Welcome to the May/June 2008 issue of Mac Hints & Tips
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Paul Taylor
paul@mac-hints-tips.com
The Command Key
Possibly the greatest new feature of the redesigned iMacs is their new keyboard -- no, not because of its sexy thin design, but because the Command key is now labeled "Command" and the Apple symbol has gone from it. Hoo-ray!
For those without the benefit of the history, the Mac has had a Command key since the very first model, and it has carried the little "clover leaf" Command symbol for all that time. At some stage during Steve Jobs' absence in the wilderness, some bright spark thought it would be a really good idea to put an Apple II-style Apple logo on the key -- well, Windows PCs had a "Windows key," so why not?
A few folks no doubt trying to "simplify" the issue for beginners started calling it the Apple key, which wasn't actually a heck of a lot of help, given that every technical book writer went right on calling it the Command key, and at no stage has any Apple documentation ever referred to it as anything but the Command key. As many of you will have noticed, I've spent a lot of ink writing "Command (?) in these articles, in an endeavor to rub the point in and lessen the confusion. Still, some instructors have occasionally succumbed to the temptation to call it the Apple key simply because beginners could see an Apple logo there.
That's why I reckon the adoption of the word "command" together with the (?) symbol and without any further embellishment is arguably the best possible news for Mac beginners today. ~ Steve Cooper
AUSOM News, Melbourne, Australia
Don't Touch Your Mac During Software Updates
This tip's headline is a bit alarmist -- so let us clarify. When you are running software updates, or installing new security patches, you shouldn't do anything with your Mac while it's running through the last Optimizing System Performance phase of a software update. Launching applications while your Mac is performing this last phase of a software update can potentially damage system library files. In the worst case, there is a chance your Mac won't be able to start up again without significant troubleshooting.
So how should you run software updates?
We recommend you run security updates at the end of the day. Ideally after restarting and with no other software running at the time. While Apple's software update feature does not make it easy to tell when a particular update was released, we generally recommend waiting about a week after a major update is released before you install on your Mac. For our clients who schedule regular monthly maintenance visits, we generally run all software updates on each Mac once a month after a fresh reboot. ~ Creative Techs
LIMac Forum, Long Island, NY
Easily Encrypt Your Private Documents
I am preparing my taxes on my laptop. My tax documents need to be protected -- they basically include everything a thief would need to steal my identity (not that they'd want it, but...) Therefore, I encrypt these sensitive documents on my laptop in several ways. Here are three easy ways to encrypt your data, including PDFs:
1. Create An Encrypted PDF
It's very easy to create a PDF in 10.4. Open the document you want to save as an encrypted PDF file, and choose File>Print. The print dialogue box opens up. Click "PDF" in the lower left corner of the print dialog box.
To create an encrypted PDF file, choose "Encrypt PDF" and enter a password. Anyone who wants to open the PDF file will need to enter that password. Of course, try and choose a difficult to guess password. In your encrypted PDF, all graphics are at full resolution, and the file includes each font character it uses.
Thus, in OS 10.4, any document that can be printed can also be stored as an encrypted PDF file. Pretty cool!
You can also create a PDF file of a document by clicking the "Preview" button in the Print dialog, and then choosing File>Save As in Preview.
2. Create An Encrypted Disk Image
Disk Utility, which is part of OS X, can easily make an encrypted Disk Image. In this case, "disk image" works like a virtual CD-R or flash key. Use an encrypted disk image to store lots of documents, or different kinds of data -- such as PDFs, photos, Word documents, music, etc. You can even store encrypted PDFs in an encrypted disk image for drastic security!
(I used OS 10.4 for this article; it should work just the same for 10.3 and even 10.2.)
To make an encrypted, password-protected disk image, browse to the Disk Utility program, which by default is stored in the Utilities Folder. The Utilities Folder is typically found in the Applications Folder. Launch Disk Utility and select File>New>Disk Image From Folder. Browse to the folder you want to encrypt. A dialog box will come up, asking you to name the disk image you are about to create. At the bottom of the dialog box are two drop-down tabs. Select the "Encryption" tab and choose "AES-128 encryption." This is a very robust and fairly flexible encryption scheme. It allows passwords up to 255 characters. It is important to note that, if you forget your password, all data stored in the disk image will be forever locked up.
Name this Disk Image and select "Save As." Disk Utility will create the encrypted disk image, and typically will leave the new encrypted disk image on your desktop. When you try and open the disk image, a window will pop up, asking you for your password (unless you have saved the password to your keychain, in which case the image will just pop open.)
You can add and remove data from this disk image. However, as far as I know, you can't later go back and change the password on an encrypted disk image.
3. Use A Third Party Program
Sometimes it's easiest to simply use a third-party program to lock up your data. I recommend Knox. It simplifies making encrypted disk images, and gives you new ways of working with them. Knox also allows you to make automatic backups to encrypted folders. Read about Knox here: <www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/26510>
Knox is a great program to install on your laptop, especially if you often travel with it.
Finally, every month we seem to hear about misplaced, lost, or stolen laptops, that happen to be loaded with incredibly sensitive data. For example, the Veterans Administration famously lost a laptop with the credit reports of 26.5 million US veterans. Check out "How Does Government Lose So Many Laptops?" here: <www.techliberation.com/archives/040712.php>
Pharmaceutical companies, investment and auditing firms, insurance companies, and top retailers have also been in the news recently regarding lost laptops loaded with unencrypted private data. Don't be part of this troubling trend! ~ Ed
Small Dog Electronics
Contextual Menus and the Mouse
Many times we use the term "contextual menu." Beginners and some others may well wonder what one of those is, anyway.
A contextual menu is one that offers commands or functions that are particularly appropriate to what you are doing at a given moment. Unlike the normal top-of-the-screen menus that remain unchanged as you use a particular application, a contextual menu will contain different items depending on where you are in your document and what you are doing at that moment.
Further, contextual menus don't appear in the top-of-the-screen menu bar, but rather "pop up" under your mouse cursor (arrow or other) so that you can select commands from them without having to travel to the top of the screen.
So how are such menus invoked? Well, for a start you need to understand that a contextual menu may or may not be available to you at any given moment. The author of the application you're working with decides when it's appropriate to provide one and when not.
Given that, there are usually two ways to invoke an available contextual menu. The first is to hold down the Control key while clicking the mouse button. As you press the control key, you may see a tiny "menu" icon appear alongside your mouse cursor. This doesn't always happen but if it does, it's a sure indication that a contextual menu is available in that particular situation. If you don't see the tell-tale menu mini-icon, try clicking anyway-there may still be a contextual menu available.
For those of you who have a two-button mouse (including Apple's Mighty Mouse) there is another way -- simply click the right button rather than the left one, and if there's a contextual menu available it will pop up under the mouse cursor (arrow or other).
If you're new to Apple's Mighty Mouse (the one with a small grey button in its upper surface), you may not have realized that it's a two-button mouse. That's most likely because it is set by default to act in single-button mode to avoid confusing those who have migrated from a standard Apple mouse. To activate the right button, go to the Apple menu (at top left of your screen) and from that menu choose System Preferences; then in the window that opens click the Keyboard & Mouse icon. In that panel click the Mouse tab and you will see the options available for the Mighty Mouse's operation. Click on the label pointing to the right side of the mouse, and change the label from Primary Button to Secondary Button.
Close the window and you'll find that your right button has been activated. To try it out, click anywhere on your desktop, pressing the area on the mouse that lies to the left of the grey button. Nothing special happens. Now click the same spot on the desktop, this time pressing the area on the mouse that lies to the right of the grey button. You'll see a contextual menu pop up under the cursor.
Note that the Mighty Mouse knows which side of the mouse you've pressed by sensing the presence of your finger on its surface. This means that if you want to register a right-click, using your middle finger, you need also to lift your index finger from the left side of the mouse. If you don't, your click will be registered as a left-click (the default).
Some folks love the two-button function; others don't. It depends on your prior experience and perhaps on your manual dexterity. If you like the concept but find the Mighty Mouse difficult to use, you can easily buy a third party two-button mouse, virtually anyone of which will work with your Mac without the need to install new software. For a start, keep things simple and buy one that has just two buttons and a central scroll wheel; avoid those with a multiplicity of buttons.
With a Mighty Mouse or other two-button rodent (or by simply using the Control key with a single-button one) you may be surprised by the number of situations in which you can activate a contextual menu. ~ Steve Cooper
AUSOM News, Melbourne, Australia
Macs That Can Boot OS 9, Run Classic in Mac OS X
EveryMac has published a comprehensive list of those Macs that can boot Mac OS 9, those that can run Classic in Mac OS X and those that can do both. Systems are noted that can run Leopard. However, you must stay in Tiger to run Classic. Leopard has no support for Mac OS 9 Classic mode on Intel or Power PC. <www.macobserver.com/article/2007/11/08.16.shtml>
The Mac Observer via Mouse Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea, OH
Free Online Language Translations
Here's an interesting question I received recently: "I have a site that attracts visitors from all over the world, so I often receive emails in Spanish, French, and German. Is there a tool that will help me translate them to English? I also want to write back in their languages."
Fortunately, there are some excellent (and free) online translation tools available. Remember the babel fish in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"? It could instantly translate from one language to another. The web version of Babelfish can translate words, paragraphs or entire web pages to and from English, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.
Babelfish can't translate text into Bostonese, Martian, Smurfish, Jive, Elmer Fudd, or Swedish Chef, but of course clever programmers have found a way. Read on to learn about Babelfish and eleven other online language translation tools here: <http://askbobrankin.com/free_online_translations.html> ~ Bob Rankin
InternetTourbus.com via Mouse Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea, OH
Memory Tests
If your computer is behaving erratically, and you suspect bad RAM, it is easy to run memory tests to find out. To test the RAM, try Memtest or Rember.
<www.memtest.org>
<www.kelleycomputing.net:16080/rember>
Because RAM flakiness is sometimes intermittent and heat related, to really test the RAM, you should run the test routine for a considerable period of time, e.g., overnight. ~ J.J. McVeigh
Mouse Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea, OH
Keep Track of Your Disks
As a regular and long time user of Toast, I have accumulated quite a collection of backup media over the years. Once in a while I require some little piece for a project and I am then faced with the daunting task of finding the bit I need, amongst the ever-growing pile of CDs and DVDs.
One way to manage this is to take advantage of Toast's ability to keep the file and folder structure intact. If you copy any folder in a Toast window and paste it into a word processor, the entire contents of that folder and all the folders contained within will be listed in a nested fashion, as it is on the disk. From there it is simply a matter of a quick tidy up, perhaps delete any unwanted info and away you go -- a quick and easy way to keep track of your backups. ~ Ivan Radywonik
AUSOM News, Melbourne, Australia
CD/DVD Problems
A number of times recently I've had to attend to CD or DVD players that weren't reading discs. One of them was my own! In all cases the problem was that the player's lens needed cleaning.
Your CD/DVD player uses a laser beam that is focused on the disc by a lens. If this lens accumulates dust the beam will be diffused or incorrectly focused, and the player won't function correctly.
Your local music store, or an office supply store like OfficeWorks, will sell you a cleaning disc that incorporates a number of minute brushes. Load this disc into your player and follow the instructions for cleaning. The process will take only a minute or so, though I usually repeat it just for luck.
Buy a cleaning disc before you forget, and be ready for the inevitable. ~ Steve Cooper
AUSOM News, Melbourne, Australia
Before Lightning Strikes
A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine reviewed the case of severe injuries to a jogger who was unfortunate enough to have been next to a tree that got struck by lightning.
Many injuries and electrical damage is not caused by a direct strike but by lightning jumping to a person from a nearby struck object, a phenomenon known as side flash. This jogger was out in a thunderstorm and when the lightning hit the tree he was thrown about 8 feet from the tree and had severe burns on his chest and leg but also burns that followed the path of the earphones he was wearing connected to his iPod.
The result was severe injury and burns to his ears. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to conclude that: 1) jogging in a thunderstorm is dumb, but more importantly, 2) jogging in an electrical storm with wires in your ears is REALLY dumb. Lightning can be very dangerous and here are some common sense tips on avoiding injury in an electrical storm, courtesy of the Red Cross:
Watch the Skies...
Keep an eye on the sky. Look for darkening skies, flashes of light, or increasing wind. Listen for the sound of thunder. If you can hear thunder, you are close enough to the storm to be struck by lightning. Go to safe shelter immediately. Listen to NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio, or television for the latest weather forecasts.
When a Storm Approaches...
Find shelter in a building or car. Keep car windows closed and avoid convertibles.
Telephone lines and metal pipes can conduct electricity. Unplug appliances. Avoid using the telephone or any electrical appliances. (Leaving electric lights on, however, does not increase the chances of your home being struck by lightning.)
Avoid taking a bath or shower, or running water for any other purpose. (Get out of the hot tub!)
Turn off the air conditioner. Power surges from lightning can overload the compressor, resulting in a costly repair job!
Draw blinds and shades over windows. If windows break due to objects blown by the wind, the shades will prevent glass from shattering into your home.
If Caught Outside...
If you are in the woods, take shelter under the shorter trees. If you are boating or swimming, get to land and find shelter immediately!
Protecting Yourself Outside...
Go to a low-lying, open place away from trees, poles, or metal objects. Make sure the place you pick is not subject to flooding.
Be a very small target! Squat low to the ground. Place your hands on your knees with your head between them. Make yourself the smallest target possible. Do not lie flat on the ground -- this will make you a larger target! After the Storm Passes...
Stay away from storm-damaged areas. Listen to the radio for information and instructions.
If Someone is Struck by Lightning...
People struck by lightning carry no electrical charge and can be handled safely.
CALL FOR HELP: Get someone to dial 9-1-1 or your local Emergency Medical Services (EMS) number.
The injured person has received an electrical shock and may be burned, both where they were struck and where the electricity left their body. Check for burns in both places. Being struck by lightning can also cause nervous system damage, broken bones, and loss of hearing or eyesight.
GIVE FIRST AID: If breathing has stopped, begin rescue breathing. If the heart has stopped beating, a trained person should give CPR. If the person has a pulse and is breathing, look and care for other possible injuries.
But how about your pal, what do you do about your dog?
PROVIDE COMFORT: Pay attention to where your dog goes for comfort during a storm then provide a soft place there. Chances are it will be a dark place or a place in the center of the house where the sounds and flashes aren't as noticeable. Many dogs go to a downstairs family room, dark closet, a crate, the bathroom, or the bathtub.
TUNE IN: Invest in a good weather radio so you are always aware of when storms are brewing.
TURN ON: Turn on some soothing music or a TV to mask the noises a bit until the storm is over.
DON'T FENCE ME IN: Don't close her in a crate or confine her to a small space. Even if she prefers her crate or a small space, don't lock her in. She may panic and seriously injure herself if she tries to escape.
CUT THE STATIC: Reduce the static. Rub her coat with a fabric softener dryer sheet to decrease the static -- a common result of thunderstorms and one that dogs learn to associate with the storms. If your dog loves to ride in the car, try letting her "ride" out the storm with a ride in the car. This not only helps dissipate the static, but you can actually drive her away from the worst of the storm.
BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES: Keep windows covered so she can't see out. Keep her away from windows and keep all doors and outside gates closed so your dog cannot escape. Remember that flight is a common response to fear. Prevent her from getting near glass doors or windows if she is panicky. Some dogs will break through in an attempt to escape from the storm.
TRY A SAFETY CUE: If her fear is mild, provide a safety cue such as a special chewie, a great stuffed frozen Kong, or a new squeaky toy that will divert her attention. Provide this at the first sign of a storm and remove it as soon as the storm has passed.
DON'T WORRY -- BE HAPPY: Act happy. Be happy. She'll be watching you for clues about how to respond. So keep your own reactions calm and happy. Act as though absolutely nothing unusual is going on. If you are also afraid of storms, you have to hone your acting skills. ~ Don
Small Dog Electronics
Finding Where the © and ™ Symbols Live
Since nearly the beginning of Mac-dom, when you wanted to find out which key combination produced a font's special characters (stuff like ©, ™,£, ¢, %, ƒ, etc.), you used a utility called KeyCaps. More than a decade later, KeyCaps is still a part of Mac OS, but a better way to access these special characters is through the Character Palette.
You can access it two ways: (1) from within Mac OS X business apps (like Mail, TextEdit, Stickies, etc.), just go under Edit and choose "Special Characters" or click on the "Actions" pop-up menu at the bottom of the Font Panel and choose "Characters;" (2) add Character Palette access to your menu bar so you can access it when you're working in other applications (like Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign). You do this by going to the System Preferences in the Apple menu, under International, and clicking on the Input Menu tab. Turn on the checkbox for Character Palette and it will appear in the menu bar along the right side.
Either way you open it, here's how you use it: When you open the Character Palette, choose "All Characters" from the View menu, then click on the "By Category" tab. The left column shows a list of special character categories and the right column shows the individual characters in each category. To get one of these characters into your text document, just click on the character and click the "Insert" button in the bottom right-hand corner of the dialog.
If you find yourself using the same special characters over and over (like ©, ™, etc.), you can add these to your Favorites list, and access them from the Favorites tab in the Character Palette.
To see which fonts contain certain characters, expand the Character Palette by clicking on the down-facing arrow next to Font Variation on the bottom-left side of the palette. This brings up another panel where you can choose different fonts. You can also ask that this list show only fonts that support the character you have highlighted.
TMUG Insider, Pleasanton, CA
Spaces, in Leopard
Quickly switch between groups of windows to make your desktop much less cluttered.
I'm a fan of this, because I tend to work with certain groups of applications at the same time, while ignoring the others. It will be so nice to have separated sections such as a "design group," which could consist of InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator, or a 'web group" (Dreamweaver/Coda, Fireworks, Flash), without having to have all of my applications in the Dock at the same time. (Let's face it, I don't always have access to my wonderfully large display at work, so I would love to conserve screen space!)
Plus, Spaces allows for you to customize your workspace 'til your heart's content. You can add rows, rearrange windows, set different actions with function keys. You will be able to toggle back and forth between different work areas, so you're only looking at what you want to see, and nothing more. It looks like Spaces will have the look and feel of all your favorite OS X features. Sure, it's eye- candy, but when it's functional, who could complain? See more features at <www.apple.com/macosx/features> ~ Kali Hilke
Mouse Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea, OH
.Mac and the Hijacked Email Address
Q: I have had (and enjoyed) my .Mac account since the service was introduced but I have had a problem for the past month or so. Someone is sending spam to Russia and through Europe using my email address as the "Sent From" address. My Inbox is constantly receiving "Undeliverable Mail" or "Postmaster Daemon" or "Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender" as a bounce back. How does Steve Jobs prevent this from happening to him and what can I do without changing my account name? I'm physically able and mentally willing to crush these hijacking cyber terrorists with my bare hands.
A: I greatly admire the final sentiment. These people are dirtbags and a stern crushing would do them good. However, it's worth bearing in mind that they're equal-opportunity dirtbags. It's not personal. Nearly all of us have had our email addresses spoofed by spammers at one time or another. It's a regrettable downside of this Internet age in which we live. So, turn your mind from revenge for the moment and concentrate instead on protection and filtering.
.Mac now offers junk mail filtering for webmail. To switch it on, log on to .Mac, click the Mail link, and click the Preferences link in the resulting .Mac Mail page. In the General tab enable the Enable Junk Mail Filtering option as well as the Automatically Move Messages Marked as Junk to the Junk Folder option. If you're using Apple's Mail to retrieve your .Mac mail, Apple suggests you do this so your Junk folders in .Mac webmail and in the Mail application correspond:
If you access your mail via the .Mac website, this may help divert these bounces to the Junk folder.
Any ISP worth its salt should prevent such messages from being bounced to you. Unless you're living in the Stone Age you're aware of spammer spoofing and I'm slightly shocked that there are still Internet Service Providers out there that haven't done something to filter this junk on their end rather than making it your problem.
But, it's an imperfect world, and because it is I'd suggest creating a rule or two in whatever email client you use that diverts these bounces to a junk folder you create. For example, you could create a rule that goes something like this: If Subject Contains Undeliverable Mail Then Move Message to Junk
Essentially, you're looking for something uniquely identifiable about these messages that will allow the program to divert them to the area of your email client that serves as its seventh circle of hell. You'll want to peruse this folder from time to time in case you've received a legitimate bounce.
Better yet, use a third-party spam filter to weed out this crud. I've tested nearly all of them and I've found Michael Tsai's $30 SpamSieve to be the most effective. ~ Christopher Breen
Macworld Magazine via Mouse Droppings, Corvallis, OR
Email Attachments Made Easy
Do you use the Mail application in OS 10.3 or 10.4? Do you frequently send attachments? If so, this tip is dedicated to you. Actually, it's one the most popular tips we share in our Mac Basics classes. Even many advanced Mac users don't seem know about it.
If you want to attach a file to an email message, you can drag the file directly to Mail's icon in your Dock. This opens Mail and creates a brand-new email message window with that file already attached. Sweet! Better yet, even if you drag multiple attachments, they all attach to just one email message (rather than creating one message for each attachment, as in previous versions of Mac OS X).
Try it! It works great. And if you don't use Mail, this is another reason to consider using it. ~ Ed Shepard
Small Dog Electronics
View Quota Limits in OS X Mail
Apple Mail does an amazing job of managing SPAM, integrating with iPhoto and Address Book and helping users stay organized. Just as keeping your files organized on your Mac can help you keep your hard-drive from becoming too full, keeping your inbox organized can help you keep your mail server as empty as possible.
One neat trick I recently discovered in Apple Mail lets you quickly check how much of your mail server space is free! Simply open Apple Mail, select an inbox and hit Command/I! ~ Allen
Small Dog Electronics
QuickTime in Web Pages
A couple of significant QuickTime updates have recently caused problems for some users, in that movies embedded in Web pages aren't being displayed -- a QuickTime logo appears in the space allocated to the movie, but nothing further happens.
A suggested fix involves a couple of items quite often associated with this kind of problem and therefore worth noting. The first is a preference file located at: HardDisk/Users/Yourname/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Quicktime.plugin.preferences.plist. This file can safely be trashed, and doing so may well fix the problem, once you've logged out and back in again.
Otherwise, it's quite likely that a third party QuickTime plug-in is causing the problem. These are located in the folder: HardDisk/Library/Internet Plug-Ins.
Having opened this folder, remove (to a temporary folder on your desktop) all the non-Apple plug-ins.
So; what's the quickest way of determining which are the Apple plug-ins and which are third party items?
Open the folder HardDisk/Library/Internet Plugins and set it to List or Column view. Highlight the first item in the list and press Command/Option/I (note: not just Command/I). You'll see what looks like a normal Get Info panel, but you'll find that this one (actually the Inspector panel) will remain open and will display the Get Info information for whichever item(s) you click on.
Click each of the plug-ins in turn, keeping an eye on the Version item in the upper part of the panel. You'll soon see which are Apple plug-ins and which are not.}
Having isolated the non-Apple plug-ins, restart the Mac and check the problem website(s) using Safari. If all is well, replace the non-Apple plug-ins one or two at a time, restarting the Mac and re-testing with Safari each time, until you locate the culprit.
Note that the plug-in apparently associated with the latest crop of problems is the VLC plug-in, so you might like to investigate that one first. Having found the culprit, check the publisher's website for a later version, or learn to live without it. ~ Steve Cooper
AUSOM News, Melbourne, Australia
Fix Embedded Media in Safari QuickTime
To fix a QuickTime-related problem with Safari, quit Safari and look in the/Library/Internet Plug-ins folder (this is the Library folder at the root level of your hard drive, not the one inside your Users/username/folder). Try removing the VLC Plugin.plugin (if you have it) and QuickTime Plugin. Plug-in files from this folder (start with any third-party plug-ins that are present), and then relaunch Safari.
If the problem isn't fixed, a different plug-in may be to blame, keep removing files from this folder (start with any third-party programs that are present) until the problem disappears. Replace the plug-ins that don't cause any problems.
Flash
The most common Flash problem is that the audio doesn't work, usually caused by an erroneous Audio Output setting. Here's the fix:
Rosetta
If you have an Intel-based Mac, running Safari in Rosetta can also resolve some plug-in issues. First, quit the app if it's open, and then, in your Applications folder, select Safari and press Command/I. In the General area of the Safari Info dialog that appears (click the disclosure triangle if this area is not already expanded), select "Open Using Rosetta," and then close the Safari Info Dialog. Relaunch Safari.
Mac iLife Magazine via LIMac Forum, Long Island, NY
Shockwave, Rosetta, and Safari
This item is of interest only to Intel Mac owners. If yours has a Power PC processor (see About This Mac in the Apple menu), it doesn't concern you.
Not all programs for the Mac have yet been updated to perform natively on Intel-based machines (i.e. to Universal Binaries). Where they have not, a Mac OS function called Rosetta provides a 'translation service' that allows the earlier PowerPC programs to run on Intel machines. You may not have known about this system as it's invisible to the user, but in fact it works quite well. Without it, there would for instance be no Microsoft Office on Intel Macs.
A particular problem arises when the program in question is not a stand-alone one, but rather a plug-in for other programs (a plug-in being a relatively small added-on program which extends the function of the host program in some way). The key is that if a plug-in needs to run in Rosetta, it is required that the host program also runs in Rosetta. If it doesn't, the plug-in doesn't work.
One such plug-in is Shockwave, not used as much as it once was, but required for some on-line games amongst other things. In order for this to work, we have some how to induce Safari to run in Rosetta rather than normally.
To do this, quit Safari if it's open; then locate Safari in your Applications folder and click once only to select it. From the File menu choose Get Info. In the General section of the Get Info window, tick the box labeled "Open using Rosetta." Close the Get Info box and restart Safari. Your Shockwave plug-in should now work just fine.
Of course, this means that Safari won't run as efficiently as it would otherwise do, but if you must do this, you must. ~ Steve Cooper
AUSOM News, Melbourne, Australia
Where Did That Download Come From?
When you download a file using Safari 2.0 (included in Tiger), Safari writes the URL of the page you downloaded the file from in the file's Spotlight Comments field. To see where the file came from, just select the file, press Command/I (File>Get Info) and look in the Spotlight Comments field.
Design Tools Monthly
Dashboard Movie Finder
I like to check on what movies are currently playing at a number of theaters located near me from the list at http://movies.yahoo.com. Now you can turn all or any part of a Safari web page into a Dashboard widget. Your Web Clip widget is "live" and will update as frequently as the page from which it came. An easy way to do this in Leopard is to open Safari and go to the site. Assuming you have listed the theaters near you, select "Click here for showtimes." Now in File menu go down and select "Open in Dashboard."
A white area opens on the page. Resize it to fit the theaters you have selected, and click "Add" at top right corner of Safari. The result is an always-updated list of movies in Dashboard.
Mouse Droppings, Corvallis, OR
Email Safari Page Links
You can now email Safari page links easily. When you are on a Safari page whose URL you wish to email someone, simply click Command/Shift/1. The email which appears will already have a title. All you do is fill in the "To:" line.
Mouse Droppings, Corvallis, OR
Safari 3.0 PDF Crashes
Safari 3.0 (at press time a beta version) may crash when you click on a link to view a PDF file. The cause is a conflict between Safari and the AdobePDFViewer.plugin file, located in /Library /Internet Plug-Ins.
Check Adobe's Web site to confirm that you're using the latest version of Adobe Reader; if you're not, update it.
If that doesn't fix the problem, launch Adobe Reader (in / Applications), select Adobe Reader: Preferences, and select the Internet category. Deselect the Display PDF In Browser Using option to remove the plugin. If Safari is open, quit and relaunch it. PDF files should now load using Safari's built-in PDF viewing engine-and without causing a crash. ~ Ted Landau
Mouse Droppings, Corvallis, OR
Showing the Tab Bar in Safari 3
I love to use tabs in Safari. I find it much better then having 10 or 20 windows open for each website I am using. In Safari 2 there was a checkbox in the Safari Tab preferences, but it's now missing. A quick Google lookup turned up a nice hint on MacOSXHints.com. According to the hint you have to find the Safari property list and hack around a few strings. Sounds like fun, huh?!
Fortunately someone left a comment with a much easier solution: just go to the View menu and select 'Show Tab Bar'. Now that sounds a lot easier! ~ Jimmy Brancaccio
Small Dog Electronics
Forgetful Web Site Fix
If you choose to have Web sites remember your name and password for future logins, you may be surprised if a site suddenly requires you to enter this information manually. Worse, the site might claim that your login name or password is incorrect.
The problem here is probably a corrupt cookie file (or files).
Delete the problem file, and the site should create a fresh one. In Safari, select Safari: Preferences and click on Security. In the window that appears, click on Show Cookies. In the list, find any files that contain the name of the problem Web site. Select these and click on Remove. You should now be able to log in successfully. ~ Ted Landau
Mouse Droppings, Corvallis, OR
Organize and Search Safari's Bookmarks
First, this tip applies to Safari 2 and Safari 3. Safari 3 is the default web browser in Leopard.
If you're like me, you have hundreds of bookmarks in Safari. All these bookmarks are very convenient, but can also become unwieldy. Luckily, Apple makes it easy to organize Safari's bookmarks, including nesting them into folders and making them easy to search.
First, click on the "Show All Bookmarks" icon in the top-left corner of the Bookmarks Bar. Doing this makes the Collections column visible on the left side of Safari, where you can see all bookmarks in a list. It also adds a Search field at the bottom center of the Safari 2 window, or the top left of the Safari 3 window.
When you type search terms in this field, it only searches within your bookmarks. Thus you get super-fast (and accurate) results. I spent about an hour the other night organizing my bookmarks, including deleting some that were really old. I then backed up my Safari bookmarks by clicking File>Export Bookmarks and emailing them to myself. Needless to say, I feel very organized.
If only doing my taxes was this easy. ~ Ed
Small Dog Electronics
Refining a Web Search -- Getting Relevant Results on Google, Yahoo or Other Search Engine
Learn a few key words and tricks -- standard across most major search engines -- that will narrow your search from the start.
You can limit your search to a particular Web site by typing site: followed by the domain name of the site into your search field before you type the desired word or phrase.
For example, if you type "site:apple.com/iPod," you will find references to the devices that appear on official Apple Web pages.
The process works similarly for "file-type" that limits by file types like PDF and "allintitle" which limits the search to words only in the title of the Web page.
You can exclude words from a search by adding the hyphen before them. If you're searching for, say Hawaii, but don't want hotels, type Hawaii-hotels. You can also click on the "advanced search" feature, allowing you to fill in specifics like "all of these words' and "none of these words."
Using this feature, you can also select a domain extension, such as .com or.edu, that you would like to search within. ~ Jessica E. Vascellaro
LIMac Forum, Long Island, NY
Beware, Amazon Shoppers! (Shipping Charge Trickery)
There's something to watch out on Amazon: Some merchants use an "Amazon Account" in which Amazon shoulders some of the business burden... in exchange for (get this) a flat fee, per item, shipping charge (usually $4.99.)
I got caught in it. I order 10 items at 20 cents apiece. Total item cost: $2. Total shipping: $49.90.
I was furious: They were button batteries. Total shipping expense? Less than $1. At first I blamed the seller, who pointed out the truth to me. I contacted Amazon, and raised such a stink that they canceled the order finally.
But I made it a point to specifically ask: "If I ordered 20 pencils at 5 cents each, are you saying that it would cost me $1 for the pencils and $100 for the shipping?"
"Yes."
Be very careful with that. Check the shipping to see if it's per item. ~ Tracy Valleau
Mouse Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea, OH
Font Maintenance
Delete fonts carefully! And NEVER delete the ones in the /system/library/fonts.
Mucking about with fonts is tricky, at best. Remove the wrong ones, and you can disable your system. (It shouldn't be that way, but it is.)
In the old days, (OS 9) fonts were actually a system resource, and a corrupted one could cause problems in areas far afield from what you think (failure to boot; mouse malfunctions and so on.)
These days, fonts are largely voodoo -- they are scattered around in 5 or 6 places, (extremely poor design, IMHO) and still have some untoward intimacy with the OS (as in never delete fonts in the /system/library/fonts folder) as is testified to by the several pages devoted to using FontBook to "remove problem fonts" in Apple's own "Mac OS X Support Essentials" book.
Personally, I try to keep the /system/library/fonts folder to Apple's minimum installed fonts; use the /library/fonts and the ~/library/fonts the most and try to keep my hands off the any number of /library/application support/somename/fonts folders if I can.
That said, with all these install locations, and vendors such as Adobe and Microsoft using "basic" fonts (meaning found already somewhere on your system) and fonts that meet their own needs, and others, such as music notation and dictionaries, installing their own fonts (seemingly where ever they darned well please) .... sigh .... it goes on and on.
I suspect that font issues cause more problems than many suspect, even with the latest OS.
Therefore, I consider font maintenance a part of regular periodic maintenance on my computers. Admittedly, and fortunately, it's needed very infrequently (i.e., once a year ... maybe twice).
Apple supplies FontBook; there's Font Doctor (which I use, as unlike the earlier versions, the current version seems bug-free) and the free font analysis and management software from Linotype: FontExplorer X ... (which is one of the best font utilities out there, and blows my mind by being free ... it's easily worth as much or more than Suitcase et al.) ~ Tracy Valleau
TechX 18 via Mouse Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea, OH
Additions to Swatches Panel Have Many Pluses
Once you get beyond the obvious advantages of Live Color and Swatch Groups, you might discover that there are other great new Swatch features that might be flying under the radar.
One of my favorite time-saving features is the ability to select an object that contains an unnamed color and save it as a Swatch under the options menus of both the Color panel (Add to Swatches) and Swatches panel (New Swatch). By default, these Swatches are named by CMYK value, which I always did manually in my illustrations.
Best of all, you can select several objects containing different colors and save these colors as a Color Group by selecting New Color Group under the Options menu of the Swatches panel. In the dialog that opens, you can name the group, choose to make all the colors Global Swatches, and also save Tints. ~ Jeff Witchel
LIMac Forum, Long Island, NY
Limit Colors in Color Guide
The new Color Guide panel in Illustrator CS3 (Window>Color Guide) suggests harmonious colors based on the current color in the Tools panel. You can constrain the color selection to colors in a specified swatch library (such as Pantone Coated), by clicking the Limit Color Group icon at the bottom-left corner of the panel, and then selecting a color palette from the menu.
Design Tools Monthly
Save Selections in Illustrator
An often-overlooked feature in Illustrator is Select>Save Selection. You can then name the Selection and reselect it at any time by name: Select>(name). This is a clever way to create a group of objects without actually Grouping them and without losing their Layer information. ~ Anne-Marie Concepcion
Design Tools Monthly
Speeding Up Work by Avoiding Slow Previews in Adobe Illustrator CS3
Because the operating performance of Illustrator CS3 is vastly improved, this may be more of a CS2 tip. When working on complex effects such as 3D Revolve or Blends that contain multiple effects, you may find redraw performance grinding to a halt.
One way to speed things up is when applying or altering a complicated effect, turn off Preview in the dialog until you input all the specifications and are ready to press OK. In this way, Illustrator will not update the effect with each change to the specs.
LIMac Forum, Long Island, NY
Content Tool Trick for Quark
When using the Content tool in QuarkXPress, you don't have to switch back to the Item tool to Copy or Cut an item. Just add the Option key to your Cut or Copy key command: Option/Command/C to Copy, or Option/Command/X to Cut. ~ David Blatner
Design Tools Monthly
Quickly See Master Page Items
In QuarkXPress, you can quickly see which page items belong to the master page, if you prepare your document in what might be considered a "best practices" approach: place all of your normal page items onto their own layers, reserving the Default layer for the items on the Master pages. Then, you can Control/click on the Default layer in the Layers palette and choose "Hide Other Layers" from the contextual menu that appears. Because Master Pages can't have layers, only the Master Page items will then be visible.
Design Tools Monthly
Sharpen via Layer Mask
Here's a QuarkXPress 7 tip that isn't at all obvious: if an imported Photoshop image has a Layer Mask attached to a Layer, you can use Window>Picture Effects to blur that Layer Mask and the result is actually sharper edges in the image!
Design Tools Monthly
Center a Page
In QuarkXPress you can quickly center a page on the screen by double-clicking that page's icon in the Document Layout palette. This can be helpful when working with small pages such as business cards and invitations.
Design Tools Monthly
Adjust Word Spacing
Many people don't realize that you can increase or decrease the space between words in InDesign and QuarkXPress. To do that, just select some text and: InDesign: press Command/Option/backslash (\) to decrease it, or Command/Option/Delete to increase it. QuarkXPress: press Control/Command/Shift/left-bracket ([) to decrease it, or Control/Command/Shift/right-bracket (]) to increase it. To remove all manual kerning and tracking in InDesign, press Command/Option/Q. In QuarkXPress, choose Utilities>Remove Manual Kerning.
Design Tools Monthly
Alignment Tips
Aligning page items in either InDesign or QuarkXPress is simple: just select all the items you want to align and then click the appropriate alignment button in either the Control Panel (ID) or the Measurements Palette (QX). The items will then align to whichever item is the farthest in the direction you chose to align. For example, if you align left, then all the items will align with the left-most selected item. But what if you want to align to a different item? In QuarkXPress you're out of luck, but in InDesign you can lock an item and all the others will align to it. In Illustrator, if you click one more time on one item in a selection, then the others will align to it. ~ Sandee Cohen
InDesign Magazine via Design Tools Monthly
Transparency Grid for InDesign
InDesign doesn't have a transparency grid like Photoshop does, so it can be difficult to tell which objects have a transparent background. To fake one, choose InDesign>Preferences>Grids and make sure the "Grids in Back" option is checked. Click "OK." Then choose View>Grids & Guides>Show Document Grid. If you see the Document Grid beneath an object, that object is transparent. ~ Sandee Cohen
InDesign Magazine via Design Tools Monthly
Instantly Access the Font Field
If you're using InDesign and miss QuarkXPress's ability to give you instant access to the Font field in the Measurements Palette (Command/Option/Shift/M), try this: with your cursor in a text frame, press Command/6. The Font field in the Control Panel will become highlighted IF the Character formatting controls are active. If the Paragraph formatting controls are active instead, you'll have to press Command/Option/7 first (to switch to the Character formatting controls) and then press Command/6 to access the Font field.
Design Tools Monthly
Double/Triple Click in InDesign
In CS3, Adobe added a useful shortcut for accessing a picture frame and its content: double-click to select the content, or triple-click to select the frame itself. (Double-click to move the picture inside the frame; triple-click to move the frame and its content.)
Design Tools Monthly
InDesign Zoom Tips
Here are some tricks for zooming in and out of an InDesign document:
~ David Blatner
InDesign Magazine via Design Tools Monthly
Undoing Beyond Your Last Save
Multiple Undo's (Edit>Undo) may be a new feature in other layout programs, but it has been around for a while in InDesign. Depending on how much RAM you have, you can literally Undo or Redo hundreds of steps in your layout process.
I recently discovered that if you make a really big mistake and save afterwards, it's no big deal. You can actually turn back the clock beyond your save with multiple Undo's and save at a point before the mistake took place. This can be an amazing lifesaver. ~ Jeff Witchel
LIMac Forum, Long Island, NY
Control the Control Panel
InDesign CS3 lets you customize its Control Panel to include whatever options you use the most. To do that, just choose "Customize" from the options button at the far-right-end of the Control Panel. By default, they're all enabled, but you can disable any that you don't need.
Design Tools Monthly
View & Control Spot Plates in InDesign
You can use InDesign's Ink Manager to map several colors to one spot color, so that they all print on the same plate.
Open the Ink Manager window from the Swatches panel's side menu. Select a spot color in the Ink Manager dialog box and use the Ink Alias pop-up menu to map that color to a different plate.
To see where your spot colors are used in your layout, turn on "Separations Preview" (Window>Output>Separations Preview or Shift/F6). You can then view/hide individual spot colors (plates).
Design Tools Monthly
Preview a Layout Before Opening
One of the features that I love about Bridge is that you can get an idea of what's in an In Design document before you open it. Bridge previews the front page of the various layouts in a folder so you can get a better idea of which one is which. But this nice feature will only work if you save your InDesign document with a preview -- File>Save As, and check "Always Save Preview." ~ Jeff Witchel
LIMac Forum, Long Island, NY
The Tab Ruler Magnet
When setting tab stops in InDesign, a ruler appears for you to arrange the tabs. You can move the that ruler anywhere you like, and when you want it to snap back to its appropriate location above the text you're editing, just click the "magnet" icon at the end of that ruler.
Design Tools Monthly
Fix Background on Old EPSes in InDesign
Sometimes when placing an old vector EPS file onto an InDesign page, its background appears as solid white, even though it's really transparent. To fix this, try turning on the high-resolution preview for that picture frame (Object>Display Performance>High Quality Display). If that doesn't fix it, set the Vector Graphics view preference all the way to the right (InDesign>Preferences>Display Performance).
Design Tools Monthly
Sync Select Contacts
Q: Is there a way to archive the phone numbers and addresses of contacts I don't need any more? I sync my Motorola Razr phone with my iMac's address book, but the latter includes names of people I'm no longer in touch with, as well as business contacts I don't currently use. Ideally I'd like to have two address books-one to sync with my Razr and one for archiving. ~ Andrew Harris
A: There's no need for two address books when one will do the job. Thanks to the Group feature within Apple's Address Book (in / Applications), you don't need multiple address books. Just click on the plus sign (+) button beneath the Group pane at the left of the Address Book window, create a new group called Old Contacts, and drag the contacts you no longer need into this group. If you'd like to make a backup of the group so you can then delete these contacts from Address Book, just drag Old Contacts to the desktop. This creates a single vCard file containing the contacts. Store it wherever you like. To retrieve its contents, drag it back into Address Book.
Now create a new group and call it something like Phone Contacts. Drag into this group any contacts that you would like to sync with your phone. Open iSync (in /Applications), select your phone at the top of the window, and, from the Synchronize pop-up menu that appears under the Contacts heading, choose your Phone Contacts group. If you want to transfer only those contacts with phone numbers to the Razr, click on the More Options button at the bottom of the window and make sure the Only Synchronize Contacts With Phone Numbers option is selected. ~ Ted Landau
Mouse Droppings, Corvallis, OR
Texturize Charts
Q: I've been trying to change textures in my charts and can't figure out how to do it. What's the trick? ~ Chuck Joiner
A: So, you want to mix and match your textures in Apple's Keynote 3. First, let's say you've created a bar chart -- which is what appears by default when you choose the White theme and then click on the Chart button in the toolbar. Lovely as the chart's default gray and brown paper textures may be, you'd like to change the colors to something cheerier. To do so, follow these steps.
Click on one of the bars n say, a gray one. This selects all the gray bars. Open the Inspector and choose the Graphic tab. From the Fill pop-up menu, choose Tinted Image Fill. Click on the Tint color icon. In the resulting Colors palette, click on a new color. The gray bars will change to that color while retaining their texture.
Changing the actual texture of the bars takes more fancy footwork. Why? The texture is based on your presentation's theme. For example, if you choose a 3-D bar chart in the White theme, you get marble bars. Change your theme to Black and you get bar charts with a wood texture. You can't use the Inspector to change the textures of 3-D charts, so what do you do?
Create a new Keynote file that uses the theme you want for your chart. Make your chart in this file and then copy and paste the chart into your actual presentation. Alternatively, you could try this trick, which a Mac 911 forum participant came up with. Select only the element you want -- a wooden bar, for example. Choose Format: Copy Style, switch to your preferred theme, select that same element in the new theme, and choose Format: Paste Style. This applies the copied texture to the selected object (see top screenshot). The advantage of doing this is that you can mix textures. You could, for example, create a bar chart that included wood, plastic, and cloth textures.
Note that Apple likely tied textures to themes so you wouldn't create ugly presentations. If your audience groans because your wooden charts clash with your formal-themed presentation, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Chris Breen's Mac 911 via TMUG Insider, Pleasanton, CA
Leopard's Enhanced Spotlight
To me, Spotlight was the defining feature of Tiger. One of my favorite ways to use it is to search chat transcripts.
We conduct a lot of our internal communications via iChat, and there is not an easy way to archive these conversations for easy access. I enable "logging" in iChat, then use Spotlight to find a specific conversation by searching for a distinctive word or invoice number.
Tiger's version of Spotlight was somewhat limited: It had no support for Boolean searches (AND, OR, etc.) and if you typed in two words, Spotlight would find results where the two words were printed consecutively. It's always been possible to search only PDFs, or files created or modified on a specific date (kind:pdf and date:today, respectively). A killer guide for both Tiger and Leopard users is found at Kirk McElhearn's website: <www.mcelhearn.com>
permalink: <www.mcelhearn.com/article.php?story=20071114093450231>.
~ Matt
Small Dog Electronics
Get More Out of Spotlight
Here are three tips for getting more out of Spotlight, OS 10.4's built-in search program. You access Spotlight by clicking on the blue magnifying glass icon in the upper right corner of your screen. You can access Spotlight's preferences in System Preferences.
If Spotlight seems slow, or is not actually searching everything, you can easily reset it. There are two easy ways to do this. First, you can remove your hard drive from Spotlight's index, then add it back.
You can also download Onyx for 10.4 from Versiontracker.com. This great Unix utility includes an option to "Reset Spotlight." I've used this method, and it works great.
There are also UNIX commands you can type into the Terminal -- simply search for that info on Google. Google search tips -- that would make a great future article.
Small Dog Electronics
Maximum Use of the Menu Bar
It's not always convenient to locate a file in the Finder and drag it to a new location, or into an e-mail message. If the file is open in a program adhering to Apple's design guidelines, the document's icon will appear in the title bar of that program. You can click your mouse on that little icon, hold it down for a second, and drag it wherever. I'm about to drag this pages document over to an e-mail window so Kali can proofread (thanks Kali!). (You're welcome! ~kbh) :)
If you've used Spotlight to locate and open a file, you can Command/click on the small icon in the menu bar, and you'll then see the path to that file's location on your hard drive. Selecting one of the items in this pull-down menu will open that window in the Finder. ~ Matt
Small Dog Electronics
New iPods -- a Caution
The new iPods look great. If you're considering updating you're not alone, but there is a fact you should be aware of.
The dock connector arrangements on the new iPods have been changed, and although your existing accessories can probably be plugged in, they mayor may not work as expected.
In particular, I've been disappointed to learn that the iPod Camera Connector no longer works to provide a method of transferring photos from a camera to the iPod and thence to a Mac, which made the iPod a great way of storing large quantities of photos while on a long trip. This was the reason I bought an iPod in the first place.
Presumably Apple or a third party will eventually come up with an alternative device with equivalent function, but in the meantime, there'll be no new iPod for this little black duck!
Again, accessories such as speaker systems with integral dock connectors, bought for previous iPods, mayor may not perform as expected when one of the new iPods is plugged in.
If you have accessories of any kind for your current iPod, you'll need to research compatibility issues and/or the availability of equivalent new devices before updating.
It's quite possible that many of these problems will be overcome with the appearance of third party adaptor cables, but we'll have to wait and see. ~ Steve Cooper
AUSOM News, Melbourne, Australia
Don't Throw Out Your Broken iPod; Fix It via the Web
A few months ago, Stephen Ironside, a student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, confronted a minor but modern tragedy -- the iPod that filled his life with song stopped working.
The device was out of warranty, and Apple would not fix it free. So he left it in a drawer until he happened to read a blog posting on Crunch Gear.com that described how he might fix it with a small, folded piece of paper. Mr. Ironside celebrated by posting thanks on the blog: "I've been on CDs for months. You saved my life (and my iPod)."
The author of the blog post, Matt Hickey of Seattle, says that using paper as a shim to put pressure on the hard drive has worked on about 70 percent of the failed iPods he has encountered, even though he is not sure why it works.
<www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/technology/personaltech/ 08basics.html>
~ Peter Wayner
Mouse Tales, NorthCoast MUG, Berea, OH
10 iPod Tips
Small Dog Electronics
Mac Hints & Tips is a compilation of tips found in Mac user group newsletter from around the world, as well as many Mac-related books, magazines, websites, and individuals. Following is a partial list of some of the contributors with links to their websites. To all who have contributed to the Mac community, we all give many thanks for sharing their tips and expertise.
Mac User Groups:
Mouse Droppings, newsletter of the Corvallis Macintosh User Group in Corvallis, Oregon, one of the oldest and most active user groups in the country, and the home of Phil Russell, a highly respected Macintosh writer and the main source of hints and tips published by me over the years, as well as other MUG newsletters throughout the world. www.cmug.com
AUSOM News, newsletter of Australia's largest Macintosh User Group, Apple Mac Users' Society of Melbourne Australia. www.ausom.net.au
LIMAC Forum, newsletter of the Long Island Mac Users Group in Seaford, New York. www.limac.org
Mouse Tales, newsletter of the North Coast Mac Users Group, Cleveland, Ohio. homepage.mac.com/ncmug_oh
TMUG Insider, newsletter of the Tri-Valley Macintosh Users Group in Pleasanton, California. www.clubtmug.com
Websites:
Internet Tourbus -- Bob Rankin and Parick Crispen help you Learn how to avoid the pitfalls of the Web, master the search engines, debunk urban legends, and more. www.internettourbus.com
MacObserver.com -- You will get your Mac news here from now on. www.macobserver.comSmall Dog Electronics, an Apple Specialist and reseller of Apple Macintosh computers, peripherals, and software. www.smalldog.com
Publications:
Jay J. Nelson's Design Tools Monthly -- An executive summary of graphic design news which includes Mac news and rumors, new software and hardware announcements, upcoming seminars and shows, interesting websites, and other valuable information. You may request a free sample copy of this monthly newsletter by going to www.design-tools.com or calling 303.543.8400.
InDesign Magazine, a complete resource for InDesign professionals. Published by Creativepro.com in PDF format. www.indesignmag.com
Macworld Magazine. The ultimate resource for Mac users. Each issue is packed with practical how-tos, in-depth features, the latest troubleshooting tips and tricks, industry news, and is home of Chris Breen's Mac 911 columns. www.macworld.com
If you are not a member of a Macintosh User Group, I highly recommend that you find one in your area and join. User groups are the greatest source of information and help available to all Mac users -- from novices to experts. You can find one in your area by going to apple.com/usergroups/find