About This Mac » Basic

OS X Primer for New Mac Owners

iChris — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:26:03 +0000

Merry Christmas new Mac owners! And a special extra treat for any of you that are switching from Windows to your first Mac. Don McAllister at ScreencastsOnline has made a free episode of his popular video podcast available specifically for switchers. Click here to check it out.

And if you find it interesting and helpful, I’d highly recommend you look into becoming a full fledged member of Don’s community. Lots of great tutorials and information to help you on your way to becoming a Mac genius!

Great Deal on Learning to Switch to Mac

iChris — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:15:59 +0000

MacZot.com is a site that features daily deals related to Mac software. Today they’ve got a deal going on what looks to be a great little tutorial/manual for switching from Windows to a Mac: macZOT » “It’s About Time to Learn the Switch to Mac.”

It’s About Time to Learn the Switch to Mac®” is the most innovative learning tool ever created for “switchers.” It’s all about teaching you the Mac by connecting the dots to Windows equivalents. When the instructor, Saied, teaches you one of the more than 30 lessons on the Mac, you can then instantly try it on the virtual Mac that’s built into the learning tool–an interactive experience unique to “It’s About Time.”

It’s compatible with Mac and Windows so you can check it out even if you’re just thinking about switching to a Mac.

How safe are your passwords?

Daryl — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:59:24 +0000

If you are like many people online you are probably using Mozilla’s Firefox as your web browser of choice. If you aren’t using Firefox then this post won’t directly related to you. However if you are… read on.

Do you save passwords to frequently visited websites in Firefox with this dialogue drop down menu?

If so, do you utilize the Firefox master password, which can be set here:

I would greatly advise using a master password. By doing this you are protecting yourself from someone walking up to your computer and logging into a website with those saved passwords, as Firefox will prompt you for this master password during a session of Firefox or after your computer wakes from sleep. This is the first step to amping up security on your mac. However, not having a master password allows anyone who can gain access to your computer the ability to copy and view ALL of your passwords. Let me repeat that. If you don’t have a master password set, someone else can go on your computer and look at all your passwords.

This is simple done by clicking on the Saved Passwords from the above screen and then clicking the show passwords as shown below. If you don’t have a master password set, Firefox will display all passwords, but if you do have a master password set, then Firefox will ask for the password before doing so.

I highly advise that you make sure you have a Master Password set in Firefox, otherwise if your computer or even your hard drive falls out of your possession you are at great risk.

Personally I always have maintained a master password, that is until I began using the app, 1Password, which we will cover in a future post.

PDF Viewing for Firefox 3

Daryl — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:00:47 +0000

I really like Firefox 3 and have always used it as my default web browser on both the Mac and PC platform. However, the way that Firefox handles PDF files is some what of an annoyance. If you are like me you too will find it rather odd then that when in Firefox and you click on a web link to a PDF file it will automatically download the file and then open the PDF up in Apple’s default Preview.app. Now the easiest way to solve this problem is the go ahead and start using Safari. However, one of the reason I use Firefox is for the amount of add-ons, extensions and customization you can do in it. So as usual their is a Firefox extension which adds this feature. (I believe their is an extension for pretty much everything) This simple extension adds the ability to view PDFs directly into Firefox. You can download the Firefox extension here.

Keep Your Computer Awake!

Greg — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:04:00 +0000

I love showing my friends YouTube videos when they come to my place, but I hate shaking that mouse to keep the screen from dimming. Sometimes in protest I turn the screen/power saving off, but then I forget to turn them back on. Headache!!!
So I finally got sick of this and installed a slick little program called Caffeine. It’s a menu bar app that keeps your computer awake. Download it, drag it into your Applications folder, then double click it to run it.

One click fills the cup and keeps your computer awake…
…and one click turns it off and allows your computer to use the screen/power saver.
Super simple, and it works. Awesomeness.

I only wish that I could decaffeinate myself that easily…

Are you stuck?

Daryl — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:44:00 +0000

Kendra asks,“How do I eject a CD or DVD on my Mac when pressing the eject button doesn’t work?“

This is a great question that I myself had to search apple support for the answer when I first had this problem on my first mac. Especially when you think that a stuck disc is going to mean sending your machine in for repair. Firstly, remember old CD and DVD drives from those PC computers you used to use and how when I disc wouldn’t eject you would grab a paper clip and bend it straight to press on that magic manual eject button? Don’t try that on a mac, cause you will search forever and never find such a button. In fact you might damage something. The solution is easier than it might seem.

In general a CD or DVD can be ejected on a Mac (MacBook or MacBook Pro) using the physical eject button or from the finder without any problems, but occasionally this don’t work and the disc icon might disappear from your Desktop and you can’t get the disc out of your computer. However, there is a trick you can try to extract the stuck disc.

Restart your Mac
After you hear the startup chime, press and hold your trackpad button
After a minute or so and you think nothing is gonna happen the disc ejects
Release the button once the disc ejects

99% of the time this will work. The other 1% has a more advance solution that I won’t publish. So if it doesn’t work for you. Just contact us and we’ll walk you through it.

Mac Tip of the Day: Expose and Aluminum Keyboard

Daryl — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:27:00 +0000

If you have been a mac user for long enough time you will know all about the Expose feature. If not then here is a quick review.…

Expose allows you to quickly do the following:
See All the windows you have open,
Push all windows to the side to quickly view just your desktop,
See just windows from the current application

These key commands are some of the most commonly used keys on my keyboard. By default,

F9– Shows All Windows
F10– Shows Application Windows
F11– Shows Desktop

While you can set hot corners or mouse shortcuts (a tip for another post) for these commands, most mac users quickly learnt these keys when they bought their first mac. However, if you have just bought yourself a brand spankin new mac, or got yourself a new Aluminum keyboard you will notice that F9, F10,F11 are now defaulted to “Next”, “Mute”, and “Volume Down” respectively. While this keyboard now included F3 as the new “Expose — Show All Windows” command it leaves the other two commands, most importantly, “Show Desktop” out to dry. Oh sure you can press “Function” and F11 to still get to the “Show Desktop” feature but on both the macbook, and the keyboards have the “FN” key in a very poor location which makes this key not very “short.“

AH, there is a solution.
By default, ⌘ + F3 will “Show Desktop” and Control + F3 will “Show Application Windows“

This actually turns out to be quite ergonomical and sooner than later you will forget F11.

BONUS: Pressing ⌥ + F3 will bring up System Prefs for Expose and Spaces. As well you will find that ⌥ + F12 will bring up System Prefs for Sound

EVER MORE BONUS:

⌘ = Command
⌥ = Option
⌃ = Control

Mac Tip of the Day: Email attachments quickly

Daryl — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:00:00 +0000

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to send email attachments there is no faster way than by using Mail.

We all know the standard way. Open Mail…Select New Message…click on
the Attachment Paper Clip icon…fill out your email…and Send.

There is actually a much quicker way to do this. Just take the
attachment you would like to send, and drag it to the Mail icon in the
Dock. Mail will launch, a new message will pop up, and your file will
already be attached.

Fill our your email, and click Send.

via Mactips.org

How to reset your iPod

Daryl — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:46:00 +0000

Chris asks: my ipod has a strange error message on it and I can’t play my music?

Solution:

Important: If your iPod is frozen or won’t turn on,
it may be because iPod is paused or the Hold switch is in the locked
position. If so, a lock symbol appears on the screen. Slide the Hold
switch to the unlocked position and check the screen.

“If the iPod displays shows any of the following messages you should eject the iPod from within iTunes instead of resetting it:“

Connected. Eject before disconnecting
Sync in Progress. Please wait…
Do not disconnect

If your iPod is frozen or won’t turn on, the steps to reset it vary by model. You can easily tell which iPod model you have if you’re not sure.

If you have an iPod with a click wheel. Which is probably 95% of people. Here is how to reset your ipod.

1. Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)

2. Press and hold the Menu and Center (select) buttons simultaneously until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 8 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.

If this doesn’t work, try connecting your iPod to a power adapter or to your computer as your iPod may have no battery life left to perform the reset.

Most of the time this solution will fix the problems you are having and in a few seconds you should be able to listen to all your music again. If it still isn’t responding then you may have a bigger issue. If so you could contact us here or go directly to Apple support.

iChat Video

Daryl — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:09:00 +0000

For those readers out there who are using a Mac, I hope you are using iChat. Long ago I got tired of all the junk MSN had to offer and since I started using iChat I won’t ever go back. However, I recently had been having problems getting a video chat going on my Macbook while I was at work on my iMac and my wife was on the Macbook. After some search around on the internet I learned some very great tips.

First is how to test your video to see if the problem is on your end of the connection. You can then test your connection with one of three little-known Apple iChat test buddies.

These are added using the + icon on iChat’s buddy list, keeping the Account type as AIM, and creating 3 separate buddies by entering one name at a time into the Account name: field, hitting the Add button, and repeating that process until all 3 are added.

appleu3test01
appleu3test02
appleu3test03The next step is to click on the bright green camera icon next to one of these names, the first two of which run Apple commercials on non-stop loops (below), the third of which is supposed to mirror back your video to you. If one of the three names is grayed out, someone else is testing with it now, but if it’s bright green, you can connect and do a test right away. If it works and runs stable, your machine’s just fine and your connection is just fine. If it connects but runs sluggish, your Internet connection is probably to blame if you’re not running any other programs and using a recent (G5 or Intel) Mac.

What I discovered after this process was that my internet connection was fine and even my router settings were fine. (That’s another whole topic) Then I discovered a simple setting that can cause iChat video to not work. You need to make sure that under the Sharing Preference Pane in System Preferences that the Internet Sharing box is unchecked. Once I unchecked the box iChat video was up and running as usual. I guess I must have turned it on for some reason.

Happy Chatting!
If you are on ichat.… look me up dgrunau AT mac DOT com