empty the Trash, it’s over. The file is gone and only specialized software can attempt to get it back.
Moving Files
Changing the location of files on your Mac is as easy as placing icons on the dock or moving files into the Trash. Just grab the file you want to move and drag it over the folder you want to place it in. When you let go the file will be copied to the new location and removed from where it was.
Activating a Web Link
Some applications support hyper links so that you can click on a web link in that application and a browser will launched taking you to the site. But say you’re using an application that does not support hyper links, what do you do then? Not to worry. All you need to do is highlight the link and drag it to a browser icon in the dock or an open browser window. And you will be taken to that site. This works with Safari, Mac’s native browser, as well as Camino and Firefox.
Looking-up Words
Mac OS X comes with a built-in dictionary and thesaurus. If you’re not sure what a word means while surfing the web or reading a text document, you’re in good company. Highlight the word and drag it over the Dictionary icon in your dock. If the Dictionary is already open it will display the word’s definition. This trick works only if Dictionary has been already opened. But it’s still a handy feature.
Storing Text Bits
Have you ever wanted to store a quote from an article you were reading online? One method to do this is to open TextEdit or Word and copy and paste the text. However, if you’re using Mac OS X (10.4 or later) you can store a portion of the text without opening another program. All you need to do is highlight the text you want to keep and then drag it to your desktop. The text clipping will be stored in a file on the desktop. By double clicking on the text clipping you will be able to read the contents as well as copy and paste it into another document.
This is definitely not an exhaustive list of what you can do in OS X by dragging and dropping. I hope this gets your appetite wet enough to play around and discover other things you can do using this technique. What other things have you done in Mac OS X by dragging & dropping?
drag and drop, learning the mac, Mac OS X, mac tips
Jobs & Wozniak in the Early Days
Posted on September 29, 2007
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This is a little clip from a movie, “The Pirates of Silicon Valley.” This movie chronicles the early years of Apple Computers. This may be something for the really die hard Mac fans. But you can’t own a Mac without knowing its history. This movie should be required viewing. May be not.
Enjoy.
early apple computer, pirates of silicon valley, steve jobs, steve wozniak
Commonly Used Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
Posted on September 28, 2007
Filed Under Tips, Mac | Leave a Comment
A great way to save time when using your Mac is to use keyboard shortcuts. Below, I’ve listed 27 commonly used keyboard shortcuts. You can find additional ones in the System Preferences under Keyboard & Mouse. In addition, Apple has a more extensive list of keyboard shortcuts on their website.
Bold Selected Text ……………………………… Command + B
Capture Portion of Screen to a File ……….. Command + Shift + 4
Capture Screen to a File ………………………. Command + Shift + 3
Close Tab/Window …………………………….. Command + W
Copy ………………………………………………… Command + C
Cut …………………………………………………… Command + X
Find & Replace ………………………………….. Command + F
Force Quit …………………………………………. Option + Command + Esc
Get Info …………………………………………….. Command + I
Italicize Selected Text ………………………….. Command + I
New Tab ……………………………………………. Command + T
New Windows ……………………………………. Command + N
Open …………………………………………………. Command + O
Paste …………………………………………………. Command + V
Preferences ………………………………………… Command + ,
Print ………………………………………………….. Command + P
Quit …………………………………………………… Command + Q
Save ………………………………………………….. Command + S
Select All …………………………………………… Command + A
Toggle Open Applications ……………………. Command + Tab
Toggle Open Windows in Application …… Command + `
Underline Selected Text ………………………. Command + U
Undo ………………………………………………… Command + Z
View All Windows …………………………….. F9
View Application Windows …………………. F10
View Dashboard ………………………………… F12
View Desktop ……………………………………. F11
The nice thing about keyboard shortcuts on a Mac is that most shortcuts perform the same task across the system. So, you only need to learn them once and you can apply them in just about any application.
Which keyboard shortcuts are your favorite? Are any of the above listed shortcuts new to you? Do you know of any that I missed? Please share with me in the comments.
command key, keyboard shortcuts, mac, Mac OS X
Mac 101 - System Preferences: System - Part 2
Posted on September 27, 2007
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Well, we’re done to the last few areas under the System category of System Preferences. Today we’ll talk about Speech settings, Startup Disk and Universal Access settings.
Speech
If you didn’t know this already, let me tell you - your Mac can speak. It can read off text and it can also respond to spoke commands. In the Speech section of System Preferences is where you can control the speech settings of your Mac. Here you can turn on and off Speech Recognition, as well as calibrate the microphone and modify a few other settings. Further, your Mac can read to you. It can read the text of alerts when they are displaced, it can announce when an application requires attention and it can also read selected text. Again, the Speech section of System Preferences is where you can modify the settings that control the speaking ability of your Mac.
Startup Disk
Most user probably will not need to modify any settings in this area of System Preferences. Basically, here you can tell your Mac to use a different Startup disk than your hard drive. You can tell it to use a network drive to load the operating system when starting up or a partition on the internal hard drive. My suggestion is, don’t mess with these settings unless you know what you’re doing.
Universal Access
The Mac is handicap accessible. Universal Access is a group of settings that can modify the way the system works and looks to assist people with various handicaps. There are settings to make the Mac more user friendly for visually impaired or hearing impaired people.
This wraps up the System Preferences series of lessons. System Preferences has another category called “Other.” Settings in this category will vary from user to user. These depend on software utilities that you install on your Mac. As you install utilities that are integrated into the Mac OS X, their preference panes will appear in the Other category of System Preferences.
To receive similar content from Gustacci.com, grab an RSS feed or sign up for email delivery. I hope you find this tutorial helpful. Please let me know your thoughts, comments and suggestions in the comments section.
More Mac Lessons: Mac 101
speech recognition, startup disk, system preferences, universal access
Apple Headlines 9.26.2007
Posted on September 26, 2007
Filed Under Apple Headlines | Leave a Comment
Your iLife just got better
Apple just released a slew of point-updates for iLife ‘08, promoting hard-workers iMovie, GarageBand, and iPhoto…
Apple drops new Leopard build, may be release candidate
Labeled “Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard build 9A559,” the new release came just hours after the Cupertino-based company issued two minor updates to the previous full-sized build (9A527), both of which were aimed at testing the system’s automated Software Update mechanism.
Notice for Boot Camp Beta Users
The Boot Camp Assistant and license for Boot Camp beta versions 1.0b through 1.2b will expire on September 30th, 2007. Expiration does not affect installed copies of Windows. Updating the beta license is simple.
Hands on: Getting down to iWork ‘08
With iWork ‘08, the latest generation of its office suite, Apple has given Mac users a powerful alternative to Microsoft’s Office for Mac. This new version finally offers an alternative to Excel called Numbers, a spreadsheet tool unlike any that has come before it. It also adds some great new features to iWork’s other two applications — the presentation program Keynote and the word processor Pages — including a few that many users felt were lacking in previous releases.
Apple’s Leopard Will Exclude 800MHz G4 Processors
According to AppleInsider, Apple is about to announce that Leopard will not support 800 MHz G4 PowerPC processors. Previously developers had been told that it would require at least an 800 MHz G4.
boot camp, ilife, iwork 08, leopard, Mac OS X
Mac 101 - System Preferences: System - Part 1
Posted on September 25, 2007
Filed Under Mac 101 | 1 Comment
We’re nearing the end of the series on System Preferences. System settings is that last category in System Preferences. There is a category of Other, which will vary from Mac to Mac based what software or utilities you have installed. In the System area of System Preferences we have six groups of settings that allow you to control the behavior of your Mac system.
Accounts
This is where you control the user accounts on your Mac. If you’re the only user of your Mac you will only have one account in this area of System Preferences. This is where you can set up additional user accounts if you desire to do so. It may be useful to have multiple user accounts if your Mac is used be several people. Multiple user accounts help to keep settings and data organized for each user. In the Accounts are you can set and change user passwords, change the user picture, modify login items and set parental controls. Login Items are programs or services that you want loaded upon login. So, if you’d like to have a particular program load when you login to your user account this is where you would set that up.
Date & Time
Here you can set the date and time of your computer. You can keep the time current manually or you can select an option to automatically set time and date according to a server at Apple. Further, you can set the Time Zone that you live or work in. This will adjust the time accordingly and allow the Apple server to synchronize your computer to the proper time if you’re using that feature. Finally, this is where you can modify Clock settings. You can change if the clock appears in the task bar and how. You can view the clock as digital or analog, 12 or 24 hour format, display the time in seconds and other options.
Software Update
Every Mac comes equipped with a software update utility. This utility periodically checks for new software updates. In Systems Preferences under Software Update you can change the frequency at which the Mac checks for new updates. Here you can also tell the system how you would like it to behave if there are new updates. Software Update can notify you when new updates are available for download or it can download them in the background and let you know when its ready to install. Finally, you can also see a list of all updates installed to date. In case you’re uncertain if you installed a certain update, this is where you can find out.
In the next installment of Mac 101 we will cover Speech, Startup Disk and Universal Access settings. If you’d like to receive these posts and other content from Gustacci.com in your Inbox, please sign up for email delivery.
Next Lesson:
Mac 101 - System Preferences: System - Part 2
software update, system preferences, user accounts
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