FINISHED: Apple / MacOS Tip a day for a year !

(y) thankyou cowasaki .. that was very kind of you :)

Wail, I've got to keep you sweet ;) You have my next lens :) .........

Seriously though any questions at all just PM me and I'll stick them in as a tip.
 
Im still reading. Some of the tips don't apply to me, but I'm still reading through them all. I've had a mac for over 6 months now and I'm still learning how to use this fantastic OS :)

PS. Just bought the applecare from ebay :) (Didn't go for the Irish one, only 41 feedback...made me a little iffy)
 
My next project will be on here as a few days tips and will show you how to turn an old PC into a NAS (or even a new one!). It will be useful for MAC users but even PC owners when they are not playing games :)
 
My next project will be on here as a few days tips and will show you how to turn an old PC into a NAS (or even a new one!). It will be useful for MAC users but even PC owners when they are not playing games :)


:love::love::love:
 
Saturday 16th May
Tip 184 - Safari 4 [8] - Address Book shortcuts


If you include web sites in your address book you can add an automatic entry in the menu bar to display them.

Goto >> Safari :: Preferences... :: Bookmarks

Near the top of the screen is the title "Bookmarks Bar", click the checkbox entitled "Include Address Book". Once you have done this an extra item will appear in the menu bar title "Address Book" if you click on this it will show the web addresses of you contacts.
 
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Sunday 17th May
Tip 185 - Safari 4 [9] - Open download window


To open the download popup window:

[ALT] + [CMD] +[L]
 
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Monday 18th May
Tip 186 - Safari 4 [10] - Cycle through page tabs


To cycle through page tabs:

[CTRL] +
 
As far as I know it is worldwide. I bought my mac pro in the uk and applecare from the us. It should be ok with a us computer and irish applecare (seem cheapest at the moment)

I can confirm this, as I've done it today with my MBP. UK Mac, applecare serial from Ireland for £99 :)

Top tip that one, especially as I found out it covers my time capsule, airport express etc too :)
 
I can confirm this, as I've done it today with my MBP. UK Mac, applecare serial from Ireland for £99 :)

Top tip that one, especially as I found out it covers my time capsule, airport express etc too :)

I will be doing the same with my mbp in 10 days when I get paid :)

Basically all you accessories are covered with it as long as they are Apple, so monitors, keyboards and mice are in the list. Makes it quite economical when that is taken into account!
 
Im still reading. Some of the tips don't apply to me, but I'm still reading through them all. I've had a mac for over 6 months now and I'm still learning how to use this fantastic OS :)

PS. Just bought the applecare from ebay :) (Didn't go for the Irish one, only 41 feedback...made me a little iffy)

Where did you buy it from. I'm looking for one for my MacBook Pro, and some do seem to good to be true!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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Tuesday 19th May
Tip 187 - Applications - Writing an ISO image to disc using Disc Utility


Start Disc Utility from utilities within Applications

Applications :: Utilities :: Disk Utility

Goto File and click Open Disk Image then select your disk image

Click on the image in the left hand pane to select it.

Click the BURN icon or click IMAGE :: BURN
 
Wednesday 20th May
Tip 188 - FreeNAS [1] - What is a NAS


A Network Attached Storage device is basically computer storage space available on your computer network. There are a number of proprietary devices that you can buy to do this the cheapest of which can be less than a hundred pounds (although these provide little flexibility).

Over the next few days I will be explaining how to turn that old computer that you were going to throw away into a flexible NAS to sit on your network and to be used for storing your files and for backup (it can be used for a whole lot more too and we will return to the little extras over the next few months).

You will need a Pentium THREE computer or newer although realistically you should be aiming for something of around 1GHz or more. Personally I would try and go for a Pentium 4 2GHz+. The limiting factor really is that older motherboards may not support the hard drives that you may wish to add. Hard drives are cheap, very cheap and now that you can buy 1Tb drives for around £65 there is no reason to skimp here (this is after all the reason for the device).

Drives designed for 24/7 operation are definitely worth considering especially if your data is important and when you consider how much your data is worth get a decent drive.

Your computer does not need sound or fancy graphics so remove any sound cards, unused peripheral cards and fit a basic graphics card.

If you are buying the parts to build a NAS pick a motherboard with onboard graphics and as many SATA and IDE ports as possible. Even if you only want 1 drive now you may well want to add more later.

As mentioned earlier you can pick up a simple NAS which is little more than an external drive case with a network socket for under a hundred pounds but as soon as you start to look at the more sophisticated NASes they go up in price dramatically.
 
Thursday 21st May
Tip 189 - FreeNAS [2] - FreeNAS


FreeNAS is a free Network Attached Storage device operating system that you can simply download and use. Follow the link below and download the CD ISO image which you then need to write to a blank CD using your normal CD writing software such as Disk Utility (mac), TOAST (mac) or NERO (pc). I am using FreeNAS for this because it is FREE and does everything that we need and a whole lot more.

FreeNAS is built on Linux/Unix just as MacOS is. Because of this it is also quite secure and ideal for our purpose.

Goto:

http://www.freenas.org/index.php?option=com_versions&Itemid=51

Look for the heading "FreeNAS LiveCD"

Select the correct ISO image for your computer and click Download to get the ISO image for FreeNAS.

The images relating to i386 should work on anything BUT some of the others will give improvements in performance and reliability IF they work on your system such as the AMD64 version. The computer I used originally to create these tips is a 1GHz AMD athlon and I used the standard i386 build. If am now running a dual Xeon proliant server with 2Gb of Ram and several hard drives on the AMD64 version.

Note:

The i386 version will crash and fail if you try and install it with more than 2Gb of RAM !
The AMD64 version is NOT just for AMD processors but ANY 64 bit x86 processor such as Xeons etc !


You can now burn the image to disc using Disk Utility [see tip 187]

Updated 5th June 2009
 
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Friday 22nd May
Tip 190 - FreeNAS [3] - Initial setup


Start your PC and if it does not already boot from CD change the BIOS in order to make it boot from CD

Insert CD

Boot

There will be a short delay whilst FreeNAS starts

{ startup menu }

Just ignore this (it will only display for a short time.

{ Console setup menu }

select [9] (install on HD)

{ Install & Upgrade menu }

select [3]
press [return]
select CD drive for installer and press [return]
select HD drive for installation and press [return]
enter size for OS [128] and press [return]
Question "Do you want to add swap partition", select "No" and press [return]

{ FreeNAS will now install itself to the hard drive }

Once installed you will see a screen saying something like this:

==========================================

FreeNAS has been installed on ad2s1.
You can now remove the CDROM and reboot the PC.

To use the DATA partition:
- Add the disk ad2 on the 'Disks|Management' page.
- Add the mount point on the 'Disk|Mount Point|Management' page.
Use the following parameters:
Disk ad2, Partition 2, Filesystem UFS

==========================================

Write these bits down....

Press [return] when it has finished

{ FreeNAS will return to the Install and Upgrade menu }

Select REBOOT and remove the CD. (you may have to change the settings in the BIOS to make it boot from the hard drive)

{ startup menu }

Just ignore

{ Console setup }

Right, that is it. FreeNAS is installed in a matter of minutes. You can turn off the monitor and in fact you dont need a keyboard or mouse either so remove them!
 
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Saturday 23rd May
Tip 191 - FreeNAS [4] - Logging in


DEFAULT VALUES ARE SETUP

ip = 192.168.1.250
user = admin
pass = freenas


Open your web browser and type 192.168.1.250:80 [Return] into the address bar.

TIP191a.png


type user name as "admin"
type password as "freenas"

TIP191b.png
 
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Sunday 24th May
Tip 192 - FreeNAS [5] - Initial setting up of your NAS


Login to your NAS using your normal computer (as per Tip 191).

System

"Time Zone" = "Europe/London"
"Enable NTP" = TICKED
"NTP time server" = "time.euro.apple.com"

click [SAVE]

Disks :: Management

click [+] (near the right hand side of the window)

The top field is "DISK", select each disk in turn and activate it by changing the following fields:

Description = < enter a name >
Hard disk standby time = "10 minutes" (or set your own value)
Advanced Power Management = "Minimum power usage with Standby" (or set your own value)

click [Add]

{you will be returned to the Disk Management menu with your new drive in the list, under status it will show "Initializing". This will take some time but the system is formatting the drive and creating the structures etc...

click [Apply Changes]

Disks :: Mount Point

Disk = "ad2" (or what you wrote down during Tip 190)
Partition type = "MBR partition"
Partition number = "2" (or what you wrote down during Tip 190)
Mount point name = "datadrive"

Click [Add]

click [Apply Changes]


Access

Click [+] (near the right hand side of the window)

You can now create each individual user of the NAS. If you use then MacOS / Windows user names then the respective OSes will save the details with the users account and automatically log in once that user has logged in correctly.

Login = <enter your short name>
Full name = <enter full name>
Password = <password>
Primary Group = "staff" (for yourself also click admin group)
Additional groups = <BLANK>

Groups are a collection of users referred to by one name such as "Parents" or "Kids", that group is set up seperately after you have created the users.

Home directory = /mnt/datadrive/USERS/XXX/ (replace XXX with user short name is lower case) (basically /mnt/datadrive/USERS/ is the location we will use for the user's home directories)

Click [Add]

Repeat this for all the users you wish to add and then click [Apply changes]

Services :: Settings

Under "Common Internet File System"

Click [Enable]

Change the following entries

Authentication = "Local User"
Netbios name = "freenas" (or server or whatever you like)
Workgroup = "HOME" (or whatever your workgroup is called)
Description = "Home file server" (or whatever is appropriate)
Large read/write = TICKED

click [Save and Restart]


We now need to create the directories to use as Shares

Click [ADVANCED::FILE MANAGER]

A new window will now open

TIP192a.png


We are going to place the shared directories with the user directories under "mnt/datadrive/"

Click [mnt]

Click [datadrive]

Near the top right you will see a field "File", click on this and change it to "Directory"

Type the name of your first share in the window box, we will create "Programs" first so type that in the box

Click [Create]

Click on the entry under "Perm's" and select tick everything.

TIP192b.png


TIP192c.png


Repeat the above to create the directory "Pictures"


Service :: Shares (click Shares near the top of the screen)

This is where you create any standard shares for use by more than one person. Each person gets their own HOME directory but this is for directories such as "PROGRAMS" or "MUSIC" that you might want to be used by several people.

Click [+] (near the right hand side of the window)

We will now create a shared pictures directory that everyone can read and write.

Name = "Pictures"
Comment = "Shared pictures directory"
Path = "/mnt/datadrive/Pictures/" (click on [...] then "datadrive then "Pictures then "OK (above)")

Click [Add]

We will now create a shared directory call programs that everyone can read but not write to other than you because we gave you admin rights earlier.

Name = "Programs"
Comment = "Installable programs"
Path = "/mnt/datadrive/Programs/" (click on [...] then "datadrive then "Programs then "OK (above)")
Read only = TICKED

Click [Add]

Once you have finished adding shares click [Apply changes]
 
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Monday 25th May
Tip 193 - FreeNAS [6] - Using your freeNAS from MacOS


You can see, under SHARED to the left hand side we have a new entry "freenas".

Click [freenas]

and you will see the directories that we just added......

TIP193.png


If we now log in we will get access to directories specific to US.

To do this click [Connect As...] near the top of the window.

Change the Name to be the short name you added earlier and type in the password.

You can now click [Remember this password in my keychain] if you do not want to type in the password every time.
 
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Tuesday 26th May
Tip 194 - FreeNAS [7] - Creating HOME directories


Login to your NAS as previously described

Click "Services :: CIFS/SMB :: Shares"

Click [+]

We will now create a HOME directory entry

Name = "Home"
Comment = "Home Directory"
Path = "/mnt/datadrive/USERS/%U/" (just type this in exactly INCLUDING THE CASE)

Click [Add]

Click [Apply Changes]

Click "Advanced :: FileManager"

Click "mnt"

Click "File" in the top right corner and change this to "Folder"

Type "USERS" in the white box and click [Create]

Click "USERS" (upper case)

Now to create each user's own directory

Using the Folder/File creator in the top right corner of the window again and

Change "File" to be "Folder"

Enter the SHORT NAME of the user and click [CREATE]

Click on the entry under "Perm's" and select tick everything.

TIP192b.png


Repeat the above for each user

Now each user will have a directory called HOME in their directory list BUT when they click on it it will be THEIR PERSONAL DIRECTORY.
 
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Further tips coming after tea!

Chips, sausage, egg, beans and barm cake..........
 
Wednesday 27th May
Tip 195 - FreeNAS [8] - Warning Emails


When a problem occurs it is possible for FreeNAS to send you an email automatically. To set this up...

System :: Advanced :: Email

Complete the fields on display as per the normal email setup supplied by your ISP.

TIP195.png
 
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Thursday 28th May
Tip 196 - FreeNAS [9] - Changing your password


Once you have set up your FreeNas you should always change the password from the default. This is because anyone trying to get to your data will try the default first.

System :: General :: Password

Now enter a replacement password and in the line below re-type it as a confirmation.
 
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Right thats it for our NAS for a while. You should have enough information here to set your own NAS up and get it working. I will be building a rack mounted NAS with RAID 0+1 using a standard PC rack mount box, a decent but not expensive motherboard, core2duo processor and 3 x 1Tb drives giving me 2Tb of space in a couple of months. When I do this I will take photos all the way through and show you how to implement RAID etc.

In a few weeks I will be showing you how to create some automatic backups to the device and we can even look at backup software on the NAS to a DVD writer.
 
:bonk:

Well that was nearly a major problem :)

Basically the original instructions had the user directories and shares on the installation drive which we had set previously to 128Mb !! I only realised when I tried uploading the latest MacOS upgrade to the programs share. Anyway I have now fixed the instructions so that the datadrive is mounted inside the mnt folder and so it all works just as it is supposed to do with all that space available.
 
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Friday 29th May
Tip 197 - FreeNAS [10] - Backup and Restore all the settings


Once you have set up your FreeNas you can now save all your settings so that should you need to restore them later you can do

System :: Backup/Restore

To save your settings:

Click [Download configuration]

To restore your settings:

Click [Choose File] to select the file save above

Click [Restore configuration] to restore settings.
 
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Saturday 30th May
Tip 198 - Hardware - Cleaning dis-coloured white Macbooks


Get a small "white putty rubber" (actually ask at an art shop for this by name!), this will get rid of those marks off the bottom of your macbook and make it all spangly clean again. You might get the marks off with a normal white rubber but the putty rubbers are much better.
 
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Well just bought the Applecare for my Macbook pro for £98 from Ireland and just registered it with Apple. I bought the Mac pro's from the US (it cost £65) So now my Macbook pro and Mac pro are covered. Shame you can't re-extend the Applecare after 3 years. I can't believe my Mac pros runs out next August and it is now over 20 months old, I remember opening its little box.......... Oh ok its gigantic box :)

EDIT: Just had the confirmation from Apple, it is now covered till July 1st 2011 phew.... After spending £2000 on it there was no way I was not going to extend its warranty.
 
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Over the next month or so I am planning on covering lots of different programs and I will go back and forth between them as I do. You will notice that for the next few days most of the entries start "Tip XXX - XXX [1] -" I will introduce several pieces of software and will then return to them later.
 
Sunday 31st May
Tip 199 - QuickTime (inc pro) [1] - Video Keyboard shortcuts


[space] or [return] = PLAY / Pause
[L] = PLAY
[K] = Pause
[CMD] + [.] = STOP
[J] = PLAY Backwards !
[I] = Set an in point.
[O] = Set an out point.
[left] = Back 1/4 second.
[right] = Forward 1/4 second.
[up] = Volume UP.
[down] = Volume DOWN.
[CTRL] + [L] = PLAY Muted
 
Monday 1st June
Tip 200 - QuickTime PRO [1] - Using macbook as a video camcorder


If you do not have QuickTime pro see Tip 202.

Open QuickTime's preferences and select the third tab "Recording"

Set the Video and audio sources to those built into the macbook. You can also set the Quality on this page. I will leave this upto you to choose the most appropriate value.

TIP200a.png


You can now start a recording by bringing up the recording screen

FILE :: New Movie Recording

or alternatively whilst QuickTime is the live application using the keyboard shortcut:

[ALT] + [CMD] +[N]

(If QuickTime is not the current application you will launch "New Smart Folder")

The recorder screen will now start with the record button at the bottom. Just click the record button to start recording at which point the record button will become a stop button and a further press will finish the recording.

TIP200b.jpg



Your recording will be saved as "Movie.mov" at the location of your choice (with a 2,3,4 etc afterwards).
 
Tuesday 2nd June
Tip 201 - Frontrow [1] - Introduction


Front row is Apple's answer to "Media Centre". When launched the computer goes into full screen mode into a menu system allowing the user to play movies, music, DVDs, CDs, podcasts and a whole host of other multimedia content.

On a Macbook / Macbook pro you can launch it with the following:

[fn] + [Esc] + [CMD] = Launch / Leave front row.

The small remote control that Apple once supplied with all Macbook and Mac Minis (now an option) is basically for Front Row.
 
Wednesday 3rd June
Tip 202 - Photo Booth [1] - Introduction


Photo Booth is installed on all Apple computers that have an iSight camera so all Macbooks and Macbook Pros. It makes use of the camera and allows you to take photographs which it then allows you to manipulate.

TIP202a.jpg


[CMD] + [T] = Take picture
 
Thursday 4th June
Tip 203 - Networking [8] - AutoScan Network[1]


AutoScan Network is a program which scans your network and will tell you everything on it. The program is FREEWARE which is why it is being including in my top tips. First we need to download it and we do so from AutoScan's web site here:

http://autoscan-network.com/

Then click on [DOWNLOAD] and click on [MACOS] then finally [DOWNLOAD]. This will download the program to your downloads directory. Run it and it will install to your applications directory.

Now Run it and you will see the following window:

I will now show you how to use it with the simplest default settings.

TIP203a.PNG


click [forward]

TIP203b.PNG


click [forward]

TIP203c.PNG


click [forward]

TIP203d.PNG


click [forward]

TIP203e.PNG


click [forward]

TIP203f.PNG



Right here we have the network having been scanned. My son has just turned on his Mac Mini which the software has detected and is currently checking.....

TIP203g.PNG


Now the software has found the mac mini.

By clicking on other options it is possible to do all manner of things with the software such as finding out which computers have open ports, find their IP addresses, Mac addressses etc
 
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Friday 5th June
Tip 204 - iWeb [1] - Introduction


iWeb is the web design package that comes with all macs. It is a simplified web designer and allows users to create sites based on a number of templates using standard pages which the user modifies to fulfill their needs.

All iWeb's files are stored in the directory "Sites".

When run you will first be shown a screen allowing you to select the overall template - Down the left hand side of the screen (the one shown is from iWeb '08, the earlier and later versions are somewhat similar).

TIP204a.PNG


Select a theme by selecting the overall look along the left column then select a page type from the window. Here we are going to select the page "Welcome" from the "White" theme. Click on the "white" theme and "Welcome" and click [Choose].

TIP204b.PNG


You will now see a screen containing a generic Welcome page. For this introduction to iWeb we will change this page which you could use as a web presence. In later tips I will show you how to add more pages, integrate with iPhoto and upload your pages.

First we will change the photo. Locate the photo that you want to use and drag it onto the window over the existing photo. The photo will now change to the photo you chose. The reflection will also change. We can now change the text by clicking on the text, deleting the existing text and typing new text.

TIP204c.PNG


We now have our first web page but it is currently inside "iWeb", we need to "Publish" it in order to use it and we do this by clicking on File>>Publish to a folder we now need to place this.

TIP204d.PNG


You can now click [Visit Site Now]

TIP204e.PNG


If you have more than one site (as I have here) then [Visit Site Now] will not actually take you to your site so you need to navigate to it. Go to the folder that we selected and inside that folder you should find several other folders nameds "Site", "Site_2" etc. Alternatively change the 2nd to the last part of the address from "Site" to "Site_x" where "x" is the number of the site.
 
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Saturiday 6th June
Tip 205 - iWeb [2] - Changing themes


Once you have created your web page you can change the theme by simply locating the "Theme" icon at the bottom left and clicking it. You will then be shown a selection of alternate themes:

TIP205a.PNG


Click on the theme that you want and your page will change as can be seen below.

TIP205b.PNG
 
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Sunday 7th June
Tip 206 - iPhoto [1] - Introduction


As a photographer iPhoto could well be one of your main applications. There is a lot of talk about Aperture and Lightroom plus packages like Photoshop but iPhoto can accomplish a great deal and hopefully over the space of maybe a dozen or more tips we can see just what it can do.

When you run it you will be presented with the basic screen (this is iPhoto08 but the others are very similar).

TIP206a.PNG


I took a few shots over the space of 5 minutes last night and we will use them as a tutorial. I have copied the folder from the media card to the desktop but this would work the same if the pictures were still on the camera or card.

Importing Photos

There are two ways to import photos, you can simply click on the folder and drag it onto the iPhoto window OR alternatively select import from the menu. File>>Import to library

Here I have dragged the folder "sunrise" and dropped it on iPhoto's window.

TIP206b.PNG


You will see that it is like looking at a bunch of contact prints and this is basically the idea. You can alter the size of these preview images using the slider in the bottom right. So click on the slider and make them a little larger....

TIP206c.PNG


We can change the name of this collection by clicking on it in the view window. iPhoto will default to the folder name which in the above examples would be "sunrise", I will change this to "Sunrise over the fylde".
 
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Monday 8th June
Tip 207 - iPhoto [2] - Initial sorting, rotating etc.


As could be seen in TIP206 one of my pictures is in portrait whilst the others are landscape. So first thing is that I will rotate that picture

TIP206b.PNG


Click on the picture to highlight it and then in the bottom left you will see the rotate icon.

TIP207a.PNG


Click on this until the picture is in the correct orientation.

TIP207b.PNG


Once we have the pictures in the correct orientation we might like to go through the pictures and remove any that are clearly rubbish :D

Scroll the window back up and double click on picture 1. That picture will now take up the entire right hand part of the window. You can now move between pictures using the left and right arrow/cursor keys.

TIP207c.PNG



I have stopped on picture 3 because this is clearly rather out of focus and unrecoverable so I am permanently discarding it. So hold down [CMD] and press [BACKSPACE] or select Photos>>Move to trash

Once we have deleted the ones we do not want we need to pick a single picture as the Key Photo. So click EVENTS>>Make key photo this will now be that event's ( or album's) "cover".
 
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Tuesday 9th June
Tip 208 - iPhoto [3] - Quickly viewing an event's contents


This is the event view from within iPhoto and as you can now see we have our first event in place within it.

TIP208.PNG


If you move your mouse pointer over the picture and move is from side to side within the picture then the image will change allowing you to quickly see what is within.
 
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Wednesday 10th June
Tip 209 - iPhoto [4] - Information box


In the bottom left corner you will see a box which shows information about your picture, you can turn this box on and off using the information button.

TIP208.PNG


If you click on the [info] button ie.

TIP209b.PNG


Which will now change the view.

TIP209a.PNG
 
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