Mac OS X Tips

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iTunes Playlists
2006-09-10 03:09:05
So you are browsing through your iTunes library of one-hundred-gazillion songs and twenty-trillion playlists, and you get to a certain song. How do you find what playlists it is in? In the later versions of iTunes, just right-click (control-click) on the song and choose "Show in Play list". This will bring up a list of all the playlists that contain that song. Neat.To work the other way around, and with multiple playlists, you can create smart playlists to find songs that are in a number of playlists you specify. For instance, create a new smart playlist and set it to match all the conditions, which are something like; Playlist is 60s tunes, Playlist is Happy Mood, etc.
More About: Itunes , Lists

Mac OS X Hints
2006-09-10 03:09:05
Mac OS X Hints is a community built site where users can submit tips on using Mac OS X. A good feature is that users have the ability to rate hints, and there are Top Ten lists for most viewed, most commented and most emailed. The site also has a very active forum, in addition to discussions in the comments of each hint.Furthermore, at over 9,000 hints, its almost certainly the largest collection of Mac Hints on the net.
More About: Mac os , MAC OS X

Appleworks Tips
2006-09-10 03:09:05
Here is a great section from the Apple site that brought all those (great?) memories rushing back. Appleworks Tips and Tutorials. With the font still as Times and the screen shots showing a Mac OS 9 interface you would expect these tips not to be entirely relevant to a site named Mac OS X Tips.However almost all the tips are just as relevant today as they were 5 (or 10?) years ago. Most are general tips to help with word processing and spreadsheets, and could be applied to Microsoft Office or any similar Application.
More About: Work , Works , Ework

Universal Access
2006-09-10 03:09:05
The Univ ersal Access System Preferences pane is an area of OS X that is rarely visited by most users. As well as being really useful for computer users with disabilities, it also contains some of the coolest things you can do with your mac. While the preference pane is useful for browsing through the features, all parts of it are accessible through keyboard shortcuts, which are a much quicker way of turning the features on and off.Firstly, you can invert the display by pressing Control-Option-Command-8. This changes most windows from black writing on a white background, making your display look much more funky. Pressing the keyboard shortcut again will change your screen back to the way it was.Secondly the zoom function can be enabled and disabled by pressing Command-Option-8. Once enabled, this allows you to press Command-Option-Dash(-) and Command Option-Equals(=, also has the + on it) to zoom in and out. These are the two keys next to the delete key, ...
More About: Univers

Easy Dictionary Access
2006-09-10 03:09:05
It is possible to access the Mac OS X Dictionary and Thesaurus from any Cocoa application (Mail, TextEdit, Safari, etc.) using a simple keyboard shortcut. To access the dictionary, place the mouse cursor over the word you want to look up., and press Command-Control-D. a small window pops up giving you a quick definition, and you can easily select thesaurus or Morefor more information on a word.To look up multiple words you can just move the mouse whilst keeping command and control held down (you can release D).
More About: Access , Easy

Scheduled Startup and Shutdown
2006-09-10 03:09:05
In the Energy Saver system preferences you will find a button labelled "Schedule ." This allows you to schedule your mac to startup and shutdown at certain times, on certain days. This is just about the only way to schedule things without buying other software or using iCal. Basically you can set your computer to come on in the morning on weekdays and go off in the evening for example.I combine this with a locked screen saver. In the evening I start my "Big Clock" screensaver, then put my mac to sleep. In the morning it wakes up at a specified time, and loads the password dialog box. Then, when no password is typed in, it goes to the screen saver after 30 seconds. This means when I wake up in the morning I can look over and see the time in big bright letter next to me, without them on all night to wake me up.You can also combine this with an applescript or automator actions to play music or load web pages every morning. After writing the script to do this...
More About: Start , Star , Down , Startup

Stop Rippling in iMovie
2006-09-10 03:09:05
Rippling is a type of editing that moves all clips along if you insert another clip before it in the timeline. This also means that if you trim a clip, all affected clips will move along to fill the space created. By default, iMovie ripples clips. To temporarily stop rippling from happening, hold down the Command key while doing an edit. This will stop all other clips from moving, so any gap you create in the timeline will appear as blank space.If you want to extend a clip and trim the next one along, you can do this in one process by disabling rippling. Hold down the Command key and drag one clip over the next one along. Normally this would push the next clip along, but with rippling disabled, it overwrites that portion of the underlying clip.
More About: Stop

Auto-Tab Bookmarks
2006-09-10 03:09:05
If you visit the same collection of website every day, this will save you making multiple trips to the bookmarks menu.Launch Safari and make sure tabbed browsing is enabled. (In the Tabs section of Safari preferences make sure Enable Tabbed browsing in clicked) Click on the bookmarks button and create a new folder, giving it a descriptive name. Copy/Move all your favourite bookmarks into it, and drag it to the bookmarks bar. Then enable the "Auto -Click" option next to the folder. Now a small square will appear next to your bookmark folder instead of a downward arrow, and when you click it, each site will open in a separate tab.
More About: Bookmark , Book , Mark , Marks

Multiple On-The-Go Playlists
2006-09-10 03:09:05
To create an On-The-Go playlist on your iPod, navigate to a song, artist, album or genre then press and hold the centre button until you see the selector blink. Repeat this until you have chosen all the songs you wish to add to the playlist. Next go to the playlists menu, and select On-The-Go, which should be at the bottom. You will see that there is a save option, select this and the playlist will be named Play list 1. You can now create another On-The-Go playlist in the same fashion as before, but when saved, will be named Playlist 2.
More About: Lists , Multi , List

Character Swap
2006-09-10 03:09:05
In all cocoa applications (TextEdit, Mail etc.), two adjacent characters can be swaped by positioning the cursor between them and pressing Control-T. This can be useful if you often end up typing "teh" and "becuase".
More About: Wap , Character , Swap , Char , Hara

Preview Multiple Fonts
2006-09-10 03:09:05
If you work with lots of Fonts , sometimes you might want to preview them before installing. Do this by double clicking on them in the finder or dragging them to the Font Book icon (in the Applications folder). Font book will open a new window for each one, with a large sample of the font. However these windows will cascade and overlap, so you can only see one at a time.Using exposé (F10), you can spread out all the windows and preview all the fonts side by side. To install a font, click on its window to bring it to the front, then click install.
More About: Preview , Review , Multi , View

Remove the Dock
2006-09-10 03:09:05
If you are are one of those people who hates the dock, you probably already know it is fairly easy to remove it for good. However when you do this you also lose other features such as Exposé, Command-Tab switcher and Dashboard. A much better solution is to move the dock to the top of the screen and then hide it - making it invisible, but still around.The easy way to do this is to download a copy of Tinkertool (free) that allows you to modify lots of hidden preferences.The more hardcore solution is to use the terminal. Before you start, make sure Dock hiding is off by going to the apple menu, choosing Dock then "Turn Hiding off" . Alternatively open up the dock section of system preferences and turn hiding off there, or control-click on the gap in the middle of the dock (or even press Command-Option-D).Then launch the terminal (Applications -> Utilities) and type defaults write com.apple.Dock orientation -string top and press enter. Nothing will ...
More About: Move , The D

Quick add to address book
2006-09-10 03:09:05
Some people make it a habit of adding everyone who mails them to their address book, something that happens automatically in services such as Gmail. In Mac OS X Mail this is possible thorugh a simple keyboard shortcut. When reading an email, press Command-Y to add the sender to your address book straight away. Mail will even add the persons name, it it appears in the From field. To add more details like a picture or address you will need to actually open up address book sepereately though.
More About: Book , Dress , Quick , Address , Address Book

Hidden Unix Games
2006-09-10 03:09:05
These hidden files are accessable from any unix based operating system, including linux and Mac OS X. To see a list of what there is to offer type - ?ls /usr/share/emacs/21.2/lisp/play?into a terminal window (terminal is located in Applications/Utilities)To play the games, open a new terminal window and type “emacs” and hit return. Once in emacs, press Esc then x to get to the prompt. Now you can type any of the files in the list to play them.My favourites are:snake, tetris and pong, the old classics.doctor, a shrink in your mac (he/she isnt that helpful, unless you threaten to commit suicide)life, one of the first screen savers.dunnet, an old text based game where you can explorezone, makes the text on your screen go crazyHave fun!
More About: Games , Unix , Game , Hidden , X Games

GarageBand Tips
2006-09-10 03:09:05
Apple offers a great page of Garage Band Hot Tips at http://www.apple.com/support/garageband/h ottips/
More About: Rage

IWeb Tips
2006-09-10 03:09:05
Apple offers a great page of iWeb Hot Tips at http://www.apple.com/support/iweb/hottips /
More About: Iweb

iDVD Tips
2006-09-10 03:09:05
Apple offers a great page of iDVD Hot Tips at http://www.apple.com/support/idvd/hottips /
More About: Dvd

New web address
2006-09-06 08:45:05
This blog is now accessible from www.macosxtips.co.uk.Go on. Try it out. Bookmark it. Or subscribe to the RSS Feed.
More About: Dress , Address

Font Scaling
2006-09-06 08:45:05
Most tips that work with a standard part of a cocoa app (TextEdit, Mail), will work with any other cocoa app. Luckily, the font box is a fairly standard part of the UI, and luckily this means that you can use this tip with loads of applications. Most cocoa applications have the ability to scale fonts mathematically. This means that you can resize a selection of text containing different sizes while keeping the relative sizing between fonts. It also means that if you want all the text on a page a little bit bigger, instead of selecting each size and changing it a bit bigger (the 12 point to 14 point, the 16 point to 18 point etc.), you can just do it relatively.Select all the text in your document and open the Font panel ( Usually Format->Font->Show Fonts) and enter "*1.2" or another mathematical expression. The example given will multiply all font sizes by 1.2, but you can do anything, like "/2" to half the size, "*.0.75" to get 75% of the original size...
More About: Cali

Undo Prevening Safari Autofill
2006-08-30 02:00:02
Sometimes I find that I accidentally click "Never for this Website" when Safari offers to remember a username and password. More commonly, friends and family use my mac and go on the same websites i do, then click it without thinking about my saved passwords. Once it has been clicked, Safari refuses to remember any passwords for that website, which can get to be a lot of hassle, especially if you visit the site daily. Luckily there is an easy fix for this, which lies in Keychain Access.Firstly, open up Keychain Access (Applications/Utilities) and look for the site address in the "login" keychain. In the list you will see an entry that looks something like this:www.examplesite.com (Passwords not saved)Just delete that item from the login keychain, and then restart Safari. The next time you enter your unsername and password on that site, Safari will prompt you to save it.
More About: Auto , Fill , Afar , Autofill

Zero-Out Free Space
2006-08-30 02:00:02
When files are normally deleted they are just removed from the filesystem. The file itself is still on the hard drive though, which is how some programs are able to "recover" deleted files. For security reasons you may want to zero out your free space, which will get rid of all chances of recovering deleted files. First open Disk Utility in /Applications->Utilities. Then select the hard drive partition on the left of the screen, select the erase tab, then click "Erase Free Space ". Choose which option you want (the first option is usually enough) and click the "Erase Free Space" button. The process can take anywhere from an hour to quite a few hours depending on your hard drive size, and the amount of free space. During the process a "You are running low on disk space" warning may pop up, just click OK on this and ignore it. That message is suppose to pop up. Disk Utility zeros out the free disk space by simply making a giant file that is nothing but zero...
More About: Zero , Pace

Create Zip Archives On The Fly
2006-08-14 19:36:08
A super quick tip - To create a zip archive for a folder, file, or a selection of folders or files, select them, right-click (or Control-Click) on one, and choose "Create Archi ve ".This will automatically archive your selection into a zip file, ideal for storing away, sending via email or to save space.Provided by Jeremy, the owner of the Life in a circuit board blog.
More About: Archives , The Fly

Hidden Unix Games
2006-08-14 19:36:08
These hidden files are accessable from any unix based operating system, including linux and Mac OS X. To see a list of what there is to offer type - ?ls /usr/share/emacs/21.2/lisp/play?into a terminal window (terminal is located in Applications/Utilities)To play the games, open a new terminal window and type “emacs” and hit return. Once in emacs, press Esc then x to get to the prompt. Now you can type any of the files in the list to play them.My favourites are:snake, tetris and pong, the old classics.doctor, a shrink in your mac (he/she isnt that helpful, unless you threaten to commit suicide)life, one of the first screen savers.dunnet, an old text based game where you can explorezone, makes the text on your screen go crazyHave fun!
More About: Games , Unix , Game , Hidden , X Games

Stop Rippling in iMovie
2006-08-06 19:21:06
Rippling is a type of editing that moves all clips along if you insert another clip before it in the timeline. This also means that if you trim a clip, all affected clips will move along to fill the space created. By default, iMovie ripples clips. To temporarily stop rippling from happening, hold down the Command key while doing an edit. This will stop all other clips from moving, so any gap you create in the timeline will appear as blank space.If you want to extend a clip and trim the next one along, you can do this in one process by disabling rippling. Hold down the Command key and drag one clip over the next one along. Normally this would push the next clip along, but with rippling disabled, it overwrites that portion of the underlying clip.
More About: Stop

Easy Dictionary Access
2006-08-06 19:21:06
It is possible to access the Mac OS X Dictionary and Thesaurus from any Cocoa application (Mail, TextEdit, Safari, etc.) using a simple keyboard shortcut. To access the dictionary, place the mouse cursor over the word you want to look up., and press Command-Control-D. a small window pops up giving you a quick definition, and you can easily select thesaurus or Morefor more information on a word.To look up multiple words you can just move the mouse whilst keeping command and control held down (you can release D).
More About: Access , Easy

Quick add to address book
2006-08-06 19:21:06
Some people make it a habit of adding everyone who mails them to their address book, something that happens automatically in services such as Gmail. In Mac OS X Mail this is possible thorugh a simple keyboard shortcut. When reading an email, press Command-Y to add the sender to your address book straight away. Mail will even add the persons name, it it appears in the From field. To add more details like a picture or address you will need to actually open up address book sepereately though.
More About: Book , Dress , Quick , Address , Address Book

Remove the Dock
2006-08-06 19:21:06
If you are are one of those people who hates the dock, you probably already know it is fairly easy to remove it for good. However when you do this you also lose other features such as Exposé, Command-Tab switcher and Dashboard. A much better solution is to move the dock to the top of the screen and then hide it - making it invisible, but still around.The easy way to do this is to download a copy of Tinkertool (free) that allows you to modify lots of hidden preferences.The more hardcore solution is to use the terminal. Before you start, make sure Dock hiding is off by going to the apple menu, choosing Dock then "Turn Hiding off" . Alternatively open up the dock section of system preferences and turn hiding off there, or control-click on the gap in the middle of the dock (or even press Command-Option-D).Then launch the terminal (Applications -> Utilities) and type defaults write com.apple.Dock orientation -string top and press enter. Nothing will ...
More About: Move , The D

Preview Multiple Fonts
2006-08-06 19:21:06
If you work with lots of Fonts , sometimes you might want to preview them before installing. Do this by double clicking on them in the finder or dragging them to the Font Book icon (in the Applications folder). Font book will open a new window for each one, with a large sample of the font. However these windows will cascade and overlap, so you can only see one at a time.Using exposé (F10), you can spread out all the windows and preview all the fonts side by side. To install a font, click on its window to bring it to the front, then click install.
More About: Preview , Review , Multi , View

Character Swap
2006-08-06 19:21:06
In all cocoa applications (TextEdit, Mail etc.), two adjacent characters can be swaped by positioning the cursor between them and pressing Control-T. This can be useful if you often end up typing "teh" and "becuase".
More About: Wap , Character , Swap , Char , Hara

Scheduled Startup and Shutdown
2006-08-06 19:21:06
In the Energy Saver system preferences you will find a button labelled "Schedule ." This allows you to schedule your mac to startup and shutdown at certain times, on certain days. This is just about the only way to schedule things without buying other software or using iCal. Basically you can set your computer to come on in the morning on weekdays and go off in the evening for example.I combine this with a locked screen saver. In the evening I start my "Big Clock" screensaver, then put my mac to sleep. In the morning it wakes up at a specified time, and loads the password dialog box. Then, when no password is typed in, it goes to the screen saver after 30 seconds. This means when I wake up in the morning I can look over and see the time in big bright letter next to me, without them on all night to wake me up.You can also combine this with an applescript or automator actions to play music or load web pages every morning. After writing the script to do this...
More About: Start , Star , Down , Startup