
Oakbog
News & Tips
Macintosh Tips Archive
Written By:
Adam Rosen
Summer
2008
Using
Command-Tab to Switch Between Applications
A quick, keyboard-only way to switch between applications when
you have multiple programs running is to press and hold the
Command (CMD) key while tapping the Tab
key. This brings up an application bar with icons for all running
programs. Hit Tab repeatedly (while holding Command) to move
the selection box among apps. Let go of both keys when you reach
the program you want to switch to and that program's windows
will pop to the front. (The Command key is sometimes known as
the Apple key on older keyboards.)
This technique
can be combined with other Command Keys for even more efficiency.
Copy some text in one program (say email) using CMD-C,
hit CMD-TAB a few times to switch to your word
processor, then hit CMD-V to Paste the copied
text into the new program. You can also bring up the application
menu using CMD-TAB, then with the Command key held down hit
the Q key repeatedly to Quit running programs
in succession.
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Spring
2008
Window
Management Using Exposé
When you have multiple programs running and many windows open
at once, things can get a bit cluttered. Since MacOSX 10.3 Apple
has provided some handy window management shortcuts, collectively
called Exposé:
| F9 |
|
Show
All Windows, click on a window to bring it to the front |
| F10 |
|
Highlight
Windows of the current (frontmost) application |
| F11 |
|
Move
All Windows off screen to access items on the desktop |
Hit each key a second time to turn off that view. On new Apple
laptops and keyboards you may need to simultaneously hit Fn
and F9 (or F10, F11)
to access these features.
You can assign Exposé features to a mouse button or screen
corner in System Preferences --> Expose & Dashboard (Expose
& Spaces in Leopard) . I find it handy to set the mouse scroll
wheel (button 3) to the Show All Windows function, instead of
the default to launch Dashboard. You also use the Exposé
Preference Pane to turn off unwanted behaviors, particularly involving
mouse event triggers in screen corners.
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January
2008
Weather
Widget Problems
Are you a
fan of Apple's Dashboard Widgets? Do you live in the Boston area
and use the Weather Widget? Have the temperatures displayed seemed
unusually warm to you since the start of the New Year?
Thoughts
of summer aside, it appears Apple made some changes to the weather
widget behavior starting this year, and many widgets formerly
displaying Boston, MA temperatures are now displaying Boston,
Georgia temperatures! Apparently many cities have been added,
so this may be affecting other regions as well.
To fix this,
hit F12 to launch Dashboard and move your mouse
cursor over the lower right corner of the weather widget. A small
letter "i" will appear, click this to get to the preferences.
Enter "Boston, MA" as the city with the state (instead
of just Boston), then click Done. Your weather display will then
be back to normal - correct, but chillier.
Sometimes
the small mysteries in life do have solutions...
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Winter
2008
Screen
Snapshots
Sometimes it's helpful to save a picture of your Mac's screen,
or a portion of the screen, for a project, as a receipt or for
other reference. The Mac provides several ways to do this right
from your keyboard. Type the following keys together to capture
screen images (the Command - CMD - key is also known as the Apple
key):
| CMD-SHIFT-3 |
|
Saves
a copy of the whole screen to the desktop named as Picture
1, Picture 2, etc. |
| CMD-SHIFT-4 |
|
Cursor
changes to cross hairs, allows you to outline a square region
to capture |
Both these
capabilities have long been part of the Mac OS. New to OS X is
the ability to cleanly capture a picture of a single window without
the screen background or other annoyances:
CMD-SHIFT-4
SPACEBAR |
|
Cursor
changes to cross hairs, then hit the SPACEBAR
Cursor changes to a camera, move over the desired
window and click the mouse to save picture |
Try it and
see what happens! I find this very handy to send pictures of error
message windows to tech support folks when I have problems with
my own Macs.
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Fall
2007
Target
Disk Mode
Target Disk Mode is a wonderful feature in FireWire equipped
Macs that lets you access the hard drive in your desktop or
laptop from another Macintosh without using a network or file
sharing. The computer in 'target' mode behaves as an external
FireWire disk and allows access to your files and data for copying,
to perform disk repairs, or as temporary extra storage space
when needed.
To use Target Disk Mode, restart your Macintosh and hold down
the T key after the chime. After a few moments
you should see a blue or grey screen with a floating FireWire
logo. When the logo appears connect the target computer to another
running Mac via a FireWire cable. The target computer will mount
on the desktop as an external FireWire drive and you will be
able to access all your files. This is a convenient and fast
way to copy large amounts of data between two computers, as
well as accessing and repairing a system that might otherwise
not be bootable.
Target Disk Mode also allows the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive of
the target computer to be used as an external optical drive.
If you have an older Mac with a malfunctioning CD/DVD drive,
or perhaps only a CD-ROM drive but need to install software
from a DVD-ROM, you can use a second Mac in target disk mode
to help. Boot the second Mac in target mode, connect via FireWire,
then insert the CD or DVD into the target machine. The disk
will show up on the desktop and be usable just like an internal
drive.
|
Summer
2007
Print
to PDF in MacOSX
PDF files have become an indispensable part of modern computing.
This handy file format works cross-platform on Macs, Windows,
and Linux systems and preserves all fonts and formatting details.
Adobe's goal for their Portable Document Format has been attained,
and PDF is now an open source (free) standard that will be around
for a long time.
Since MacOSX v10.2 Apple has provided Print to PDF services
in the Operating System - no need to purchase a full retail
copy of Adobe Acrobat as previously required. This is a great
way to save web pages for later viewing, no internet access
required. It's also a handy way to send formatted information
from any application to other users or keep for future reference.
To make a PDF, select Print... from the File menu and click
the button that says "PDF" or "Save as PDF"
Name the file whatever you like, and keep for later use.
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| Spring
2007
Running
Windows on your Mac
Apple's new Intel Chip-Based Macs (ICBMs, in industry parlance)
are sleek and powerful systems that bridge the gap between Operating
Systems by allowing you to run Windows applications directly
on your Macintosh at full (native) speeds. Apple's BootCamp
utility allows you to install Windows XP or Vista on a partition
of your hard disk, then boot your Macintosh directly into Windows.
Users report that new Macs make great Windows machines (ironic,
ehh?) and run most software - including high end games - very
well.
Better yet, virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop
and VMware allows you to run Mac and Windows applications simultaneously,
side by side. While VirtualPC and other emulators have offered
this capability for years on PowerPC Macs, the switch to Intel
processors lets these solutions really fly with little to no
performance impact. Now you can run business critical or Windows-only
apps right on your Mac, in any version of Windows, and enjoy
the benefits of MacOSX for your other computing needs.
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| Winter
2007
Backup
Tip for Pod People
Everyone knows they need to backup their files, but most people
don't do so regularly. Keeping a spare drive around or burning
CDs/DVDs is a pain. Yet these days an easy and practical solution
exists with extra benefits to boot: backup to your iPod.
iPods are portable hard disks or flash drives, with a nice interface
for playing music built in. Many iPods, especially full size
hard disk models, have lots of unused storage space. To use
this space for your own files, connect your iPod to your computer,
go to the iPod Preferences in iTunes, and select Enable
Disk Use. Your iPod will now show up on the Desktop
(Macs) or within My Computer (PCs) and the free space will behave
like a removable disk drive.
You can use this capacity to copy files & folders (like
My Documents or your email folder) to a backup medium that regularly
goes where you go, and allows an easy way to transfer files
between two computers. You can even automate the process using
a File Synchronization utility. Just think, an iPod used as
a backup device may even be a deductible business expense! <grin>
Just make sure that any sensitive documents use password-protected
files, in case your iPod is lost or stolen.
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page is provided to the Mac user community by Oakbog
as an information resource to assist in the use of Apple Macintosh
computers. The Macintosh and Mac OS X are registered trademarks
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