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

Wednesday 15th July
Tip 244 - MacOS[117] - Customizing toolbars


In most applications you can right click on the application's toolbar and select "Customize the toolbar" when you do this you will be shown a selection of icons representing functions that are relevant to that application.

So for example in Finder there are icons for [Delete file] or you can use the Customize toolbar in Mail to permenantly add an icon for redirect (see previous tip).
 
Thursday 16th July
Tip 245 - MacOS[118] - Sleep using the remote


If you have a mac mini or an apple laptop you can activate sleep mode by holding down the [PLAY] button for three seconds!
 
Friday 17th July
Tip 246 - MacOS[119] - Which version of Mac OS


Click on the APPLE icon and select "about this mac" then under the Apple logo will be the MacOS version number:

Mac OS X v10.0 "Cheetah" Original version released 24th March 2001
Mac OS X v10.1 "Puma" Launched on 25th October 2001
Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar" Launched on 23rd August 2002
Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" Launched 24th October 2003
Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" Launched 29th April 2005
Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" Launched 26th October 2007
Mac OS X v10.6 "Snow Leopard" TBA
 
Saturday 18th July
Tip 247 - MacOS[120] - Mac OS effects, slowing them down!


When you press [F12], [F11], [F10] etc within MacOS the operating system moves things around and displays several effects depending on which button you pressed. If you hold down the [Shift] button when you select the function key the effect is slowed down so that you can see it better :)
 
Sunday 19th July
Tip 248 - MacOS[121] - Forcing dock application to open a file


In a previous tip I explained that you can make an application that is on your dock open a file by simply dragging it and dropping it on the application's icon. This is ok unless the application does not want to open that file type. You can force it to try and open it by holding down the [CMD] and [ALT] key whilst dragging and dropping.
 
Ooooh! I like #238 & #239!
 
Loving this everyday (y)

Can I ask something, that should have been resolved by me a long time ago ..

When I download an application (say Mercury, for argument's sake); the download is a zip file, so I got "Mercury_1_9_4.dmg.zip"

I double clicked on that file, which brought up "Mercury_1_9_4.dmg"

I double clicked on that file, bringing up "Mercury Messenger.app"

-- note, remove the " " from all file names please :p --



Now, here are my quandary

1) In the case of an application that is being downloaded ...

Taking the above example, Mercury, what do I do with the .zip and .dmg files? Is it safe to delete them, should I delete them, do I just keep them?


2) In the case of an update that is being downloaded ...

For example, with Lightroom ... I have "LTRM2_WWEFG_mac_2_2.dmg", "LTRM2_WWEFG_mac_2_3.dmg" and "LTRM2_WWEFG_mac_2_4.dmg"

You will note that the only change is in the last number preceding .dmg; obviously, I figure the higher the number then newer the update is. But, what do I do once I've double clicked on this .dmg file? As it's an update to an application (Lightroom), do I need to keep this, or once the update is complete I can safely delete it?


Thanks for any help
 
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Morning Wail,

Zip files are cross platform compressed files, so inside these files are the dmg files. dmg files are APPLE specific file system images.

So if you download a zip file and open it then extract the dmg file you can happily delete the zip file because this is no longer required.

Now to the dmg file....

If you open/mount this file you will see the application itself. If you drag this application out of the dmg file and save it somewhere then you could delete the dmg file because you have the contents. If you drag it somewhere in order to install it then you can delete the dmg file but if you need to re-install it you might have to download the application again. I have a small external drive which I use to store all the dmg files that I might need to the latest software. If the software is superseded then I save the latest one and delete the previous one.

As for updates then I would again save the latest update on the external drive and delete any previous ones because any updates will be full updates and if you have version 2.4 you dont need the update file for 2.3, 2.2 etc

You could just save these install files onto a DVD as an alternative because they are that cheap or even a memory stick.
 
Aha, now that's very clear. Thank you.

The things is, I like to keep my "Applications" folder as tidy as possible. As such, I figure I may just create a sub-folder "DMG" and put all the DMGs in there. That way, my Application folder will only show the actual application and nothing else.

Again, thank you so much for clarifying this matter.
 
Aha, now that's very clear. Thank you.

The things is, I like to keep my "Applications" folder as tidy as possible. As such, I figure I may just create a sub-folder "DMG" and put all the DMGs in there. That way, my Application folder will only show the actual application and nothing else.

Again, thank you so much for clarifying this matter.

Just create a new folder in your HOME folder called DMGs it will be fine there or like I said just stick them on an external drive or DVD :)
 
Monday 20th July
Tip 249 - Safari[11] - Email current page to someone


With Safari highlighted hold [CMD] and press , the current page will be loaded into Mail read to be addresses and sent.
 
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Tuesday 21st July
Tip 250 - Safari[12] - Jump to bookmark page


With Safari highlighted hold [CMD] + [ALT] and press [B], the current page will change to the bookmark page.
 
Wednesday 22nd July
Tip 251 - Safari[13] - Open new tab and jump to it.


With Safari highlighted hold [CMD] and press [T], a new tab will be opened up and you will be sent to it with "Top Sites" selected.
 
Thursday 23rd July
Tip 252 - Safari[14] - Create quick shortcuts to 9 web addresses


Safari will jump to 9 bookmarks saved on your bookmark bar using the shortcut [CMD] with [1 - 9] pressed. So save your 9 most used web page addresses straight to the bookmark bar (ie not in folders).
 
Friday 24th July
Tip 253 - Safari[15] - Setup jump link


With a page in Safari. Highlight a bit of text then hold [CMD] and press [J], the bit of text will flash yellow and jump out of the page a little. Then you can scroll wherever you like on the page and next time to press [CMD] and [J] you will magically jump back to that location within the page.

VERY HANDY !!
 
Saturday 25th July
Tip 254 - Safari[16] - Back and Forward shortcuts


Hold [CMD] and press [ for BACK.

Hold [CMD] and press ] for FORWARD.
 
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Sunday 26th July
Tip 255 - iPhoto[5] - Rate your pictures shortcuts


Hold [CMD] and press [1 - 5] to instantly rate that photo with that number of stars.
 
Monday 27th July
Tip 256 - iPhoto[6] - Remove a pictures rating shortcut


Hold [CMD] and press [0] to remove that photo's rating.
 
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Wow! CMD J is going to save me a heap of scrolling back and forth, thanks mate (y)
 
Tuesday 28th July
Tip 257 - MacOS[122] - Dictionary


We have a built in dictionary in MacOS which we can access whenever we like. So should there be a word that you don't understand just highlight the word and then right click or [CTRL] click it and from the pop up menu select "Look up in Dictionary"

TIP257.png
 
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Wednesday 29th July
Tip 258 - MacOS[123] - Thesaurus


Following on from TIP 257 we can also access the thesaurus. We do this by clicking on the Thesaurus tab.

TIP258.png
 
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Thursday 30th July
Tip 259 - MacOS[124] - Wikipedia


Following on from TIP 257 we can also access Wikipedia. We do this by clicking on the Wikipedia tab.

TIP259.png
 
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Friday 31st July
Tip 260 - MacOS[125] - Add button for "Add to address book" in Mail


This is a tip to add an "Add to address book" button in Mail. Once added you can then add the sender of a mail to your address book simply by clicking the button.

First bring up the customize menu. So right click/[CTRL] click on the top tool bar in Mail.

TIP260a.png


and select "Customize"

Now you will see the customize list. Click on the "Add to address book" and drag this onto your toolbar then click [DONE].

TIP260b.png


You will now have the toolbar with the extra button

TIP260c.png


So now, when someone sends you an email, you can just click the button and they are instantly added to your address book.
 
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Excellent thread and am really learning lots about my Macbook! Keep them coming!

One thing I'd like covered, if possible, is how to migrate the information (ie email, address book, calendar) from an Outlook mailbox into Mail... can it be done?
 
Excellent thread and am really learning lots about my Macbook! Keep them coming!

One thing I'd like covered, if possible, is how to migrate the information (ie email, address book, calendar) from an Outlook mailbox into Mail... can it be done?

I think I covered that, just bare with me.....

EDIT: Tip 41 - This talks about vCards, these are platform independent electronic business cards. They can hold multiple contacts too. Just look in your existing program for an option to output as a vCard or vCards you can then import them straight into Address Book. If it does not have this option let me know.
 
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Saturday 1st August
Tip 261 - Talk Photography[2] - Finding an existing tip


Scroll up the page to the top and locate the button [Search this thread] click on this and type a word that is likely to be in the thread. So for the above search I typed "Outlook" into the box. You are then presented with a list of responses which contain that word.

Hope this helps.
 
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I think I covered that, just bare with me.....

EDIT: Tip 41 - This talks about vCards, these are platform independent electronic business cards. They can hold multiple contacts too. Just look in your existing program for an option to output as a vCard or vCards you can then import them straight into Address Book. If it does not have this option let me know.

Thanks. I think vCards only cover contacts though... I'm talking about the whole mailfile, so all the emails, folders etc as well as the contacts/calendar entries... If I'm doing Outlook to Outlook I'd use a .PST but am not sure if Mail can accept that or indeed how to do it...
 
Sunday 2nd August
Tip 262 - MacOS[126] - Printing multiple documents of different formats


For this all we need to do open the printer's queue and drop all the files on the queue window. So open the queue by going to the preferences and clicking the print & fax icon then in the left hand pane double click on the relevant printer. Now with the printer queue open just drag the files over the window and let go. Each will be opened by it's default print program and printed.
 
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Monday 3rd August
Tip 263 - MacOS[127] - Periodic maintenance (introduction)


MacOS is a UNIX derivative and as such it is built on top of a standard UNIX. Unix is an operating system designed to be left switched on all the time and as such several of its day to day processes are set to happen during the night when the computer will be less busy. The time chosen was between 03:15 and 05:30 hours. Now unless you are like me your computer will no doubt be switched off at that time!

The 3 maintenance scripts which are built in are the daily script, the weekly script and the monthly script.

Daily Script (everyday 03:15 hours)

remove old log files
remove scratch files
remove junk" files
backup the NetInfo database
report system and network statistics
update the system.log file

Tiger only

remove scratch fax files
prunes asl.log

Leopard only

prunes the asl.db file

Weekly Script (Saturday 04:30 hours)

rebuilds the locate databases
rebuilds the whatis databases
Updates various other files inc ftp.log, lookupd.log, lpr.log, mail.log, netinfo.log, ipfw.log, ppp.log, and secure.log

Monthly Script (1st of month 05:30 hours)

reports per-user usage accounting
rotates various file including the wtmp, install.log, and **.modem.log files.
 
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Tuesday 4th August
Tip 264 - MacOS[128] - Periodic maintenance (checking when run)


You can check when they were last run by checking the date that their log files were last changed. The easiest way to do this is via Terminal.

As I have explained before we can run terminal by going into Applications and then Utilities and double clicking on the program TERMINAL.

Once terminal is running you can type the following command:

ls -al /var/log/*.out


Once you do this and press [return] you will get an output such as this:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 17146 1 Jul 19:53 /var/log/daily.out
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 84 1 Jul 19:53 /var/log/monthly.out
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 556 21 Jun 17:38 /var/log/weekly.out


This shows that the daily script last ran on 1st July as did the monthly script with the weekly script last running on 21st June.
 
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Wednesday 5th August
Tip 265 - MacOS[129] - Periodic maintenance (forcing them to run now)


You can force the scripts to run whenever you want but to do this run must again venture into the world of TERMINAL. View the last post and get Terminal running then....

Daily script

Type the following into terminal and press [return]

sudo periodic daily

Weekly script

Type the following into terminal and press [return]

sudo periodic weekly

Monthly script

Type the following into terminal and press [return]

sudo periodic monthly

Running them all at once

We can get terminal to run them all at once by using the following command:

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

We can then use the script from the previous tip to check that this worked. When you type the above commands the cursor will disappear and re-appear once the commands have finished. You will also have to type an administrator password for the first instance of the sudo command.
 
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Thanks. I think vCards only cover contacts though... I'm talking about the whole mailfile, so all the emails, folders etc as well as the contacts/calendar entries... If I'm doing Outlook to Outlook I'd use a .PST but am not sure if Mail can accept that or indeed how to do it...

Got it,

Thursday 6th August
Tip 266 - MacOS[130] - Transfer Outlook data to mail



Install Thunderbird on the PC (Firefox's email software)
In Thunderbird's options is an option to import all the mail, clients, calendars etc - do this.
Now transfer this file to the mac.

Use "Eudora Mailbox Cleaner 4.9" which is FREEWARE and this converts it all to MAIL on the Mac.

Simples
 
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Friday 7th August
Tip 267 - MacOS[131] - Installing a web cam on mac mini or pro


We all know that the wonderful macbooks, macbook pros and iMacs have a web cam built in but what about those people that are using Mac Mini and Mac Pro computers. If you owned a PC you could just pop into Tesco and pick up a web cam for £1.17 or what ever. Well the problem is not lack of hardware but simply lack of drivers and luckily there is a free driver pack for web cams for Mac OS.

I would advise you to try the web cam before you buy one just in case it does not work and hopefully post the details of any that do work so that others can sort it too.

Macam 0.9.2

Click on the above and install it on your computer.
 
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The list at the front of the thread has now been updated by dod. Thanks!
 
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Wow, nearly up to date and reached the milestone of less than 100 to go.....

I might even take up photography when I have finished and have the time :LOL:
 
I keep getting three dmg folders reappearing on my desk top. I keep ejecting them and they keep coming back, they are Paintbrush, Perian & Skype... how do I make it stop it's annoying the hell out of me!:bang::help:
 
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